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CHAPTER 6
THE PROBLEM OF THE ATONEMENT
“And he [Jesus] said to them, ‘O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken!
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures
the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25-27)
Ever since the risen Jesus asked this question of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, thoughtful Christians have been attempting to answer it. This question is an important one for all Christians. It is important not only because our Lord Himself raised it but also because He took the time to answer it.
This question of Jesus raises the central problem of Christian theology — the problem of the atonement — why “must” Christ die for the salvation of men? This problem of the necessity of the atonement is the major problem of the Christian doctrine of salvation. In this chapter this central problem of Christian theology will be examined. The classic type of the atonement will be examined first and the difference between the classic type and the Latin type will be clarified. Then it will be shown how in the Latin type the meaning of the death of Christ has been misunderstood and obscured in Christian theology by the Greek-Roman concept of justice: giving to each what he has merited. This concept of justice, which has misunderstood and obscured the righteousness of God and the love of God, has lead to the legalistic misunderstanding of the death of Christ. Finally, the Biblical doctrine of Christ’s death will be presented and how it solves the problem of the necessity of the atonement.
The Swedish theologian, Gustaf Aulen, in his book Christus Victor attempts to delineate the type of the idea of the atonement of Christ that was dominant throughout the early church period until the Latin or objective type and its rival, the subjective type, replaced it. This type he calls the classic Christian idea of the Atonement [1] because, he maintains, it was the dominant idea of the atonement in the New Testament and during the first thousand years of Christian history. [2] During the Middle Ages, it was gradually replaced in the theological teaching of the church by the Latin type. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) in the eleventh century gave full and clear expression to the Latin type in his famous work Cur Deus Homo? [Why did God become man?]. But no sooner had Anselm completed the theological formulation of the Latin theory of the atonement than it was criticized by his younger contemporary, Peter Abelard (1079-1142). Abelard in formulating the subjective or moral influence theory of the atonement in criticism of the objective or satisfaction theory of Anselm began a controversy which has continued ever since. Except for Martin Luther and the devotional language and art of the church, the classic type has been completely ousted from the theological teaching of the church by the Latin type or its rival the subjective type.
Aulen attempts to make clear the nature of these three types of the idea of the atonement as they have appeared in history. In particular, he tries to fix the actual character of the type which he calls the classical type.
Aulen points out four characteristics of the classic type:
dramatic, dualistic, cosmic, and double-sided.
1. The classic type is dramatic because “its central theme is the idea of the Atonement as a Divine conflict and victory,” [3] a drama. “Christ — Christus Victor — fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the ‘tyrants’ under which mankind is in bondage and suffering, and in Him God reconciles the world to Himself.” [4]
2. The classic type is dualistic because “God is pictured as in Christ carrying through a victorious conflict against powers of evil which are hostile to His will.” [5] Aulen carefully points out that this dualism is neither metaphysical or absolute. He says,
“It will be well to explain at this point, once and for all, the sense in which the word Dualism is used in this book. It is not used in the sense of a metaphysical Dualism between the Infinite and the finite, or between spirit and matter; nor, again, in the sense of the absolute Dualism between Good and Evil typical of the Zoroastrian and Manichean teaching, in which Evil is treated as an eternal principle opposed to Good. It is used in the sense in which the idea constantly occurs in Scripture, of the opposition between God and that which in His own created world resists His will; between the Divine Love and the rebellion of created wills against Him. This Dualism is an altogether radical opposition, but it is not an absolute Dualism; for in the scriptural view evil has not an eternal existence.” [6]
3. Thirdly, the classic type is also cosmic because it involves a reconciliation between God and the world. This characteristic plays a minor role in Aulen’s presentation of the classic view.
4. Lastly, the classic type is double-sided. By this Aulen means that the work of God in Christ not only reconciles the world to Himself but He is at the same time reconciled. God “is reconciled by the very act in which He reconciles the world to Himself.” [7] Thus “the double-sidedness of the classic idea of the Atonement means that God is not only the Reconciler but also the Reconciled.” [8]
In order to show that the classic type is a special type, sharply distinct from both of the other types, Aulen points out several marked differences between the classic type and the Latin type, on the one hand, and the subjective type, on the other. According to Aulen, the classic type differs from the Latin type in two ways.
(1) The most marked of these two differences is that
“the classic type shows a continuity of Divine operation, and a discontinuity in the order of merit and of justice, while the Latin type is opposite in both respects.” [9]
In the Latin type, there is a continuity of the legal order and discontinuity of Divine operation. For although the atonement has indeed its origin in God’s will, it is a satisfaction offered to God by Christ as a sinless Man on the behalf of sinful man.
(2) The second difference between the classic and the Latin types is that the classic type is such that it is next to impossible to construct a rationally consistent theory of the atonement; the Latin type, on the other hand, is in its very structure a rational theory.
“The classic type is characterized [sic] by a whole series of contrasts of opposites, which defy rational systematization [sic]…” [10] For example, “Its essential double-sidedness, according to which God is at once the Reconciler and the Reconciled, constitutes an antimony which cannot be resolved by a rational statement.” [11]
The Latin type, on the other hand, attempts to find rational solutions to these antimonies. This rational character of the Latin type is closely connected with its juridical character. Lex et ratio, law and reason, always go hand in hand. Compared with this rational character of the Latin type, “the classic idea must always seem to be lacking in clearness.” [12]
The classic type also differs from the subjective type. According to the subjective type, the change that salvation brings about is in man and not in God. Aulen says concerning the classic type in comparison with the subjective type:
“It [the classic type] does not set forth only or chiefly a change taking place in men; it describes a complete change in the situation, a change in the relation between God and the world, and a change also in God’s own attitude.” [13]
Thus the classic type is also objective like the Latin type.
