What is the atonement of Christ?

VARIOUS ATONEMENT THEORIES OF CHRIST - SOME ODD!

SEVERAL prominent theories have been presented, as to the atoning work of Christ, and the method by which God pardons sin.

1. The lowest of these is the Socinian. This proceeds on the principle that God is pure benevolence, that vindictive justice is incompatible with his character, and that upon mere repentance, God can and will forgive the sinner. The work of Christ, therefore, is regarded as one in which he simply reveals or makes known pardon to man. Nothing that he has done secures it, because he had nothing to do to this end. It was already prepared in the benevolence of God’s nature, and is simply now made known. [Symington on the Atonement, pp. 2 and 3.]

The advocates of this theory explain away all that the Scriptures say on the subject of Christ’s death for us, by maintaining that his life and death were mere examples to us of the manner in which we should live and submit to God. In their view, therefore, Christ is merely a great teacher and a bright example.
Some of these have even gone so far as to speak of the sacrifices of the ancient dispensation as things suitable only to a barbarous age, and so far from regarding them as types of Christ’s sacrificial work, have looked on them as arrangements permitted only from sympathy for the weakness of the people, whom God ordered to offer them. 

The objections to this theory are:
1. It ill accords with the Scripture description of the nature of sin.
2. It is inconsistent with other attributes of God than mercy.
3. It is at variance with the letter and spirit of divine revelation.
4. It is irreconcilable with the exalted nature of the mediatorial reward conferred on Christ. 

2. A second theory of the Atonement is that which has commonly been called the Middle Theory. By this is not meant, that there are only these two and one orthodox theory; but, simply, that this stands between the theory of the Socinians and those theories held by persons, who, however, differing from each other, are regarded as Evangelical.
“This theory maintains that in consequence of what Christ did, a certain power to pardon sin was conferred upon him.” [Symington, p. 3.]
“This system supposes that God may pardon sin without punishment or satisfaction.”
“But that a difference should be made between innocent persons who have never sinned, and those thus pardoned; that the latter may not boastingly suppose themselves on an equality with the former.”
“This is done by the arrangement that, instead of a full pardon, they shall be pardoned on repentance, for the sake of something Christ was to do, because of which he is entitled to intercede for them.”
(1.) “This scheme is only apparently superior to the former, in claiming that this is done, because of what Christ has done.”
(2.) “It gives a defective view of the divine character.”
(3.) “It does not explain the Scripture language as to Christ’s work.”
(4.) “It fails to account for the peculiarity and severity of his sufferings.” [Symington, pp. 3 and 4.]

3. A third theory of the Atonement is that of moral influence. Its most noted advocates in this day have been Horace Bushnell and McLeod Campbell. It is difficult to say whether it, or the one last mentioned, approaches more nearly to that of the Socinians or is more remote from Evangelical ideas.

Like the so-called Middle Theory, it deems repentance alone to be essential for a sinner’s acceptance with God. It maintains that there has never been any obstacle in the nature of God to the granting of full pardon upon mere repentance for sin. The necessity for Christ’s life of suffering and death of agony is to be found only in the need of motives arising from the love thus exhibited to man to induce him to repent. 

It is for the sinner’s sake that Christ has lived such a life of misery and woe as is incident to man. So far as this theory has been held by Socinians they have recognized the work of Christ simply as that of the exalted man, Christ Jesus. But as presented by Bushnell and Campbell, God in Christ has thus identified himself with man in his misery and sin. Campbell goes so far as to represent Christ as so fully thus made one with man as to have been the representative penitent and confessor of sin. It is the great love thus shown which exerts the strong moral influence which causes man to repent and to be reconciled unto God.

All the objections to the Middle Theory may with equal force be urged against this. To these may be added:
(1.) That, while that theory recognizes the power to forgive sin to have been bestowed upon Christ as the result of something Christ has done, this confines the effect of his work to the production of penitence in the sinner through the influence which the love he has thus displayed exerts in taking away the indifference and enmity of the human heart.

