John Mark Hicks

1. Campbell -- For Campbell, the confession of Scripture is that Christ is our propitiation and we are justly acquitted from all guilt "because the just desert or wages of [our] sin, viz. sorrows, sufferings, and death, to the full amount of its demerit, has been inflicted upon, and endured by, [our] surety, the Redeemer."[i] For God to acquit the guilty justly, there must be a surety or a substitute who bears the just and "infinite demerit and evil of sin."

2. Stone –

a. Stone's theology of atonement is moral rather than penal. “[Stone’s] major disappointment with Campbell was on his insistence that the sacrifice of Christ was a display of wrath as well as love.” <…> he was "embarrassed" by the Calvinistic doctrine of penal substitution.

b. Stone unequivocally rejects any idea that Christ suffered the spiritual punishment due sinners, or bore their guilt on the tree.

3. Scott

a. Scott positioned himself between Campbell and Stone.

b. Scott believed that justice must play a role in a proper understanding of what Christ's death accomplished. Focusing on Romans 3:25-26, Scott maintains that the atonement was at least partially a function of justice. In view of the "propitiatory sacrifice" of Jesus, God has demonstrated his justice. Scott, however, rejects both a penal substitution and a moral influence understanding of this justice.

c. Scott believed the demonstration of God's justice is political or governmental in character.

History and Theories of Atonement

An Essay By Thomas J. Nettles

Definition

The history of the various theories of the atonement is made up of various views on the main biblical themes of ransom, redemption, propitiation, substitution, and Christ as moral example.

Summary

The history of the various theories of the atonement is made up of differing views on the biblical themes of ransom, redemption, propitiation, substitution, and Christ as moral example. While the example theory is operative in Scripture, it is not the substance of what was accomplished in the atonement, but itself derives from the rest of the themes. Early theologians expressed an understanding of the substitutionary nature of the atonement quite clearly, but it took more time for different themes to become more explicit in the theology of the church. These theologians also developed themes such as recapitulation, ransom, and Christ as victor over opposing powers. In the medieval ages, Anselm continued to develop a theory based on substitution, redemption, and propitiation, while Abelard suggested an alternative viewpoint based on the moral influence of the atonement event. The tradition of the Reformers emphasized ransom, satisfaction, propitiation, and substitution, and linked the whole of salvation to this event. Later theologians, such as Walter Rauschenbusch, rejected much of the Reformer’s theology on the atonement and emphasized only the moral view.

Biblical Themes

In the biblical discussions of the atoning work of Christ, several key ideas are used to give a comprehensive understanding of the way in which we are rescued from sin and its consequences by the death of Christ. One idea is ransom (Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:5–6; cf. Job 33:24, 28; Ps. 49:7–8). From the interchange of words for ransom and redemption, we learn that these two concepts are closely related. They speak of a price to be paid that is deemed sufficient for the release of a captive or a slave from those who have captured or have legal right to him (Num. 25:48–55; cf. Rom. 3:24–25; Eph. 1:7). Propitiation is elemental to the price of ransom and redemption. This indicates that the ransom given by Christ that brings redemption to sinners is exacted through Christ’s enduring divine wrath (1 John 4:10). God’s pre-temporal love for sinners made the incarnation and wrath-bearing necessary as means to achieve his purpose of redemption. This wrath is an expression of fitting justice to be inflicted for the sins of those for whom he died, who by this death are delivered from “the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10). We find Paul stating this succinctly in writing that this propitiation is a demonstration of God’s “righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).

This work of Christ is also presented in Scripture as substitutionary in nature. Its voluntary nature, essential for its truly substitutionary effect, can hardly be separated from its substitutionary character. Jesus himself set the theme by teaching that he would die in the stead of his people, his sheep (John 10:15, 17, 18; Matt. 1:21; Rom. 4:25; Gal. 1:4; 2:20; 2 Cor. 5:21; Eph. 5:25; Col. 2:14; Titus 2:14; Heb. 2:17; 9:26, 28; 1 Pet. 3:18).

