Over the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the most important ways Christians have understood the atonement — what it was God was doing in Jesus of Nazareth ‘for us and for our salvation’ — throughout history. Now it’s time to put some of the pieces together and offer some concluding thoughts. The atonement is … Continue reading Atonement through the Ages: Final Thoughts
In Friday’s post, we looked at the atonement perspective known as substitutionary atonement. We saw how it carried on with St. Anselm’s innovations in the doctrine, and pushed them further. It’s a perspective that focused on God’s justice, the seriousness of the problem of sin, and the great lengths God would go to resolve that … Continue reading Christ Our Victim: Nonviolent Atonement
Today’s Gospel reading is the Parable of the Bridesmaids (traditionally better known as the Parable of the Foolish Virgins). Whenever I see it in the lectionary, I consider it like the sounding of a gong: it’s telling us that Advent is just around the corner, and that we’d better be ready. This is a passage … Continue reading Eyes Open: A Reflection on Matthew 25.1-13
Today we come to what is undoubtedly the most well-known and popular perspective on the atonement in Christianity today, substitutionary atonement, the belief that on the cross, Jesus took on himself the punishment from God that we deserved. It’s so common that for many contemporary Christians, questioning it is tantamount to questioning the faith itself. … Continue reading Christ our Substitute
In today’s post in this series on the history of the doctrine of atonement in Christianity, we turn primarily to the thought of one man, St. Anselm of Canterbury, an eleventh-century theologian whose thought revolutionized Western ideas on the subject. For the first thousand years, Christians had always conceived the problem of sin in a … Continue reading Christ Our Satisfaction: Satisfaction and Government
Matthew Root 