back
05 / 06

On the Organic Connection Between Jesus' Atoning Death and Resurrection

William Lane Craig

“On the Organic Connection between Jesus’ Atoning Death and Resurrection.” In Raised on the Third Day, pp. 89-104. Ed. W. D. Beck and M. R. Licona. Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2020.
Download PDF

Summary

Jesus’ death and resurrection are often said to be two sides of the same coin. Jesus’ resurrection serves as a divine vindication of Jesus’ radical personal claims and of the efficacy of his atoning death. But there is a much more organic connection between Jesus’ death and resurrection Because Jesus by his penal substitutionary death satisfied completely God’s justice, he cannot continue to endure punishment for sin. Since the penalty of sin is death, he must be raised from the dead.

ON THE ORGANIC CONNECTION BETWEEN

JESUS’ ATONING DEATH AND RESURRECTION

Introduction

Penal substitution in a theological context may be defined as the doctrine that God inflicted upon Christ the suffering which we deserved as the punishment for our sins, as a result of which we no longer deserve punishment.[1] Theories of the atonement in which penal substitution plays a central role focus quite properly on Jesus’ death as the means by which atonement for sins is achieved. The message of the NT is that God, out of His great love, has provided the means of atonement for sin through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross.

The predominant motif used in the NT to characterize the atonement is the portrayal of Jesus’ death as a sacrificial offering to God on our behalf. Joel Green provides a pithy summary:

In their development of the saving significance of Jesus’ death, early Christians were heavily influenced by the world of the sacrificial cult in Israel’s Scriptures and by the practices of animal sacrifice in the Jerusalem temple. . . . The expression ‘Christ died for all,’ widespread in this and variant forms throughout the NT (e.g., Mk 14:24; Rom 5:6, 8; 15:3; Gal 2:21; 1 Pet 3:18), is thematic in this regard, as are references to the salvific effects of the blood of Christ (e.g., Acts 20:28; Rom 5:9; Col 1:20). Jesus’ death is presented as a covenant sacrifice (e.g., Mk 14:24; 1 Cor 11:25; Heb 7:22; 8:6; 9:15), a Passover sacrifice (e.g., Jn 19:14; 1 Cor 5:7-8), the sin offering (Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 5:21), the offering of first fruits (1 Cor 15:20, 23), the sacrifice offered on the Day of Atonement (Heb 9-10), and an offering reminiscent of Abraham’s presentation of Isaac (e.g., Rom 8:32). The writer of Ephesians summarizes well: ‘Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God’ (Eph 5:2).[2]

Thus, “the cross” came to be a metaphor epitomizing the Gospel message, such that Paul could call the Gospel “the word of the cross” (I Cor 1.18), reminding his Corinthian converts that “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (I Cor 2.2). Hence, Paul would glory in nothing “except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal 6.14).

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:

I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:

that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,

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 (I Cor 15. 3-5).

This is the message, Paul says, that was proclaimed by all the apostles (I 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.

The importance of the death of Christ for the NT church may be seen in the disproportionate space which 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: as Paul wrote, he “was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom 4.25).

A common criticism of penal substitutionary theories is that due to their myopic focus on Jesus’ death as the means of atonement, his resurrection seems to be a superfluous add-on. What does it mean to say, for example, that he was “raised for our justification”? How is his resurrection connected with our justification? Had Christ not been raised, he still would have “borne our sins in his body on the tree” (I Pet 2.24), thereby expiating our guilt. Just as the Levitical animal sacrifices offered in the Tabernacle and Temple, which NT writers see as a type of Christ, did not require the revivification of the sacrificial animal in order to be efficacious in achieving atonement, so Christ’s self-sacrificial death seems to have no organic connection with his resurrection, according to penal substitutionary theories.[3]

By contrast, on other atonement theories like the Christus Victor model Jesus’ resurrection is vitally connected with his victory over Satan, death, and hell. According to this theory, Christ by means of his death and resurrection delivered mankind from bondage to Satan and from the corruption and death which are the consequences of sin.[4] What Satan did not realize in claiming Christ’s life was that Christ, as the second person of the Trinity, could not be held by him. Raising Christ from the dead, God defeated Satan, leaving him without captives. Irenaeus explains,

