Compare and contrast three theories of salvation in your assigned readings.
CHAPTER 5
Salvation
A central theme of the Christian message is that the human situation has, in some way, been transformed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is often described as “salvation.” Although the word “salvation” has a very specific meaning within Christian theology, as we shall see in a moment, it is often used in a more general sense in everyday use.
It is important to appreciate that the term “salvation” does not necessarily have any specifically Christian reference. It can be used in a thoroughly secular manner. For example, it was common for Soviet writers, especially during the late 1920s, to speak of Lenin as the “savior” of the Russian people. Military coups in African states during the 1980s frequently resulted in the setting up of “councils of salvation,” which would try to restore political and economic stability. Salvation can thus be a purely secular notion, concerned with political emancipation or the general human quest for liberation.
Even at the religious level, salvation is not a specifically Christian idea. Many – but not, it must be stressed, all – of the world’s religions have concepts of salvation. They differ enormously, in relation to both their understanding of how that salvation is achieved, and the shape or form which it is understood to take.
In turning to explore the theology of salvation, we need to engage with two questions. First, there is the question of how “salvation” itself is to be understood. In what way is the Christian understanding of the nature of salvation distinctive? Second, there is the question of how salvation is possible, and in particular how it is grounded in the history of Jesus Christ. Or, to put this another way: what is the basis of salvation, according to Christianity? Both these questions have been the subject of intense discussion throughout Christian history, and we shall briefly consider some themes to emerge from this debate in what follows.
We begin by considering the first of these questions: what is salvation? One way of beginning a discussion of this issue is to look at some images of salvation used in Paul’s letters.
Pauline images of salvation
Throughout his New Testament letters, Paul uses a rich range of images to illuminate and clarify what benefits the death and resurrection of Christ secures for believers. He clearly assumes that his readers are familiar with both the cultic rites of Judaism and some contemporary cultural practices within the Roman empire – such as the “redemption” of those who have sold themselves into slavery – and will thus be able to grasp what these analogies were meant to convey. In what follows, we shall explore some of these, and try to appreciate their importance.
The first image is that of salvation itself. Paul sees salvation as having past (e.g., Romans 8:24), present (e.g., 1 Corinthians 1:18), and future (e.g., Romans 13:11) dimensions. The word “salvation” thus refers to something that has already happened in the past, to something that is happening in the present, and to something that will happen in the future. The Greek word soteria has a number of meanings going beyond the conventional translation “salvation,” including “liberation” and “healing” – as in being released from danger or captivity, or being delivered from some form of fatal illness. Augustine of Hippo suggested that the church was like a hospital, in that it was full of people who were in the process of being healed.
A second image of importance is that of adoption. At several points, Paul speaks of Christians as having been “adopted” into the family of God (Romans 8:15, 23; Galatians 4:5). It is widely thought that Paul is here drawing on a legal practice, common in Roman culture (yet, interestingly, not recognized within traditional Jewish law), by which a family could adopt a male child and thus secure inheritance rights. According to many interpreters of Paul, to speak of “believers” having been adopted into the family of God is to make the point that believers share the same inheritance rights as Jesus Christ, and will hence receive the glory which Christ achieved (although only after first sharing in his sufferings).
At the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, many came to place particular importance on the image of justification. Especially in those letters dealing with the relation of Christianity to Judaism (such as Galatians and Romans), Paul affirms that believers have been “justified through faith” (e.g., Romans 5:1–2). This is widely held to involve a change in a believer’s legal status in the sight of God, and their ultimate assurance of acquittal before God, despite their sinfulness. The term “justification” and the verb “to justify” thus came to signify “entering into a right relationship with God,” or perhaps “being made righteous in the sight of God.”
A fourth image is that of redemption. This term primarily bears the sense of “secure someone’s release through a payment.” In the ancient world, which acted as the backdrop to Paul’s thought, the term could be used to refer to the liberation of prisoners of war, or to the securing of liberty of those who had sold themselves into slavery, often to pay off a family debt. Paul’s basic idea appears to be that the death of Christ secures the freedom of believers from slavery to the law or to death, in order that they might become slaves of God instead (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23).