“Its [the classic’s] objectivity is further emphasized [sic] by the fact that the Atonement is not regarded as affecting men primarily as individuals, but is set forth as a drama of a world’s salvation.” [14]
Although Aulen has performed an important task in calling our attention to this long neglected and often misinterpreted classic type of the idea of the atonement, there are certain aspects of his discussion that raise the question whether he has clearly and correctly delineated it. For example, does not that which Aulen calls the double-sidedness of the classic type arise from a failure to clearly distinguish the classic type from the Latin? Does it not rather involve a concession to the Latin type? In denying the contrast between the classic and the Latin type which describes the former as doctrine of salvation and the latter as a doctrine of atonement, Aulen says
“Certainly it [the classic type] describes a work of salvation, a drama of salvation; but this salvation is at the same time an atonement in the full sense of the word, for it is a work wherein God reconciles the world to Himself and is at the same time reconciled.” [15]
This seems to be a clear concession to the Latin type. That God is reconciled is the essence of the Latin theory and thus this supposed double-sidedness seems to be a going beyond the classic type and a confusing of the two types. However, elsewhere he attempts to deny this implication. The classic type, he says,
“regards the sacrifice of Christ both as God’s own act of sacrifice and as a sacrifice offered to God. This double-sidedness is always alien to the Latin type, which develops the latter aspect, and eliminates the former.” [16]
But does not this concede that the atonement (the act of reconciling God) is the same in both types? And if the act of atonement is the same in the classic type as in the Latin type, then is this not a concession to the Latin type? Aulen seems to be aware of this concession and the resulting inability to combine this Latin element with the classic type. For he says that
“the classic idea of the atonement defies rational systematization [sic]; its essential double-sidedness, according to which God is at once the Reconciler and the Reconciled, constitutes an antimony which cannot be resolved by a rational statement.” [17]
These two aspects of Aulen’s discussion, that is, the double-sidedness and the impossibility of a rational theory of the classic type of atonement, causes one to wonder whether Aulen has clearly and correctly delineated the classic type.
A brief examination of the doctrine of salvation of one the greatest theologians of the early church, Athanasius (296?-373 A.D.), will show that Aulen has rejected the main difference between the classic type, on the one hand, and the objective and subjective types, on the other, and this rejection is the cause of his failure to clearly and correctly delineate the classic type.
Athanasius’ earliest work (316-318 A.D.), On the Incarnation of the Word, [18] contains his teaching on the doctrine of salvation. Although he does not deal directly with the question, “From what does man need to be saved?”, Athanasius’ answer to this question can be seen from his discussion of the reason for the incarnation. [19] In order to determine the reason for the incarnation, Athanasius first discusses briefly the origin of man, that is, the creation and the fall of man. [20]
“For in speaking of the appearance of the Saviour amongst us, we must needs speak also of the origin of men, that you may know that the reason of his coming down was because of us…” [21]
God created man out of nothing. [22] But man was created different from all the irrational creatures; he was created in God’s own image. [23] God placed them in his own garden and gave them a law
“so that, if they kept the grace and remained good, they might still keep the life in paradise without sorrow or pain or care, besides having the promise of incorruption in heaven; but that if they transgressed and turned back, and became evil, they might know that they were incurring that corruption in death which was theirs by nature, no longer to live in paradise, but cast out of it from that time forth to die and to abide in death and in corruption.” [24] “… but men, having despised and rejected the contemplation of God, and devised and contrived evil for themselves …, received the condemnation of death with which they had been threatened; and from thenceforth no longer remained as they were made, but were being corrupted according to their devices; and death had mastery over them as king.” [25]
Athanasius apparently makes no distinction between Adam and his descendants. Because of his Platonic background he considers all men as transgressing God’s commandment in Adam. [26] Thus Athanasius speaks only of man or men. But Athanasius does seem to make a distinction between physical and spiritual death. Physical death he calls corruption. Corruption was the natural state of man since he was created out of nothing. The
“transgression of the commandment was turning them back to their natural state, so that just as they have had their being out of nothing, so also, as might be expected, they might look for corruption into nothing in course of time … For man is by nature mortal, inasmuch as he is made out of what is not; but by reason of his likeness to Him that is (and if he still preserved this likeness by keeping him in his knowledge) he would stay his natural corruption, and remain incorrupt ….” [27]
Spiritual death or just death, on the other hand, is apparently the loss of the knowledge or contemplation of God which Athanasius also calls the image of God. The image of God in man. according to Athanasius, is the knowledge of God.
