Theories of the Atonement

The heart of the gospel is the belief “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3) This simple fact is asserted over and over in one form or another throughout the whole of the New Testament (and hinted at in prophecy and symbolism throughout the whole of the Old Testament). This is the fact of the Atonement--that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ salvation has been provided for the sins of mankind. However, when we try to explain how this works--how Christ's death could provide salvation--we move from the Fact of the Atonement to the Theory of the Atonement. Theories of the Atonement are theological attempts to break down and analyze exactly what the Atonement is and how it works.

And if anyone thinks that sounds utterly pointless, I can sympathize with the feeling. C. S. Lewis pointed out that you do not have to understand how nutrition works to eat and gain nutrients. People were eating food long before anyone knew the science of eating and they got along quite nicely. (“The Perfect Penitent” in Mere Christianity) Just so, you do not need to have a theological understanding of the Atonement to be saved. However, that does not mean there is no value in attempting to work out the Theory of the Atonement. In theory, having a science of nutrition should help us eat the right things and avoid food that will hurt us; and having a proper understanding of the Atonement may help us avoid ideas that would lead to dangerous errors. (Though in both nutrition and Theories of Atonement there are so many competing ideas among the experts that skepticism about the value of the study is completely understandable.) That is the theological side of the matter--having a proper understanding of the Atonement helps avoid other problems in belief and practice. There is also an apologetic side. For many people, the mere fact of Atonement may be sufficient, but for many unbelievers, this concept is a stumbling block and perhaps for some believers as well. If we are to demonstrate that the Christian faith is rationally viable, that must mean also working out at least some kind of logical framework for the Atonement.

Throughout Christian history, there have been many different theories proposed. We would barely have room here to list them all, let alone discuss them. However, by in large, there are only three that are worth discussing; three which hold the high ground of theological thought. So, I want to look these three (plus a fourth which is a variant of one of the big three), briefly discuss them, and then analyze whether they actually hold up. All four of these are attempts to answer the question: how does the death of Christ save us from sin?

“Moral Influence Theory”

This theory was first formulated by Abelard. It is not widely accepted among orthodox Christian groups but is popular in more liberal circles and is, at any rate, the easiest of the theories to explain. How does the death of Christ save us from sin? By providing us with a revelation of the love of God. When we see that God was willing to give His own son for us, that shows us the depths of His love, giving us a reason to break away from sin; giving us the necessary motive to love God and therefore obey Him. The significance of Christ's death is in its influence and example.

We can picture it like this. Imagine a soldier during a war; a cowardly, selfish soldier who has no concern for honor or for the cause for which he fights--instead, he is just looking out for himself. But during a battle, one of his comrades sacrifices his own life to save his--that act causes him to realize how wrong he has been acting and kindles a flame of courage and self-sacrifice in him. In essence, that is what Christ's death does according to this theory--gives us an example which should kindle a spirit of love and selflessness in us. Christ's death saves us from sin by giving us a reason to turn away from sin.

One thing that is very obvious about this theory is that the emphasis is on what happens in the heart and mind of a sinner. If the effect of the atonement is not exactly subjective it is certainly personal. This puts it in the polar opposite position of the next theory.

“Penal Satisfaction Theory”

The theory traces to John Calvin though it has its roots in the teaching of Anselm. This theory is built around the idea of justice and specifically criminal justice. At its heart is the assertion that every crime must be punished. Justice demands a penalty be paid for all wrongdoing. For sin or crime to be simply ignored or forgiven would be injustice. There must be a punishment.

Because man had sinned, he deserved punishment. God's justice would not allow punishment to be rescinded. The punishment had to be enacted. But Jesus, through His suffering and His death, was punished in our place, taking the penalty that should have been ours. Rather than punishing us, the punishment fell on Him.

We can picture this by thinking of the climax of Dicken's Tale of Two Cities. (Spoiler warning for those who haven't read it.) Charles Darnay had been accused of crimes against the French Revolution and for his crimes had been sentenced to the guillotine. There was no way for him to escape his punishment; he had to die. But his frenemy, Sydney Carton (who conveniently happened to be his physical double) snuck into the prison and switched places with him--so that Carton suffered the execution that should have been Darnay's, and Darnay went free, suffering no punishment.

Just so, Jesus suffered the punishment that should have been ours so that we would not have to suffer it. Jesus' death saves us from sin by taking the punishment for sin.