The death of Christ also is set forth as an example. Though some in the history of this doctrine have gravitated to this idea as the primary power of Christ’s death, Scripture does not present it as the substance of what was accomplished in his death. Rather, the objective substance itself serves as a model of how completely we must commit ourselves to the will of God (1 Pet. 2:21). If Christ can be patient and joyful (Heb. 12:1–2) in going to a death that involved unmitigated divine wrath, we as his redeemed ones should be patient and joyful in suffering for his sake. The example theories as discussed below lose their motivational power unless founded on true substitutionary propitiation.

All of these ideas are prominent in the history of theories about the atonement. The different concepts have been alternately set forth as the leading idea around which the other aspects were synthesized as contributing factors. These views propose that something objectively substantial in Christ’s death is necessarily connected with forgiveness and acceptance before God. The death of Christ is seen as materially effecting the sinner’s forgiveness of sin and release from the enslavement to sin and susceptibility to divine wrath. Another view, a minority stream of thought, focuses on the subjective impact the death of Christ has on the sinner to create a desire to repent of sin, to love God, and to serve him faithfully; God needs nothing else for his gracious reception of such a returning sinner. Both the moral example theory and the moral government view fall within this framework.

Historical Development

A remarkably clear statement on the substitutionary view of the atonement came in an early Greek Apology that we know as the Epistle to Diognetus. He asserts that Christian revelation and Christian redemption make Christianity superior to paganism and philosophy. This apologist says “He did not hate us or reject us, or bear a grudge against us; instead, he was patient and forbearing; in his mercy he took upon himself our sin; he himself gave us his own Son as a ransom for us, the holy one for the lawless, the guiltless for the guilty, ‘the just for the unjust,’ the incorruptible for the corruptible, the immortal for the mortal. For what else but his righteousness could have covered our sins? In whom was it possible for us, the lawless and ungodly, to be justified, except in the Son of God alone? O the sweet exchange, O the incomprehensible work of God, O the unexpected blessings, that the sinfulness of many should be hidden in one righteous man, while the righteousness of one should justify many sinners!” (Epistle to Diognetus, in The Apostolic Fathers, 256-57).

Justin Martyr (ca. 100–165) saw clearly in Scripture that there was no salvation without the death of Christ and faith in him. He believed that Christ suffered the curse of the human race, for “the Father of the Universe willed that His Christ should shoulder the curses of the whole human race, fully realizing that He would raise him up again after his crucifixion and death.” This should lead anyone who sees this truth to bewail his own iniquities. No longer do we look to the mere shadows of the sacrifices of goats and sheep, “but by faith through the blood and the death of Christ who suffered death for this precise purpose.” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 13) He was crucified as a “sinless and just man” and by his “sufferings are healed all those who approach the Father through Him.”

Irenaeus (ca. 130–202) sought an understanding of the atonement that blended the redemptive value of the incarnation with the redemptive power of the cross. Not only has man “become a partaker of immortality” in the incarnate Christ, but he benefits from the moral transaction “to destroy sin and redeem man from guilt.” Our slavery to sin and the bondage of death made incarnation and suffering necessary to achieve a just salvation. G. W. H. Lampe points to the restoration of man to the likeness of God through the Incarnation, and the incorporation of man into Christ’s obedience” as central to his thought (Cunliffe-Jones, A History of Christian Doctrine, p. 48). Christ’s saving work is accomplished by recapitulating the reversal of Adam’s disobedience by his own perfect obedience. Irenaeus believed that Christ recapitulated “the long line of the human race, procuring for us a comprehensive salvation, that we might recover in Christ Jesus what in Adam we had lost, namely, the state of being in the image and likeness of God” (Irenaeus Against Heresies III. 18.1 in The Ante-Nicene Fathers). Three elements constitute recapitulation: Christ’s obedience gave us righteousness, his ransom delivered us, and his resurrection restores our immortality. The ransom was not a matter of conceding “rights” to the devil but rather of God’s performing his salvation in a just manner, according to his own just threat that sin would bring death.

Later, Gustav Aulen (1879–1978) in a series of lectures published as Christus Victor would point to the ransom theory in its defeat of Satan as the primary biblical emphasis and the classic Christian view. He rescued it from post-Irenaeus developments of defeat-by-deceit and payment to Satan of a just claim, but he was not enthusiastic about the Reformed understanding of substitution and its concomitants (see Gustav Aulen, Christus Victor; H. D. McDonald The Atonement of the Death of Christ, p. 258–265).