“Nay, why did God make them at all, as he did not wish to be known by them? Whence, lest this should be so, being good,
he gives them a share in his own image, our Lord Jesus Christ, and makes them after his own image and after his own likeness: so that by such a grace perceiving the image, that is, the Word of the Father, they may be able through him to get an idea of the Father, and, knowing their maker, live the happy and truly blessed life.” [28]
This knowledge of God is life (John 17:3). [29]
“For God has not only made us out of nothing; but he gave us freely, by the grace of the Word, a life in correspondence with God. But men, having rejected things eternal, and, by counsel of the devil, turned to the things of corruption, became the cause of their own corruption in death, being, as I said before, by nature corruptible, but destined, by the grace following from partaking of the Word, to have escaped their natural state, had they remained good.” [30]
Having discussed the origin of man, Athanasius proceeds to discuss the reason for the incarnation. The reason for the incarnation arises out of man’s (Adam’s) transgression of the commandment of God given to him. As a consequence of that act, death had gained control of the race in such a way that it could not be evaded. But for death to have control of the race was both monstrous and unseemly.
“For it were monstrous, firstly, that God, having spoken, should prove false — that, when once he had ordained that man, if he transgressed the commandment, should die the death, after the transgression man should not die, but God’s word should be broken. For God would not be true if, when he had said we should die, man died not. Again, it were unseemly that creatures once made rational, and having partaken of the Word, should go to ruin, and turn again toward nonexistence by the way of corruption. For it were not worthy of God’s goodness that the things he had made should waste away, because of the deceit practiced on men by the devil.” [31]
Thus God was faced with a dilemma. He could not leave man in death and corruption “because this would be unseemly and unworthy of God’s goodness.” [32] But, on the other hand, to remove death and corruption from man, God would appear to be liar. What was God to do? To demand repentance of men for their transgression?
Although this was worthy of God this would not keep God from appearing to be a liar [33] and neither would it remove death and corruption. [34] God’s solution was for the Word of God “which had also at the beginning made everything out of naught” to become man and having become man, to die the death of all men.
“And thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty of the corruption of death he gave it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father — doing this, moreover, of his lovingkindness, to the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in him, the law involving the ruin of men might be undone (inasmuch as its power was fully spent in the Lord’s body, and had no longer holding ground against men, his peers), and that, secondly, whereas men had turned toward corruption, he might turn them again toward incorruption, and quicken them from death by the appropriation of his body and by the grace of the resurrection, banishing death from them like straw from the fire.” [35]
It would appear from Athanasius’ discussion of the reason for the incarnation that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ saves man primarily from death and corruption and gives them life and immortality.
“For by the sacrifice of his own body, he both put an end to the law [of death] which was against us, and made a new beginning of life for us, by the hope of resurrection which he has given us. For since from man it was that death prevailed over men, for this cause conversely, by the Word of God being made man has come about the destruction of death and the resurrection of life. …” [36]
In his discussion of the second cause of the incarnation, that is, to restore the knowledge of God (the image of God), Athanasius links up the restoration of the image of God with salvation from death and corruption.
“Whence the Word of God came in his own person, that as he was the image of the Father, he might be able to create afresh the man after the image. But, again, it could not else have taken place had not death and corruption been done away. Whence he took, in natural fitness, a mortal body, that while death might in it be once for all done away, men made after his image might once more be renewed. None other, then, was sufficient for this need, save the image of the Father.” [37]
In another place, Athanasius says that death was the special cause of the coming of the true only-begotten Son of the Father.
“But since it was necessary also that the debt owing from all should be paid again, for, as I have already said, it was owing that all should die — for which especial cause, indeed, he came among us — to this intent, after the proofs of his Godhead from his works, he next offered up his sacrifice also on the behalf of all, yielding his temple to death in the stead of all, in order firstly to make men quit and free of their old trespass, and further to show himself more powerful even than death, displaying his own body incorruptible as first fruits of the resurrection of all.” [38]
The abolishing of death is the second of the two marvels accomplished by the Lord in his incarnate life.
“And so it was that two marvels came to pass at once, that the death of all was accomplished in Lord’s body, and that death and corruption were wholly done away by reason of the Word that was united with it.” [39]
And in many other places [40], Athanasius indicates that it was from death primarily that Christ came to save men. This is quite in contrast with both the objective and subjective types. They both assume that it was from sin primarily that Christ came to save us. According to the objective type, Christ’s saving work is directed toward the satisfaction of God’s honor (Anselm) or justice (Calvin and orthodox Protestant theologians) which has been outraged or offended by man’s sin thus making possible man’s salvation. According to the subjective type, on the other hand, the saving work of Christ is directed toward influencing man to turn away from his sin by the example of God’s love for sinful man in Christ. Thus both types assume that Christ came primarily to save man from sin. Man needs to be save because he is a sinner. In contrast, Athanasius and the classic type assumes that it was primarily from death (both spiritual and physical) that Christ came to save us. Salvation from sin plays a secondary role in the classic type. An examination of other theologians of the early church, such Irenaeus, will show this to be the main characteristic of the classic type which distinguishes it from the other two types. One passage from Irenaeus will show that he conceived of salvation as primarily from death.
