1. Introduction

This is a book about the relationship between the death of Christ and atonement for sin. Its controlling question is, How is it that Christ’s death atones for our sins? In attempting to address this question, we are immediately confronted with the problem that the word “atonement” and its cognates are ambiguous, having two very different meanings.

The word “atonement” derives not from Greek or Latin, as is the case with most theological terms in English, but rather from Middle English; namely, the phrase “at onement,” designating a state of harmony. The closest New Testament (NT) word for atonement in this etymological sense is katallagē or reconciliation, specifically reconciliation between God and man. Paul characterizes the apostolic vocation in just such terms:

When William Tyndale produced the first English translation of the NT from the Greek in 1526, the etymological meaning of “atonement” as “at-onement” was clear in his rendering of 2 Corinthians 5:18-20. “The ministry of reconciliation” was “the office to preach the atonement” (5:18), and the call “to be reconciled to God” was to “be at-one with God” (5:20).

The concept of being in harmony with God is not uniquely expressed in the NT by katallagē, however. As I. H. Marshall explains, words like “reconciliation,” “justification,” “redemption,” and “salvation” all refer to the state of believers that results from God’s salvific action through Christ.

How is reconciliation with God achieved? Paul believed that it was through Christ’s death on the cross that we obtained reconciliation with God: “We were reconciled to God through the death of his Son” (Rom 5:10; cf. Col 1:19-22). But how does the death of Christ achieve the reconciliation of condemned sinners with God? Here we confront a quite different sense of the word “atonement,” which is expressed by the Hebrew and Greek words typically translated by the English words “atonement” or “to make atonement.” In the Old Testament (OT) “atonement” and its cognates translate words having the Hebrew root kpr. The Greek equivalent in the Septuagint (LXX) and NT is hilaskesthai. To “atone” in this sense takes as its object impurity or sin and has primarily the sense “to purify, to cleanse.” As we shall see, in Paul’s thinking, Christ’s death was a sacrificial offering to God, akin to the Levitical animal sacrifices described in the OT, which cleansed us from sin, thereby reconciling us with God. While the result of atonement in this narrow sense (cleansing of sin) may be said to be atonement in the broad sense (reconciliation with God), nevertheless the biblical words translated “atonement” or “to atone” need to be interpreted in the narrower sense if we are to understand correctly the meaning of the kpr- and hilas- texts.

We may say, then, somewhat paradoxically, that atonement (in the broad sense) is achieved through atonement (in the narrow sense). Theological treatments of atonement in German enjoy a decided advantage in this regard over treatments in English. In German theological vocabulary, Versöhnung (reconciliation) is distinguished from Sühne (expiation of sin). Hence, one may say without confusion that Versöhnung is achieved through die Sühne. But the English word “atonement” is ambiguous, having, as we have seen, two very different meanings.

First, penal substitution is not usually intended by its proponents to be one’s entire atonement theory but just a central facet thereof. Theologians have often noted the multiplicity of metaphors and motifs characterizing the atonement found in the NT. The doctrine has been aptly compared to a multifaceted jewel. Sacrifice, ransom, governmental and judicial motifs, moral influence, and so on are all facets of a full atonement theory. Hence, it is not so important if certain motifs, like Christ’s life or the Holy Spirit’s role, feature more prominently in some facets of the atonement than in others. Together they build a full-orbed atonement theory.

But second, and more fundamentally, Stump’s indictment of penal substitutionary theories fails to take sufficient cognizance of the crucial ambiguity concerning the meaning of the word “atonement.” Theologically, the traditional doctrine of the atonement is focused on atonement in the narrow sense. In Protestant Scholasticism Christ was thought to discharge the three offices of prophet, priest, and king, and his atoning death was a function of his priestly office. But Stump defends a theory of reconciliation (Versöhnung) that does not feature atonement (Sühne) at its core. She wants to investigate how it is that sinners may come to enjoy union with God. Stump signals her broader etymological use of “atonement” by employing in her opening chapter the expression “at onement.” Her book turns out to be primarily not about Christology but about soteriology and, especially, pneumatology. The Holy Spirit displaces Christ as the central figure in her account of achieving union with God. The death of Christ plays a relatively minor role in her theory of at onement, and atonement in the narrow sense no role at all.

According to Stump, the problem that the atonement of Christ is intended to solve in order to enable everlasting union between God and fallen human persons includes three elements:

It is striking that the theory of the atonement articulated by the Protestant divines is intended to address none of these problems! The closest would be (2), except that Stump speaks here not of the removal of guilt, which is, indeed, the object of Christ’s atonement, but rather of the effects of guilt on the psyche of the wrongdoer and the effects of sin in the world. Seen in this light, Stump’s book is not a book about the atonement (Sühne) at all. She and the Reformers are simply addressing different problems. This is not to say that the Reformers did not have much to say about regeneration, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, infused grace, and so on, but just that these topics did not belong to the doctrine of the atonement but to soteriology and especially pneumatology. It is no indictment of theories of the atonement in the narrow sense that they do not address problems about achieving at onement in the broad sense of union with God, problems that are addressed in other loci of the theological curriculum.

In our investigation of the atonement, we are primarily interested in how Christ’s death served to atone for sin (and so with atonement in the narrow sense), thereby facilitating our reconciliation with God. The role of Christ’s death in achieving atonement for sin and, hence, reconciliation with God is central to the NT. The message of the NT is that God, out of His great love, has provided the means of atonement for sin through Christ’s death on the cross. By his death on the cross, Christ has thus made possible the reconciliation of alienated and condemned sinners to God. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Thus, “the cross” came to be a metaphor epitomizing the Gospel message, such that Paul could call the Gospel “the word of the cross” (1 Cor 1:18), reminding his Corinthian converts that “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). Hence, Paul would glory in nothing “except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal 6:14).