The problem of analogy: salvation as ransom
In chapter 2, we noted how the theological use of analogies raised some interesting questions. How far can these analogies be pressed? For example, in thinking of God as “father,” are we implying that God is male? A similar issue arises in connection with thinking about salvation, and we shall explore the question by looking at the image of salvation as a “ransom.”
The image of Christ’s death as a ransom came to be of central importance to Greek patristic writers, such as Irenaeus of Lyons. The New Testament speaks of Jesus giving his life as a “ransom” for sinners (Mark 10:45; 1 Timothy 2:6). So what are the implications of this image? The word “ransom” suggests three related ideas:
Liberation. A ransom is something which achieves freedom for a person who is held in captivity.
Payment. A ransom is a sum of money which is paid in order to achieve someone’s liberation.
Someone to whom the ransom is paid. A ransom is usually paid to a person’s captor.
There is no doubt that the New Testament proclaims that we have been liberated from captivity through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We have been set free from captivity to sin and the fear of death (Romans 8:21; Hebrews 2:15). It is also clear that the New Testament understands the death of Jesus as the price which had to be paid to achieve our liberation (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23). In both these respects, the scriptural use of “redemption” corresponds to the everyday use of the word. But what of the third aspect?
The New Testament nowhere suggests that Jesus’s death was the price paid to someone (such as the devil) to achieve our liberation. Some patristic writers, however, assumed that they could press this analogy to its limits, and declared that God had delivered us from the power of the devil by offering him Jesus as the price of our liberation.
Origen (ca. 185–ca. 254), perhaps the most speculative of early patristic writers, was one such writer. If Christ’s death was a ransom, Origen argued, it must have been paid to someone. But to whom? It could not have been paid to God, in that God was not holding sinners to ransom. Therefore, it had to be paid to the devil.
Gregory the Great (ca. 540–604) developed this idea still further. The devil had acquired rights over fallen humanity, which God was obliged to respect. The only means by which humanity could be released from this satanic domination and oppression was through the devil exceeding the limits of his authority, and thus being obliged to forfeit his rights. So how could this be achieved? Gregory suggests that it could come about if a sinless person were to enter the world, yet in the form of a normal sinful person. The devil would not notice until it was too late. In claiming authority over this sinless person, the devil would have overstepped the limits of his authority, and thus be obliged to forfeit his rights.
Gregory uses the image of a baited hook, with Christ’s humanity being the bait, and his divinity the hook. The devil, like a great sea-monster, snaps at the bait – and then discovers, too late, the hook. “The bait tempts in order that the hook may wound. Our Lord therefore, when coming for the redemption of humanity, made a kind of hook of himself for the death of the devil.” Other writers explored other images for the same idea – that of trapping the devil. Christ’s death was like a net for catching birds, or a trap for catching mice. It was this aspect of this approach to the meaning of the cross that caused the most disquiet subsequently. It seemed that God was guilty of deception.
This theme is probably best seen in the writings of Rufinus of Aquileia (ca. 345–410), particularly his exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, which dates from around the year 400:
[The purpose of the incarnation] was that the divine virtue of the Son of God might be like a kind of hook hidden beneath the form of human flesh … to lure on the prince of this world to a contest; that the Son might offer him his human flesh as a bait and that the divinity which lay underneath might catch him and hold him fast with its hook … Then, just as a fish when it seizes a baited hook not only fails to drag off the bait but is itself dragged out of the water to serve as food for others; so he that had the power of death seized the body of Jesus in death, unaware of the hook of divinity which lay hidden inside. Having swallowed it, he was immediately caught. The gates of hell were broken, and he was, as it were, drawn up from the pit, to become food for others.
The imagery of victory over the devil proved to have enormous popular appeal. The medieval idea of “the harrowing of hell” bears witness to its power. According to this, after dying upon the cross, Christ descended to hell, and broke down its gates in order that the imprisoned souls might go free. The idea rested (rather tenuously, it has to be said) upon 1 Peter 3:18–22, which makes reference to Christ “preaching to the spirits in prison.”