“For if man, who had been created by God that he might live, after losing life, through being injured by the serpent that had corrupted him, should not any more return to life, but should be utterly [an forever] abandoned to death, God would [in that case] have been conquered, and the wickedness of the serpent would have prevailed over the will of God … and by means of the second man did He bind the strong man, and spoiled his goods, and abolished death, vivifying that man who had been in a state of death.” [41]
Gustaf Aulen in his book Christus Victor rejects this interpretation of the classic Christian type of the idea of the atonement. [42] In regard to Irenaeus, he says:
“We have already noted the assertion that he [Irenaeus], in common with other Eastern theologians, places relatively little emphasis on sin, because he regards salvation as a bestowal of life rather than of forgiveness, and as a victory over mortality rather than over sin. I shall hope to show that this assertion is quite misleading.” [43]
Aulen then attempts to show that for Irenaeus [44] and Athanasius [45] sin and death are inseparably associated; there is no essential difference between the sin and death in their teaching, nor is sin of secondary importance. Aulen says:
“Athanasius does, in fact, regard sin as not merely the cause of corruption from which men need to be saved, but as being identical with it. That is to say, Christ’s work has a direct relation to sin; He came in order that He might break the power of sin over human life…. The work of Christ is the overcoming of death and sin; strictly, it is a victory over death because it is a victory over sin.” [46]
Aulen cites only one passage in support of his contention conceding that “there are a number of passages in his [Athanasius’] writings which, if taken in isolation, might easily suggest that he really does neglect the idea of sin.” [47] Aulen cites this one passage from Athanasius’ Against the Arians, II, 69 in the following way:
“He came ‘that He might set all free from sin and the curse of sin, and that all might evermore live in truth, free from death, and be clothed in incorruption and immortality.'” [48]
However, he only quotes part of the passage, leaving out the essential part. Thus he makes it to appear to support his contention. The passage in full says:
“He becomes Son of Man, by taking created flesh; that, since all were under sentence of death, He, being other than them all, might Himself for all offer to death His own body; and that henceforth, as if all had died through Him, the word of that
sentence might be accomplished (for ‘all died’ [II Cor. 5:14] in Christ), and all through Him might thereupon become free from sin and the curse which came upon it, and might truly abide forever, risen from the dead and clothed in immortality and incorruption.” [49]
The sin here referred to is the sin of Adam which brought the curse of death on all men and not the personal sins of each individual. Aulen nowhere proves that sin and death are identical for Athanasius nor that Christ’s work was victory over death because it was a victory over sin. On the contrary, Athanasius seems rather to see it the other way: victory over sin because victory over death. Aulen just assumes that salvation is primarily from sin and that salvation is from death because it is a salvation from sin. Aulen’s difficulty with this interpretation of the classical type that salvation is primarily from death stems from the fact that he takes death to mean only physical death.
“It may, indeed, be said that the forgiveness of sin is not proclaimed with same power as by the Reformers; that the Greek theologian does not sound the depths like Luther. But this does not justify the allegation that the idea of sin takes only a subordinate place, and that his conception of salvation is purely ‘physical’ and ‘natural,’ the bestowal of immortality on human nature through the Divine nature of Christ. If the thought of the triumph of life and the overcoming of mortality takes the central place it is intimately connected with the breaking of sin’s power.” [50]
Aulen is here referring to the interpretation of the early church fathers by the theologians of the liberal Protestant school, for example, Adolph Harnack. They commonly interpreted Irenaeus and other of the early church fathers like Athanasius as teaching
“a ‘naturalistic’ or ‘physical’ doctrine of salvation; salvation is the bestowal of ‘divinity’ — that is, immortality — on human nature, and the idea of deliverance from sin occupies quite a secondary place.” [51]
The theologians of the early church were never very careful to say what they meant by death. Athanasius is not always consistent in regard to the meaning of death. But only if death is understood as spiritual death as well as physical death can the difficulties that arise from this view of salvation as primarily from death be avoided. [52]
Athanasius does not make clear the connection between our sin and death. In regard to Adam’s sin as the sin of mankind, he very clearly says it resulted in death for all mankind. [53] But because of his Platonism and the resulting failure to distinguish clearly between Adam and his descendants, Athanasius is not clear as to the connection between our sin and the death (both spiritual and physical) received from Adam. He seems to hold that all men die (spiritually and physically) not because of their own personal sin but because of Adam’s transgression who acted for all. And because of this spiritual death (loss of the image or knowledge of God) all men are going into idolatry and other sins. Athanasius writes,
“But men once more in their perversity having set at naught, in spite of all this, the grace given them, so wholly rejected God, and so darkened their soul, as not merely to forget their idea of God, but also to fashion for themselves, instead of the truth, and honor things that were not before the living God, ‘and serve the creature rather than the Creator’ (Rom. 1:25) but worst of all, they transferred the honor of God even to stocks and stones and to every material object and to men. … And, in a word, everything was full of irreligion and lawlessness, and God alone, and his Word, was unknown ….” [54]
But whatever was Athanasius’ view of the connection between our sin and the death received from Adam, he does not treat them as identical. Sin is an act and death is a state of being. And he does not view salvation as from death because it is from sin. For him salvation is primarily from death and only secondarily from sin. This is the chief characteristic of the classic type of idea of the atonement which Aulen fails to recognize and hence causes him to fail to clearly and correctly delineate the classic type from the both the Latin and subjective types. This is why Aulen wrongly characterizes the classic type as double-sided: God is Reconciled as well as Reconciler. Aulen does not see that death is the problem which is in man and the world; he does not see that reconciliation is salvation from death to life. The problem is not in God and hence God does not need to be reconciled. [55]
Since reconciliation is salvation from death to life, only man or the world needs to be reconciled, not God. This removes the double-sidedness and the resulting antimony from the classic type; now it is possible to construct a rationally consistent theory of the atonement of the classic type. The classic type is not double-sided but single-sided. God is the Reconciler and not the Reconciled. Aulen not only fails to correctly characterize the classic type but he also fails to recognize other characteristics of the classic type; he fails to recognize that the classic type is basically non-legalistic. The classic type shows not just a discontinuity in the order of merit and justice but a complete absence of the order of merit and justice. This is why God does not need to be reconciled; God’s righteousness is not justice and there is no order of justice in God that has to be satisfied by Christ’s death. Aulen retains these elements of legalism in his delineation of the classic type and creates the antimony that prevents the construction of a rational theory of the classic type; that is, a non-legalistic theory of the atonement.
