A Better Theoria: Contemplating the Atonement with a Central Motif

The doctrine of atonement, the articulation of what Christ accomplished on the cross, has been a weary battlefield in reformation and post-reformation theology. The contemplation of Christ’s multi-faceted work has devolved into a splintered menu of “theories” competing for the prize of orthodoxy. The consequence of this fragmentation has resulted in a false dilemma of choosing one “theory” over the others. With this model, church leaders and members alike can come away from studies of the atonement with a narrow view of Christ’s accomplishments on the cross and an unnecessary dichotomy between substitutionary atonement and other motifs. 

Adam Johnson has recently published an article entitled, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal” in which he exposes this problem and offers a solution. Johnson’s documentation of this issue is excellent and should be applauded. His solution, to focus on the organic unity of all Christ’s work on the cross through contemplation of its complexity instead of competitive postulations, is a healthier model. In short, “theoria” over “theories” is a call all Christians should heed. But Johnson fails to recognize the necessary key to uniting all of the various atonement “theories” together in an exegetically satisfying way. The atonement is multifaceted and deserving of varying contemplations of its biblical aspects. Yet there must be an aspect, a motif, that ties it all together. A helpful image is a king’s crown; Every crown has a plethora of jewels to behold surrounding the frame, but the beauty of the crown rests upon the center stone. The central gem ties all the periphery jewels into a complementary whole. The Bible seems to demand such a center stone in the crown of the atonement in order to enjoy (contemplate) the work as a whole. Atonement motifs can only be harmonized by this central gem: substitutionary atonement (Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, p.15). 

Therefore, the case will be made that while Johnson’s call for a contemplative representation of the various motifs is correct, it can only be accomplished by identifying the foundational jewel of Christ’s substitutionary atonement. The argument will be made in three moves: (i) laying out both the problem of the fragmented atonement theory approach and Johnson’s proposed solution, (ii) identifying substitutionary atonement as the central motif amongst many, (iii) offering a contemplative solution that honors the centrality of substitutionary atonement while recognizing its complementary counterparts. The result is a crown that offers a doxological picture of Christ’s atonement with the substitutionary motif as its center stone. 

The Splintered Digression of Competing Atonement “Theories” 

Understanding the historic development of competing theories and their associated isolation of Christ’s atonement into exclusive motifs reveals the foundations of this problem. According to Johnson, with the influence of German idealism and Enlightenment thinking, F.C. Baur utilized the term “theory” as a “way to describe the views of others and their histories,” particularly concerning the doctrine of atonement (Johnson, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal,” p.93). This sort of historicization of doctrine was not natural to the church prior to Baur who was essentially implementing the ideas of  Schleiermacher. Specifically, Schleiermacher wanted to locate doctrine exclusively in the history of the church itself. Therefore, Baur attempted to work out this idea of doctrinal history in the utilization of “theories” to describe differences between those within the church, especially concerning the atonement. Johnson nicely captures the significance of this approach on the church going forward:

After Baur, to be a responsible theologian meant, among other things, to think of the atonement in terms of how the doctrine had developed and changed over the history of the church, and to think of those changes as being both (1) a matter of tension and conflict (competing theories cannot both be right –  at least not at the level of their speculative form of expression)...and (2) continuity (underlying, or within those theories was the religious truth seeking speculative expression for the sake of the ongoing development of the idea). Baur’s influence was massive: Hagenbach, Ritschl and von Harnack were all deeply influenced by him. In short, Baur is the crucial figure, fully launching Schleiermacher’s historicist project, influencing a lineage of students standing at the heart of modern German Protestant theology. While these students disagreed with each other in important ways, together they cemented the role of history within Christian doctrine, and in particular, the doctrine of the atonement (Johnson, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal,” p.97-98).

This approach has permeated modern theological discussion by insisting on evaluating the atonement “through the rubric of discrete competing ‘theories’” that “gave rise to a range of categories and nomenclatures which shape discussions to this day” ((Johnson, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal,” p.100). Johnson outlines four problems with this formula for analyzing the doctrine of the atonement. First, there is the inevitability of anachronism; there is a “one-dimensionality presumed in theory language” that is foreign to the multifaceted approaches prior to the 19th century. Second, this approach requires the antithetical presuppositions of Hegelianism which presupposes conflict. The third and fourth issues arise from the above concerns which naturally lead to an overemphasis on disagreement and an underemphasis on agreement amongst various streams. There now becomes an exclusive competition that seeks to determine the “orthodox view” at the expense of the others (Johnson, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal,” p.101). The result is an unbiblical and historically unnatural fragmentation of the atonement into competing “theories” emphasized by different texts and theological streams.

