Does Christus Victor trump penal substitution? In two previous issues, I began to present images, models, and explanations of the atonement. I have two more models to discuss (first and foremost Christus Victor). I will finish with an ancient but powerful alternative take on the whole question.
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Christus Victor
Through his death on the cross, Jesus defeated the powers and gained a decisive victory over them, thus redeeming us from bondage and captivity. The cross is the victory over evil. This, in short, is the Christus Victor view.
You may wonder why this view appears here and not much earlier in this presentation. Isn’t this the view that “dominated the thinking of the church for the first thousand years of its history” (Aulén 1931: 6; Boyd 2006: 24)? Well, no. The phrase was probably coined by Gustav Aulén; it certainly did not gain prominence until he published a book on the atonement with this title in 1931.
Aulén argued that there are three main types of explanations for the atonement, one of which is the view of the church fathers, according to Aulén, which he also called the classic view. It was dominant in the church until Anselm formulated his satisfaction view. Aulén considers Anselm and the Reformers as representatives of a so-called Latin view because of its prevalence in the Western church (Roman Catholic and Protestant). The third view sees the atonement as moral influence or example.
How influential Aulén’s study has been shows in the fact that almost every book on the atonement refers to it. However, there are serious problems:
1. Category confusion. It causes confusion by throwing items together, into the same box (“the powers”), that belong to fundamentally different categories. Christ did indeed deliver us from the power of sin, from death, from the spiritual powers of evil, from human powers perhaps as well, and even from the Torah (Rom. 7). But these are quite different things.
In addition, the Christus Victor label combines under the same heading views of the atonement that differ greatly from each other. For this reason, I treated the ransom model separately; it is not at all the same as modern Christus Victor views (so also Crisp 2020: 6). What do we mean when we say things like: the cross is the victory over evil? How? Which forms or aspects of evil? The answers vary.
Some views that parade as Christus Victor are not explanations of the atonement at all (Crisp 2020: 51-6 comes to the same conclusion). The Nonviolent Atonement of Denny Weaver (2011), for instance, despite its title, reads more like a strategy by which God aims to transform human society, namely through the nonviolent path that Jesus took. That is a deliverance of sorts, but it does not qualify as atonement.
One would expect a model of the atonement to say something about solving the problem of sin and guilt and about forgiveness of sins, but this does not always happen in Christus Victor.
Christus Victor views (plural), then, are “exceptionally diverse, ranging from revitalisations of traditional positions to demythologised accounts” (Johnson 2017: 16). I am not sure it is a useful category, at least not without specifying what is meant by each representative.
2. Misrepresenting the church fathers. Aulén misconstrues what the church fathers taught. First, they rarely reflect consciously on the meaning and workings of the atonement. They did not develop a ‘theory’ of the atonement. Aulén systematizes what they did not systematize. (He admits this, but only in the final section of his book, page 158.) Second, the church fathers have a broad view of the atonement; their statements include various themes, images, and ideas. There certainly is a strong theme (not theory) of victory over Satan, but it is not the only theme. They cannot be made to fit any single model or theory of the atonement (cf. Crisp 2020: 45).
The remarks of the Fathers on the atonement tend to reflect the multiplicity and diversity of the NT motifs concerning the atonement that the Fathers had inherited from the biblical authors. Hence, it would be inappropriate to ascribe to the Church Fathers any unified or developed theory of the atonement. All the NT motifs concerning atonement – sacrifice, substitutionary punishment, ransom, satisfaction, and so on – may be found in their pages. (Craig 2020: 107)
The notion that the Fathers were singularly committed to a Christus Victor theory of the atonement is a popular misimpression generated by the secondary literature. (Ibid.: 123)
3. Exclusive models. Aulén did the church a disservice by leaving us with the impression that the three models are exclusive and incompatible: either/or alternatives. But does anyone deny that Christ conquered? More to the point, does anyone who holds penal substitution deny this (see the quotation from Calvin)?