But inasmuch as God is invincible and long-suffering, He did indeed show Himself to be long-suffering in the matter of the correction of man and the probation of all, as I have already observed; and by means of the second man did He bind the strong man, and spoiled his goods, and abolished death, vivifying that man who had been in a state of death. For at the first Adam became a vessel in his [Satan’s] possession, whom he did also hold under his power, that is, by bringing sin on him iniquitously, and under colour of immortality entailing death upon him. For, while promising that they should be as gods, which was in no way possible for him to be, he wrought death in them: wherefore he who had led man captive, was justly captured in his turn by God; but man, who had been led captive, was loosed from the bonds of condemnation (Against Heresies 3.23).

On the Christus Victor model Jesus’ resurrection is organically connected with his death as the means of God’s achieving victory. By contrast, for all its superiority as an account of how forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God are achieved,[5] the theory of penal substitution seems to lack any tight connection between Jesus’ atoning death and resurrection. Given that Paul connects the two, this poses a challenge for penal substitutionary atonement theorists.

The Connection between Jesus’ Atoning Death and Resurrection

Multi-Faceted Atonement Theories

Now in a certain sense the above criticism is unfair. For penal substitutionary theorists are not typically myopically focused on penal substitution, as though it were the entirety of one’s atonement theory. Theologians have often remarked on the multiplicity of metaphors and motifs characterizing Christ’s atonement found in the NT.[6] The biblical doctrine of the atonement may be aptly compared to a multi-faceted jewel, each facet contributing to the beauty of the whole gem. The various facets of a gem are transparent to and refracted in one another, thereby increasing the brilliance and beauty of the whole. 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 Jesus’ resurrection, are more organically connected to some facets rather than to others. Together they build a full-orbed theory.

A complete atonement theory may, and I think should, include both the motif of Christus Victor and penal substitution, as did, for example, Augustine’s account. For Augustine Christ did not conquer Satan simply by power (through his resurrection) but also, and more profoundly, by righteousness (through penal substitution). “He conquered the devil first by righteousness, and afterwards by power: namely, by righteousness, because He had no sin, and was slain by him most unjustly; but by power, because having been dead He lived again, never afterwards to die” (On the Trinity 13.14.18).

This raises the question, “What, then, is the righteousness by which the devil was conquered?” The answer: “What, except the righteousness of Jesus Christ?” (13.14.18). The further question then arises: “And how was he conquered?” Augustine answers,

Because, when he found in Him nothing worthy of death, yet he slew Him. And certainly it is just, that we whom he held as debtors, should be dismissed free by believing in Him whom he slew without any debt. In this way it is that we are said to be justified in the blood of Christ. For so that innocent blood was shed for the remission of our sins (13.14.18).

The initial answer, more superficial, seems to be that Christ conquered through righteousness in that he, being righteous, was unjustly treated by Satan. But this answer would not suffice to explain how we are freed from our just desert and forgiven of our sins by believing in him. The deeper answer is therefore that “innocent blood was shed for the remission of our sins.”

Here we connect with the motif of penal substitution. The principalities and powers could justly demand our death as the penalty for sin. But Christ’s innocent death was undeserved and could therefore serve as a sacrifice that removes sin and obviates its penalty: “we, indeed, came to death through sin; He through righteousness: and, therefore, as our death is the punishment of sin, so His death was made a sacrifice for sin” (4.12.15). God’s love is proved in that Christ should, “without any evil desert of His own, bear our evils” (13.10.13).

In his treatise Against Faustus Augustine makes explicit his affirmation of Christ’s being substitutionally punished. He says, “Christ, though guiltless, took our punishment, that He might cancel our guilt, and do away with our punishment” (Against Faustus 14.4). He interprets Gal 3.13 to mean by “curse” the punishment of death which is due for sin.

as He died in the flesh which He took in bearing our punishment, so also, while ever blessed in His own righteousness, He was cursed for our offenses, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment. . . . The believer in the true doctrine of the gospel will understand that Christ is not reproached by Moses when he speaks of Him as cursed, not in His divine majesty, but as hanging on the tree as our substitute, bearing our punishment (Against Faustus 14.6-7).

