Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan responds to an online dialogue about Christus Victor vs. Penal Substitution. Rev. Buchanan makes some excellent points. Ad fontes is a two-edged sword. The patristic age cannot be viewed as a single source on any doctrine. The continuing revelation of scripture — from Genesis through Revelation — reveals the Bible’s position on the atonement.
1. Why do some think that one motif related to Christ’s atonement (or some other loci) precludes or excludes another?
2. A lot of people today want a Jesus whose presence or centrality is not brought on or in any way necessitated by divine wrath.
3. An integrated Bible, a common faith (essentially/principially the same) for both OT and NT saints, is a foreign concept to many modern Christians. If the coming of Jesus introduces a different kind of religion or relating to God–for whatever reason: e.g. dispensational “Messiah rejection” bringing in a church-age parenthesis–then no appeal to OT concepts by which Christ may (ought to) be understood will be seen as legitimate. Jesus has to “break out” of even the concepts by which someone like Isaiah presents him to an OT audience. Not even apostolic “appropriation” of the OT is seen as validating the prophets, but more like “adaptation,” unless such use is viewed as little more than residual reflexive appeal to (outmoded) authority, while waiting for a new body of NT literature.
4. A common tactic for those seeking to replace one view by something else, is the ad fontes appeal. After all, this is what the Reformers used in the 16th century against Rome. One frequently hears that Christus victor was the dominant theme for the atonement in the early church. This depends, of course, on how one defines “early,” and it also calls for an explanation of “dominant.” Also, why does some particular view have said dominance?
By no means is the early church record devoid of the language of substitution, and payment for sin. Note, it is not the Penal-Substitutionists who feel the need to “explain away” statements of various ECFs that highlight a CV theme. There is no sense of a need to exclude such a thing from the historical notices. However, like Romanists trying to explain away “by-faith-alone” statements of the ECFs, some modern CV proponents cannot live with the idea that “richness” of Atonement themes is as old as the first fabric of Christian theology.
In the end, I suppose that the real issue is the reality that the true message of Christianity is offensive. It always has been, note 1Cor.1. But people today–even those who go out to preach–believe something different. When they encounter dramatic resistance to basic concepts of Christianity, their theological grounding in vague and sentimental “God is love” ideas (which are not the biblical notions that gave us that language originally) cannot be reconciled to their experience. The old message of guilt and grace is, accordingly, too “out of step” with the nature of the men to whom they were sent with the appeal of the gospel.
And so (they decide) the message is the wrong one, at least for the audience of the present hour. God isn’t dealing with us as his ENEMIES, but treats us entirely as his darlings who have been cruelly taken by his foe and ours. There is no room in this view for the difficult truth that when God comes to save us, we love our sin despite the horrific damage it does. And we are at that time in no way disposed to accept God’s offer to save us–especially when it comes with a very clear demand for submission, servitude, even slavery to God. We prefer our “freedom” under Satan, the original rebellion by which we believed his lie and fell from our first estate. It takes an act of God to open our eyes to the harsh reality that we’ve been deceived the whole time.
Christus victor is one facet of the the Atonement that Penal Substitutionists don’t need to jettison; any more than they would shy away from Satisfaction (Anselm). However, Penal Substitution deserves the emphasis is has received, because as far back as Paul (Rom.1-3) God’s wrath against sin in rebels themselves, along with the OT legal treatment of sin’s consequences, highlights the grace of the gospel in stark relief. Losing that contrast will be the high cost of lowering (or worse, eliminating) PS’s profile in our message. It is a consequent lessening of the power of the gospel.
I think the deeper issues are tied right in to TULIP, and the consistency of the message.
Rev. Buchanan is the pastor of ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI.
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