In short, since neither as God alone could he feel death, nor as man alone overcome it, he coupled human nature with divine that to atone for sin he might submit the weakness of the one to death; and that, wrestling with death by the power of the other nature, he might win victory for us … clothed with our flesh he vanquished death and sin together that the victory and triumph might be ours. (Calvin 1960: 466; Institutes II.xii.3)
Compare Aulén’s work with Rowan Williams (2017). The latter explains the meaning of the cross with three images, each of which corresponds with one of Aulén’s types. The cross is a sign (example), it is a sacrifice (satisfaction), and it is victory. The difference is that for Williams, all three are true at the same time.
4. No explanation offered. The key question is: how did Christ gain his victory? It is clear how he conquered death: by resurrection. But the powers? The ransom theory has an answer. So does penal substitution: because sin and guilt have been dealt with, the devil has no grounds left to accuse us. God disarmed the powers by forgiving us our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt by nailing it to the cross (Col. 2:13-15; see also Rev. 12:10f). There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Right or wrong, it is at least an answer to the question: how?
Kolb (2017: 620) calls Christ’s victory “the second half of his atoning work”. It naturally flows from dealing with sin and condemnation; in fact, victory is the result of atonement in the narrow sense of the word, not part of the atonement itself.
How did Christ defeat the powers? What is the answer of Christus Victor? Apart from the ransom theory, I am not sure there is one. Gregory Boyd, who represents Christus Victor in The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, admits as much (2006: 37, footnote 23).
In his defence of Christus Victor, Boyd gets it precisely upside down: because God defeated Satan and set us free from his power (how he did this remains unexplained) we can receive forgiveness of sin, so Boyd (2006: 32-4). “Salvation is most fundamentally … about being ‘set free from the present evil age’ (Gal 1:4)” (ibid.: 32).
But notice the order in Galatians 1:4: Jesus “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age”. We are set free by dealing with sin, not defeating Satan. It is the same in Revelation 12:11. Satan is conquered “by the blood of the Lamb”; the latter represents “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” (Eph. 1:7). Forgiveness (through atonement) leads to victory, not victory to forgiveness.
As William Lane Craig (2020: 124) puts it: “Taken alone, Christus Victor not only ignores important NT atonement motifs, but it also fails of explanatory sufficiency, for it offers nothing to explain how God’s vanquishing Satan achieves forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God.”
I cannot help but think that Aulén’s work – and with it, Christus Victor – became so influential because he reduced the complexities of atonement theories to three options. The oversimplification proved irresistible. However, Aulén’s Christus Victor model is not what the church fathers taught; most of them had a broad but relatively unreflected and unsystematized understanding. The claim that this view dominated for a thousand years is not true. Christus Victor is more an appealing catchword than a well-defined model of the atonement.
Hugo Grotius and Moral Government
Because of its influence in some circles, I do not want to leave out the moral government model (MG), but I have to confess its logic and coherence somewhat escape me – which may indicate that I misunderstand it.
My section title includes Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), a legal and theological scholar from the Dutch Golden Age, only because MG often claims him as their founder. But Grotius has usually been misread and misunderstood. William Lane Craig (2020: 158-63) sets the record straight. Grotius defended a variant of penal substitution, in which God had some freedom to manoeuvre in judgment. Timing, the exact nature of the punishment, and even the person to be punished were flexible. God could even, in principle, have chosen to forgive sin without punishment (ibid.: 158; but see Van den Brink 2017: 523-6 for the opposite position on Grotius: in his public role, God could not do this). But as ruler and judge of the universe, as its governor (therefore governmental view or MG), so Grotius, God saw good reason not to do so. Instead, he chose to resolve the human predicament by having his Son, who willingly agreed to do so, bear punishment in our stead. And, therefore, punishment it was, not a mere demonstration of sin’s horrid nature and consequences.
This is precisely where MG differs from Grotius. In MG, Christ’s death on the cross is not our punishment but is a demonstration of the kind of punishment sin deserves and that would have been ours, had God punished us. It is a demonstration to warn of sin’s consequences, “for the sake of the moral governance of the world” (Craig 2020: 158):
In this view, in contrast to Calvin, Christ does not specifically bear the penalty for humanity’s sins; nor does he pay for individual sins. Instead, his suffering demonstrates God’s displeasure with sin and what sin deserves at the hands of a just Governor of the universe, enabling God to extend forgiveness while maintaining divine order. (‘Satisfaction Theory of Atonement’, 2020)
But if so, is this not a variation on the moral influence model? Instead of through a demonstration of love God seeks to persuade us to repent through a demonstration of the horrible nature and deserts of sin. Besides, how does MG enable us to live the holy lifestyle now expected of us? Are we to become good through sheer fear of the “or else!” that is threatened in the demonstration?