Augustine says, “The curse is pronounced by divine justice, and it will be well for us if we are redeemed from it. Confess then that Christ died, and you may confess that He bore the curse for us” (Against Faustus 14.7).

Comparing the conquering of Satan by power and by righteousness, Augustine reflects,

It is not then difficult to see that the devil was conquered, when he who was slain by Him rose again. It is something more, and more profound of comprehension, to see that the devil was conquered when he thought himself to have conquered, that is, when Christ was slain. For then that blood, since it was His who had no sin at all, was poured out for the remission of our sins; that, because the devil deservedly held those whom, as guilty of sin, he bound by the condition of death, he might deservedly loose them through Him, whom, as guilty of no sin, the punishment of death undeservedly affected (13.15.19).

Here we find an admirable integration of the motifs of Christus Victor and penal substitution. Christ bore undeservedly the punishment of sin that we deserved, namely, death, so that by his death our sins are remitted. This is how he through righteousness achieves victory over the devil. Augustine muses that God’s power is more greatly manifested by raising Christ from death than by preventing his death; but that is not the reason why God permitted Satan to so afflict Christ. “But the reason is really a different one why we are justified in the blood of Christ, when we are rescued from the power of the devil through the remission of sins: it pertains to this, that the devil is conquered by Christ by righteousness, not by power” (13.14.18). Thus, Augustine wonderfully confesses Christ as “both Victor and Victim, and therefore Victor, because the Victim” (Augustine Confessions 10).

Ratification of Jesus’ Atoning Death

Still, it deserves to be asked if the penal substitutionary facet of one’s atonement theory might not be more directly related to Christ’s resurrection than as an indirect condition of Christ’s conquering Satan. It can be plausibly argued, I think, that the resurrection serves an evidentiary function vis à vis penal substitution in that it ratifies Jesus’ Messianic claims and so vindicates the efficacy of his atoning death. It is difficult to exaggerate how counter-cultural an image of the Messiah Jesus of Nazareth presented. The prevailing second Temple expectation was of a warrior-king who would cast off the yoke of Israel’s enemies (read: Rome), restore the throne of David in Jerusalem, and command the respect of Jew and Gentile like. Against this background the scepticism of the chief priests about Jesus of Nazareth must elicit a good deal of sympathy. It is no wonder that Mark portrays them as standing at the foot of the cross and mocking Jesus, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe” (Mk 15. 31-32). It would have seemed absurd that such a pathetic and helpless figure could have been the Messiah.

But the resurrection of Jesus showed that God had dramatically vindicated Jesus. No matter how out of the mold Jesus’ understanding of his Messiahship may have been, that understanding had been unequivocally confirmed by God’s miraculously raising him from the dead. Peter declares, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. . . . Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2. 32-36).

Jesus’ Messianic mission was therefore seen to be, not aborted by his crucifixion, but fulfilled in it. Jesus had understood his impending death in this same light. He predicted his death (Mk 10.33-34) and even provoked it by his Messianic actions in Jerusalem (Mk 11.1-10, 13-18). As he celebrated with his disciples his final Passover meal, “he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.’  Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it.  He said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many’” (Mk 14.22-24). [7] Jesus saw his death symbolized in the elements of the Passover meal. It was the blood of the Passover lamb, smeared on the doorposts of Jewish homes, that had saved the Jewish people from God’s judgement. Jesus’ blood, soon to be poured out for many, would accomplish the same purpose. The fact that the disciples then share symbolically in partaking of his body and blood shows that his death is meant to encompass them; it is a death on their behalf.

Moreover, the expression “this is my blood of the covenant”[8] recalls Moses’ words at the inauguration of old covenant, “See the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you” (Exod 24.8). The only other OT passage that mentions “the blood of my covenant with you” is Zech 9.9-12, a proclamation of the advent of a Messianic King who will restore Israel’s fortunes. Jesus the Messiah is inaugurating by his death the new covenant prophesied by Jeremiah, which would bring restoration and forgiveness of sin:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more (Jer 31.31-34).

Jesus saw his death as not merely averting God’s judgement but as expunging Israel’s sin and restoring fellowship with God.