The hymn “You Choirs of New Jerusalem,” written by Fulbert of Chartres (died 1028), expresses this theme in several of its verses, picking up the theme of Christ as the “lion of Judah” (Revelation 5:5) defeating Satan, the serpent (Genesis 3:15):
For Judah’s lion bursts his chains
Crushing the serpent’s head;
And cries aloud through death’s domain
To wake the imprisoned dead.
A similar idea is found in Piers the Plowman, one of the most important English-language poems of the fourteenth century. In this poem, Piers falls asleep, and dreams of Christ throwing open the gates of Hell, and speaking the following words to Satan:
Here is my soul as a ransom for all these sinful souls, to redeem those that are worthy. They are mine; they came from me, and therefore I have the better claim on them … You, by falsehood and crime and against all justice, took away what was mine, in my own domain; I, in fairness, recover them by paying the ransom, and by no other means. What you got by guile is won back by grace … And as a tree caused Adam and all mankind to die, so my gallows-tree shall bring them back to life.
Having examined some biblical images of salvation, and reflected on some issues in their interpretation, we may now turn to consider how these themes have been explored and developed within the Christian theological tradition. This area of Christian theology is traditionally described as “theories of the atonement.” The word “atonement” can be traced back to 1526, when the English writer William Tyndale (ca. 1494–1536) was confronted with the task of translating the New Testament into English. There was, at that time, no English word which meant “reconciliation.” Tyndale thus had to invent such a word – “at-one-ment.” This word soon came to bear the meaning “the benefits which Jesus Christ brings to believers through his death upon the cross.” This unfamiliar word is rarely used in modern English, so that theologians now generally prefer to speak of this area as “the doctrine of the work of Christ.”
In what follows, we shall look at three approaches to the cross which have played a significant role in Christian theology. Each builds on core New Testament themes, filling in part of the bigger picture of what redemption represents, and how it is secured in and through the death of Christ on the cross. None of them offers a complete understanding of the significance of the death and resurrection of Christ, but rather offers perspectives on the greater truth which underlies them all.
The cross as a sacrifice
In the first place, the New Testament draws on Old Testament cultic practices to present Christ’s death upon the cross as a sacrifice. This approach, which is especially associated with the Letter to the Hebrews, presents Christ’s sacrificial offering as an effective and perfect sacrifice, which was able to accomplish that which the sacrifices of the Old Testament were only able to intimate, rather than achieve. In particular, Paul’s use of the Greek term hilasterion, often translated as “mercy seat” (Romans 3:25), is also important here, as it is drawn from the Old Testament sacrificial rituals dealing with the purging of sin.
This idea is developed subsequently within the Christian tradition. In order for humanity to be restored to God, the mediator must sacrifice himself; without this sacrifice, such restoration is an impossibility. Athanasius argues that Christ’s sacrifice was superior to those stipulated under the Old Covenant in several respects:
Christ offers a sacrifice which is trustworthy, of permanent effect, and which is unfailing in its nature. The sacrifices which were offered according to the Law were not trustworthy, since they had to be offered every day, and were again in need of purification. In contrast, the Savior’s sacrifice was offered once only, and was accomplished in its entirety, and can thus be relied upon permanently.
This idea is developed further in Athanasius’s Festal Letters, written annually to celebrate the feast of Easter. In these letters, Athanasius develops the New Testament idea that there is an important analogy between the death of Christ on the cross and the sacrifice of a lamb during the Jewish festival of the Passover, commemorating Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. Athanasius here interprets the Passover sacrifice of the lamb as a “type” (that is, a foreshadowing or anticipation) of the death of Christ:
[Christ], being truly of God the Father, became incarnate for our sakes, so that he might offer himself to the Father in our place, and redeem us through his offering and sacrifice … This is he who, in former times, was sacrificed as a lamb, having been foreshadowed in that lamb. But afterwards, he was slain for us. “For Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed.” (1 Corinthians 5:7).