Tertullian (ca. 160–220) believed that in Adam’s sin “he has infected the whole human race by their descent from him, transmitting to them his own damnation.” Tertullian taught that the phrase “children of wrath,” meant that “sins, the lusts of the flesh, unbelief, anger, are imputed to the nature that is common to all men.” Every soul, therefore, has its “status in Adam until it receives a new status in Christ.” This comes through the redemptive work of Christ. Tertullian says that the “death of Christ … is the whole essence and value of the Christian religion” because in Christ’s death “the Lord ransomed him from the angelic powers who rule the world, from the spirits of iniquity, from the darkness of this world, from eternal judgment, from everlasting death (from Tertullian’s The Testimony of the Soul, Against Marcion, and On Flight in Persecution, in Early Christian Fathers, pp. 116, 128, 129).

Anselm investigated the purpose of the incarnation and the death of Christ in his book Cur Deus Homo (“Why the God-Man”). The problem as stated by Boso, Anselm’s interlocutor, is that “sinful man owes God a debt for sin which he cannot repay, and at the same time that he cannot be saved without repaying it” (Anselm, “Why God Became Man,” in A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham, p. 146). Anselm argued that God’s honor must necessarily have sufficient satisfaction if he is to show both justice and mercy. The Son of God took full humanity and lived in perfect righteousness under the law of God to honor his Father’s holiness, and paid the debt of death he did not owe as a punishment for sins he did not commit. Anselm viewed it as “rational necessity,” that man’s redemption and restoration “can be accomplished only through the remission of sins, which a man can gain only through the Man who is himself God and who reconciles sinful men to God through his death.” Our just debt to God as creatures and our moral debt to God as sinners would be impossible to fulfill apart from the way established by infinite wisdom: “Thus it was necessary for God to take manhood into the unity of his person, so that he who in his own nature ought to pay and could not should be in a person who could [whose life] was so sublime, so precious, that it can suffice to pay what is owing for the sins of the whole world, and infinitely more” (176). When contemplating this with Boso, Anselm draws the discussion to a succinct conclusion: “To whom would it be more fitting for him to assign the fruit and recompense of his death than to those for whose salvation … he made himself man, and to whom … by dying he gave an example of dying for the sake of justice? For they will be his imitators in vain if they do not share in his merit.” (180).

Peter Abelard (1079–1142) shifted discussions of the atonement from objectivity to subjectivity—from necessary requirements of the justice and wrath of God to an affecting influence on the human spirit. McDonald credits Abelard with initiating the moral influence view of the atonement, which he indicated could “be better spoken of as the theory of emotional appeal of divine love.” With no satisfaction of his holiness as manifested in law, with no objective realization of retribution, God pardons the sinner based only on the incipience of love toward God as the sinner observes the loving devotion of Christ to his Father. According to Abelard, the manner in which God demonstrated his justice in the death of Christ was “to show forth his love to us, or to convince us how much we ought to love him who ‘spared not his own Son’ for us.” Abelard identified the grace of God, the justice of God, and the righteousness of God with love (Abelard, “Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans,” A Scholastic Miscellany, p. 279, 283). Christ’s perfect love as the perfect man completes what may be lacking in our love and the merit of his love infuses ours so we are forgiven and received by the Father (McDonald, The Atonement of the Death of Christ, pp. 174–180).

Luther certainly believed in the subjective effects of the atonement but based this solidly on a rich understanding of the objective Godward impact of the death of Christ. In a sermon on Easter Sunday, Luther pointed to Christ’s sacrifice in terms of ransom, satisfaction, propitiation, and implied substitution. His hearers needed to consider “the greatness and terror of the wrath of God against sin in that it could be appeased and a ransom effected in no other way than through the one sacrifice of the Son of God. Only his death and the shedding of his blood could make satisfaction. And we must consider also that we by our sinfulness had incurred that wrath of God and therefore were responsible for the offering of the Son of God upon the cross and the shedding of his blood.” He emphasized its substitutionary aspect when he reminded the congregation to be aware “why God spared not his own Son but offered him a sacrifice upon the cross, delivered him to death; namely, that his wrath might be lifted from us once more” (Martin Luther, Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, 4.1:190, 191).