Moreover, the words “poured out for many” hark back to Isaiah’s prophecy of the Servant of the Lord, who

poured out his soul to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors (Is 53.12).

In Lk 22.37 Jesus, on the night of his arrest, cites this very Scripture in application to himself. “For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted among the lawless’; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.” The “many” whose sin the Servant bears include the Gentiles, to whom the Servant would be a light of salvation (Is 42.6; 49.6). Jesus saw himself as the suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, who “makes himself an offering for sin” (Is 53.10). Earlier Jesus had said of himself, “the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mk 10.45).[9] The Son of Man is a divine-human figure from Daniel’s prophecy whom “all peoples, nations, and languages should serve” (Dan 7.14). In his paradoxical statement Jesus stands things on their head, declaring that the Son of Man has come in the role of a servant and, like the Servant of Isaiah 53, gives his life as a ransom for many. Only in Is 53 do we find in the OT the complex idea of a “serving” figure who, in an eschatological context, gives his life for “the many.”[10]

According to the Gospels, then, Jesus saw his death as a redemptive sacrifice, like the Passover sacrifice, and himself as a sin-bearer, like Isaiah’s Servant of the Lord, inaugurating, like the Mosaic sacrifice, a fresh covenant between God and the people. The success of his Messianic mission is ratified by God’s raising him from the dead. In the absence of his resurrection an indelible question mark would remain behind Jesus’ iconoclastic person and mission. His resurrection tells us that he was not delusional, as many believed, but was in fact the Messiah and Savior.

Resurrection and Satisfaction of Divine Justice

This is all well and good; but it remains the case that Jesus’ resurrection is thus related to the atoning work of the cross only externally. The resurrection serves as evidence of the efficacy of Christ’s atoning death, but is there a yet more organic connection between them? I think that there is.

Any biblically adequate atonement theory must include the notion of propitiation, that is to say, the appeasement of God’s just wrath against sin.[11] The source of God’s wrath is His retributive justice,[12] and so appeasement of wrath is a matter of the satisfaction of divine justice. Biblically speaking, the satisfaction of God’s justice takes place, not as Anselm thought, through compensation, but through punishment.[13] In the view of the Protestant Reformers the just desert of those outside of Christ is borne in their proper persons, whereas Christ bears the just desert of those who are united with Christ by faith.[14]

Contemporary theologians have distinguished between exclusionary place-taking (exkludierende Stellvertretung) and inclusionary place-taking (inkludierende Stellvertretung).[15] This important distinction requires a word of explanation about substitution and representation respectively. In cases of simple substitution someone takes the place of another person but does not represent that person. For example, a pinch hitter in baseball enters the lineup to bat in the place of another player. He is a substitute for that player but in no sense represents that other player. That is why the batting average of the player whom he replaces is not affected by the pinch hitter’s performance. On the other hand, a simple representative acts on behalf of another person and serves as his spokesman but is not a substitute for that person. For example, the baseball player has an agent who represents him in contract negotiations with the team. The representative does not replace the player but merely advocates for him.[16]

These roles can be combined, in which case we have neither simple substitution nor simple representation but rather substitutional representation (or representative substitution). A good illustration of this combination of substitution and representation is to be found in the role of a proxy at a shareholders’ meeting. If we cannot attend the meeting ourselves, we may sign an agreement authorizing someone else to serve as our proxy at the meeting. He votes for us, and because he has been authorized to do so, his votes are our votes: we have voted via proxy at the meeting of shareholders. The proxy is a substitute in that he attends the meeting in our place, but he is also our representative in that he does not vote instead of us but on our behalf, so that we vote. This combination is an inclusionary place-taking.

The Swiss Reformed theologian Francis Turretin believed that Christ, in bearing our punishment, was both our substitute and our representative before God. He states, “the curse and punishment of sin which he received upon himself in our stead secures to us blessing and righteousness with God in virtue of that most strict union between us and him by which, as our sins are imputed to him, so in turn his obedience and righteousness are imputed to us.”[17] This relation is not one of simple substitution; there is an inclusive union here which is the basis of the imputation of our sins to Christ and of his righteousness to us. According to Turretin, so long as Christ is outside of us and we are out of Christ we can receive no benefit from his righteousness. But God has united us with Christ by means of a twofold bond, one natural (namely, communion of nature by the incarnation), the other mystical (namely, the communion of grace by Christ’s mediation), in virtue of which our sins might be imputed to Christ and his righteousness imputed to us. Christ was punished in our place and bore the suffering we deserved, but he also represented us before God, so that his punishment was our punishment. Christ was not merely punished instead of us; rather we were punished by proxy. [18] For that reason, divine justice is satisfied.