The importance of the death of Christ for the NT church may be seen in the disproportionate space that the four Gospels devote to Jesus’ so-called passion, the final week of his suffering and crucifixion, thereby emphasizing his death. Of course, Jesus’ death is not the end of the passion story: the Gospels all conclude with the proclamation of Jesus’ victorious resurrection, vindicating him as God’s chosen one. The death and resurrection of Jesus are two sides of the same coin: he “was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom 4:25).

Paul quotes the earliest summary of the Gospel message, a four-line formula dating to within five years of Jesus’ crucifixion, reminding the Corinthian believers:

and that he was buried,

and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. (1 Cor 15:3-5)

This is the message, Paul says, that was proclaimed by all the apostles (1 Cor 15:11), and it is the message that dominates the NT.

The first line of the pre-Pauline formula encapsulates in a pithy way the NT doctrine of the atonement. Christ is said to have “died for our sins” (1 Cor 15:3), just he is said to have been “put to death (or delivered up) for our trespasses” (Rom 4:25). How is it that Jesus’ death dealt with our sins? How did his death on the cross overcome the estrangement and condemnation of sinners before a holy God, so as to reconcile them to Him? This is the central question concerning the NT doctrine of the atonement.

In handling this question we should distinguish between the doctrine of the atonement and a theory of the atonement. The NT teaches explicitly that Christ died for our sins, thereby achieving our reconciliation with God. But a bewildering variety of theories of the atonement have been offered to make sense of the fact that Christ by his death has provided the means of reconciliation with God. A theory of the atonement will seek to explicate how Jesus’ death served to remove the obstacle of sin separating us from God.

As we shall see, in contrast to the church’s handling of the doctrines of the Trinity and incarnation, no ecumenical council ever pronounced on the doctrine of the atonement, leaving the church without conciliar guidance as to acceptable theories of the atonement. Competing atonement theories will therefore need to be assessed by (1) their accord with biblical teaching and (2) their philosophical coherence.

With respect to (1), the NT has a great deal to say about Christ’s atoning death on our behalf, and any theory of the atonement aspiring to be Christian must make peace with these biblical data. Many theories of the atonement offered by post-Enlightenment theologians—such as Schleiermacher, Ritschl, Bushnell, Campbell, and so on—do not fare well when judged by this criterion. One might hope that a better result might be fostered through the renaissance of Christian philosophy among Anglo-American philosophers in our day. Unfortunately, however, the work of contemporary Christian philosophers on the doctrine of the atonement has been largely uninformed by biblical exegesis. Theories of the atonement are usually laid out based on the way in which reconciliation is typically achieved in human relationships. If the biblical texts are discussed at all, it is only after a theory of the atonement has been formulated, which is then read back into the biblical texts. Not only does such a methodology risk distortion because of the enormous disanalogies between merely human relationships and divine-human relationships, but more fundamentally it runs the risk of developing a theory of the atonement that, however congenial, just is not a Christian theory of the atonement because it does not accord with the biblical data. Such an approach to the biblical texts is eisegesis, not exegesis. So flawed a hermeneutic will not deliver to us the meaning of the author of the text but only our own preconceived views. Because the biblical data concerning the atonement are so often neglected by Christian philosophers, it is imperative that we begin our investigation with a survey of some of the key biblical motifs.

But we must not stop there if we are to engage in serious systematic theology. With respect to criterion (2), theologians too often draw up short when it comes to reflecting philosophically on the doctrine of the atonement so as to arrive at a clear and defensible theory of the atonement. A recent volume of collected essays in defense of a biblical atonement doctrine entitled The Glory of the Atonement well illustrates this shortcoming. The first sentence of the book informs us, “The analytic philosopher A. J. Ayer argued that a strong case could be made that of the world religions, Christianity was the worst” because it rests, in Ayer’s words, on “the allied doctrines of original sin and vicarious atonement, which are intellectually contemptible and morally outrageous.” Remarkably, none of the contributors to the book attempts to respond to Ayer’s challenge, nor are any of them philosophers. Rather, the book’s contributors view the atonement respectively from the angles of the Bible, church history, and the Christian life, leaving us to conclude that this intellectually contemptible and morally outrageous doctrine is, indeed, taught by the Bible, espoused by the church, and worked out in practical Christian living.

“The Bible is enough for our saving faith,” advises P. T. Forsyth, “but it is not enough for our scientific theology.” Anyone familiar with the history of the doctrine of the atonement knows that since the time of Faustus Socinus in the sixteenth century the doctrine of the atonement has been a battleground of theology. Given the widespread criticism of traditional atonement theories, it will not do simply to reassert in glowing terms the traditional doctrine or to glory in logical paradox. Rather, what is needed is a defense of the coherence and morality of one’s theory of the atonement using the best tools of philosophical analysis and argumentation. Only then will one’s theory of the atonement commend itself to thinking men and women today.

So in the investigation to follow, we shall study the atonement from three angles: In part 1 we shall make an effort to understand the biblical data concerning Christ’s atoning death. In part 2 we shall survey some of the highlights of premodern historical theology concerning the atonement with a view toward understanding the outlines of various traditional atonement theories. Finally, in part 3 we shall reflect philosophically on what we have learned in order to articulate options for a coherent and morally acceptable theory of Christ’s atoning death. The subject is a difficult one, and therefore we may make the Psalmist’s prayer our own: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD” (Ps 19:14).