Calvin, in like manner of Anselm, based his discussion of the atoning work of Christ on the orthodox understanding of the person of Christ. His view employs the themes of sacrifice, redemption, satisfaction, reconciliation, propitiation, and ransom while focusing on the aspect of substitution. “In Christ,” he observed, “there was a new and different order, in which the same one was to be both priest and sacrifice. This was because no other satisfaction adequate for our sins, and no man worthy to offer to God the only-begotten Son could be found. Now, Christ plays the priestly role,” Calvin continued, “not only to render the Father favorable and propitious toward us by an eternal law of reconciliation, but also to receive us as his companions in this great office” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1:502). Referring to Isaiah 53:6–10, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Galatians 3:13–14, and 1 Peter 2:24, Calvin summarized, “The Son of God, utterly clean of all fault, nevertheless took upon himself the shame and reproach of our iniquities, and in return clothed us with his purity” (510). Calvin calls the substitutionary work of Christ one in which in order to “cleanse the filth of those iniquities [he] was covered with them by transferred imputation.” He fell under the curse for us, bore our sins, and changed the cross from a tragic instrument of shameful death into a “triumphal chariot.” Only by seeing Christ as a sacrificial victim could we believe with assurance “that Christ is our redemption, ransom, and propitiation” (510–511).

John Owen brought the Reformed understanding of substitutionary atonement to its most precise and mature development in his work The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. There he proposed that in this death, Christ actually effected reconciliation with God, justification, sanctification, and adoption. “The death and bloodshedding of Jesus Christ hath wrought,” Owen summarized, “and doth effectually procure for all those that are concerned in it, eternal redemption, consisting in grace here and glory hereafter” (John Owen, The Works of John Owen, 10:159.) In order to secure this, the Father sent the Son as the only agent capable of effecting the end of redemption and the Father laid upon him “all the punishment that was due to sin either in the severity of God’s justice, or according to the exigence of that law which required obedience.” His sacrifice was intended and effected for all of those, and those only, whom the Father had given him: “It is evident that every one for whom Christ died must actually have applied unto him all the good things purchased by his death” (181).

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) represents a kind of view of the atonement that may be classified as moral influence, or in some presentations of it, moral government. This revisits Abelard’s basic model. For Rauschenbusch the Anselmic tradition “offends our Christian convictions,” by “wiping out the love and mercy of God,” and is “alien from the spirit of the gospel” (Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel, 242–43). Jesus’s devotion to the honor and principles of justice established by his Father, without wavering and in the face deadly opposition, should influence us also to work for justice in this world. “Jesus did not in any sense bear the sin of some ancient Briton who beat up his wife in B.C. 56, or some mountaineer in Tennessee who got drunk in A.D. 1917. But he did in a very real sense bear the weight of the public sins of organized society, and they in turn are causally connected with all private sins.” For his opposition to these public sins Jesus was killed. They were the “active agents in the legal steps which led to his death.” The evil projected onto society by religious bigotry, graft and political power, corruption of justice, mob spirit and action, militarism, and class contempt. His contradiction of these six social sins insured the he would die for our sins (248-58).

A Brief Look at Five Views on The Atonement of Christ

Andrew Springer

Despite what you’ve heard, there’s actually been a ton of debate.

The most important concept in Christianity is accepting Jesus as one’s savior. Ask all of the world’s two billion or so professing Christians and they’ll most likely agree with that. There also tends to be a general agreement that through Christ, humankind is somehow reconciled with God. This is called atonement. It’s one of the few distinctly English words in theology that doesn’t derive from Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. It’s the combination of “at one,” as in, “to be in harmony with”. You are at “at one” with God, you atone. The atonement then is “man’s reconciliation with God through the sacrificial death of Christ.”

What there is much less agreement upon is how and why this is achieved. Christ brought us back to God, but how? Why were we separated from God in the first place? Is the atoning work of Christ about the Son, the Father, or us? For such an important question, the Bible doesn’t really give a clear answer. Of course, for each theory one can find ample support in various Biblical passages, just like any other theological concept in Christianity.

