Doctrine of Christ (part 11)

November 12, 2011     Time: 00:45:52

We have been talking about the work of Christ and completed, last time, a survey of the biblical material with respect to the death of Christ. Although perhaps at this time of year, as we celebrate Christmas, it might seem more appropriate to be thinking about the person of Christ – the doctrine of the incarnation, the deity and humanity of Christ – nevertheless, the work of Christ is intimately bound up with Christmas as well because you’ll remember the name given to the boy that would be born of Mary was “Jesus” – “Yahweh is salvation” – because he will save his people from their sins. So already in the enunciation of the birth of Christ you have reference to his work as the savior of the world saving us from our sins.

Theories of Atonement

How is it that Christ’s death is salvific in this way? What is it about Christ’s death that would be saving? Well, down through church history there have been various theories of the atonement that have been offered. There isn’t any sort of universal credal position of the Christian church on a theory of the atonement. We have, for example, credal positions on the doctrine of the Trinity or on the two natures of Christ. But there isn’t any credal position on a theory of the atonement. We know that Christ died for our sins according to Scriptures to reconcile us to God. But how does this happen? Let’s survey some of the theories of the atonement that have been offered down through church history.

Christus Victor / Ransom Theory

The first that we want to mention is the so-called Christus Victor theory or sometimes called the Ransom theory. This was the earliest theory of the atonement, which was prevalent among the early church fathers such as Irenaeus, who died about AD 200 and thus one of the earliest and most influential of the church fathers. Also, Origen and Augustine were proponents of this theory, as well as some of the later church fathers. According to this theory, man, by reason of his fall into sin, was in bondage to Satan. He had now become enslaved to Satan and his power in virtue of his fallenness. Christ, in order to rescue man from this fallen sinful condition, became incarnate. God became a man himself, and as a man he was offered as a ransom – he offered his life as a ransom – to buy back man from his fallen condition and so rescue mankind. An analogy would be if terrorists took possession of a planeload of innocent passengers and were holding them captive and the United States government, say, offered some sort of deal – perhaps arms sales or some other sort of cash ransom – in order to get these people back from the terrorists who had captivated them. That would be an analogy to what goes on here in the Ransom theory. Christ is offered as a sort of payment, or ransom, in order to buy back fallen humanity. Origen thought that this ransom was actually paid to Satan himself – that Satan was the object of the ransom. He was the one who had taken man captive, and so Christ is paid to Satan.

The motivation biblically behind this theory were passages like Mark 10:45, which we looked at, where Jesus says that “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”1 So a biblical foundation for this view could be found in the teaching of Jesus himself who portrays his own death – the death of the Son of Man – as a ransom. Paul also says in the pastoral epistles that there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus who gave his life as a ransom for many2. So there is biblical warrant for this view of making Christ a sort of ransom payment to buy back humanity.

But here is the trick to this theory: Satan had no rights over Christ. Christ, being divine, could not be held in bondage by Satan, and therefore God, in a sense, pulled a fast one on Satan. Satan took Christ as the ransom payment, freeing his captives – mankind is set free –, but then Christ himself could not be held by sin and death. God raised Christ from the dead, thereby breaking the bonds of death, hell, and sin and tricking Satan, so that Satan’s power was broken by the power of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. One of the church fathers compares Jesus Christ to a fish hook that is hidden within the bait, and Satan comes along like a big predator fish, thinking here’s a juicy morsel that I am going to have lunch on, grabs onto it and doesn’t realize that there is a hook inside! And thereby Satan himself is caught by God because Christ could not be held captive. So he gets away as well, and Satan is left with nothing – he has neither his human captives nor can he hold Christ because Christ is victorious – hence the title Christus Victor – Christ is the victor over Satan, death, hell, sin, and so forth. This view of the atonement was very, very widely held among the church fathers right up until the time of the Middle Ages.

Discussion

Question : This was the view of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe3 wasn’t it?

Answer : That’s interesting, I’ve never thought of that before! You are thinking of how Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia was slain by the wicked witch.

Followup : Traitors belonged to the White Witch, and so Aslan says, “I’ll trade myself in their place, so Aslan becomes yours.” Then she slays Aslan, but the problem is she didn’t have any claim over him, so he came back to life.

