One of the parents in the congregation recently was saying how hard it is to answer good questions from children about why Jesus came and had resorted to trying to explain it in terms of the Naughty Step.
I thought it might be helpful to lay out some of the main theories of the Atonement thus:
- Ransom theory – our parents were so naughty that they deserve the naughty step and have passed their naughtiness onto us. Justice requires that someone has to go to the naughty step to pay for this and God tricked the devil into seeing Jesus on the naughty step as sufficient payment for this.
- Christus victor theory – Jesus has gloriously broken down the powers and dominions of naughtiness and only has to glance at the naughty-step for his holiness to turn it in to dust. Nothing can withstand his might and power.
- Moral influence theory – Jesus came to teach us how to be so good that we would never be sent to the naughty step.
- Penal substitution theory – God simply won’t forgive anyone until He is satisfied that the naughty step punishment has been fulfilled in full. Fortunately, Jesus comes along and takes on that naughtiness for himself, freely offering to pay the debt of naughtiness to God the Father. We need urgently to recognise this offer and accept it.
- Incarnation theory – the amazing thing is that Jesus comes and sits on the naughty step with us, sharing our frailty and sharing our sorrows.
There are other possibilities, but those should keep you going for a bit.
Now, all these things have been believed by Christians. However, it doesn’t make much sense to claim that you believe them all at once. Notwithstanding that, I’d say that they all move me at one time or another, even though I tend towards one of them as my dominant way of understanding why Jesus came. We encounter all of these theories in our hymns, if not elsewhere.
That’s the way atonement theory works for me.
The only ones that work for me are 2 and 5. Penal substitution theory predicates an understanding of God that I can’t go with, that indeed I find repellent.
I love this! It makes sense and makes it easier to explain to the little-uns (and those of us that struggle).
I think there is also the same-all-the-way-through theory. Because there is so much naughtiness, God spends much of his time on the naughty step with the glue, trying to mend the mug we have broken when we were naughty. So when Jesus comes, he sits on the naught step, with the glue, until people get so furious with this persistent glue-use that they insist he stays on the naughty step ALL THE TIME. It works well along side the Incarnational theory, too.
(It is possibly I hate moral influence worse, because if it were so, I foresee a lifetime on the naughty step.)
This helps me because I wonder about atonement –
And I remember my earnest very early parenting days when I thought The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the absolute ticket.
I like the way of setting them in terms of naughty step. Was even beginning to like the looks of the Moral Influence theory, as stated, until I spotted it looks like a whopping heresy (faith v works). That leaves Incarnation, with is probably not a bad way of looking at it.
Then again, they’re all models and I grew out of model-building about 20 years ago.
Where can we find out more about No. 5?
In any liberal-catholic Anglican congregation, Steven.
It is what we do.
it’s nice to be given a chance to say the core thing, isn’t it?
I don’t know that I agree that you can’t believe them all. Or maybe I don’t quite get your point, certainly agreeing that there are times when some speak to us more than others.
I remember struggling with this a lot before ordination and being wowed by Alan Richardson (?) in the dictionary of theology stating all this rather as you have , but also making the point that Hebrews moves with a rather different metaphor from either the legalistic, moral, or military.
“We have complete freedom to go into the most holy place by means of the death of Jesus …he opened for us a new way, through the curtain, through his own body”
He also notes Luther’s idea that the cosmic battle of good and evil is taking place on the cross….this seems to me quite important…the strife is o’er. . I dont know how often i have to remind people…we dont need to do what God ha already done..I guess these are also important undergirding and complementary ideas
I remember having the concept of atonement explained to me in high-school RE. No theory other than penal substitution was even mentioned. This was at an otherwise pretty good non-denominational state school in the North of England.
Personally I like both Christus Victor and the Incarnation, and see no reason why they shouldn’t be compatible. Moral Influence wanders a bit too far into theological liberalism for my taste; you end up in ‘Jesus was a great teacher’ territory, and then CS Lewis gets upset.
It’s worth noting that the classic formulation of Moral Influence is not “Jesus was a super teacher”, as the modern understanding of it runs. That is indeed heresy – Pelagian, Arian, Adoptionist, pretty much any of them. As Abelard understood it, however, it’s much more objective. Jesus’ work on the Cross is transformative. That is to say, looking at Jesus on the Cross, in perfect obedience and humility and love, transforms our broken humanity and our broken morality.
The problem with the “naughty step” metaphor is that it is inherently about punishment. Not all models of the Atonement or understandings of the Cross are essentially penal.