Johnson’s Proposal

Johnson’s solution rests on the evidence of healthy diversity amongst the history of writers on the atonement which he documents throughout. Therefore, a whittling down of this doctrine to a single, acceptable motif is inappropriate. Disagreement that needs to be critically analyzed is not ruled out, but the “complex mixture of agreement” needs to be reasserted. The unity and diversity need to be somehow maintained in the midst of this doctrine’s historical development.  

Johnson offers the idea of theoria as a solution: “The key to properly embracing this inheritance is a proper emphasis on theoria: ‘A good deal of modern theology has been reluctant to consider contemplation [theoria] a proper end of theological intelligence” (Johnson, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal,” p.104). Theoria is the concept of multifaceted contemplation that takes a harmonious account of all aspects of an object. Johnson retrieves this from medieval theologians such as Aquinas, Lombard, Bernard, William of Auvergne, Peter Abelard, and Bonaventure who had a “penchant for a synthesis affirming as many reasons as possible for the death and resurrection of Jesus” (Johnson, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal,” p.105). He even offers Athanasius as a model of theoria who, “motivated by a pious fear of omission,” gave a “polyphonic answer” to the accomplishments of Christ’s work on the cross (Johnson, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal,” p.105).

According to Johnson, this attitude and emphasis on theoria should be retrieved for the doctrine of atonement along with the dismissal of the competing theories presentation. He summarizes: 

Theoria thus rejects the default compartmentalization of the views of different theologians, churches and periods into culturally or historically determined and mutually competing explanations...these different views, while at times in direct disagreement with one another, are the work of the church contemplating the work of the ever- rich God, and therefore a good and natural part of understanding and dwelling upon a work and Worker that is greater than the historical and cultural forces at play in that work (Johnson, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal,” p.106-07). 

Therefore, atonement presentations should use the terminology of “aspects” instead of “theories” which highlights the diversity of the unified whole in the doctrine of Christ’s work (Johnson, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal,” p.107). The end result is this: 

The emphasis can thus be upon the non-competitive diversity of ends accomplished by the work of Christ...concerning which different theologians or schools/branches of the church may agree or disagree in obvious or nuanced ways, rather than organizing the material around supposedly competing theories and the figures or historical periods that advanced them. In sum, the emphasis should be on the biblically attested and theologically developed array of goods procured by the death and resurrection of Jesus (Johnson, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal,” p.107-08).

A Central Motif: The Necessity of Contemplating Substitutionary Atonement

As stated above, Johnson is voicing a righteous concern for the inexhaustible riches of Christ’s atonement. The need for a holistic approach that does justice to this diversity is vital. Yet this valiant attempt to harmonize this fragmentation in modern depictions of the atonement is missing a crucial question: is there exegetical warrant for elevating one motif above the others? In other words, is there a foundational aspect that ensures all the others? The lack of an exegetical analysis cripples Johnson’s solution. Bavinck rightfully insists, “The question is what in all these ideas agrees with Scripture and what Scripture itself teaches concerning the significance and power of the death of Christ. That death is not a subject for philosophical speculation, at least not independently of and apart from Scripture, but can only be understood to a degree in theology if it allows itself to be guided by the study of the Scriptures” (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3, p.383). Providing a biblical explanation for the possibility of a central motif in the atonement can be illuminating here. Particularly in identifying the substitutionary aspect of atonement as the central theme. 

The Old Testament Framework

In the very opening pages of Scripture, there is an immediate illusion to sacrifice that clothes the guilty in response to their sin. Genesis 3 provides the initial linkage of atonement to the entire story of the Bible in God’s act of shedding blood to cover his people (Matthews, The New American Commentary: Genesis 1- 11:26, p.265). More explicitly, the entire Old Testament system of temple sacrifice centers around the idea of substitutionary atonement for sin. Exodus 29:1-21 & Leviticus 8:1-29 describes the requirement of priests to lay their hands on the head of the sacrificed animal which transferred the guilt of sin into the innocent animal as a substitute. Blood was spilled in order to satisfy the requirements of a holy God’s punishment of sin. The central event of Israel’s redemption from slavery, the Passover, depicts the idea of a satisfactory substitute in the form of an innocent lamb’s blood to secure the avoidance of the penalty of death  (Exodus 12:1-51). The Passover imagines no other future motif than substitutionary atonement; the center of this event is the idea of substitution.

Isaiah 53 spills over with the imagery of a Messianic figure taking on the sins of another in order to bear their guilt: “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken...he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.” In fact, the prophet portrays God himself as the bestower of such a substitutionary sacrifice in 53:4-5; Isaiah writes that this substitute is “smitten by God” and that “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” The background of the substitutionary foundation of the sacrificial system “finds classical expression in a new sense” through this linkage with the coming Messiah (Watts, WBC: Isaiah 34-66, p.231).