Again, the problem may be that I am not getting MG, but I find this model puzzling and unnecessary.
Union with Christ and Recapitulation
In search for an end to my long discourse, I turn back to where I began, that is, to the church fathers. They may not have bequeathed to us fully formulated models of the atonement, but they did say crucial things that are too often overlooked. Especially in what they say about union with Christ, we find the missing key to pull different atonement threads together.
As I found out, others have made similar moves, either toward the church fathers or at least toward the idea of union, not merely as a fruit or outcome of salvation, but as foundational to its mechanism, essential to understanding how salvation and the atonement were accomplished:
The only meaningful sense in which the crucifixion of Christ in history can also be in truth the crucifixion of the evil flesh of his people is if our union with Christ lies at the heart of the atonement as God’s action … Theologians from across the vast scope of the Christian tradition have continued to insist in recent years that union with Christ is not a topic limited to salvation or the application of redemption, but is key to understanding its accomplishment as well. As the twentieth-century theologian John Murray once put it, “Union with Christ is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation not only in its application but also in its once-for-all accomplishment in the finished work of Christ” (161 [sic]). (Garcia 2017: 782f, quoting Murray 2015: 171, not 161, a book first published in 1955; for an additional example, see Crisp 2020: chapter 10)
In the work quoted by Garcia, Murray goes on to say:
It is also because the people of God were in Christ when he gave his life a ransom and redeemed by his blood that salvation has been secured for them; they are represented as united to Christ in his death, resurrection, and exaltation to heaven …
In other words, we may never think of redemption in abstraction from the mysterious arrangements of God’s love and wisdom and grace by which Christ was united to his people and his people were united to him when he died upon the accursed tree and rose again from the dead. (Murray 2015: 172f)
So others travelled a similar path, but the church fathers went there first. The relevant ideas find their clearest expression in Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130-c. 202) and Athanasius (c. 297-373). Although the title of Athanasius’s best-known work centres on the incarnation, it is just as much about the atonement.
The central thought and the connection between incarnation and atonement is this: Christ became what we are, so that we could become what he is. “For He became Man that we might be made God” (Athanasius 1903: 142; Incarnation LIV). The Son became human so that he could die – on our behalf. The incarnation enabled him to become our legal representative and substitute – if we will have him as such:
In virtue of Christ’s incarnation (and, I should say, his baptism, whereby Jesus identified himself with fallen humanity), Christ is appointed by God to serve as our proxy before Him. The Logos, the second person of the Trinity, has voluntarily consented to be appointed, by means of his incarnation and baptism, to serve as our proxy before God so that by his death he might satisfy the demands of divine justice on our behalf.
Herein we see the organic connection between Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection. (Craig 2020: 228f)
Because he was divine, because he was life itself, his death could not last. He was the only human who could expect to enter death and come out alive, carrying us, as members of his body, with him. Having united himself with the human race, and having united the human race with himself, his resurrection made our resurrection possible.
Athanasius puts the emphasis on a different consequence of sin than guilt: the corruption of our nature and our resulting bondage to sin. He conceived of human nature as something with a real existence; it could be taken up by Christ into himself to heal and renew it. This won’t quite work for us, because we do not understand human nature as something with its own, independent existence, and therefore it cannot be healed as such.
Still, with modifications, Athanasius greatly illumines what Christ’s death and resurrection accomplished:
And there happened marvellously two things at once: the death of all was fulfilled in the Lord’s body, and both death and corruption through the presence of the Word were utterly abolished. (Athanasius 1903: 80; Incarnation XX)
Through Christ’s death and resurrection, God dealt with these aspects simultaneously. Sin was atoned for, we were removed from under the power and rule of sin, and our nature was healed from its corruption and renewed into his likeness.