How does it come to pass that we are so represented by Christ? As mentioned, Turretin proposed two ways in which we are in union with Christ, first, by way of his incarnation and, second, by way of our mystical union with him. Although theologians often appeal to this latter union of believers with Christ to explain the efficacy of his atonement,[19] such an account seems to be viciously circular.[20] Turretin emphasized that it is our union with Christ that is the basis of the imputation of sins to Christ and of our justification.[21] But the problem is that the mystical union of believers with Christ is the privilege only of persons who are regenerate and justified. There is here a vicious explanatory circle: in order to be in mystical union with Christ one must first be justified, but in order to be justified one must first be in mystical union with Christ. What is needed is a union with Christ which is explanatorily prior to (even if chronologically simultaneous with) imputation and justification.

Turretin’s first proposal is therefore to be preferred.[22] In virtue of Christ’s incarnation (and, I should say, his baptism, whereby Jesus identified himself with fallen humanity), Christ is appointed by God to serve as our proxy before Him. The Logos, the second person of the Trinity, has voluntarily consented to be appointed, by means of his incarnation and baptism, to serve as our proxy before God so that by his death he might satisfy the demands of divine justice on our behalf.

The Unitarian theologian Faustus Socinus, in his withering attack on the Reformers’ theory of penal substitution in his On Jesus Christ our Savior (1578)[23] had argued that Christ did not, in fact, render satisfaction for our sins, since the penalty each of us faces is eternal death, and Christ did not literally endure this (III.4). Among contemporary atonement theorists Eleonore Stump has voiced the same objection: “On orthodox theological doctrine, the penalty for sin is damnation, permanent absence of union with God. And yet it is not the case on any version of the Anselmian interpretation, even Calvin’s, that Christ suffered permanent absence of union with God, so that this variation on the Anselmian interpretation has to construct some equivalence to human damnation that Christ does undergo.”[24] It seems to me, however, that Turretin adequately responded to Socinus on this score by doing exactly as Stump suggests.[25] According to Turretin, Christ was forsaken by God the Father by His withdrawing from him the beatific vision and by suspending the joy and comfort and sense and fruition of full felicity. While Christ’s punishment was not infinite as to duration, still in its intensity it was equivalent to the eternal suffering of the damned in hell on account of the infinite dignity of the person suffering.[26] In that case, Christ could be said to suffer subjectively the same pains as the damned. Turretin says that we cannot doubt the infinite value of Christ’s satisfaction, for although his human nature was finite, the satisfaction is infinite, since it is relative to the person, who is the efficient cause and to whom the obedience and suffering are to be attributed.[27]

Herein we see the organic connection between Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection. God’s raising Jesus from the dead is not only a ratification to us of the efficacy of Christ’s atoning death; it is a necessary consequence of it. For by his substitutionary death Christ fully satisfied divine justice. The penalty of death having been fully paid, Christ can no more remain dead than a criminal who has fully served his sentence can remain imprisoned. Punishment cannot justly continue; justice demands his release. Thus, Christ’s resurrection is both a ratification and a necessary consequence of his satisfaction of divine justice.