Answer : Yeah, I had never made this connection before, but that is very interesting. So you think Lewis was deliberately reflecting this Ransom theory in the Chronicles of Narnia in the way Aslan redeems the creatures that are under the power of the witch.

Followup : Yeah, when I saw it in the movies I thought “Christus Victor right there!”

Answer : Wow! OK, well, thank you! That is very interesting. Good critical listening and viewing skills there!

Question : The way I had heard it explained before as to why the ransom had to be paid to Satan was that when Adam, who had ruled the world at that time by God’s decree, obeyed Satan – he gave his power to Satan, and that’s why the debt was owed that way.

Answer : Right, it is not just our individual sin that puts us in Satan’s power, but there is this fall of man that takes place through Adam’s sin. That’s right. It puts him in Satan’s thrall.

Question : Would this mesh well with the strong man that is talked about in Matthew 12:29?

Answer : That is the verse where Jesus says that you must first come and bind the strong man before you take possession of his goods, isn’t that right?4 I suppose that could be appealed to here. Satan would be the strong man that must be bound. Certainly there are all these motifs in the New Testament where Jesus does defeat Satan and does triumph over sin and death and hell. Certainly there are lots of passages that could be interpreted in light of this view, I think.5

Question : I have some issues with the Ransom theory, one of them being it almost seems like God is playing a game with Satan and dangling Christ in front of him. That doesn’t really sit too well with me. I believe that we give Satan too much credit sometimes – we deify him. In fact, we are enemies of God – we are saved from God’s wrath. We are not saved from Satan because God controls Satan and all of his minions. We need to remember that. Satan’s power is very limited. I also wanted to say one thing – if you see what Christ says in John 10:17-18,

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again; this charge I have received from my Father.

 

That does not sound like somebody that is being ransomed. When you are ransomed, you are held against your own will, you are held in bondage, and someone has to come make payment for you. Christ is saying here he has on his own authority he is laying his life down and by his own authority he takes it up again.

 

Answer : I thought your first point was a good one; but on these verses I could well see, I think, how this could be interpreted by the proponent of the Ransom theory – that Christ voluntarily offered himself as a ransom. He would be like that figure in the Tale of Two Cities who substitutes himself for the prisoner and goes to the guillotine so the prisoner can go free. He lays his life down on his own accord. So I think a Ransom theorist could affirm these verses with a clear conscience. In fact, the idea that “I have the power to take it again” could be interpreted as the point that I was making that Satan couldn’t hold Christ. Christ can offer himself as a ransom, but he couldn’t be held because he has the power to take his life again.

Followup : But are we really saved from Satan or are we saved from God’s wrath?

Answer : Well, now, see, I think that is a good point! In offering these theories, obviously, you’ve seen our pattern how we do this in the past. We save critique until later. This isn’t to endorse the Ransom theory. You are thinking right about it – do we want to say that? Certainly your point is well taken, that Scripture does say that we were enemies of God. Even while we were enemies, Christ died for us, Paul says. So the question would be does the Ransom theory fully do justice to the biblical data that we have surveyed over the last several weeks? I think we can agree it does capture elements in the Scripture, but does it do a full job? That remains to be seen.

Question : Can you compare this with the Penal Substitution theory?

Answer : I will do that when we get to the Penal view later on. I want to do this in chronological order. We will hit that view later.

Question : Christ was with God in the beginning. God was there, and the Word was with him. Satan wasn’t always Satan – he was Lucifer before, an angel. So he probably knew Christ before he came down in the form of man. Even if Satan is very prideful and thus thinks he is greater than God – he’s smart, that’s obvious. Why would he have fallen for this? He knew that God was more powerful.

Answer : You know, we talked about this the other day in some other connection. I forget... oh, it was in regard to the temptations! How could Satan attempt to tempt Jesus into worshiping him and so forth if he understood that he (Jesus) was divine? What I suggested then is that it is not really clear from Scripture that Satan did understand who Jesus of Nazareth was. It is not clear that he understood the incarnation, that he was apprised of the fact that he was dealing with someone who was more than a human being here. That could be relevant as well here. That is why he was able to be tricked. Remember Paul says, I think it is in 1 Corinthians 2:8, where he says none of the rulers of this world (referring, I think, to these principalities and powers) understood this, for if they had they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. That represents this as being something they didn’t fully comprehend in allowing Jesus to go to the cross and ultimately triumph over the principalities and powers.6

Followup : Another thing. We see it through the story of Job that all Satan wants is human souls. That is always what he is grabbing for – as many people that he can drag down with him before God comes back and casts him down. So why does he give up millions, if not billions, of people for one? Why does he give us up?