(On a side note: obviously, then, the church fathers cannot be claimed to have almost universally held to some Christus Victor model of the atonement. Indeed, even Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-c. 395), who is often presented as a prime example of a ransom model in which Satan was tricked, took the bait, and swallowed the hook, has a far more sophisticated understanding. The bait-and-hook illustration was used in a sermon; but as McGuckin (2017) argues, such ideas are not central to his view. He is close to Athanasius: the Word became human and so “recreates humanity and restores it to the original plan” (McGuckin 2017: 172). The incarnation leads to a salvation that transforms human nature and makes a different mode of life available.)
Recapitulation. For the Son of God to do all this, he had to become human. More than that, he had to retrace Adam’s, humanity’s, and Israel’s steps, to become the new head of a new humanity, healed (from our corrupt nature), liberated (from the power of sin, among other things), and exonerated/forgiven/justified.
Irenaeus called this process recapitulation. He pointed out how Jesus recapitulated or repeated crucial experiences from the life of Adam. Jesus did the same in relation to Israel, such as his 40 days in the desert to be tempted by the devil. He succeeds where Adam and Israel failed.
But recapitulation is more than repetition. It is a wordplay, with a double meaning. First, it implies repetition. But second, based on its origin from the Latin word caput for head, it also means a summing up. In the context of theology, it includes the idea of summing up, bringing together, or uniting under a new head, that is, Christ.
We are dealing with a very biblical concept. Paul expresses it clearly in Ephesians 1:10; God’s wills, “as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth”. The Greek verb translated to unite is ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι, to recapitulate or to sum up – like the English term, also related to the (in this case Greek) word for head. For this reason, the NIV 1984 translated “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ”.
Paul speaks of the liberating and renewing result of Christ’s death at length in Romans 6-8. Not only has Christ died for us, we have also died with him, and therefore share in his resurrection as well. Perhaps important to point out: this is more than atonement. The latter is the subject of Romans 1:8-5:11, where Paul shows that, because “Christ died for us … we have now been justified by his blood” (Rom. 5:8f). Paul then restates the human problem in Romans 5:12ff: it is a shared condition of humanity ‘in Adam’. And in Romans 6-8 he proceeds to explain the broader solution, which takes us beyond atonement proper.
However, the various aspects of Christ’s saving work are thoroughly integrated and connected. Looking at the bigger picture enables us to better understand the parts, including how Christ’s death can be counted as ours. It helps us to make better sense of the atonement, as well as of any penal substitution model, and of salvation in a broad sense as well. We are not dealing with a legal fictitious phantasy. Jesus is not an arbitrary substitute, who then suffers our punishment. He is one with us as we are one with him, our legal and organic representative, and therefore his death counts as ours – cancelling the legal debt of humanity. There is therefore now no condemnation – for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1).
In Christ Jesus. This label marks the new path, the new possibility, other than ‘in Adam’ (always leading to death), that Jesus has opened for us through the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection.
This fits well with how the atonement is explicated in the letter to the Hebrews, which speaks of Christ as the “founder” (Heb. 2:10; also “initiator” or “originator”) of our faith, the one who went ahead to prepare a way. Steve Motyer (2008: 144) even takes this rather than sacrificial suffering or penal substitution as “the fundamental action in atonement … he goes before us” (emphasis in original).
In Hebrews, this leads to “the new and living way that he opened for us” (Heb. 10:20). And of course, like Athanasius, Hebrews places all of this within the context of the incarnation: “for a little while … made lower than the angels, … so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone … Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect” (Heb. 2:9, 17).
In Christ Jesus. This label also helps to place penal substitution on a broader footing. There is no contradiction here. On the contrary, union with Christ provides further explanation of how penal substitution can work without having to assume some sort of fictitious exchange of sin for righteousness. Staunch defenders of penal substitution can be found to also support the idea of union with Christ as the underlying explanation for how Christ can be a substitute and representative. It is, for instance, the subject of the concluding chapter of the classic and influential defence of penal substitution by R. W. Dale (1875: 399ff) and appears in Calvin’s Institutes (e.g. 1960: 465-7; II.xii.3). And at the beginning of this section I quoted John Murray to the same effect.
It is through Christ’s union with us and through our union with Christ that his death counts as our death (he “taste[d] death for everyone”, Heb. 2:9) and that we can be most truthfully justified (no fiction or accounting tricks here), at great expense to God and at no expense to ourselves – which is a good thing, seeing we cannot even make the tiniest contribution to paying off our debt.