Understanding Christ’s resurrection as a necessary consequence of his atoning death enables us to read Paul’s affirmation “Jesus our Lord. . . was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom 4.25) in a surprising new light. Commentators have puzzled over the fact that παρεδόθη διὰ τὰ παραπτώματα ἡμῶν καὶ ἠγέρθη διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡμῶν, when read with the standard meaning of the preposition διὰ + accusative, does not seem to make sense.[28] If we take διὰ to mean “on account of” or “because of,” Paul’s affirmation means that Jesus died on account of our sins and was raised on account of our justification. While Christ’s dying on account of our sins makes perfect sense on the view that Christ endured the suffering which we deserved as the punishment for our sins, it seems to make no sense to say that Christ was raised from the dead on account of our being justified. Seemingly, one would want to say quite the reverse, that our justification is on account of Christ’s being raised; because he is risen, somehow we are justified. This aporia has led many commentators to construe the two instances of διὰ + accusative in Paul’s sentence to have two different meanings, first “on account of” and then a different meaning like “with a view toward”: Christ was put to death on account of our sins and raised for the sake of our justification. But the view of satisfaction defended here enables us to read Rom 4.25 in a straightforward and univocal way: Jesus was put to death on account of our sins and raised on account of our justification.[29] The resurrection of Jesus is a necessary consequence of his satisfying divine justice for us by his atoning death.

Conclusion

The resurrection of Jesus, on a penal substitutionary understanding of the atonement, is thus organically connected with his atoning death. Not only is Jesus’ resurrection a vital part of a full-orbed atonement theory which features both Christus Victor and penal substitutionary motifs (not to mention other motifs as well), and not only is Jesus’ resurrection a dramatic divine ratification of the efficacy of Jesus’ atoning death, but the resurrection of Jesus is more directly a necessary consequence of his complete satisfaction of divine justice on our behalf. The penalty of death having been fully paid, Jesus can no longer be justly held by it: he must rise from the dead.

  • [1]

    Notice that this explication leaves open the question whether Christ was punished for our sins. Some defenders of penal substitution hold that God afflicted Christ with the suffering which, had it been inflicted upon us, would have been our just desert and, hence, punishment. In other words, Christ was not punished, but he endured the suffering which would have been our punishment had it been inflicted on us. We should not exclude by definition such accounts as being penal substitutionary theories, since Christ on such accounts suffers as our substitute and bears what would have been our punishment, thereby freeing us from punishment. These features serve to distinguish such accounts from satisfaction theories like Anselm’s. On a penal substitutionary account, in contrast to satisfaction theories, the harsh treatment deserved by sinners is still administered or vicariously endured, even if it is not punishment. For discussion of what they characterize as penal substitution theories of various strengths, i.e., the degree to which they affirm that God punished Christ, see Daniel J. Hill and Joseph Jedwab, “Atonement and the Concept of Punishment,” in Locating Atonement: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics, ed. Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2015), pp. 139-53.

  • [2]

    Joel B. Green, “Kaleidoscopic View,” in The Nature of the Atonement, ed. James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy, Spectrum Multiview Books (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2006), p. 172 [my emphases].

  • [3]

    By an organic connection I mean a natural connection, where one element flows out of the other, rather like the connection between a leaf and a branch, in contrast to the connection between a Christmas ornament and a branch.

  • [4]

    Sometimes, Church Fathers like Origen interpreted Jesus’ ransom saying (Mk 10.45) very literally to mean that Christ’s life was offered to Satan as a payment in exchange for human beings. Having secured the release of the hostages held by Satan, Christ then rose from the dead, thus triumphing over him. But not everyone agreed with Origen’s ransom model. A different version of the Christus Victor theory is to be found, especially among the Latin Fathers, according to which Christ was not given as a ransom to Satan but rather was the victim of Satan’s unjust and deadly attack. Often confused with the ransom model, this so-called “political” model of Christus Victor attributes Satan’s undoing to an overreach of authority on the devil’s part. The role of Christ’s resurrection in breaking Satan’s power remains the same as on the ransom model.

  • [5]

    The Christus Victor theory is so wanting in this respect that Albrecht Ritschl in his monumental history of atonement and justification simply passes over the Patristic period and begins his history with Anselm (Albrecht Ritschl, A Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation [1870], trans. John S. Black [Edinburgh: Edmonton and Douglas, 1872], Introduction).

  • [6]

    See Leon Morris, The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 1983); Green, “Kaleidoscopic View,” pp. 157-85; I. Howard Marshall, Aspects of the Atonement: Cross and Resurrection in the Reconciling of God and Humanity (London: Paternoster, 2007).

  • [7]

    See discussion of the authenticity and meaning of Jesus’ words by Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, trans. Norman Perrin (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966), chap. 5; Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Last Supper (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 2015), chap. 5.