“Penal Satisfaction Theory: Debt Variant”

The “Debt Variant” probably shouldn't be counted as a separate theory, but I think it presents enough interesting aspects to make it worth a separate section. Both in Scripture and in Christian thought, the idea of debt and payment in relation to the atonement is very important. Though many different theories of the atonement include the idea of debt and payment, here I am only discussing it as a variation of the Penal Satisfaction Theory; even as an illustration of it.

The idea should be clear enough. Man is in “debt” to God because of his sin. The only way that sin can be forgiven is if that debt is paid. But man cannot pay that debt; it could only be paid by the blood of Jesus interposed on his behalf.

The idea of debt and paying off such a debt is so familiar to us all that I don't even need to come up with an illustration for it. It is a very simple idea to think that “I owed a debt I could not pay/He paid a debt He did not owe.” Most Christians who do not have a specific theory of atonement fall into the language of this one. Jesus' death saves us from sin by paying the debt for our sin.

Something to note in both versions so the Penal Satisfaction Theory is that they emphasize the necessity of the atonement. A crime must be punished. A debt must be paid. There is no other way. The final theory looks at things in a different way.

“The Governmental Theory”

The credit or blame for this theory can be laid the feet of Hugo Grotius, who sought for an Arminian understanding of the Atonement since the Penal Satisfaction theory was rooted in Calvinism. Grotius emphasized the idea of God as a governor, a sovereign, a lawmaker. While some of God's laws are absolute, others are variable. A lawmaker has some latitude in his laws. That being so, Grotius saw the punishment of sin as also being variable. God has set a certain punishment for sin, but there was no overpowering, cosmic necessity for it and no reason why God couldn't set aside that punishment. In other words, as the sovereign ruler, God had the right to set the penalty and also to provide for a way for the penalty to be avoided--and so He set the death of Christ as the penalty for sin. Christ's death is a “token” penalty in which God upholds his moral law while also provided for salvation.

That sounds involved, so we can make it much clearer through an illustration, the author of which I've forgotten. This story takes place in a backwoods, one-room schoolhouse, sometime in the early 1800s. The boys in this school (this was before coeducation) were known to be extremely wild and unruly, and the new schoolteacher knew he was going to have trouble with them. So he made a point on the very first day of school of laying down the rules in black and white, even getting the boys to help him make the rules so they would have to admit the rightness of them. So the rules were laid out along with the punishments which were mostly in the form of so many lashes with a switch. (This was a time when corporal punishment in schools was universal. This is simply the historical background and the point of the story is not affected by your view of corporal punishment.) One specific rule was against stealing with the punishment of ten lashes with a switch. Everything was smooth sailing for several weeks, until one day it was discovered that one of the boys in the school had stolen another boy's lunch pail. Since it was clear that he was guilty, the teacher was preparing to inflict the penalty, when the victim of the crime (moved by pity for the thief who had acted out of legitimate hunger), begged the teacher to excuse the crime.

The teacher was then in an interesting position. He obviously didn't HAVE to inflict the punishment, because that's not how classroom management works. But given the nature of his class, he knew if he let the rule slide, nobody would obey any of the rules. He could only pardon the guilty boy if he could do it in a way that would not undermine the government of the classroom. And he did that by striking a bargain. He would let the criminal off only if someone else would volunteer to take the “licking” in his place. The victim of the theft agreed and took on his own back the blows meant for the thief.

That is how the Governmental Theory sees the atonement. God couldn't simply forgive man's sin since that would have undermined God's government--it would have been a statement that sin didn't matter. So God appointed the substitution of Christ in our place as the condition of forgiveness. Jesus willingly took on himself the death of the cross because that was the appointed means for providing salvation. Christ's death provides salvation because that is the means which God appointed.

Analysis of Theories

The Moral Influence Theory is the easiest to explain and it is also the easiest to refute. There is one very simple, very fundamental problem with the moral influence theory. The Moral Influence Theory does not see that anything was actually accomplished by Christ's act--the only thing accomplished was that it showed God's love to man, giving man a motive for action. The problem is that if Jesus' death didn't actual accomplish anything, then it DOESN'T show God's love. That a man would be willing to die to save someone else is an inspiring thing. That a man would be willing to die for no particular reason is not. If Jesus didn't die to save us from sin, then His death is a senseless tragedy, not a revelation of God's love. If Jesus' death provides salvation, then it also exerts a moral influence. If it doesn't, then it does nothing. (And that is not even to touch on the deeper Biblical problems of this theory.)