In conclusion, let us summarize the characteristics of the classic type:
1. The classic type is dramatic. Christ’s death and resurrection is a divine conflict and victory. Christ in his death and resurrection fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, primarily death, and thus reconciles the world to Himself.
2. The classic type is dualistic. This is not a metaphysical or absolute dualism but a relative dualism between death and life. It is a conflict between God and the powers of evil who have rebelled against His authority and who are defeated in Christ’s death and resurrection. Satan who has the power of death (Heb. 2:14) has been destroyed through Christ’s death and resurrection.
3. The classic type is cosmic. The problem that was solved by Christ’s death and resurrection is in man and in the world and not in God. The evil powers that Christ fights against and triumphs over are in the world.
4. The classic type is single-sided. God is the Reconciler, not the Reconciled. Reconciliation is salvation from death to life. Thus the problem is not in God and hence God does not need to be reconciled.
5. The classic type is non-legalistic. It makes no legalistic assumptions about the need for salvation or the nature of salvation. There is not only no discontinuity in the order of merit and justice but there is complete absence of the order of merit and justice.
ENDNOTES FOR “THE CLASSIC TYPE OF THE ATONEMENT”
[1] Gustaf Aulen, Christus Victor (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1951), pp. 6-7.
[9] Ibid., p. 145; see also pp. 91, 95.
[18] All quotations of Athanasius’ On the Incarnation of the Word are taken from the English edition translated by Archibald Robertson appearing in Christology of the Later Fathers, Vol. III, The Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1954).
[19] Ibid., Chs. 2-20, pp. 56-75.
[20] Ibid., Chs. 2-5, pp. 56-60.
[25] Ibid., Ch. 4, p. 59, cf. Rom. 5:14, 17.
[26] “As we might expect, the account he gives is a blend of Platonizing metaphysics and the Genesis story.” J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine (London: Adam & Clarles Black, 1958), p. 346. “Athanasius’ language often suggests that he conceives of the human nature, after the manner of Platonic realism, as a concrete idea or universal in which all individual men participate.” Kelly, p. 378.
“His argument presupposes the unity, or solidarity, of the race with the first man…. But Athanasius never hints that we participate in Adam’s actual guilt, i.e., his moral culpability, nor does he exclude the possibility of man living entirely without sin. In one passage [footnote: C.Ar. 3, 33.] for example, he claims that Jeremiah and John the Baptist actually did so.” Kelly, pp. 347-8. Compare the development of this Platonism in the Cappadocian fathers, particularly Gregory of Nyssa.
[27] Athanasius, op. cit., Ch. 4, p. 59. See also Ch. 5, pp. 59-60.
[29] “The restoration of the image means first of all, that men recover the true knowledge of God which is life eternal. Adam enjoyed this in Paradise, but when he lost the image through sin his descendants were reduced to ignorance and idolatry. Secondly, they become partakers of the divine nature (cf. II Pet. 1, 4), since fellowship with Christ is fellowship with God …
Thirdly, the Word being the principle of life, the principle of death is reversed in us and the precious gift of incorruptibility (aphtharsia) lost at the Fall is restored. Hence the redemption can be described as a recreation carried out by the Word, the original author of creation.” Kelly, p. 378.
[30] Athanasius, op. cit., Ch. 5, pp. 59-60. Cf. Ch. 11, p. 65.
[33] “For he would still be none the more true, if men did not remain in the grasp of death.” Athanasius, Ch. 7, p. 61.
[34] “…nor, secondly, does repentance call men back from what is their nature — it merely stays them from acts of sin.” Athanasius, Ch. 7, p. 61.
[37] Ibid., Ch. 13, pp. 67-68.
[40] Ibid., Ch. 22, p. 76; Ch. 34, p. 88; Ch. 44, p. 99.
[41] Irenaeus Against Heresies, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925), Vol. I, pp. 455-6.
[43] Ibid., p. 22. Aulen is here referring to the interpretation of the early church fathers by the theologians of the liberal Protestant school. See further endnote 51 below.
[47] Ibid., p. 43. Aulen discusses only one such passage: On the Incarnation of the Word, Ch. 7. Aulen says: “From such passages it might appear that the need for Christ’s coming and His redemptive work had arisen exclusively out of the consequence of sin [death] and not out of sin itself; and so, that the work of Christ had only an indirect relation to sin. But such an interpretation would not be just either to Athanasius or to the other Greek Fathers.” Ibid., p. 43.
[49] Four Discourses Against the Arians, II, 69, p. 386 in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV, Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, editors (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1957).
[50] Aulen, op. cit., p. 44. See also p. 149.
[51] Ibid., p. 18. See Adolph Harnack, History of Dogma (London: Williams & Norgate, 1896), pp. 274-275. Return to endnote 43
[52] For a discussion of the distinction between spiritual death and physical death and the problems connected therewith, see Leon Morris, The Wages of Sin (London: The Tyndale Press, 1954). See also the section in Chapter 1 of this book titled, ” Death.”