  • [8]

    Paul and Luke have explicitly “this cup is the new covenant in my blood” (I Cor 11.25; Lk 22.20).

  • [9]

    For a discussion of the authenticity and interpretation of this saying, see Peter Stuhlmacher, Reconciliation, Law, and Righteousness: Essays in Biblical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), chap. 2: “Vicariously Giving his Life for Many, Mark 10:45 (Matt. 20:28),” pp. 16-29; cf. idem, “Eighteen Theses on Paul’s Theology of the Cross,” in Reconciliation, Law, and Righteousness, p. 165.

  • [10]

    Rikki E. Watts, “Jesus’s Death, Isaiah 53, and Mark 10:45: A Crux Revisited,” in Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins, ed. William H. Bellinger, Jr. and William R. Farmer (Harrisburg, Penn: Trinity Press International, 1998), p. 143.

  • [11]

    For a discussion of the biblical basis of propitiation see Morris, The Atonement, chap. 7; Marshall, Aspects of the Atonement, chaps. 1 and 2. Paul’s crowning statement concerning Christ’s atoning death (Rom 3.21-26) comes against the backdrop of his exposition of God’s wrath upon and condemnation of mankind for its sin. Something in Paul’s ensuing exposition of Christ’s death must solve this problem, averting God’s wrath and rescuing us from the death sentence hanging over us. The solution is found in Christ, “whom God put forward as a hilastērion in his blood” (3.25).

  • [12]

    Theories of justice may be classified as broadly retributive or consequentialist. Retributive theories of justice hold that punishment is justified because the guilty deserve to be punished. Consequentialist theories of justice hold that punishment is justified because of the extrinsic goods that may be realized thereby, such as deterrence of crime, sequestration of dangerous persons, and reformation of wrong-doers. Consequentialism seems ill-suited to serve as a theory of divine justice because God’s judgement is described in the Bible as ultimately eschatological. Punishment imposed at that point could seemingly serve no other purpose than retribution. In any case, the biblical view is that the wicked deserve punishment (Rom 1.32), so that God’s justice must be in some significant measure retributive. Over the last half-century or so there has been a renaissance of theories of retributive justice, accompanied by a fading of consequentialist theories, so that retributivism has come to be the standard view.

  • [13]

    Especially important in this regard is Isaiah 53 and its New Testament employment. See the essays by Bailey, Farmer, and Watts in Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins, ed. William H. Bellinger, Jr. and William R. Farmer (Harrisburg, Penn: Trinity Press International, 1998); also the essays by Hermisson and Hofius in The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources, ed. Bernd Janowski and Peter Stuhlmacher [1996], trans. Daniel P. Bailey (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004). With regard to Anselm’s theory of compensation (satisfactio) given to God, Pannenberg rightly comments, “Without this vicarious penal suffering, the expiatory function of the death of Jesus is unintelligible, unless we try to understand his death as an equivalent offered to God along the lines of Anselm’s satisfaction theory, which has no basis in the biblical data” (Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 3 vols., trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1991), II. 427).

  • [14]

    See, e.g., Martin Luther, Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, trans. Theodore Graebner, Christian Classics Ethereal Library (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1939), pp. 63-64; John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion II.16.2.

  • [15]

    Alternatively, ausschliessende vs. einschliessende Stellvertretung. See, e.g., the influential work of Hartmut Gese, “The Atonement,” Essays on Biblical Theology, trans. Keith Crim (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1981), p. 106; Otfried Hofius, “Sühne und Versöhnung: Zum paulinischen Verständnis des Kreuzestodes Jesu,” in Paulusstudien, 2nd rev. ed., WUNT 51 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1994), p. 41. The distinction is already to be found in Albrecht Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation: The Positive Development of the Doctrine, ed. H R. Mackintosh and Alexander Beith Macauley (Clifton, N. J.: Reference Book Publishers, 1966), pp. 163-75.

  • [16]

    Representation in this sense needs to be distinguished from representation in the sense of symbolization. A baseball scorecard is a representation of the playing field and marks on it represent hits, outs, runs, and so on. Christ’s death as a representation in this sense would be akin to the popular misunderstanding of Hugo Grotius’ governmental theory of the atonement as a representation to the world of what it would look like if Christ were punished for our sins.

