1. Interestingly, different people use this same synthesis (Penal Substitution is the how/means for Christus Victor) to argue for the primacy of either view. Blocher seems to say that Penal Substitution is primary because it’s the means for Victory. Whereas Hans Boersma argues that Christus Victor is primary because it’s the end of Penal Substitution. It raises the question: Does the Bible require us to declare primacy?

2. How you define the problem will determine your view of atonement (the answer). Is the root problem our sin (which results in bondage) or is it that we’re in bondage (resulting in sin)? The latter reverses the biblical order, making humans victims of Satan rather than enemies of God. Robert Sherman is a recent example of someone who makes this mistake.

3. Our understanding of how Christ reconciles “all things…by the blood of the cross” (Col 1:20) must include his defeat over the “domain of darkness” (1:13) and “rulers and authorities” (2:15).

It’s fun (for theology nerds) to run each theory through the 4 questions. But if your heart is tuned rightly, it’s also a great exercise in enjoying the immense wisdom and power of the cross.

Here’s Nicole’s screen:
1. How does this view manifest the unity between the sacrificial system of the OT and the sacrifice of Christ?
2. How does this view account for the fact that OT believers were saved through JC, whom they contemplated in the divinely ordained prefigurements? (A belief that cannot satisfy this question demands a salvation outside of Christ or that OT believers were not saved).
3. How does this view give account of the sublime perfections of God that are in the atoning work of the cross? Specifically, His holiness, His justice and His love. (these words occur again and again in the biblical description of what He has done)
4. How does this view account for passages like Isa 53; Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45; Rom 3:23-25; 2 Cor 5:18-21; Gal 3:13; Tit 2:14; 1 Pet 2:24-25, etc. This view, if it wants to be biblical, must account for all of these verses equally.

That said, I can’t get my mind around this concept: “Christ’s death meant the ultimate death of sin.”

I can understand guilt and death itself being being put to death through the cross. Sin, though? How did it get put to death if it is still in the world? Is related to the “already, but not yet” concept which would also need to be applied to the death of death and guilt?

I have not done a thorough study of this passage, but at least at first glance the language of Rev. 12:9-11 seems to point this direction. In that passage the celebration of the saints’ victory over Satan is described. It seems telling that Satan is there described as “the accuser” — making a connection to the fact of the sinner’s guilt as the source of his influence over them.

Even more directly it says, “they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb…” [which echoes what Fred Sanders mentioned above]. How else could the blood of the Lamb be the means of overcoming Satan/the Adversary-Accuser if not because of what the cross accomplished as propitiation?

(And are there likely echoes of God’s redemption/rescue of his people, Israel, from Pharaoh — a redemption accomplished by blood and by power?)

Doug Phillips

Awesome, JT. I think I say something similar to this in the latest WTJ.

Thanks for drawing attention to Smeaton. If only more readers knew of him and read his remarkable books on the atonement and the Holy Spirit.

Fred,

Blocher’s chapter is superb. Again, if only it was more widely known and read, I think it would go a long way in clarifying the matter.

(See Henri Blocher, “Agnus Victor: The Atonement as Victory and Vicarious Punishment’ in John Stackhouse, ed., What Does It Mean to Be Saved? : Broadening Evangelical Horizons of Salvation (Baker, 2002))

Frequently, God’s judicial wrath is portrayed as a purely god-oriented matter: God is angry; God is at enmity with us until propitated. We should be afraid and condemned by the law.

Why do all those things entail satanic oppression?

And how does god’s decision to propitiate his own wrath relate to the oppressed-by-satan status we find ourselves under as a result of his wrath? Is he a righteous deliverer from our oppressor? Or a righteous deliverer…from his own wrath?

It needs sorting out.
But the why is propitiation important for solving an “oppression” problem w.r.t. Satan?