Even Protestants, in their constructions of the doctrine of the cross, have left Christ on it and presumed that His saving work finishes with His death. The atonement is consequently explained in terms of a sacrifice on our behalf, a satisfaction of God’s justice, a payment of our debt, a revelation of God’s love, and that is all. It somehow seems to have been overlooked that the resurrection is an integral part of our Lord’s work for us, so that salvation is essentially a deliverance from a living death in sin to a new life of righteousness in God (Beasley-Murray 2002: 39, quoted in Holmes 2008: 279)
Atonement Accomplished
This much is certain: the atonement is sufficient, comprehensive, and fully effective. And it is comprehensive and effective precisely because it is multifaceted.
It feels a bit narrow, therefore, to call penal substitution the “heart and soul” of the atonement, as Schreiner has it (2006: 67). There is more involved. And to be more fully biblical, covenantal language is appropriate. At stake are not crime and punishment, but curse and covenant. The breach of covenant means humanity is under the curse, cut off from the covenantal benefits that may be summed up as life itself, in all its fullness.
Still, the covenantal curse is a form of legal sanction and therefore of punishment. To return to the analogy of a building, then, penal substitution adjusted covenantally is a major and essential part. Without it, no cathedral called atonement would stand.
And Christus Victor? It is real and important, but I am not sure it is even part of the building. Rather, at least in relation to spiritual forces of evil, victory over them is a consequence, not a cause. Sin has not been overcome because the atonement defeated Satan and rendered him powerless. Satan has been rendered powerless because the death of Christ is “of sin the double cure” (as Toplady has it in “Rock of Ages”). Christ’s union with us enabled him, through his death, to redeem us from the curse. Our union with Christ, through the resurrection, removed us from sin’s rule and Satan’s domain, and reconciled us to God.
The atonement is a cathedral but also a castle where we are safe and out of reach for the powers. But this victory is not itself the atonement.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Toplady, n.d.; emphasis added
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save me from its guilt and power.
Book Recommendation
Craig, William Lane. 2020. Atonement and the Death of Christ: An Exegetical, Historical, and Philosophical Exploration (Waco: Baylor University Press)
Crisp, Oliver. 2020. Approaching the Atonement: The Reconciling Work of Christ (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press)
Williams, Rowan. 2017. God With Us: The Meaning Of The Cross And Resurrection – Then And Now (London: SPCK)
Illustrations
Thanti Nguyen <https://unsplash.com/photos/U_b-eSviHvs> CC0
Michiel van Mierevelt. 1631. “Hugo de Groot” <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michiel_Jansz_van_Mierevelt_-_Hugo_Grotius.jpg> Public Domain
Didgeman <https://pixabay.com/photos/christ-jesus-religion-mosaic-898330/> CC0
ersi <https://pixabay.com/photos/forest-path-trees-alley-outdoors-868715/> CC0
References
Titles listed below include references for all three parts of this series. Unless indicated differently, all Bible quotations from: The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles)
Athanasius. 1903. On the Incarnation of the Word of God, 2nd edn, trans. by T. Herbert Bindley (London: Religious Tract Society)
Aulén, Gustaf, and A. G. Herbert. 2003. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock)
Baker, Mark D., and Joel B. Green. 2011. Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in New Testament and Contemporary Contexts, 2nd ed (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic)
Barrett, Charles K. 1957. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (London: Black)
Beasley-Murray, Paul. 2002. Fearless for Truth (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster)
Beilby, James K., and Paul R. Eddy (eds.). 2006. The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic)
Boyd, Gregory A. 1997. God at War: The Bible & Spiritual Conflict (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press)
———. 2006. ‘Christus Victor View’, in The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, ed. by James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic), pp. 23-65
Brown, Joanne Carlson, and Rebecca Parker. 1989. ‘Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique’, in For God So Loved the World?, ed. by Joanne Carlson Brown and Carole R. Bohn (New York: Pilgrim Press), pp. 103-26
Calvin, Jean. 1960. Institutes of the Christian Religion, The Library of Christian Classics, 20-21, 2 vols, ed. by John T McNeill, trans. by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press)