From the foundational structures of their religion to the predictions of their coming Savior, the Jewish mind would be struck with substitution as an adjective of any concept of atonement. The legal framework of Israel’s covenants and sacrificial system is also worthy of emphasizing here. Their ideas of atonement would most assuredly be set in legal categories; The use of legal terminology is “so frequent indeed that it is plain that it corresponds to something deep-seated in Hebrew thinking. Law and the Lord went together” (Morris, The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance, p.181). No other religion is as “wedded” to legal categories as OT Israel (Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, p.52). It is clear that the Old Testament furnishes a natural framework for the legal category of substitutionary atonement in the very heart of its contents as a primary theme. To the New Testament we now turn. 

The New Testament Emphasis

Substitutionary atonement as an implicit, foundational motif in the Old Testament becomes the explicit motif connected to Christ’s work in the New Testament. For instance, John’s gospel links Christ to the raising up of the serpent in Moses’ day (John 3:14-15; Numbers 21:9), a clear allusion to payment for the death penalty of sin. Christ has become sin so that we become righteous (2 Cor 5:21); He bore our sins in his body on a tree (1 Peter 2:24); through Christ, God “condemned sin in the flesh” on our behalf (Rom 8:3). The picture painted is that “Christ put himself in our place, has borne the punishment of our sin, satisfied God's justice, and so secured salvation for us” (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3, p.383). The substitutionary idea oozes out of the New Testament’s witness to Christ’s work on the cross. 

The NT writers could not restrain themselves from linking the substitutionary practices and narratives in the OT to Christ as the fulfillment of such past events. The apostles saw Christ as the fulfillment of the Suffering Servant who died for the sins of his people. Craig rightly concludes, “Christ’s death is interpreted by NT authors in terms of OT sacrifices and the Yom Kippur sacrifices. These sacrifices served the fundamental purposes of expunging sin/impurity and of appeasing God’s wrath. By securing divine forgiveness of sins, they served to reconcile God and sinners. Any biblically adequate theory of the atonement must, then, make good sense of Christ’s death as an expiatory and propitiatory sacrifice to God the Father” (Atonement and the Death of Christ, p.35).

Two particular New Testament examples should solidify this point. First, Romans 3:25-26 serves as an overt attribution of Christ’s death as a propitiatory substitution. The logic cannot be clearer; Paul states all are guilty (3:23) and therefore justification is by grace (3:24) which is “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (3:24-25). This allows the gracious God to be both “just and justifier” (3:26). Substitutionary atonement in legal terminology reigns here. Numerous attempts by NT scholars have been made to downplay the significance of ἱλαστήριον in Rom 3:25 concerning the need to appease God’s wrath. But this obfuscation of propitiation is refuted by the very context of Romans. Removing the sharpness of this word does not avoid the entire sentences dedicated to explaining God’s justified wrath toward the ungodly in Romans 1-3. NT scholars need to come to terms with the entire context of wrath before zeroing in on propitiation in an isolated fashion (Stott, The Cross of Christ, p.169) The just wrath of God against sinners cannot be dismissed from the biblical testimony. Thus the substitutionary atonement motif is a natural consequence of the need to appease God’s judgment which he provides through “a propitiation” of Christ’s blood (3:25).  

Finally, the book of Hebrews as a whole shows the centrality of the substitutionary motif in Christ’s work on the cross. The apostle outlines the details by which God has made a way to himself by dealing with our sin. A variety of aspects are given here in diverse redundancy: Christ has made propitiation for our sin (2:17); Christ is offered as a sacrifice for our sin (10:12); Christ has “put away” our sin (9:26); Christ has “bore” our sin; Sacrifices are no longer needed because of what Christ has done on our behalf (10:18); Because of Christ, God remembers our sin no more (10:17); Christ is a ransom for those guilty of sin (10:18); The OT system could not atone for sin once and for all like Christ did in our place (10:1-2,4,6,11). Leon Morris concludes, “Clearly the writer sees the salvation Christ brought about as many-sided. Look at sin how you will, the Son has dealt with it.” (Hebrews: Bible Study Commentary, p.20). What aspect of the atonement could be more exhausted in the book of Hebrews than the substitutionary atonement for sin? 

It should be clear by now the significance of identifying the substitutionary satisfaction for guilty sinners as the central motif that the Bible majors on. It is by far the most well-attested aspect in the New Testament. Therefore, attempts to downplay substitutionary aspects of the atonement in exchange for an amplification of other biblical motifs such as moral influence, Christ’s victory over death, etc., do not honor the biblical data’s emphasis. Exegetical analysis should be the starting point for our doctrinal analysis: 

Some exegetes appear to...think of Christian doctrine as having come into being largely through church councils later in the history of the church. The truth is that Christian doctrine begins with biblical texts and with the earliest interpretations of those texts, which we find in the New Testament itself (Farmer, “Reflections on Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins,” in Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins, p.275).

