{"id":1988,"date":"2011-04-07T12:22:20","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T19:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=1988"},"modified":"2011-04-07T12:22:20","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T19:22:20","slug":"cristus-victor-something-else-galli-doesnt-get","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2011\/04\/07\/cristus-victor-something-else-galli-doesnt-get\/","title":{"rendered":"Christus Victor?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Galli’s column in Christianity Today this afternoon is titled “The Problem With Christus Victor<\/a>.”\u00a0 To his credit, he acknowledges that the substitutionary atonement model can be presented in incorrect ways and that Christus Victor is also a Biblical model.\u00a0 But his conclusion, it seems to me, is odd, to say the least:<\/p>\n

Here, I’m simply suggesting that Christus Victor may not be a theory that Protestants, and evangelicals in particular, should tie their wagons to. While it brings to the fore some crucial and forgotten biblical truths, it’s clearly a secondary atonement theme in the New Testament. And at least for today’s Protestants, it has an uncanny tendency to downplay a sense of personal responsibility, which in the end, sabotages grace. In my view, more than ever in our day, we need Christus Vicarious.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sigh.<\/p>\n

Christus Victor is a “secondary atonment theme in the New Testament?”\u00a0 I don’t read it that way at all!\u00a0 From Matthew to Revelation a central theme<\/em> of the New Testament, perhaps the<\/em> central theme\u00a0against its cultural background, is the victory of Jesus Christ over the powers of sin, death, and empire.<\/p>\n

Now, Galli might be correct that if we collect specific proof texts that deal specifically with the cross, the preponderance talk about substitution.\u00a0 And he is certainly correct that Christus Victor should not be advanced “at the expense of” substitution.\u00a0 But the suggestion that any one facet of the atonement is a “minor theme” or that\u00a0protestants or evangelicals should emphasize any one theme over another is not helpful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Worse,\u00a0Galli makes no effort at theological discernment beyond this half-hearted weighing of proof texts.\u00a0 How did the Fathers understand the atonement?\u00a0 What themes have been important in the history of the Church universal?\u00a0 Are there theologians working today who are synthesizing Christus Victor, substition, and other atonement models?\u00a0 Galli doesn’t say.\u00a0 (The early Fathers emphasized Christus Victory heavily; Anselm’s version of penal substition is important but comes later; see, e.g.,\u00a0Hans Boersma’s Violence, Hospitality and the Cross:\u00a0 Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Worse yet, Galli casts this as a peculiar question for “protestants” and “evangelicals” (whatever that latter term means nowadays).\u00a0 Why should anyone care about these silos anymore?\u00a0 Break them down and let’s understand once again that “Christus Victor” and “penal substitution” are just human terms for grasping at complementary aspects of the cosmic mystery of\u00a0the cross.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Galli’s column in Christianity Today this afternoon is titled “The Problem With Christus Victor.”\u00a0 To his credit, he acknowledges that the substitutionary atonement model can be presented in incorrect ways and that Christus Victor is also a Biblical model.\u00a0 But his conclusion, it seems to me, is odd, to say the least: Here, I’m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality","category-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-w4","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}