Cole, Graham A. 2017. ‘Expiation/Propitiation’, in T&T Clark Companion to Atonement, Bloomsbury Companions, 5 (London; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark), pp. 403-5
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———. 2020. Atonement and the Death of Christ: An Exegetical, Historical, and Philosophical Exploration (Waco: Baylor University Press)
Crisp, Oliver. 2020. Approaching the Atonement: The Reconciling Work of Christ (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press)
Cyril of Alexandria. 1885a. Commentary on the Gospel According to S. John, II S. John IX-XXI, A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, trans. by Thomas Randell (London: Walter Smith) <http://tertullian.org/fathers/cyril_on_john_09_book9.htm> [accessed 15 June 2020]
———. 1885b. Commentary on the Gospel According to S. John, II S. John IX-XXI, A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, trans. by Thomas Randell (London: Walter Smith) <http://tertullian.org/fathers/cyril_on_john_12_book12.htm> [accessed 15 June 2020]
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Green, Joel B. 2006. ‘Kaleidoscopic View’, in The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, ed. by James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Academic), pp. 157-85
Johnson, Adam J. (ed.). 2017. T&T Clark Companion to Atonement, Bloomsbury Companions, 5 (London; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark)
Holmes, Stephen R. 2008. ‘Ransomed, Healed, Restored, Forgiven Evangelical Accounts of the Atonement’, in The Atonement Debate: Papers from the London Symposium on the Theology of Atonement, ed. by Steve Chalke, Derek Tidball, David Hilborn, and Justin Thacker (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), pp. 267-291
———. 2017. ‘Penal Substitution’, in T&T Clark Companion to Atonement, Bloomsbury Companions, 5 (London; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark), pp. 295-314
Holsclaw, Geoff. 2019. ‘The Shedding of Blood and Christian Faith’, Jesus Creed <https://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2019/04/08/the-shedding-of-blood-and-christian-faith/> [accessed 30 June 2020]
Horton, Michael Scott. 2018. Justification, New Studies in Dogmatics, 2 vols (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan)
Johnson, Adam J. 2017. ‘Peter Abelard’, in T&T Clark Companion to Atonement, Bloomsbury Companions, 5 (London; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark), pp. 357-60
Kolb, Robert A. 2017. ‘Martin Luther’, in T&T Clark Companion to Atonement, Bloomsbury Companions, 5 (London; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark), pp. 613-21
Lane, Tony. 2008. ‘Bernard of Clairvaux: Theologian of the Cross’, in The Atonement Debate: Papers from the London Symposium on the Theology of Atonement, ed. by Steve Chalke, Derek Tidball, David Hilborn, and Justin Thacker (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), pp. 249-66
McGuckin, John A. 2017. ‘St. Gregory of Nyssa on the Dynamics of Salvation’, in T&T Clark Companion to Atonement, Bloomsbury Companions, 5 (London; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark), pp. 155-73
Morris, Leon. 1983. The Atonement, Its Meaning and Significance (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press)
———. 1984. ‘Atonement, Theories Of’, in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. by Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House), pp. 100-102
Motyer, Steve. 2008. ‘The Atonement in Hebrews’, in The Atonement Debate: Papers from the London Symposium on the Theology of Atonement, ed. by Steve Chalke, Derek Tidball, David Hilborn, and Justin Thacker (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), pp. 136-51
Murray, John. 2015. Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing)
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Rogers, Jr., Eugene F. 2017. ‘Blood’, in T&T Clark Companion to Atonement, Bloomsbury Companions, 5 (London; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark), pp. 403-5
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Smith, Christian, and Melinda Lundquist Denton. 2005. Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press)
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Vanhoozer, Kevin. 2004. ‘The Atonement in Post-Modernity: Guilt, Goats and Gifts’, in The Glory of the Atonement Biblical, Historical and Practical Perspectives; Essays in Honor of Roger Nicole, ed. by Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), pp. 367-404
Williams, Gary J. 2007. ‘Penal Substitution: A Response to Recent Criticisms’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 50.1: 71-86
Williams, Rowan. 2017. God With Us: The Meaning Of The Cross And Resurrection – Then And Now (London: SPCK)
Wright, N. T. 2002. ‘The Letter to the Romans: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections’, in The New Interpreter’s Bible: A Commentary, 12 vols (Nashville: Abingdon Press), x, pp. 390-770
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