[53] Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, Chs. 3-4, pp. 57-59. Athanasius is scriptural in this regard. See Romans 5:12 and I Cor. 15:21, 22.
[54] Ibid., Ch. 11, pp. 65-66. Cf. also Ch. 5, p. 60. As we saw in the section of Chapter 1 titled, ” Death and Sin,” the last phrase of Romans 5:12, “because of which [death] all sinned” (ERS), indicates that spiritual death is the cause of this personal sin of Adam’s descendants. See also I Cor. 15:56; Gal. 4:8; Eph. 4:18-19.
[55] Aulen, like most theologians, does not distinguish between reconciliation and propitiation; propitiation is not the reconciliation of God. See the section ” Why Christ died” later in this chapter.
In the early church, the dominant theme is that of victory, Christus Victor, Christ the Victor. Salvation is the deliverance of man from the evil powers which hold him in bondage by the victory over them that Christ accomplished through His death and resurrection. In the early church, this victory is usually treated as being accomplished through a ransom paid to the Devil, and that the theory of the atonement embodying this idea has been called “the ransom theory.” Since in one form or another this theory was held by most of the early church fathers, it has often been called “the patristic theory.” And because this theory was more widely held in the Eastern Church than in the Western Church, it has also been called the “Eastern” or “Greek” view to distinguish it from the “Western” or “Latin” view, which Anselm later more fully developed.
Gustav Aulen in his book Christus Victor puts forth a view of the atonement in the early church that he calls the “the classic idea” of the atonement. He calls this view “the classic idea,” because he is convinced that it was the oldest and truest theory of the saving work of Christ. He describes it as “dramatic” since the chief characteristic of this idea of the atonement is a dramatic Divine struggle, conflict and victory. He also calls it “Christus Victor“, since “Christ – Christus Victor – fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the ‘tyrants’ under which mankind is in bondage and suffering, and in Him God reconciles the world to Himself.” [1] But Aulen rejects the ransom theory as the dominant theory of the atonement in the early church. Concerning Irenaeus (c.175-c.195 A.D.), Aulen says,
“But though the thought of the victory of Christ over the Devil occurs very frequently in Irenaeus, it is not so dominant a theme with him as with some of the later Greek Fathers, and it is not elaborated with anything like the same wealth of imagery. In particular, the realistic imagery which became exceedingly common later on is almost absent from Irenaeus; there is only a trace in him of the theme of the Deception of the Devil, which became to some of the other Fathers a subject of engrossing interest.” [2]
Aulen also rejects the “juridical” interpretation of Irenaeus that the element of justice in Christ’s victory over the Devil was required by the justice of God and hence Christ’s act of redemption had satisfied God’s justice or righteousness. Concerning this misinterpretation, Aulen says:
“The statement which is sometimes made, that Irenaeus is here propounding a ‘juridical’ doctrine of the Atonement, shows a complete misconception of his meaning. The real point is rather to be expressed as follows. Irenaeus has two different ways of expressing the righteousness of God’s act of redemption. According to the first, the devil cannot be allowed to have any rights over men; he is a robber, a rebel, a tyrant, a usurper, unjustly laying hands on that which does not belong to him. Therefore it is no more than justice that he should be defeated and driven out… But at the same time Irenaeus also exhibits the righteousness of God’s redemptive work, by showing that in it He does not use mere external compulsion, mere brute force, but acts altogether according to justice. ‘God deals according to justice even with the apostasy itself.’ For man after all is guilty; man has sold himself to the devil.” [3] But “Irenaeus shrinks from the assertion which some of the later Fathers are prepared to make, that the devil has gained, in the last resort, certain actual rights over man; he is restraind by his sense of the importance of maintaining, against the Gnostics, that the Devil is a robber and a usurper. Yet the underlying idea is present; the ‘apostasy’ of mankind involves guilt, and man deserves to lie under the devil’s power. In his reply he [Irenaeus] goes no further than to say that God acts in the way ‘that befits God’; even with the devil God deals in an orderly way. To call this a juridical doctrine of the Atonement is nonsense. Irenaeus’ real meaning would be more truly expressed by saying that God observes ‘the rules of fair play.'” [4]
Thus Aulen dismisses the juridical interpretation of Irenaeus and rejects the view that the juridical doctrine of the Atonement is present in his soteriology. The Ransom Theory of the Atonement was developed in the Eastern Greek speaking church and orignated very early in Alexandria in Egypt. In expounding Christ’s saving work, Clement of Alexandria (c.155-c.220 A.D.) “speaks of Christ’s laying down His life as a ransom (lutron) on our behalf, redeeming us by His blood, offering Himself as a sacrifice, conquering the Devil, and interceding for us with the Father.” [5] But these are conventional phrases and do not express the Ransom Theory of the Atonement. But it is Origen (c.185-c.254 A.D.) who raises the question to whom the ransom was paid, and denies that it was paid to God, affirming that it was paid to the Devil. Origen asks:
“But to whom did He give His soul as a ransom for many? Surely not to God. Could it, then, be to the Evil One? For he had us in his power, until the ransom for us should be given to him, even the life (or soul) of Jesus, since he (the Evil One) had been deceived, and led to suppose that he was capable of mastering that soul, and he did not see that to hold Him involved a trial of strength (thasanon) greater than he was equal to. Therefore also death, though he thought he had prevailed against Him, no longer lords over Him, He (Christ) having become free among the dead and stronger than the power of death, and so much stronger than death that all who will amongst those who are mastered by death may also follow Him (i.e. out of Hades, out of death’s domain), death no longer prevailing against them. For every one who is with Jesus is unassailable by death.” [6]
Christ’s death, Origen declares, [7],
“not only has been set forth as an example of dying for religion, but has effected a beginning and an advance in the overthrow of the evil one, the Devil, who dominated the whole earth”.