The idea that a moral influence could be the primary and fundamental purpose of Christ's death would only work if we THOUGHT He was saving us. But if God were capable of deceiving us, you would think he would have done a good enough job that somebody like Abelard couldn't see through the deception. Moreover, on this theory, the claims of New Atheists (like Christopher Hitchens) that the Atonement is unfairly manipulative would have some plausibility (though even then only some). The Moral Influence Theory is good is in that it reminds us that God's driving motive in the Atonement was love (Ephesians 2:4) and that his goal was to bring about reunion with man--facts that are sometimes lost in the more mechanical and technical theories. However, when all is said and done, it fails because it locates the center of the Atonement in man.

The Governmental Theory escapes that pitfall, even if it also treats the Atonement as somewhat relative. At least it sees the Atonement as objectively accomplishing something--fulfilling the moral government of God. God could have chosen means to accomplish the Atonement, but this is the one He chose and so it actually works.

However, on the assumptions of the Governmental Theory, the Atonement wasn't strictly necessary. That is to say, God could have chosen a different form of Atonement rather than the death of Jesus, but that is the one He did. The problem is that the Bible tends to treat the death of Christ as necessary for Atonement. This isn't a case of mankind dictating to God how He has to work but of what God Himself has said. (As opposed to Grider, 323) Now, of course, the supporters of the theory could plausibly reply that this is the Atonement God chose from the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3-4) and is therefore necessary, even though it could theoretically have been different.

But the Bible specifically seems to say that the Atonement could only be effected by Jesus. The Bible does not seem to suggest that Atonement COULD have come in some other way and this is just the way it happened to come. And if it could have come another way, why didn't it? Why would God require the sacrifice of His own son if the sacrifice of an angel or a good man would have done just as well? Thinking in human terms, what father would send his own son to death--merely to make a point--for, under the Governmental Theory, the means of Atonement was chosen to make a point--to show the cost of sin and still pardon it. And I submit that that doesn't work. It works in “He Took My Licking” only because the stakes there are (relatively) small. If the stakes were raised to the point of life and death, it seems almost monstrous and unfair to require one person to die for another (even if the sacrifice is made willingly) simply in order to uphold the moral government.

And what seems even stranger is the fact that it doesn't necessarily even do that. Under the Governmental Theory, the death of Christ was necessary in order to show the terrible cost of sin. But even many Christians, who know the story of the Cross and its meaning, still take sin cavalierly. If God were to send His own Son to the cross merely to make a point, you would think He could have made it more successfully.

None of that is entirely conclusive. But these considerations do make the Governmental Theory seem unlikely. And then we couple that with the fact that there is no positive evidence in its favor. The Biblical language of Atonement never specifically suggests anything in the Governmental line. Its primary selling-point, even by its own supporters, is that it is better than its alternatives, but to see how strong an argument that is, we shall have to look at the alternatives--but even if all the others fail, that is not enough to prove the Governmental Theory true.

The Governmental Theory is good because it reminds us that God is sovereign, that is, He is a ruler. His laws and commands are intentional. He is not bound to higher laws and considerations--as some other theories sometimes suggest. God is a governor, ruling intentional for the ultimate good of all things. But as a whole, the Governmental Theory fails to explain the Atonement.

The failure of the Governmental Theory is that it treats the Atonement as somewhat relative--that Atonement could have come a different way. The Penal Satisfaction Theory (and its Debt Variant) is obviously the opposite since it emphasizes the fact that the death of Christ was the only possible way Atonement could be provided. It was that or nothing.

There is one problem with the Penal Satisfaction Theory which is rarely mentioned, perhaps because it is so far from conclusive. Christ's death is pictured as fulfilling the Old Testament law of sacrifices. He is “The Lamb of God.” But there is nothing in the sacrificial law which suggests that the sacrifices were “punished” for man's sin. The language of sacrifice seems to come from a different world than that of civil justice. Moreover, it doesn't seem that there was even, in theory, any sort of 1-to-1 correspondence between sin and sacrifice. In any case, these sacrifices were only typical, but they seem to typify something very different than Penal Satisfaction. However, while this is extremely suggestive, it is hardly proof of anything.