Answer : Yeah, that is a good question. I don’t know if the theory addresses that. That would be a good question for the proponents of the theory. Obviously, there would have to be something special about Christ, which would kind of go against what I just said a moment ago! For example, that he was God’s Son or something of that sort. Maybe the fact that he was the Messiah. I don’t know. I think you are raising some difficult questions for the theory.

Question : I was wondering who Augustine said that the ransom needed to be paid to. You said Origen...

Answer : Yeah, Origen held to that.

Followup : What about Augustine?

Answer : I am not sure. I do not know if that is in Augustine. It is in Origen. I do not want to attribute to every proponent of the Christus Victor view the idea that the object of the atonement was Satan.

Followup : What else would be the object? God’s punishment?

Answer : You could think that somehow the ransom is paid to God maybe. But that is where, then, the theory starts to get a little bit difficult. I think that one of the difficulties with the theory is this idea that it makes the object of the atonement Satan rather than God, and so that is one of the difficulties, I think, with it.

Question : Not to belabor the point but it also says in the Bible that the demons recognized him, Christ, for who he was. But then we were just saying that potentially Satan didn’t.

Answer : You are thinking of James? Well, what does James actually say? “Do you believe that God is one? The demons also believe and shudder,”7 right? I don’t think that that says that they understood the incarnation.

[some off-mic conversation, referring Dr. Craig to Luke 8]

OK. Someone is saying the Gadarene demoniacs – they say, “Why have you come here, Jesus? We know who you are, Son of God, and you are going to throw us in the abyss.”8 Again, that isn’t necessarily a recognition of the deity of Christ, so much as perhaps the recognition that he was God’s anointed Messiah. That depends on how much theological freight you lay into titles like “the Holy One of God” and things of that sort. It is not clear, I think, that people using it at that time would have understood that to be a recognition of his deity. I think that it is very conceivable that these demons understood he was God’s anointed, he was the Messiah, he was going to be the savior. But that they understood this was the second person of the Trinity, I think that is really reading a lot in between the lines.

Question : Quick question about . . . Do you think it is possible . . . I mean, obviously Satan is a very powerful being and stuff, but do you think it is possible that he could almost lie to himself and kind of have this kind of wishful thinking of defeating God? Even if he knew that Christ was the Messiah or was divine that he could kind of have this “Maybe I can find some way, maybe I am powerful enough,” etc.

Answer : I think that you raise a good question of the psychology of self-deception and rationalization. It is true that people can convince themselves about lost causes, that they can carry it out. If you read Milton’s Paradise Lost, he presents Satan as a figure that knows, in a sense, that this is all futile, that he can’t win, but he does it anyway because he would rather reign in hell than bend the knee to God. So Milton’s Satan is in a sense this kind of figure. Here we are going way beyond the biblical text; that is not wrong, but I just think here we have to recognize we are on uncertain ground and therefore not be dogmatic.9

Question : I don’t believe we were ever in bondage to Satan. I think we were in bondage to sin. The reason we are having problems with this is we are talking about an inexact metaphor. Satan is kind of a metaphor for sin, and in fact he facilitated it in the Garden of Eden. The verses that say that he gave himself as a ransom for many is also a metaphor. You can’t offer a ransom literally to a state of mind or will which is what sin is. It is a revolt against God. You can’t really offer a ransom to that.

Answer : OK. I hear your point. Let me just see if I can find a passage in Timothy that maybe would give some basis for thinking that we have been in bondage to Satan. Here is the one I was thinking of: 2 Timothy 2 is talking about the qualifications for those who are the Lord’s servants. 2 Timothy 2:25-26: “God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” Now that would seem to lend some basis for thinking that we are not just in bondage to the state of affairs of sin but have actually been captured by the devil to do his will.

Followup : But you could interpret it as, what is the snare of the devil? I would argue that perhaps that is sin and he is using sin. There is no question Satan wants to use sin to ensnare us and to defeat God’s purpose and cause the fall of man. But as far as actually in bondage to him, all he can do is facilitate our sin – he has no power over us. He is a created being.