(2.) That, while this theory recognizes the great truth that the love of Christ exhibited in his sufferings and death, has a strong influence in leading men to reconciliation to God, it diminishes the extent to which this love has been manifested by denying that element in those sufferings which arose from their relation to the penalty endured for sin in the satisfaction of the justice of God.

(3.) That, as indeed is true of all schemes which depend entirely upon subjective influences in the sinner, it fails to present any method of salvation available for those who have had no knowledge of these sufferings. Thus are cut off from all the blessings of salvation, not only all infants and idiots, but also the many saints of God who died before the birth of Jesus.

4. A fourth theory of the Atonement is the Ethical one suggested by the Andover divines. It agrees substantially with the theory just considered, but because of the recent prominence of the “New Theology,” of which Andover may be regarded as the most prominent exponent, it deserves especial consideration in the form set forth by that school. It has been most distinctly presented in a series of articles on “Progressive Orthodoxy,” published editorially in the fourth volume (1885) of the Andover Review. The third of this series is on the Atonement. The quotations which follow are from that article.

The specific points of this theory are:

1. That Christ is universal mediator, and as such, must appear for the relief of any portion of the universe which needs his help.

“Christ mediates God to the entire universe. Through Christ the worlds were made, and through him they consist. In him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible. To him ultimately not the earth only, but the whole universe is to be made subject, things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, … Not until he is known as Head of the universe do we perceive nor can we well understand, that he is the Life and Light of men. The whole truth, then, is that Christ is the revealing or manifesting principle; or, more exactly, that through the Logos, the Word, the Second Person of the Trinity, that which is absolute fullness and truth in God is communicated into finite existences; that through the Eternal Word the created universe is possible; that therefore the universe is Christ’s, the revolving worlds, and they that dwell therein are his to the glory of God the Father. 

The created universe and all rational beings are through Christ and in Christ. Therefore he mediates or reveals God to any part of his universe according to the condition or need which may exist in that part. If at any point his world is sick, weary, guilty, hopeless, there Christ is touched and hurt, and there he appears to restore and comfort. This earth is, it may be, the sheep lost in the wilderness, while the ninety and nine are safe in the fold. Christ cannot be indifferent to the least of his creatures in its pain and wickedness, for his universe is not attached to him externally, but vitally. He is not a governor set over it, but is its life everywhere. He feels its every movement, most of all its spiritual life and spiritual feebleness or disease, and appears in his glorious power even at the remotest point. If there were but one sinner, Christ would seek him. If but one planet were invaded by sin, Christ would come to its relief,” p. 57.

2. His incarnation would probably have occurred if there had been no sin, but the existence of sin changes its conditions, but not the power and reality of Christ.

“The opinion has reason in it that there would have been the Incarnation even if there had been do sin,” p. 58, “It is, of course, true that in order to reveal God in a world of sin and guilt the historical conditions, and especially the suffering conditions, of our Lord’s life must have been, in important respects, what they would not otherwise have been. It is also probable that the profoundest disclosure of the love of God in Christ has been made in the redemption of sinful man. But only the conditions, not the power and reality of Christ, are contingent on sin,” p. 57.

3. The effect of Christ’s work has been to change the relations of God to man which secures a change in the relation of man to God. This is the reconciliation effected.

“The very best word the gospel gives to express the complete result of Christ’s work is reconciliation, a word signifying that God is brought into a new relation to man and that man is brought into a new relation with God. The ultimate fact, however, is that God’s relation to man is changed in Christ from what it otherwise could be, and that therefore man’s relation to God is changed. Redemption thus originates with God, who in Christ finds a way through obstacles to the sinner, so that he can righteously forgive and bless. Because God is reconciled in Jesus Christ man repents and begins a new life,” p. 58.

4. In the work of Atonement there is no imputation or transfer of the sin of man to Christ nor of Christ’s righteousness to man.