To me, this is the most important question in Christianity: How did humankind reconcile with God through Christ? “Nothing in the Christian system,” wrote John Wesley, “is of greater consequence than the doctrine of the atonement.” How we answer this question fundamentally shapes how we see the world and how we live our lives.

In this short essay, I will lay out five theories that have shaped (mainly Western) Christian thought. Note there are many more theories and much ink has been spent debating and rebutting this fairly simple yet incredibly complex question. I won’t attempt to change your mind to what I believe, but I hope that as you read, you’ll thoughtfully and prayerfully reflect on your own answers.

#1 — The Ancient View: Christ as Ransom

For the first thousand years of Christianity, most Christians believed that Christ was a ransom that was paid to Satan in exchange for releasing humans from the bondage of sin. Satan had control over humanity since the fall of man, and only the soul of perfectly innocent Jesus would be an acceptable payment for the return of humanity to the Father. But unbeknownst to the devil, Jesus was also God. So after three days, Jesus left Hell and returned to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father.

The strongest biblical support for this theory, known as the Ransom Theory of atonement, comes from the words of Jesus himself: “Just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” — Matthew 20:28 (see also Mark 10:45 and 1 Timothy 2:5–6).

St. Greggory of Nyssa, who lived in the 300’s CE and profoundly shaped the way we still think of the Trinity, described it as sort of a bait-and-switch. God “was hidden under the veil of our nature, that so, as with ravenous fish, the hook of [God] might be gulped down along with the bait of flesh.” I use Greggory’s words here to demonstrate that this was not a fringe view. This was the main view of the atonement, the view of the church’s leading thinkers.

The idea that Jesus’s death was a ransom to the devil might seem crazy to us, but it’s not so crazy if you look at the culture that produced it. As one historian notes, it was not uncommon in late antiquity that “marauding gangs” would roam about “capturing travelers and demanding payment for their release.” There was also a very real sense of duality between good and evil that may seem very foreign to mainline and liberal Protestants today, if not contemporary Evangelicals. Writes one historian of theology: “So conscious were the early Christians of the pervasiveness of Satanically inspired evil (see the book of Revelation) that they developed strong dualistic tendencies: God on one side, the devil on the other, and no neutral ground in between.”

That dualism is what concerns most critics of the ransom theory. One writer called that dualism dangerous because “among other things, [it] threatens the very sovereignty of God.” Basically, in some respects, it makes Satan equal to God. Why would God have to pay Satan anything? Why would He be in debt to Satan?

# 2 — The Medieval View: Christ as Substitute

So troubled by those questions did one man offer a stern critique of ransom atonement, in a book whose influence is still being felt today. In 1099, St. Anselm of Canterbury wrote Cur Deus Homo, or “why God became man.” It took the ransom theory to task. “For Anselm,” writes one historian, “the notion that the devil’s originator, his creator, could ever be in his debt was absurd. The absolute freedom of the divine being is recovered because, for Anselm, God has the right to act in his own creation just as he pleases.”

In this theory, it is God’s honor that is offended by our sin. And that offense cannot go unanswered, God’s honor must be restored. But man, being so much less than God, can never restore that honor on his own. “The debt is total, the obligation to pay it, total, the power to pay it, zero.” The answer then is found in the sacrifice of Christ: fully human, he can atone for man, fully God, he can restore God’s honor. This is Substitutionary Atonement.

Anselm describes it this way in this dialogue from Cur Deus Homo he has with another monk named Boso:

Anselm: So no one except God can make the satisfaction.
Boso: That follows.
Anselm: But no one except humanity ought to do it — otherwise, humanity has not made satisfaction.
Boso: Nothing could be more just.
Anselm: … So if no one except God can make it and no one except man ought to make it, there must be a God-Man to make it.
Boso: Blessed be God.

Fun aside: Boso is Anselm’s main foil in Cur Deus Homo, constantly getting it wrong and constantly being corrected by Anselm. Some have hypothesized it’s where the name for Bozo the Clown has originated.