From the moment of His birth, Christ’s life was a conflict with the powers of darkness. [8] His passion and resurrection signified their final defeat. Origen appeals to Col. 2.15
(“He [Christ] disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumping over them in it [the cross].”)
as proving that the Savior’s death has a twofold aspect, being both an example, and also the trophy of His victory over the Devil, who in effect was nailed to the cross with his principalities and powers. Kelley says that Origen’s
“underlying idea seems to be that the Devil, with whom death is identified, deluded himself into imagining that he had triumphed over Christ, but his seeming triumph was turned to defeat when the Savior rose from the grave.” [9]
Origen speaks of Jesus as delivering up His soul, or life, not indeed to God, but to the Devil in exchange for the souls of men which the Devil had claimed as his due because of their sinfulness. The Devil accepted the exchange, but he could not hold in his clutches Jesus, Who proved to be stronger than death, and the Devil was thus cheated of his victim. But it should be noted here that Origen, while he uses to the fullest the idea of ransom, he thinks much more in terms of Christ’s victory over the Devil than of any actual transaction with him. [10] Culpepper says,
“To Origen it was Christ’s resurrection on the third day that turned Christ’s death into victory over death and him who has the power of death, the devil.” [11]
Origen’s severe critic, Methodius of Olympius (d. c.311), following Irenaeus, viewed Christ as the new Adam because Christ assumed human nature and, just as all died in the first Adam, so they are made alive in the second. It was fitting that the Devil should be defeated and that the judgment of death which the Devil had brought on the human race was annulled through the very man he had originally deceived. Methodius virtually identified Christ with Adam. He actually says that it was appropriate that the only-begotten Logos would unite Himself with the first-born of men, Adam. In Methodius’ view the Lord’s humanity is the instrument by means of which He disclosed the resurrection of the flesh. More important in his view than the conquest of sin and death on the cross is the fact that the Logos “took to Himself this suffering body in order that … what was mortal might be transformed into immortality and what was passible into impassibility”. [12] It is clear that Methodius saw that salvation was primarily from death to life, resurrection of the dead. The Ransom Theory seems to be almost totally absent from his theory of Christ’s death.
The Ransom Theory seems also to be totally absent in soteriology of Athanasius (c.296-373 A.D.). In his early treatise On the Incarnation of the Word, Athanasius argues that through the transgression of Adam the race of men became subject death’s power, and on this account death has legal rights over all men. But God’s purpose for creating man cannot come to naught; for His love for the fallen race persists in spite of the judgment of death upon them. Therefore the Word becomes man, that he may restore to life that which had been lost; for this was the one possible way, that Life, the Life of God, should enter into the world of men and prevail over death. In one place in his treatise [13], Athanasius asks whether God could have adopted some other way than that of the Incarnation, and he replies that for the gaining of salvation it might well have been sufficient that man should repent. Athanasius writes:
“So here, once more, what possible course was God to take? To demand repentance of men for their transgression? For this one might pronounce worthy of God; as though, just as from transgression men have become set toward corruption, so from repentance they may once more be set in the way of incorruption. But repentance would, firstly, fail to guard the just claim of God. For he would still be none the more true, if men did not remain in the grasp of death; nor, secondly, does repentance call men back from what is their nature – it merely stays them from acts of sin. Now, if there were merely a misdemeanor in question, and not a consequent corruption, repentance were well enough. But if, when transgression had once gained a start, men became involved in that corruption which was their nature, and were deprived of the grace which they had, being in the image of God, what further step was needed? or what was required for such grace and such recall, but the Word of God, which also at the beginning made everthing out of nought? For his it was once more both to bring the corruptible to incorruption, and to maintain intact the just claim of the Father upon all. For being Word of the Father, and above all, he alone of natural fitness was both able to re-create everything, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be ambassador for all with the Father.” [14]
If the only problem had been that of sin and not of corruption and death as the consequence of the sin of man, repentance would be sufficient; but since through sin men had lost the Divine image, and become subject to death, on this account the Word must come and deliver them from the power of corruption.
“And thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty of the corruption of death he gave it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father — doing this, moreover, of his loving-kindess, to the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in him, the law involving the ruin of men might be undone (inasmuch as its power was fully spent in the Lord’s body, and had no longer holding ground against men, his peers), and that, secondly, whereas men had turned toward corruption, he might turn them again to incorruption, and quicken them from death by the appropriation of his body and by the grace of the resurrection, banishing death from them like straw from the fire.” [15]
In Athanasius’ discussion of the reason for the incarnation, the ransom theory that Christ’s death was a ransom paid to the Devil plays no part. It was Gregory of Nyssa (330-c.395 A.D.) who affirmed that the Devil had a just claim over man, since through the fall man had voluntarily placed himself under the Devil’s power. Like Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa asserts that God would not use violence in redeeming man from the Devil; for if He had done so, then man would not have been justly redeemed. So then to redeem man, God paid the Devil, who was man’s owner, all that he asked as the redemption price for his property. The Devil was dazzled by Christ’s miracles.