This biblical starting point has revealed that however one “contemplates” the multifaceted doctrine of the atonement, the substitutionary aspect of the atonement cannot be beheld as just one among many. Its centrality is vital to make sense of the Bible’s main themes concerning the work of Christ on the cross. 

A Better Theoria: The Substitutionary Motif as Centerstone 

What becomes of Johnson’s admiral theoria proposal? It requires an upgrade. First, Johnson’s insistence on resisting the competitive idea of “theories” by refusing to identify a central atonement motif that holds the others together is unnecessary; This potential obfuscation could devolve into what R.C. Sproul would critically call “studied ambiguity” (Nichols, R.C. Sproul: A Life, p.285). There is no need to avoid centralizing substitutionary atonement. This can be done while happily affirming the complementary aspects of the atonement pointed out by others such as the Moral Influence and Christus Victor ideas. 

The danger here is that Johnson’s downplaying of a central motif is bait for those wanting to specifically drown out substitutionary atonement altogether. This is certainly not his intent, but it could be utilized as such. For instance, Johnson’s reading of John Calvin seems to diminish penal substitutionary atonement to a non-vital component among many: 

Calvin, for instance, argues for what we might call penal satisfaction, but does so as part of a holistic account of the death and resurrection, as the most casual reading of the Institutes 2.12– 17 will indicate. That is to say, Calvin’s account is not animated by penal satisfaction, demanding that every part of the whole contribute to or stem from that central explanatory insight. Rather, his account is holistic, seeking to give an account of the range of causes and effects of Christ’s passion witnessed to in Scripture, without regulating these by means of some unifying conceptual scheme (Johnson, “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal,” p.100-01).

Yet a closer look at the aforementioned section of the Institutes sheds a different light. After outlining the dire situation of man’s sin and God’s wrath toward him, Calvin writes:

At this point Christ interceded as his advocate, took upon himself and suffered the punishment that, from God’s righteous judgment, threatened all sinners; that he purged with his blood those evils which had rendered sinners hateful to God; that by his expiation he made satisfaction and sacrifice duly to God the Father; that as intercessor he has appeased God’s wrath; that on this foundation rests the peace of God with men; that by this bond his benevolence is maintained toward them. Will the man not then be even more moved by all these things which so vividly the greatness of the calamity from which he has been rescued? (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p.505).

It seems Calvin thought man should be quite “animated” by this central motif and should understand it as the “foundation” of his “peace with God.” To water down Calvin’s view in this manner for the sake of a harmonious equality of atonement motifs dishonors his emphasis on this primary truth of Christ’s work. 

The solution here is to employ Johnson’s theoria with substitutionary atonement as the centerstone that harmonizes the many, non-competitive aspects of the atonement that flow from this central truth. While admitting “theory language” creates inappropriate conflict and affirming the multifaceted crown that is the atonement, we can acknowledge the biblical priority of the substitutionary satisfaction of Christ as the basis from which the other aspects flow. There is no need to “neglect any of them but to unite them into a single whole and to trace the unity that underlies them in Scripture” (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3, p.385).

Uniting the various aspects of the atonement in contemplative worship requires dealing with the greatest dilemma the atonement solves: forgiveness of sin through a substitutionary sacrifice. The various aspects of the atonement apart from substitution cannot contribute to this need. Only substitutionary atonement set in a legal framework can deal with the problem of sin: “The mystical and moral interpretation of Jesus’ suffering and death cannot even be maintained if it is not acknowledged beforehand that in a legal sense he suffered and died in our place” (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3, p.385). What is needed before the benefits of other aspects of the atonement can be appreciated is the substitutionary sacrifice for sin. This places the substitutionary motif as the foundational significance of the atonement that must be contemplated in order to rightfully worship God for all the others. The center stone of the atonement’s crown provides the unifying mechanism for all the other gems.

Sources

Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ. Edited by John Bolt. Translated by John Vriend. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006. 

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. Vol. XX. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1960. 

Craig, William Lane. Atonement and the Death of Christ: An Exegetical, Historical, Philosophical Exploration. Baylor University Press, 2020. 

Farmer, William R. “Reflections on Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins.” Essay. In Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins, edited by William H. Bellinger and William R. Farmer. Wipf and Stock, 2009. 

Johnson, A.J. “Theories and Theoria of the Atonement: A Proposal .” International Journal of Systematic Theology 23, no. 1 (January 2021): 92–108. 

Matthews, Kenneth A. The New American Commentary: Genesis 1- 11:26. Nashville, TN: B&H, 1996. 

Morris, Leon. Hebrews: Bible Study Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1983. 

———. The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983. 

Nichols, Stephen J. R.C. Sproul: A Life. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021. 

Stott, John R.W. The Cross of Christ. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1986. 

Watts, John D.W. Word Biblical Commentary: Isaiah 34-66. Waco, TX: Word, 1987.