Again, it’s important to understand the culture in which Anselm was writing. At about the same time Anselm was crystalizing his theory that God demands satisfaction, the feudal system was emerging in Europe in the late middle ages. In this new system, order in society was built on the idea that you owed somebody something. The surfs who worked the land owed their protection to the lords and knights who owned it, who owed their loyalty to a regional lord or sovereign. The system of order was based on personal (or at least semi-personal) relationships, rather than a strict code of laws. If you did something wrong, you offended the honor of the person above you. The more noble the person you offended, the greater your reparation needed to be.

If this idea of Christ being a substitute sounds somewhat familiar to you, that’s because you’re about to see how it evolves.

#3 — The Reformed View: Christ Receives Your Punishment

Five hundred years after Anselm posited the atoning work of Christ was substitutionary, the thinkers of the reformation, most notably John Calvin, would go even further. To them, it was not that God’s honor was offended. It was that God, the ultimate judge of the universe, cannot let human sin go unpunished. But, as in Anselm’s theory, man has fallen so short of God that he cannot possibly come close to repaying God for his sins, only God can. Thus, Christ comes to earth as fully human and fully God, receives our punishment, and God’s demand for justice is fulfilled.

A modern conservative theologian describes it this way: “The Father, because of his love for human beings, sent his Son (who offered himself willingly and and gladly) to satisfy God’s justice, so that Christ took the place of sinners. The punishment and penalty we deserved was laid on Jesus Christ instead of us, so that in the cross both God’s holiness and love are manifested.”

This is called the Penal Substitutionary theory of atonement. That’s a term Calvin himself of course did not use, but was applied later in the 19th century. Although this theory was firmly codified in all Protestant confessions of faith by the end of the Reformation, its further development was in large part a reaction to the Enlightenment. It remains the dominant view of the atonement for most Evangelicals.

Conservative theologians say evidence for this theory can be found in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, they point to Isaiah 53 (the suffering servant passage) and the various system of animal sacrifices and day of atonement described in Leviticus. In the New, like much of the foundational Lutheran ideas of the Reformation, support for penal substitution can be found in Paul’s words in Romans. They cite specifically Romans 3:21–26, which reads in part: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement (or a place of atonement) by his blood.”

The difference between Anselm’s substitutionary atonement and the penal substitutionary atonement of the Reformation is slight but important. One theologian describes it this way: “In [Anselm’s] theory, punishment is averted. In penal substitution, punishment is absorbed.”

The main objection by critics, however, is to the nature of God that is assumed by both of these theories. One modern theologian describes Anselm’s God as a “status-paranoid power-monger who deliberately humiliates and infantilizes human beings under the guise of justice.” Further, a thinker and theologian who lived around the time of Anselm, the French philosopher and ethicist Peter Abelard, wrote this:

Indeed how cruel and wicked it seems that anyone should demand the blood of an innocent person as the price for anything, or that it should in any way please him that an innocent man should be slain — still less that God should consider the death of his Son so agreeable that by it he should be reconciled to the whole world?

Abelard developed quite a different view of the atonement, and its to his own theory we now turn.

#4 — The Ethical View: Christ as an Example

Interestingly, the quote above from Abelard came from his own commentary on Romans. Obviously, Abelard came to quite different conclusions about the same passages conservatives would later exegete in support of penal substitution. From his ideas was developed the Moral Influence theory of the atonement, where Christ’s life, death, and resurrection shows humans the true nature of love and turns them back towards God. Thus, the cross speaks to us, but its power is enough to pull us in and atone—there is no transaction required of by God. Christ then becomes “an example of man’s best rather than the bearer of man’s worst.”

One theologian describes it this way:

The work of Christ chiefly consists of demonstrating to the world the amazing depth of God’s love of sinful humanity… There is nothing inherent in God that must be appeased before he is willing to forgive humanity. The problem lies in the sinful, hardened human heart, with its fear and ignorance of God… Through the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ, the love of God shines like a beacon, beckoning humanity to come and fellowship.

And just as every theologian has a Bible passage in support of their ideas, so to do the exemplarists (another name for this theory is moral example), notably 1 Peter 2:22, “For this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps,” as well as various passages in John (see John 13:13–16 and John 15:9–17).