Answer : All right. I don’t know. It seems to me that this verse might provide some basis for thinking that he does; but, all right, we take your point.

Question : On the work of Christ – I was recently witnessing to someone, and I shared this with you, and you made quite an insightful comment. I was sharing the ransom theory and the Gospel with him and he says, “Well, what’s the big deal? God can do anything. What’s the big deal that he raised himself from the dead, so what? He can do anything. It would have been better had he stayed dead. That would have been a sacrifice.” And you said to me, “Sounds like he has been talking to a Muslim!” And you were absolutely correct. It just blew me away because Muslims are getting to him, and I would like for you to expound on that.

Answer : Well, I am not exactly sure what more to say except that in the Muslim view of Jesus, even though they affirm that Jesus was Messiah, they do not affirm that he died on the cross. The Qur’an says, “They did not kill him, neither did they crucify him, but it was only made to appear to them that it was so.” They deny that Christ was crucified and killed. Then of course they deny the resurrection because a precondition of the resurrection is the crucifixion and execution. So, for them, Christ is the Messiah but there is no role for a redemptive death on our behalf for the work of Christ in Islam. He is just a prophetic figure and not, therefore, a redemptive figure, as he is for Christians.

Followup : The only answer I could give him was the fact that, had Christ not risen from the dead, we would still be dead in our sin.

Answer : Yeah, the Ransom Theory would fit very well with why he had to rise because that is what broke the power of Satan and sin and hell. He didn’t stay dead; he came back and therefore defeated those who had taken mankind captive.

Question : It seems that if you look at Genesis 3:14, the first thing that God did after mankind sinned and fell is to curse the serpent. He said from the seed of a woman would come forth one that would crush his head. That was God’s ultimate plan all the way through to defeat the works of Satan, but it was a process ongoing. Even when you see Jesus and Satan in the debate after he was in the desert, Satan offered him everything he could give him – his kingdom, everything – if he would just bow down to him.10

Answer : Certainly, I think we will all agree there are elements of the Ransom Theory that we will all want to affirm, like the victory of Christ over Satan, his victory over death and hell, how the bonds of death cannot hold him, and so forth. Certainly there are elements of it that we will want to affirm.

Satisfaction Theory

Let me go to the next theory, however, which was developed as an alternative to and a critique of the Christus Victor theory. This is the Satisfaction Theory developed by St. Anselm in the Middle Ages. This is the same Anselm, by the way, who enunciated for the first time the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. Anselm also developed an important theory of the atonement.

On Anselm’s view, sin dishonors God by denying him what is rightly his. God, as the greatest conceivable being – the perfect being – deserves worship, and he deserves honor and majesty because of who he is. And when we sin, we dishonor God by robbing him of the glory and the majesty that he rightly deserves. As a result, Anselm says, man has rendered an infinite offense to God’s majesty and honor. Therefore, this would require an infinite compensation or (the key word here) satisfaction. There would need to be an infinite satisfaction or compensation offered to God for this offense that man has rendered to him.

This notion of satisfaction is a subtle one that is related to the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance. So let’s say a word about that to try to understand how the Satisfaction Theory works. In Roman law – that is to say the law of the Roman Empire – in private law, satisfaction refers to the amends that one makes for failure to discharge an obligation that one has. In private law, according to Rome, if you have a certain obligation to someone that you are supposed to render and you fail to meet your obligations, then you owe a satisfaction to that person. This is a sort of way of making amendment for failing to meet your obligations. In public Roman law, this could also be a form of punishment. The satisfaction might be a punishment that would be inflicted on the person in order to make these amends. Now the church father Tertullian picks up this term satisfactio and introduces it into Christian theology.

Tertullian introduces the term satisfactio or “satisfaction” into Christian theology. It has reference to this sacrament of penance. In the context of the church, satisfaction refers to a reparation for sins which are committed after baptism. When you are baptized, all of your sins are washed away that you have heretofore committed. But when you begin to commit sins after baptism, then there needs to be rendered some sort of satisfaction for those sins to make amends for them. So penance comprises two subordinate elements. First is confession, where you have to go confess your sins to God. There are certain elements that need to make up confession such as contrition and so forth. And then following confession would be this idea of rendering satisfaction. These will make up the penance that is offered for these sins.11 The satisfaction is not a way of earning forgiveness with God. You confess your sins and God forgives you. But it is sort of like a reparation that you make to God that will be comparable to the sin that you have committed. It will be proportionate to the seriousness of the sin that you’ve committed. This satisfaction is a sort of way of making amends or reparation.