The primary problem with the Penal Satisfaction is that its central concept simply doesn't work. One person cannot take the legal punishment of another. I used the example of a Tale of Two Cities before, but obviously, that only worked because Sydney Carton was able to fool the French officials. I doubt that the Revolution, even at its maddest, would have seen any point in executing one man in place of another. In the context of a legal setting, you can punish a guilty man or you can let him off. But what would you accomplish by punishing someone else? If we are thinking in the context of human penal systems, this simply doesn't work. Guilt is nontransferable and therefore so is punishment.

And what makes it more difficult is that the Bible never speaks of Christ being punished for our sins. (Grider, 330-331) (The one possible exception is Galatians 3:13; but this seemingly refers to the specific manner of His death, which was obviously that of a civil punishment.) He suffered in our place, but there is a great deal of difference between suffering and being punished (even though being punished generally speaking involves suffering). Our iniquities were laid upon him and he became sin for us but that does not necessarily involve an actual transferal of guilt or punishment.

Furthermore, if Christ has taken our punishment, then our punishment has already been taken. We can picture it like a math equation. [15x+3y=43-13+15x; solve for Y] Because [15x] occurs on both sides of the equation we can simply strike them both out and solves the rest of the equation from there. On the Penal Satisfaction Theory, that is what God has done. The guilt of our sin was on one side of the equation, and then God put the suffering and death of Christ on the other and therefore both are canceled out. But if that is true, then there is no forgiveness of sin. Our sin is not forgiven; it is punished. It is an act of grace and mercy, but not of forgiveness. But that is something of a verbal quibble. The bigger problem is that this means all our sins have already been taken. If a man kneels at an altar in the Summer of 2019, burdened by sin and the wrath of God and seeking for forgiveness, the reality (under this theory) is that the penalty of sins was taken and he was saved from the wrath of God in Spring of 33. There is no actual movement from wrath to mercy, because mercy was already purchased. (Theoretically, there is probably a way around this difficulty involving Divine Foreknowledge or Divine Timelessness, but I honestly don't feel like trying to work it out and see if it works.)

 If Christ has been punished for our sins, then the punishment has already been borne, and we will never bear it and, in a strict sense, do not need to be forgiven since our punishment has already been taken care of. Moreover, because the punishment of our sins has already been taken, that means we are saved, apart from our will. In other words, whoever Christ died for will be necessarily saved and cannot be lost. Either Christ died for everyone and everyone will be saved (Universalism) or Christ only died for specific people and only those specific people can be saved (Calvinism).

That is why the Debt Variant is interesting. Because it manages to find its way around a few of these hurdles. Guilt and punishment cannot be transferred, but debt can be. One man really can take on the debt of someone else. And while punishment in a civil sense can be simply pardoned, a debt cannot. If a man owes me twenty dollars and I go to him and say, “You know, never mind about that debt. I'll just tear up your IOU and call it square”--that act is not free. It costs me exactly twenty dollars. We can loosely say that a debt is forgiven, but in reality, a debt is always paid, if only by the creditor.

Moreover, we could imagine a man putting aside a sum of money to pay off someone's debt but not actually paying it off until the man came to negotiate--in other words, creating a situation in which actual forgiveness could occur in time and such forgiveness could be voluntarily sought for. Christ could have provided for the paying of debts of sinners who never seek forgiveness. In other words, Christ could have died for all without all being saved--the position of Arminianism.

However, while the Debt Variant provides some interesting ideas, and is perhaps the most consistent image, it still fails as a coherent theory of the Atonement. What is the nature of the debt of sin? Is it still penal in nature? If so, the Debt Variant doesn't really escape the problems of the Penal Satisfaction Theory; it merely hides them under a new metaphor. And if not, it brings up some new questions of its own. Why did the death of Christ act as a payment for our sin? Who was it paid to? These are questions which have no immediate answer. The two forms of the Penal Satisfaction Theory are good in that they remind us of the utter necessity of the Atonement. We live in a universe of absolutes and irreconcilable alternatives--something that seems lost in the views of Abelard and Grotius. However, in the end, they simply don't work.