Critics of moral influence atonement argue that at its best it doesn’t sound like atonement at all, and at its worst, dangerously veers into the ancient heresy of Pelagianism. Pelagius and his followers in the 400s CE essentially argued that Christians could be saved by their good works without divine help (his main and most vocal opponent was St. Augustine).

But more generally, critics say moral influence theology doesn’t answer the question, “what do we need saved from?” One theologian described the lack of an answer in moral influence atonement this way. Imagine siting safely on a pier, in a deck chair, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a man flings himself into the ocean and drowns. You later learn he did this because he loved you. You would probably think the man was a lunatic. But if, on the other hand, you yourself were drowning in the ocean, and a man came out to save you, succeeds, but drowns himself, you would understand, yes this is love.

A resurgence of moral influence atonement, however, came in the 19th century. This was also as a reaction to the rationalism of the Enlightenment, along with such liberal ideas as postmillennialism and the Social Gospel movement. All emphasized the goodness of God, the ethical example of Christ, and the human ability to improve oneself. In fact, the expression, “What Would Jesus Do?” was born out of these thoughts, popularized by the 1896 novel In His Steps(again, 1 Peter 2:22). And like much liberal Protestant theology, it was largely abandoned in the wake of the first World War, and utterly destroyed by the aftermath of the second. Popular theology, in the wake of the two most destructive and deadly conflicts in all of human history, once again began emphasizing a just God over a God of love.

#5 — The Battlefield View: Christ as Victor

It was into this world, one with a starkly different view of human nature, that arrived our final theory of atonement. In 1930, Swedish theologian Gustaf Aulén published Christus Victor (it would be published in English a year later). Translated from Latin, Christus victor means “Christ as conquerer” or “Christ as victor,” and that idea is at the heart of Aulén’s theory which has taken that name.

In a large way, Aulén reinterpreted our first theory of atonement, the ransom theory. The dualism demonstrated in that theory returns. The earth and heaven are locked in a cosmic struggle between good (God) and evil (Satan). Christ was sent to battle with and triumph over the elements of darkness in his kingdom. All of us are standing in the middle of a cosmic war zone.

The New Testament in several places calls Satan the ruler of this earth, and “everything Jesus was about centered on vanquishing this empire, taking back the world that Satan had seized and restoring its rightful viceroys — humans — to their position of guardians of the earth,” writes one theologian. Further, supporters point to many motifs found in various passages throughout the New Testament, like the power of Satan and his demonic hosts (example: Luke 13:10–16) and our slavery to sin (John 8:34). Not to mention literally the entire book of Revelation, which casts the end times as the ultimate and final battle between good and evil.

This view of atonement lies in sharp contrast to other views by its emphasis on the cosmic significance of Christ over the significance of personal salvation. “We are reconciled because the cosmos has been reconciled. Because the rebel powers have been put in their place, we can be presented ‘holy and blameless’ before God.”

Besides the same criticism of dualism in the ransom theory (making Satan equal to God), the most pressing question with this theory isn’t why, but how? How did Christ defeat Satan through the Cross? What was it about the cross that defeated all the elements of evil throughout the universe? And further, if we are freed from evil and sin, why then do we keep sinning? One critic writes this theory, like the ransom theory, falls apart when pressed too hard for details.

Should we press too hard for details?

To be fair, most, if not all, of these theories tend to crumble when pressed too hard. No theory of atonement seems complete or absolutely correct, at least to human understanding. In fact, most theologians who vocally support one theory will readily admit the other theories hold some validity. For example, one Southern Baptist theologian who ardently supports penal substitution does not deny the cosmic significance of Christ’s victory on the cross, nor does he deny the importance of Jesus as an ethical model for all humankind.

But no, I do not think we should stop pressing for details. We should not stop asking questions about or digging for answers to this, the most important question in Christianity. In doing so, I believe we come closer to God, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit. I know for many in more liberal churches, the idea of penal substitution is absolutely repugnant. I will admit, it was through more liberal theology that I found Jesus and accepted Him as my savior. If penal substitution were the only answer to our question, I probably would have abandoned Christ a long time ago, as I assume many have.