So mankind, according to Anselm, finds itself in a situation of having sinned against God and thereby having dishonored him and robbed him of glory and now owing this infinite debt to God. So while man can confess his sins, he still owes God this infinite satisfaction. God, for his part, confronted with sinful mankind can either choose to annihilate mankind because that is what they deserve or else he can provide some sort of satisfaction for them. Since human beings are incapable of rendering this infinite satisfaction to God, it has to be done for them on their behalf. And so that is why God becomes a man, according to Anselm. God takes on human flesh, becomes a human being, and lives a perfect life, a sinless life, before God in which he gives God all his due (the glory and majesty and honor due to God). Therefore, Christ owes no obligation, no satisfaction, to God for himself because he has not incurred any debt. He is not obliged to go to the cross and die for his own misdoings because he hasn’t done anything wrong. So when Christ offers to die to render satisfaction for us, the merits of his death and what he does accrue to our benefit. Christ offers an infinite satisfaction to God on our behalf. Therefore, through the death of Christ, God’s honor and majesty and glory are restored, proper amends are made, and therefore forgiveness and reconciliation with God is now possible through the death of Christ.

Eventually, this theory had the unfortunate consequence of leading to the notion of a sort of “treasury of merit” that was accrued by Christ and then also by certain saints that the church could then dispense to people who, say, gave beneficiary gifts to build a church or other things to the church.12 That led to the abuses against which Martin Luther protested, where people were essentially buying their way into heaven by giving gifts that would then allow them to tap into this treasury of merit. But that is to add to the theory later on. If we stick with just Anselm, we don’t have that element and therefore the theory needs to be assessed in the form in which Anselm gave it.

Discussion

Question : First of all, the premise that we robbed God of glory seems to strike me as odd because how could we rob God of something that is rightfully his? I can understand owing him a debt from our sin, but actually robbing him of his glory seems strange to me.

Answer : Let me explain what I meant when I said that. I don’t mean that God, himself, becomes any less glorious. Obviously, that is an intrinsic attribute of God. What I meant was, one doesn’t ascribe to God the worship and honor and adoration that we should. That is what I meant. Not that God, himself, somehow becomes less glorious as a being. I meant that man fails to render to God all that is his due.13

Followup : Secondly, when you were talking about and introduced satisfaction – the idea of Christ’s sacrifice being an atonement for your sins up to the point of salvation but then everything afterward you would have to make an amends for – would that not render Christ’s blood insufficient for all your sins?

Answer : If that is what he were saying, it would render Christ’s death and blood insufficient. But I think it is important to understand that is not what the Catholic Church or Anselm believes. It is not as though Christ’s death is sufficient for all of the sins that you commit up to baptism, and then after that you have got to make it on your own. The idea here of satisfaction is not that this earns God’s forgiveness; but it is just a way of putting things right. It is an expression of the genuineness of your confession and contrition, and it is like making amends or making reparation. So, for example, if I stole something from Bob, it wouldn’t be enough for me just to confess to Bob that “I was wrong, and I’m terribly sorry, please forgive me!” and Bob would say, “Yes, I forgive you for stealing that.” I’d also have to give it back, right? I have to give reparation. So it is kind of like that. It is that you are making amends here, but it is still going to be the blood of Christ that is the basis for your forgiveness. The idea here of penance isn’t that you earn your salvation by your satisfaction; it is more the idea of reparation or amendment.

Followup : But the Psalms tell us that “Lord, if there were a sacrifice that I could make, surely I would bring it, but you don’t take pleasure in offerings. You take pleasure . . . the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart.”14 So actually it seems to me that saying you’re sorry and repenting in your heart and then turning from your misdeeds is what the only thing that God requires.

Answer : Yeah, well, I can tell you are not a good Catholic! In the Catholic view of penance, you need to have some sort of satisfaction to go along with the confession.