“It is no longer believed that personal merit and demerit can be transferred from one to another.… It is not believed that the consequences of sin can be removed from the transgressor by passing them on to another. Conduct, character, and condition are inseparable. The results of sin are part of the ethical personality, and cannot be detached, nor borne by another,” p. 60.

5. Yet in Christ as the substitute of man the race approaches God representatively suffering for sin and repenting of it.

“He is an individual, but an individual vitally related to every human being. He preferred to be called the Son of Man. Paul sees in him the Head of humanity, the second Adam. He is one who is not himself a sinner, yet is a man; who is not himself contending against sinful and corrupt tendencies, yet has so identified himself with humanity that its burden of suffering rested on him, and every man was within his reach of sympathy.…

“Humanity may thus be thought of as offering something to God of eminent value. When Christ suffers, the race suffers. When Christ is sorrowful, the race is sorrowful. Christ realizes what humanity could not realize for itself. The race may be conceived as approaching God, and signifying its penitence by pointing to Christ, and by giving expression in him to repentance which no words could utter. Thus we can regard him as our substitute, not because he stands apart, not because he is one and the race another, but because he is so intimately identified with us, and because in essential respects the life of every one is, or may be, locked in with his.… Here is the truth of McLeod Campbell’s view of atonement. The entire race repents or is capable of repenting through Christ. It renders in him a complete repentance …,” pp. 61, 62.

6. This substitutionary suffering and penitence is not, however, available apart from the power of man to repent, and the attainment in the individual of repentance. It avails only because man, although a sinner, is still, under appropriate influences, capable of repenting, and the suffering of Christ for man, and his sympathy with him are able to awaken man to real repentance which is revolutionary and thorough.

“But Christ’s power to represent or be substituted for man is always to be associated with man’s power to repent. The possibility of redeeming man lies in the fact that although he is by act and inheritance a sinner, yet under the appropriate influence he is capable of repenting. The power of repentance remains, and to this power the gospel addresses itself. Christ suffering and sympathizing with men is able to awaken in them and express for them a real repentance. It is to this power that Christ, the holy and the merciful, attaches himself. Realizing it in some, and being able to realize it in all, he represents humanity before God. 

Now the power of repentance, which, so far as it exists, is the power of recuperation, is superior to the necessities of past wrong-doing and of present habit. It is the one fact which can never be estimated for what it may do, which baffles the calculation of the wisest observers. The penitent man, so far as he really repents, is in the exercise of a freedom which resists and almost subjugates the forces of evil. In union with Christ, who brings spiritual truth and power to man, repentance is radical. 

Man left to himself cannot have a repentance which sets him free from sin and death. But in Christ he is moved to repentance which is revolutionary.… It is not true, we admit and insist, that repentance without Christ is availing for redemption, for man of himself cannot repent; but, on the other hand, it is not true that Christ’s atonement has value without repentance. Christ’s sacrifice avails with God because it is adapted to bring man to repentance. This gives it ethical meaning and value,” pp. 62, 63.

7. The sufferings and death of Christ can be substituted for the punishment of man, not because the guilt of man was borne by him and was atoned for in the way maintained by the older Calvinistic divines, but because:

(1.) By them, as truly and fully as by such punishment, was expressed the abhorrence of God for sin, and the righteousness of the law.
(2.) Because in this way is revealed the love of God, who so seeks the sinner as to manifest that even his wrath is but his love which cannot allow the sinner to be blessed in his sin.
(3.) Because thus is an end put to separation from God, which is the first and greatest punishment of sin; and in view of Christ’s death it would be puerile to exact literal punishment of those who are thereby made sorry for sin and brought in penitence to God.
(4.) Because by his knowledge of them man is brought to repentance.

“The punishment and consequences of sin make real God’s abhorrence of sin, and the righteousness of law. The sufferings and death of his only Son also realize God’s hatred of sin, and the righteous authority of law; therefore punishment need not be exacted.”


Boyce, J. P. (2010). Abstract of Systematic Theology (pp. 295–301). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.