  • [17]

    Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 3 vols., trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison (Phillipsburg, N. J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1992), vol. 2, Topic 16, Question 3.

  • [18]

    Contemporary atonement theorists have identified examples of such punishment by proxy even in human affairs, such as a team captain’s being punished for his team’s failings or a squad leader’s being punished for his troops’ failings (Steven L. Porter, “Swinburnian Atonement and the Doctrine of Penal Substitution,” Faith and Philosophy 21/2 [2004]: 236-7). Of course, Christ has been uniquely appointed by God to be our proxy, which may make his case sui generis.

  • [19]

    See, e.g., Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution, Forward by John Piper (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2007), pp. 144-7, 242-3. While recognizing a problem of “timing” occasioned by the fact that neither we nor our sins existed at the time of Christ’s death, the authors do not seem cognizant of the logical problem of vicious circularity.

  • [20]

    As recognized by Reformed theologian Henri Blocher, “Justification of the Ungodly (Sola Fide): Theological Reflections,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism: A Fresh Appraisal of Paul and Second Temple Judaism, 2 vols., ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid, vol. 2: The Paradoxes of Paul, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), pp. 497-8. Cf. the discomfiture of Bruce L. McCormack, “What’s at Stake in Current Debates over Justification? The Current Crisis of Protestantism in the West,” in Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates, ed. Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), pp. 101-2.

  • [21]

    He calls our union with Christ the “cause and foundation” of our sharing in all his benefits, including justification (remission of sins and adoption as sons) (Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 2.16.6).

  • [22]

    So-called realist accounts of the union, which appeal to mereological fusions like “fallen humanity” and “redeemed humanity” as a basis for original sin and Christ’s redemption (Oliver D. Crisp, “Original Sin and Atonement,” in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology, ed. Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea [Oxford University Press, 2009], pp. 437-46; cf. Oliver D. Crisp, The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ [Grand Rapid, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2016], pp. 137-41), are implausible and unavailing, being dependent upon a principle of apparently unrestricted mereological composition and a tenseless theory of time and implying a view of human personhood incompatible with divine punishment and rewards (William Lane Craig, Time and Eternity: Exploring God’s Relationship to Time [Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2001], chap. 5; William Lane Craig, God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism [Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2016], chap. 6).

  • [23]

    Remarkably, an English translation of this epochal work has never been published. The works of Socinus are included in the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant, ed. Andreas Wissowatius (Irenopoli [Amsterdam], 1668). Alan Gomes, to whom I am indebted, has translated the crucial Part III of Socinus’ De Jesu Christo Servatore in his unpublished doctoral dissertation. “Faustus Socinus’ ‘De Jesu Christo Servatore,’ Part III,” with a historical introduction, translation, and critical notes by Alan Gomes (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1990). A detailed summary of the argument of the entire work is available in John Charles Godbey, “A Study of Faustus Socinus’ De Jesu Christo Servatore” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago Divinity School, 1968).

  • [24]

    Eleonore Stump, Atonement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 25; cf. p. 78.

  • [25]

    Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 2.14.11.

  • [26]

    Stump objects, “no matter what sort of agony Christ experienced in his crucifixion, it certainly was not (and was not equivalent to) everlasting damnation, if for no other reason than that Christ’s suffering came to an end” (Stump, Atonement, p. 78). This is an obvious non-sequitur, since intensity can more than make up for limited duration. Indeed, since the future is merely potentially infinite, at no point will the damned ever have experienced more than finite suffering.

    Stump also asserts that suffering cannot be both voluntary and punishment (Ibid.) This seems evidently false, since a person may volunteer—and doubtless many have volunteered, such as in cases of civil disobedience—to be punished.

  • [27]

    Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 2.14.12.

  • [28]

    See, e.g., Douglas J. Moo’s comments on Rom 4.24-25 in his The Epistle to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Erdmans, 1996).

  • [29]

    Of course, the view of the organic connection between Jesus’ atoning death and resurrection here defended does not depend on so interpreting this verse.