Followup : It seems to make the sinner feel better, not necessarily what God requires. It makes us feel better to do something tangible.

Answer : Yeah, that is true, it certainly does. But on the Catholic view, this really does help to make amends. It is like doing – I keep coming back to the same words again – it’s like reparation or restitution: things that you want to make it right and you want to show the depth of your contrition and your sincerity by doing something like that. But we are not here to assess the truth of the doctrine of penance. Let’s just hold that as a background for understanding the Satisfaction Theory – although, if you don’t like that doctrine, then maybe you are going to have trouble with the Satisfaction Theory as well. Maybe it will appear inadequate in that light.

Question : It seems like Hebrews 2:9 would cover, would answer, elements of both of these. It says “by the grace of God that he tastes death for every man.” I understand this and present this that in Christ he tasted . . . God suffered his own alienation in Christ. He suffered what it was like to be separated from himself. That is wrapped up in a package for us. That is the gift of eternal life. We accept that and the separation is removed because he tasted . . .

Answer : Hebrews 2:9: “that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.” Now let me say something about that because this will help us to understand Anselm’s view. You interpreted that verse in terms of Christ’s substitutionary death – that he dies as sort of a substitute for you and me and everyone. That is not Anselm’s view. This Satisfaction Theory doesn’t have this idea of substitution in it. It is more like this debt that we possess and that Christ comes along and he pays this debt for us. He gives the satisfaction that we can never manage to give.15 But it doesn’t have this substitutionary death element in it in a very central sense. That will be one of the features of the penal theory of the atonement that was mentioned a moment ago, which the Protestant Reformers want to bring to the front and center – this idea of Christ’s death as substitutionary in nature. That really isn’t central or a part, perhaps even at all, of this satisfaction view. It is done for us, but it is not as though he is a substitute.

Followup : But it seems like that is what the essence of salvation is . . .

Answer : If that is true, then this theory won’t adequately handle the biblical data, if you are right about that. That is going to be a question.

Question : Romans 8:1 addresses this – there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ. Because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.

Answer : All right, how are you taking that or interpreting that here?

Followup : There would be no need for this penance.

Answer : Oh! Well, now, look in verse 1 of chapter 8; he says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus . . . .

Followup : It seems like in this theory and even in the Catholic religion, what they have to do in their confession and their Hail Mary’s (I don’t know the Catholic religion that well) it seems like they suffer some condemnation.

Answer : No, I think that would be unfair, frankly. I do think that would be unfair. As I said, this idea of satisfaction isn’t a way of getting out from under condemnation. It isn’t something you do to release yourself from sin or to pay for your sin. I think that is a misrepresentation. Your sins are covered by Christ’s death and the grace that you receive from him. But this is a way of expressing to him your sincerity of your confession by doing something to make amends for the wrongs that you’ve done. But it is not salvific in that sense, I don’t think. But again I don’t want to get into an assessment of the sacraments of the church. I share that simply by way of background understanding Anselm’s idea of satisfaction. This is different than the Protestant substitutionary atonement view that we are used to. It is easy to read Anselm through Protestant lenses, but that is not really his own position.

Question : [just a long comment explaining this person’s thinking that there are things we don’t understand yet, how Christ’s death works towards our atonement being one of them, and you just need to rest with contentment and Christ will unseal them to you in your life and in his will.]

Answer : OK.16

That completes our first two theories of the atonement. What we want to do next time is to talk about the Protestant Reformers’ theory of the atonement which is called, usually, the Penal View, after the term for punishment, like a penal system – the Penal Theory of the atonement. And then some more modern theories of the atonement such as the Moral Influence Theory and the Existential Theory of atonement.17

Notes

1 5:04

2 cf. 1 Timothy 2:5-6

3 A reference to the first fantasy novel in the Chronicles of Narnia series, written by Christian author C.S. Lewis.

4 The actual reading is “Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.” (RSV)

5 9:55

6 15:11

7 cf. James 2:19

8 cf. Luke 8:26-33, Matthew 8:28-32, Mark 5:1-13

9 20:11

10 25:25

11 30:17

12 This was known as the “selling of indulgences”

13 35:02

14 This is referring to Psalms 51:16-17.

15 40:12

16 45:09

17 Total Running Time: 45:51 (Copyright © 2012 William Lane Craig)