Finally, all four of the theories of the Atonement have one very obvious, very fundamental flaw--they found the Atonement solely on the suffering and death of Christ. None of them pay the least attention to the Resurrection. Not to say that those who embrace these theories ignore the Resurrection. No doubt most of them believe in it and make it important in its place. But none of them relate it directly to Atonement. At most, it provides proof of the Atonement. Gamertsfelder, speaking for the Governmental Theory, puts it this way: “Death would have no reconciling power, if Christ had not had power to take His life again. The fact of resurrection shows that Jesus gave His life voluntarily, and therefore it signifies so much in the work of redemption. The resurrection gives validity and authority to His teaching; the resurrection gives to the death of Christ the value of a universal sacrifice. That God accepted the sacrifice is shown by His rising from the dead. (465, emphasis mine)

However, one thing that has become increasingly clear (to me, anyway) in studying the New Testament is that the resurrection is every bit as important as the crucifixion. You cannot have one without the other, and both have their role in the plan of salvation. Perhaps the most definite verse is Romans 4:25: “[Christ] was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” The Resurrection has as much an active role in our justification and therefore in the Atonement as the Crucifixion. But this fact is completely lost in any of these views of the Atonement.

In the end, all these theories of the Atonement fail and they are all doomed to fail. It is tempting to try to tinker with them and see if we could fix a few of their problems, but they all contain a fundamental flaw too deep to be fixed cosmetically. They all fail because they take one aspect of God and God's working, compare it to an analogous human institution, and then call it a day. God is not a judge, or a governor, or a schoolmaster, or a creditor. Christ was not merely a martyr or hero. All these roles are analogies for the roles of God, but that doesn't mean you can make exact 1-to-1 correspondences between them. God, in dealing with justice, is similar to a judge but not the same--and there is more to God than justice. Olin Curtis, condemning the Penal Satisfaction Theory, commented, “The Christian man knows right well that the God of his salvation does not deal with men like a justice of the Supreme Court.” But this applies equally to all four theories of the atonement. Man is made in the image of God and all human institution (in their perfect form) are reflections of God, but these are only images and reflections, and partial images at that.

I began this article by saying it is important to have a proper theory of the Atonement. And I end it by saying that it is impossible to have a proper theory of the Atonement, at least in so far as “theory” means “picture.” I think we can come to a clearer view of the Atonement then any of these views and I hope to attempt something along that line in a future article. But I do not think we can find any picture or description drawn from human life which will be an exact exposition of the atonement. All these pictures show us something about the Atonement, but when absolutized and made the full and exact explanation of the Atonement they end in meaninglessness.

When C. S. Lewis was considering becoming a Christian, one of the things that held him back was this issue of the Atonement. He couldn't understand how the death of one Man (even if that man were God) could provide salvation. One night he took a walk with J. R. R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, both Christians, and they discussed this issue. Tolkien and Dyson reminded Lewis that he had always been interested in myths that dealt with sacrifice, with a dying god bringing life to the world. If he could accept that as a myth, why couldn't he accept it as a reality? Then Tolkien commented that though myths contain errors, they “also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God.” (Carpenter, 164)

I will not discuss here whether this is a proper view of mythology. But I do think it is a proper view of the theories of the Atonement. They are, ultimately, not theories at all, but myths. If we try to break them down and analyze them, they don't hold together. If we try to dogmatize them, we will end in nonsense. But nonetheless, they do also “reflect a splintered fragment of the true light.” If we accept them as stories, they do help us see something of what the Atonement is. The details may not be true, but the sense is. If we want to know the definition of the Atonement is, these theories may not help us much. But if we want to know what it is like, they will. The prisoner freed from death by the death of another; the debt whose debt has been paid; the coward stirred to love and courage by the sacrifice of another--these show us clearly what it means to receive Atonement, even if they cannot show us the technical nature of Atonement. G. K. Chesterton's comment about the Trinity could also be applied to the Atonement: “this thing that bewilders the intellect utterly quiets the heart.” (Orthodoxy, Chapter 8)

Bibliography

Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien: A Biography. New York: Ballantine Books, 1977.

Chesterton, G. K. Orthodoxy. Project Gutenberg E-Book.

Curtis, Olin. The Christian Faith: Personally Given in a System of Doctrine. (1905. Reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1971.

Gamertsfelder, S. J. Systematic Theology. Cleveland, OH: C. Hauser, 1921.

Grider, J. Kenneth. A Wesleyan-Holiness Theology. Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press, 1994.

Lewis, C. S. Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1943.

Wilcox, Leslie D., ed. Profiles in Wesleyan Theology, 3 Vol. Salem, OH: Schmul Publishing Co., 1983.