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Introduction

Atonement is the name we give to an action which repairs a relationships which has been fractured by wrongdoing, so that the relationship is restored.  In Christian theology, the fractured relationship is between God and the human race, and this relationship has been restored by Jesus, and especially by His death on the cross.

As I point out in The Gospel Message 'Missing' Details, the atonement is one of the most debated areas of theology. Christians believe that we are reconciled with God through Jesus, and many believe that this was accomplished through His death on the cross, but beyond this it gets rather complicated.

I grew up in two churches, shaped by very different church traditions, but neither of them said anything much about the atonement.  One was a Calvinistic former-Baptist church, where the Reformed position was accepted as the obvious truth; the other was a Liberal Anglican church which wasn't entirely convinced that anything needed atoning for.  The next few church traditions I was exposed to didn't say anything much about the atonement, but every now and then some obvious questions were asked.

• Why is the cross such a central feature of Christianity?
• Why did Jesus need to die?
• What did Jesus accomplish on the cross - and how does that help us?

These were generally regarded as difficult questions, which we tended to avoid where possible.  When someone asked, someone would say a few words, probably along the lines of Penal Substitution, and change the subject quickly.

It's Difficult

When I tried to probe the subject, whoever I asked - and from whichever church tradition they belonged to - I was given a fairly standard response: it's a rather technical area of theology; experts in the subject have sorted it out, but we don't need to worry about the details.  But I do worry about details, so I started to read up on the subject, and was astonished by the range of theories, and by the sheer volume of material which has been produced over the centuries.  Clearly, the experts in the subject have not sorted it out yet: there are multiple competing theories, and (while parts of the Church have decided on a 'correct' answer) the Christian Church has not arrived at a common view yet.  Although, to be fair, not all the competing theories are completely incompatible with each other.

For my own part, I'm not convinced by Peter Abelard's Moral Example argument, but I do think he captures a vital perspective which is largely missing from most discussion of the atonement - at least, from most of the discussion which I am aware of.  As I said, it is a  vast topic.  In my experience, most of the arguments take as their starting point the absolute authority of God - as the ultimate Judge dispensing His justice, or as the absolute King exercising His authority.  It is all top down, explaining about things like law and justice and punishment.

While we do see God portrayed in the Bible as a judge and a king, Jesus tells us that God is primarily a loving Heavenly Father.  Law and justice are important - but only insofar as they serve love.  Justice matters, but love matters more.  While many people think of God's character primarily in terms of vengeful justice, seeking to punish the wrongdoer; but Jesus tells us that God is, primarily and fundamentally, our Father and not our Judge; so God's most basic and consistent attitude towards us is one of parental love, seeking to nurture.  Any account of the atonement which does not have this God at the centre cannot be an authentic expression of Jesus' intent and activity.

In the words of Henry Lyte (in 'Praise, my soul, the King of heaven'), we have been "ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven". Christians have always known that, whatever Jesus accomplished on the cross, it was much larger than most of our limited atonement theories recognize.  The atonement is not simply a piece of theology, something to be believed, or a challenging intellectual puzzle where we try to work out what happened and why:  our understanding of the atonement inevitably affects our behaviour, how we seek to address the fractured relationships in our own lives, in our wider societies and in the world as a whole.

But Not as Difficult as We Make It

We want to know how things work, and that is generally a good thing.  But it does mean at times that we get caught up in our questions, focus on some details (which may not be the important details), and miss the big picture.

I have had many conversations with people who want to be told how the cross 'works' - they want to have the mechanism explained to them, so they can understand how Jesus' death on the cross brings about our salvation.  And while seeking to understand is a good thing, it needs to be balanced by a little humility.  What do we need to know?  What are we capable of understanding?  As a young child, you understood very little of your parents' activity, but you could (and, I hope, did) understand that they loved you.  The rest is just detail.

It was inevitable that Jesus was going to die.  He was a trouble-maker; He threatened the status quo; and powerful people did what powerful people always do - if they cannot silence the threat, or take control of it, they eliminate it.  Jesus only had a few basic options: to give up and be silent; to give in and submit to the worldly powers; to compete, fight, win, and replace the worldly powers; or to remain true to His mission, and allow them to do what they wanted.

The fact that Jesus remained true to His Father, to His teaching, and to His mission - that was absolutely vital.  He remained true to the end.  And God demonstrated that He was right all along, through the resurrection.

How does Jesus' death on the cross achieve our salvation?  Our starting point must be: fundamentally, it does not matter.  God loves us, and accepts us as members of His family.  We have been adopted.  What paperwork was involved?  We can be curious, and our exploration may prove to be spiritually fruitful, but the bottom line is that we don't need to understand in order to benefit.

This is how we actually live our lives: you use electricity, but you don't understand it (nobody does!).  You don't know what an electron is (a particle, or a wave, or a collection of things which act like tiny vibrating strings, or something quite different...), but you probably do know what you need to know: perhaps you are able to wire up your home correctly, or perhaps you simply know you can flick the light switch, and the light comes on.  The person building the home needs to know how to wire it up, but the person living in it only needs to know how to use the electricity - how to benefit from it.  And neither of them need to know what electrons really are, or why electricity flows the way it does.

More needs to be said...

In the meantime, you may wish to take a look at 7 atonement theories from church history by Peter Watts for a short and readable summary of seven popular theories; for a longer informed and readable summary of the various options, I recommend Did God Kill Jesus? by Tony Jones.  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a more technical article on Atonement which covers a wider range of material than the previous two sources.