Theories of the Atonement Compared: Four Views of the Cross

When Christians talk about the cross, we usually agree on the facts. Jesus died, He was buried, and He rose again on the third day. But when we start to ask why Jesus had to die, and what His death actually accomplished, the agreement quickly falls apart. That is where the theories of the atonement come in. Over the centuries, Christians have offered several ways of explaining how the death of Jesus brings us back to God. Some focus on a legal payment and some on the example of love. Others focus on a ransom, or on a victory over the powers of evil.

This matters more than it might seem. The way we understand the cross shapes the way we see God. If the cross shows a God who needed blood before He could forgive, we will think of God one way. If the cross shows a God who gave Himself to rescue us from sin, death, and the devil, we will think of Him in a very different way. So in this post I want to compare four of the main theories of the atonement and look at what each one gets right. Then I will explain why I believe one of them best reveals the God we see in Jesus Christ.

Why Theories of the Atonement Matter

Before we look at the theories, it helps to remember that the fact of the atonement is more important than any explanation of it. C. S. Lewis made a similar point in Mere Christianity. Christians are not saved by holding the right theory. We are saved by the One who died and rose again. Every theory is a human attempt to put words to something that is bigger than our words. So we should hold our theories with some humility, and we should be willing to learn from each of them.

But that does not mean all theories are equally helpful. Each theory of the atonement carries a picture of God inside it. And the picture we hold of God affects how we pray, how we read the Bible, and how we treat other people. If we believe God was angry and had to be appeased, we will tend to approach Him with fear. If we believe God was never against us, but came in Jesus to rescue us, we will approach Him with trust. So the question is not merely academic. It is about the character of God.

It also helps to think about the word itself. Many people say that “atonement” means “at-one-ment,” the idea that the cross makes God and humanity one again. There is truth in this. But I believe the cross does not so much repair a broken relationship from God’s side as reveal that God never left our side at all. As Paul puts it, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them” (2 Cor 5:19). The movement is from God toward us, not from us toward God.

Penal Substitution: The Most Popular Theory of the Atonement

The view that most evangelical Christians hold today is penal substitutionary atonement. It goes by several other names as well, such as the satisfaction view and the vicarious view. Scholars draw fine distinctions between them. The basic idea is that God is holy and just, and so He must punish sin. Since we have all sinned, we all deserve death. But in His love, God sent Jesus to take the punishment we deserved. Jesus died in our place, the wrath of God was poured out on Him, and now God can forgive us because the penalty has been paid.

This theory has real strengths. It takes sin seriously. It also takes seriously the many texts which say that Jesus died for us and in our place. Isaiah writes that “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities” (Isa 53:5). Paul writes that God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21). Any theory of the atonement that ignores the idea of substitution will not do justice to Scripture. Its roots are usually traced to Anselm of Canterbury in the eleventh century. The Protestant Reformers later gave it the penal shape most people know today.

But penal substitution also raises troubling questions. If God must be paid before He can forgive, then He is not actually forgiving anything. Forgiveness and payment are opposites. When a debt is paid, nothing is left to forgive. The theory also has God paying Himself, since Jesus is God. And it suggests that the Father needed violence and blood before He could love sinners. That sounds more like the angry gods of the ancient world than the Father whom Jesus revealed. Many people have walked away from Christianity because they could not worship a God who needed to kill His Son before He could forgive. I explain more of my concerns in Good God, Bad God.

The Moral Influence Theory

A second view is the moral influence theory, sometimes called the exemplary love view. It is often associated with the medieval theologian Peter Abelard. In this view, the cross does not change God’s mind about us. Instead, it changes our mind about God. When we see Jesus willingly lay down His life, we are moved to repent, to love God, and to love others in the same way. Jesus Himself said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13). John adds, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us” (1 John 4:10).

There is something beautiful about this view. Jesus did give us an example to follow, and He told His disciples that people would know them by their love for one another (John 13:34-35). Any good theory of the atonement should include the example of Jesus. But on its own, the moral influence theory does not go far enough. It assumes that what humans need most is a good example, when Scripture says we are enslaved to sin and cannot free ourselves. An example cannot set a prisoner free. And if Jesus is mainly an example, then He becomes one more great teacher among many.

There is also a practical problem. If our hope depends on following the example of Jesus well enough, then none of us has much hope at all. So while I believe we should include the insight of this theory, I do not believe we should adopt it as our explanation of the cross.

The Ransom Theory

A third view is the ransom theory. It builds on the words of Jesus, who said that He came “to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Paul also says that Jesus “gave Himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:6). Humanity was held captive, and Jesus paid the price to set us free. Some early church writers went further and asked who received the payment. Since humanity was held captive by sin and the devil, some of them answered that the ransom was paid to Satan.