“When the enemy saw the power, he recognized in Christ a bargain which offered him more than he held. For this reason he chose him as the ransom for those whom he had shut up in death’s prison.” [16]
But the Devil was deceived because the deity of Christ was veiled in flesh. Using a crude metaphor, Gregory compares the Devil to a hungry fish who is caught on the hook of Christ’s deity when he is enticed to swallow it by the bait of Christ’s flesh. [17] Gregory raises the question [18] as to whether God was justified to deceive the Devil. Gregory concludes that it was both just and good. It was just because the deceiver reaped what he had sowed, being himself deceived. It also was good because in it God had a good purpose, which was the redemption of the Devil as well as man.
“By the principle of justice the deceiver reaps the harvest of the seeds he sowed with his own free will. For he who first deceived man by the bait of pleasure is himself deceived by the comouflage of human nature. But the purpose of the action changes it into something good. For the one practiced deceit to ruin our nature; but the other, being at once just and good and wise, made use of a deceitful device to save the one who had been ruined. And by so doing he benefited, not only the one who had perished, but also the very one who brought us to ruin. For when death came into contact with life, darkness with light, corruption with incorruption, the worse of these things disappeared into a state of nonexistence, to the profit of him who was freed from these evils.” [19]
Gregory of Nazianzus (330-389 A.D.) rejected the idea that a ransom was paid to the Devil or to God. The whole conception of rights belonging to the Devil and of the Son of God being handed over to him was subjected to an extremely damaging critque by Gregory of Nazianzus. He says,
“It is worth our while to examine a point of doctrine which is overlooked by many but seems to me deserving examination. For whom, and with what object, was the blood shed for us, the great and famous blood of God, our high-priest and sacrifice, outpoured? Admittedly we were held in captivity by the Devil, having been sold under sin and having abdicated our happiness in exchange for wickedness. But if the ransom belongs exclusively to him who holds the prisoner, I ask to whom it was paid, and why. If to the Devil, how shameful that that robber should receive not only a ransom from God, but a ransom consisting of God Himself, and that so extravagant a price should be paid to his tyranny before he could justly spare us!” [20]
Kelley comments,
“Gregory went on to show that Christ’s blood was not, strictly speaking, a ransom paid to God the Father either, since it is inconceivable that He should have found pleasure in the blood of His only Son. The truth rather is that the Father accepted it, not because He demanded or needed it, but because in the economy of redemption it was fitting that santification should be restored to human nature through the humanity which God had assumed. As for the Devil, he was vanquished by force.” [21]
Then Gregory goes on to explain the atonement under the category of sacrifice.
How are we to evaluate the ransom theory? The use of such crude imagery of the fishhook and the mouse trap, employed by Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine, respectively, are certainly repulsive. But the biblical term “ransom” (lutron or antilutron) was used by Jesus (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45) and Paul (I Tim. 2:6) to indicate the means by which redemption was obtained. We are set free or delivered from the slavery of sin by means of the death of Christ. And it is meaningless to ask to whom the ransom is paid that effects our redemption. According to Paul, Christ redeemed us from the slavery to sin.
“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the deliverance from our sins, according to the riches of his grace.”
(Eph. 1:7 ERS; see also Col. 1:14; Titus 2:14).
The New Testament writers never says that the ransom was paid to the Devil. But the Christus Victor theme that Christ through his incarnation, life, death and resurrection wins for us a decisive victory over all the evil powers which hold man in bondage – to sin, death, and the Devil – is certainly biblical.
“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.” (Heb. 2:14-15).
Aulen is to be thanked for recalling our attention to this biblical theme. But this theme should not to be identified with the Ransom Theory of the Atonement.
ENDNOTES FOR “THE RANSOM THEORY OF ATONEMENT”
[1] Gustav Aulen, Christus Victor (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1951), 4.
[5] Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 183. Footnote 5 on page 183 gives the following references to Clement. “Quis div. 37, 4; paed. 1, 5, 23; 1, 11, 97; 3, 12, 98; protr. 11, 111; 12, 120.”
[6] Commentary on Matthew XVI, 8; Aulen, op. cit., p. 49. In footnote 13, Aulen says, “Translation from Rashdall, p. 259. where the Greek is printed in full.”
[7] Contra Celsius 7, 17. Quoted by Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 185.
[8] Ibid., 1, 60; 6, 45; hom. in Luc. 30; 31.
[9] Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 185. He refers to Origen, Commentary on Matthew XIII, 9.
[10] Commentary on Matthew XVI, 8; see Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 185-186.
[11] Robert H. Culpepper, Interpreting the Atonement, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1966), 76, paraphasing Origen, “Commentary on Matthew,” XIII, 9, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. IX, p. 480.
[12] Methodius, On the Resurrection. 3, 23, 4. see Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 187-188.
[13] Anthanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, ch. 7. LCC, III, 61. The translation and text is found in The Library of Christian Classics, Vol. III, The Christology of the Later Fathers (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, first published, MCMLIV). [Hereafter The Library of Christian Classics is referred to as LCC.]
[16] Gregory of Nyssa, “An Address on Religous Instruction,” Chapter 23. LCC, III, 300.
[18] Ibid., Chapter 26, 302-303.
[20] Or. 45, 22. Quoted by Kelley, p. 383.
[21] Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, 383-384.