Augustine of Hippo brought new clarity to the whole discussion of the nature of Christ’s sacrifice through his crisp and highly influential definition of a sacrifice, set out in City of God: “A true sacrifice is offered in every action which is designed to unite us to God in a holy fellowship.” On the basis of this definition, Augustine has no difficulties in speaking of Christ’s death as a sacrifice: “By his death, which is indeed the one and most true sacrifice offered for us, he purged, abolished, and extinguished whatever guilt there was by which the principalities and powers lawfully detained us to pay the penalty.” In this sacrifice, Christ was both victim and priest; he offered himself up as a sacrifice: “He offered sacrifice for our sins. And where did he find that offering, the pure victim that he would offer? He offered himself, in that he could find no other.”
This understanding of the sacrifice of Christ would become of decisive importance throughout the Middle Ages, and would shape western understandings of Christ’s death. In view of Augustine’s significance, we may cite in full the passage which is often singled out as the most succinct expression of his thoughts on this matter:
Thus the true Mediator, who “took the form of a servant” and was thus made “the mediator between God and humanity, the person Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5), receives the sacrifice in the “form of God” (Philippians 2:7, 8), in union with the Father, with whom he is one God. And yet, in the “form of a servant,” he determined to be himself that sacrifice, rather than to receive it, in order to prevent anyone from thinking that such a sacrifice should be offered to any creature. Thus he is both the priest, who made the offering himself, and the oblation.
Hugh of St. Victor (died 1142), writing in the early twelfth century, found the imagery of “sacrifice” helpful in explaining the inner logic of the workings of Christ’s death on the cross. Christ was able to be an effective sacrifice for human sin precisely because he was able to bring our fallen sinful nature before God:
From our nature, he took a victim for our nature, so that the whole burnt offering which was offered up might come from that which is ours. He did this so that the redemption to be offered might have a connection with us, through its being taken from what is ours. We are truly made to be partakers in this redemption as we are united through faith to the redeemer who has entered into fellowship with us through his flesh.
The efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice thus rested on his humanity, as well as his divinity.
The cross as a victory
A second way of approaching the meaning of the cross integrates a series of biblical passages focusing upon the notion of a divine victory over hostile forces. The New Testament declares that God has given us a victory through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). The early church gloried in the triumph of Christ upon the cross, and the victory that he won over sin, death, and Satan. But in what way may this victory be understood? Who is it who has been defeated? And how?
Christian writers of the first five centuries were deeply attracted by the imagery of Christ gaining a victory through the cross. It was clear to them that Christ had defeated death, sin, and the devil. Just as David killed Goliath with his own weapons, so Christ defeated sin with its weapon – death. Through an apparent defeat, victory was gained over a host of hidden forces which tyrannized humanity.
Patristic writers such as Athanasius and Augustine of Hippo used a number of central images to explore the nature of human captivity to sin, and the manner in which we have been liberated by Christ’s death and resurrection. We were held in bondage by the fear of death. We were imprisoned by sin. We were trapped by the power of the devil. With great skill, these writers built up a coherent picture of the human dilemma. Human beings are held prisoner by hostile forces, and are unable to break free unaided. Someone was required who would break into their prison, and set them free. Someone from outside the human situation would have to enter into our predicament, and liberate us. Someone would have to cut the bonds which held us captive. Time and time again, the same theme is restated: we are trapped in our situation, and our only hope lies in liberation from outside.
According to this approach, through his death and resurrection, Christ has confronted and disarmed the host of hostile forces which collectively held us in captivity. The cross and resurrection represent a dramatic act of divine liberation, in which God delivers his people from captivity to hostile powers, as he once delivered his people Israel from bondage in Egypt. The second-century writer Irenaeus of Lyons put it like this: “The Word of God was made flesh in order that he might destroy death and bring us to life. For we were tied and bound in sin, we were born in sin, and we live under the dominion of death.”