This view correctly sees that we needed to be rescued from captivity. But it runs into problems as soon as we ask who was paid. If the ransom was paid to God, then the ransom theory simply turns into penal substitution. If the ransom was paid to the devil, then God owed something to Satan, which gives the devil far too much power. I believe the better answer is that a ransom in Scripture does not always require someone to receive a payment. When the prophet speaks of “the ransomed of the Lord” returning to Zion (Isa 35:10), the point is the deliverance, not a transaction with a captor.

Christus Victor and the Non-Violent View of the Atonement

This brings us to the view I hold, which is a non-violent form of the Christus Victor view. Christus Victor is Latin for “Christ the Victor.” In this view, the cross is not where God poured out His wrath on Jesus. It is where Jesus defeated the powers that held humanity captive. The Swedish theologian Gustaf Aulén argued in his book Christus Victor that some form of this victory view was the main way the church spoke about the cross for many centuries. Whether or not that is entirely right, the theme of victory is everywhere in the New Testament. Jesus took on flesh “that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb 2:14).

The non-violent part matters too. In this view, God did not kill Jesus. People did. Jesus was handed over by religious leaders and executed by the Roman state. The violence of the cross was our violence, not God’s. And yet, while people did their worst to Him, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). So the cross does not show us an angry God who needs to be satisfied. It shows us a loving God who takes our violence upon Himself and answers it with forgiveness. I have written more about why God appears violent in Scripture even though He is not.

How Jesus Defeats Sin, Death, and the Devil

First, the cross defeats sin by exposing the lies that sin tells us about God. Sin tells us that God is angry with us, that He is disgusted by us, and that we must pay Him back before He will accept us. At the cross, God reveals that none of these is true. Second, the cross defeats death. Throughout history, people have tried to deal with their guilt by blaming and killing others. Jesus became the final victim of that pattern. His blood “speaks better things than that of Abel” (Heb 12:24). Abel’s blood cried out for vengeance, but the blood of Jesus cries out for forgiveness.

Third, the cross defeats the devil. The word “devil” means accuser, and the devil has always accused us before God and before one another. But at the cross, Jesus wiped out the record that stood against us. Paul writes that “having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it” (Col 2:15). The accuser has nothing left to say. And notice that this view keeps the strength of substitution. Jesus really did die for us and in our place. But He did not die to absorb the wrath of God. He died to rescue us from sin, death, and the devil.

Comparing the Theories of the Atonement

So how do the theories of the atonement compare? Penal substitution rightly sees that Jesus died in our place, but it pictures a God who must be paid before He can forgive. The moral influence theory rightly sees the cross as an example of love, but it does not free us from slavery to sin. The ransom theory rightly sees that we were held captive, but it gets tangled up in the question of who was paid. The non-violent Christus Victor view keeps what is best in each of these. It includes substitution, example, and ransom, but it places them inside the bigger story of God rescuing His people.

I think of it like a prison break more than a payment. In penal substitution, Jesus pays the fine so the judge can let us go. In Christus Victor, Jesus breaks into the prison where we have been held captive, throws open the doors, and leads us out. This fits what Jesus said about His own mission, that He came “to proclaim liberty to the captives” (Luke 4:18). The cross is not a payoff. It is a rescue. For more on how this changes everything else we believe, see 10 ways the non-violent God changes your theology.

This also changes how we think about substitution. Jesus does take our place. I have argued that we should think of Him as the substitute God. He took the place of the false and violent gods we had made in our own image. When we look at the cross, we do not see God venting His anger. We see what God has always been like. And this is good news, because it means we never needed to be afraid of Him.

Going Deeper into the Atonement of God

If you have always believed penal substitution, some of this may feel unsettling. That is all right. Many people have felt the same way when they first began to question what they had been taught about the cross. But I encourage you to keep reading Scripture with Jesus at the center. If Jesus shows us exactly what God is like, then the cross is not a picture of divine wrath. It reveals a God who would rather die than stop loving us. Greg Boyd and I have also discussed some of these questions in this exchange about the blood of Jesus.

I cover all of this in more detail in my book, The Atonement of God: Building Your Theology on a Crucivision of God. The first part of the book looks closely at each of the theories of the atonement. The rest of the book shows how a non-violent view of the cross changes the way we understand God, Scripture, sin, forgiveness, justice, and violence. If this post raised more questions than it answered, the book is a good place to go next. Get The Atonement of God on Amazon and discover the God who looks like Jesus.