Soteriology: 3 Views Of The Atonement

There is a savior for forgiveness. There is a way out of the wilderness. This is a journey that can be made, pain after pain, event after event, joy and sorrow, peace and unsettled, despair and ecstasy, knowledge after knowledge, humbled into pieces, reception of Christ Jesus, and reconnection born after, ever burdened by sin after sin, carrying the incredible weight of distance from his presence, but promised something we cannot see, taste, or touch, yet believing and hoping, against all odds, and on the way changing the world, sharing that fountain with others, day after endless day, eyes to the horizon, head in the clouds, feet on the ground, stunning and shaken, screaming in sadness, victorious shout, endless eternity awaiting those who can just hold out to the end. Great happiness to those who finish this journey. That's what it means to me.. being a Christian.

Today we are talking about soteriology, that is, the study of salvation. And in particular we are talking about the atonement today. We are talking about what happened at the end, when Jesus was judged as guilty, beaten, chained, and made to carry a hunk of wood to a dump to be executed.

I want to get you a general overview of the issues in the concepts of salvation that are prominent in evangelical Christianity. But ultimately I want to get to what this looks like for you practically. Essentially, we can boil down soteriology to the question: What does it mean to saved? What does it mean to possess salvation?

And for salvation, we must ultimately look to what happened at the cross of Jesus Christ. What was it about this event that was able to bring salvation to so many billions of people through history and to today?

There are three primary views within evangelicalism, they are first, penal substitutionary atonement, second, Christus Victor, and third, The Moral government view. Let’s go through these views one by one, and I think you’ll each of them portrays a good angle of what happened that fateful day.

Moral government view – This view suggests that the chief reason for the cross and how it impacts us, is for the purpose of “showing righteousness.” The idea here is that God’s wrath is shown at the cross, to show us how deadly the evil of sin is. The chief verse often used to defend this view is Romans 3:25-26 which says, “25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26 for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.”

So this view is that God displays his own total authority over humanity and the world, and displays the truth that the universe is fundamentally moral. Every decision we make matter. So Christ’s death on the cross shows us the sinfulness of sin and the incredible value of righteousness. That is one perspective.

Christus victor view- This view suggests that the chief reason for the cross was for Christ to defeat Satan and all the works of the evil one.

This view suggests that the chief reason that Jesus came into the world was to overthrow the kingdom of Satan, for the scriptures say that this world is under the control of the evil one. You see that Jesus often cast out demons from people, and they see this is God’s kingdom program moving forward slowly but surely and defeating and pushing back the kingdoms of darkness. And the ultimate defeat of Satan’s kingdom was the cross and the resurrection of Jesus.

So they would see that authority over the world used to belong to Adam and Eve, but they sinned, and gave their authority to Satan, who ruled over the world until Jesus came, died and was resurrected and by so doing “disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them on the cross.”

So Christ’s victory on the cross sets us free from slavery to the evil one’s kingdom, slavery to sin, and slavery to death.

Penal substitutionary atonement view – This is probably the most common view, that Jesus Christ went to the cross because each of us individually owed a debt because of our sins, that we could not repay. We lived lives of sin and stood condemned before God. So Jesus Christ, the son of God came, and lived a perfect life, the sinless life none of us could live. And paradoxically, Jesus took the penalty for our sins. That’s why it’s called penal, penal refers to the penalty for sin. Jesus took our penalty for sin on the cross when he was slaughtered and God abandoned him to receive punishment for our sins. So penal, substitutionary in that Jesus stands in as a willing substitute for us. We were guilty of sin, deserved hell and punishment. But Jesus stepped in and offered himself as a substitute to be punished in our place. Penal Substitutionary atonement. Atonement, in that when Christ was punished for our sins on the cross, he atoned for our sins, he paid off the debt, and thus we are rendered perfect by Jesus. Our guilt is gone, our sin is gone, Jesus deleted it on the cross, and he rose from the dead as a display of what he will do for us after we day, raise us from the dead and give us eternal life. Jesus takes our sin, deletes it on the cross, and Jesus transfers his righteousness, his perfect life onto us, that’s why its called the great exchange. And that’s why in revelation it’s always pictured as the saints standing before the throne in white garments. That white garment is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that we wear in this life.