This note of triumph led to the appropriation of an image drawn from Roman culture of the late classical period in Christian depictions of the benefits won by Christ on the cross. The victory of Christ was depicted as a great triumphant procession, comparable to those of ancient Rome, in which the great military achievements of its heroes were celebrated. In its classical form, the triumphal parade proceeded the victorious hero from the Campus Martius through the streets of Rome, finally ending up at the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. The parade was led by the general’s soldiers, often carrying placards with slogans describing the general and his achievements, or showing maps of the territories he conquered. Other soldiers led carts containing booty that would be turned over to Rome’s treasury. A section of the parade included prisoners, often the leaders of the defeated cities or countries, bound in chains.
It was a small step for Christian writers to transform this imagery into the proclamation of Christ as the conquering hero. This powerful symbolism was firmly grounded in the New Testament, which spoke of the victorious Christ as “making captivity a captive” (Ephesians 4:8). While this theme can be seen in some Christian art of this early period, its most dramatic impact was upon the hymnody of the time. One of the greatest hymns of the Christian church, dating from this period, portrays Christ’s triumphant procession and celebrates his defeat of his foes.
The hymn-writer Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (ca. 530–ca. 610) is chiefly remembered for his poem “Vexilla regis prodeunt” – “the royal banners go forth.” This hymn is still widely used today to mark Holy Week within western Christianity.
The royal banners forward go,
The cross shines forth in mystic glow;
Where He in flesh, our flesh Who made,
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid.
The cross and forgiveness
A third approach to the meaning of the death of Christ integrates a series of biblical passages dealing with notions of judgment and forgiveness. The understanding of the work of Christ outlined above has enormous attractions, not least on account of its highly dramatic character. It also, however, has some serious weaknesses. The eleventh-century writer Anselm of Canterbury identified two particular weaknesses with this approach. In the first place, it failed to explain why God should wish to redeem us. And, in the second, it was of little value in making sense of precisely how Jesus Christ was involved in the process of redemption. Anselm felt that more explanation was required, particularly in explaining how the divinity and humanity of Christ were involved in the redemption of humanity.
To meet this need, Anselm developed an approach to the work of Christ which centers upon the rectitude of the created order. God created the world in a certain way, which expresses the divine nature. God also created human beings in order that they might have fellowship in eternity with their creator. This purpose, however, would seem to have been frustrated by human sin, which comes as a barrier between humanity and God. A fundamental disruption has thus been introduced into creation. Its moral ordering has been violated. The redemption of humanity is thus called for, in order that the natural rectitude of the created order may be restored. In this sense, Anselm understands redemption as a restoration of humanity to its original status within creation.
How, then, can we be redeemed? Anselm stresses that God is obliged to redeem us in a way that is consistent with the moral ordering of the creation, reflecting God’s own nature. God cannot create the universe in one way, as an expression of God’s will and nature, and then violate its moral order by acting in a completely different way in the redemption of humanity. God must redeem us in a way that is consistent with God’s own nature and purposes. Redemption must, in the first place, be moral, and in the second, be seen to be moral. God cannot employ one standard of morality at one point, and another later on. God is therefore under a self-imposed obligation to respect the moral order of the creation.
Having established this point, Anselm then considers how redemption is possible. The basic dilemma can be summarized as follows. God cannot restore us to fellowship without first dealing with human sin. Sin is a disruption of the moral ordering of the universe. It represents the rebellion of the creation against its creator. It represents an insult and an offense to God. The situation must therefore be made right before fellowship between God and humanity can be restored. God must therefore “make good” the situation in a way that is consistent with both the divine mercy and the divine righteousness. Anselm thus introduces the concept of a “satisfaction” – a payment or other action which compensates for the offense of human sin. Once this satisfaction has been made, the situation can revert to normal. But this satisfaction must first be made.
The problem, Anselm observes, is that human beings do not have the ability to make this satisfaction. It lies beyond their resources. They need to make it – but they are unable to do so. Humanity ought to make satisfaction for its sins, but cannot. And while God is under no obligation to make satisfaction, God could do this, if it was appropriate. Therefore, Anselm argues, if God were to become a human being, the resulting God-person would have both the obligation (as a human being) and the ability (as God) to make the necessary satisfaction. Thus the incarnation leads to a just solution to the human dilemma. The death of Jesus Christ upon the cross demonstrates God’s total opposition to sin, while at the same time providing the means by which sin could be really and truly forgiven, and the way opened to renewed fellowship between humanity and God.
The basic idea is that the value of the satisfaction thus offered had to be equivalent to the weight of human sin. Anselm argued that the Son of God became incarnate in order that Christ, as God incarnate, would possess both the human obligation to pay the satisfaction, and the divine ability to pay a satisfaction of the magnitude necessary for redemption. This idea is faithfully reproduced by Mrs. Cecil F. Alexander (1818–95) in her famous hymn of 1848, “There is a green hill far away”:
There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven, and let us in.
The theological basis of the notion of “satisfaction” was developed further in the thirteenth century by Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas sees the adequacy of the “satisfaction of Christ” to compensate for human sin as resting on three factors, as follows:
A proper satisfaction comes about when someone offers to the person offended something which gives him a delight greater than his hatred of the offense. Now Christ by suffering as a result of love and obedience offered to God something greater than what might be exacted in compensation for the whole offense of humanity; firstly, because of the greatness of the love, as a result of which he suffered; secondly, because of the worth of the life which he laid down for a satisfaction, which was the life of God and of a human being; thirdly, because of the comprehensiveness of his passion and the greatness of the sorrow which he took upon himself.
Aquinas here follows Anselm in arguing that the inherent worth of Christ’s death is grounded in his divinity. Why is Christ’s death so significant, and possessed of a capacity to redeem us? Because, Aquinas argues, he – and he alone – is God incarnate. As Aquinas puts it, “the worth of Christ’s flesh is to be reckoned, not just according to the nature of flesh but according to the person who assumed it, in that it was the flesh of God, from whom it gained an infinite worth.” In response to the question of why the death of one person should have possessed such saving significance, Aquinas points out that Christ’s significance in this matter does not rest on his humanity, but on his divinity.
Nevertheless, despite this emphasis on the divinity of Christ, it is clear that Aquinas has taken care to ensure that the importance of the humanity of Christ should not be overlooked. The first and third of his three considerations can each be argued to give a significant place to Christ’s humanity in the process of redemption, by stressing the saving importance of Christ’s love and suffering. Anselm tended to treat Christ’s humanity as little more than the means by which Christ was able to justly bear the penalty due for human sin; Aquinas is thus able to offer a more positive assessment of the soteriological role of the humanity of Christ.
But how does Christ’s achievement upon the cross affect us? In what way do we share in the benefits of his death and resurrection? Anselm felt that this point did not require discussion, and so gave no guidance on the matter. Later writers, however, felt that it needed to be addressed. Three main ways of understanding how believers relate to Christ in this manner may be noted.
Participation. Through faith, believers participate in Jesus Christ. They are “in Christ,” to use Paul’s famous phrase. They are caught up in him, and share in his risen life. As a result of this, they share in all the benefits won by Christ, through his obedience upon the cross.
Representation. Christ is the covenant representative of humanity. Through faith, we come to stand within the covenant between God and humanity. All that Christ has won for us is available to us, on account of the covenant. Just as God entered into a covenant with Israel, so God has entered into a similar covenant with his church. Christ, by his obedience upon the cross, represents God’s covenant people, winning benefits for them as their representative. By coming to faith, individuals come to stand within the covenant, and thus participate in all its benefits, won by Christ.
Substitution. Christ is here understood to be our substitute. We ought to have been crucified, on account of our sins; Christ is crucified in our place. God allows Christ to stand in our place, taking his guilt upon himself, in order that Christ’s righteousness, won by obedience upon the cross, might become ours.
Up to this point, we have focused on the nature of salvation, considering primarily the questions of the basis and nature of salvation. Yet there is another question that needs to be considered here: from what are we saved? This leads us to consider the nature of sin.
Source: Theology: The Basics
Alister E. McGrath
Chapter 5