But, it’s not the only answer. I’m writing this on Easter Sunday, 2020. As I reflect on all the possible theories of atonement (and I again admit there are more not covered here), I am in awe of the power of the cross and the atoning work of Christ. Because despite of, or in fact because of, its mystery, this debate, and these endless questions, people still find the answer as they have for two thousand years—in Jesus.

NOTE TO READERS: I’ve deliberately not included the names of theologians and writers quoted—except for the major ones worth remembering—for ease of reading. Most of the quotes cited come from two books: The Nature of Atonement: Four Views edited by James Beilby and Paul Eddy, InterVarsity Press, 2009, and Atonement Theories: A Way Through the Maze by Ben Pugh, Cascade Books, 2014. If anybody needs a page number or anything, just ping me and I’ll dig it up from my notes. Also, all translations are from the New Revised Standard version of the Bible.

Three theories of the Atonement
A central part of Christian doctrine is that Christ died for us. More
specifically, it is held that Christ died on the cross so that our sins could
be forgiven. In this way, Christ’s death is supposed to be a crucial
element of God’s plan for our salvation. This event — Christ’s death
making possible our salvation — is called ‘the Atonement.’
The Atonement raises a number of different interrelated philosophical
questions:
1) Why did Christ die on the cross?
2) How does Christ dying make it possible for our sins to be
forgiven?
3) If God is omnipotent, why couldn’t God forgive our sins
without Christ dying?
A theory of the Atonement is an attempt to answer questions like these
three.
We can distinguish three different theories of the atonement.
1. MORAL EXEMPLAR THEORIES
One sort of theory, which is often described but rarely advocated, is
that the purpose of the Crucifixion is to provide us with an example of
a morally perfect life, which we might then imitate in an attempt to
reconcile ourselves to God.
Two problems for moral exemplar theories: (i) Pelagianism, (ii) the
problem of understanding why death on the cross would be morally
exemplary if it did not also have some other more central purpose in
explaining salvation.

2. THE RANSOM THEORY
An early model of the atonement emphasizes Christ’s death as a
ransom. One finds this language also in the Catechism, which says that
the Crucifixion is “the ransom that would free men from the slavery of
sin.”
But if Christ’s death was a ransom, to whom was it paid, and for what?
The traditional answer to this question is that it was a ransom paid to
Satan. The idea is that by sinning, human beings have freely put
themselves in Satan’s power. God wishes to free us from Satan, and
hence from death.
So God has to offer Satan something for which Satan is willing to trade
all of us. God’s idea is then to send Jesus to earth in human form. Satan
is fooled into thinking that Jesus is human, but not God. But Satan sees
Jesus performing miracles, and so thinks of Jesus as more valuable than
the rest of humanity combined. As Gregory of Nyssa put it,
‘When the enemy saw the power, he
recognized in Christ a bargain which offered
him more than he held. For this reason he
chose him as the ransom for those whom he
had shut up in death’s prison.’
Satan can’t condemn Jesus to death by tempting him into sin. So the
only way for Satan to trap Jesus in deaths to trade the human beings in
his power — all of us — for Jesus. God’s triumph over Satan then
comes with the resurrection.
Anselm gave several objections to this theory: (i) it seems to make God
less than omnipotent; (ii) it is mysterious why God should have to
respect any supposed claim that Satan has on us; (iii) it makes God a
deceiver.
"2

3. SATISFACTION/PUNISHMENT THEORIES
Anselm was the first to defend a family of views which, since then, have
been the most popular approach to the Atonement.
These views include theses of the following sort:
a) Our sins have effect X
b) X requires us to be punished with death unless Y is done
c) We are unable to do Y
d) Christ’s death does Y
On Anselm’s theory, X=taking away honor from God, and Y=repaying
God for this. The reason why we are unable to repay God for this is
that, as Anselm put it,
‘No member of the human race except Christ ever gave to
God, by dying, anything which that person was not at some
time going to lose as a matter of necessity. Nor did anyone
ever pay a debt to God which he did not owe. But Christ of
his own accord gave to his Father what he was never going
to lose as a matter of necessity, and he paid, on behalf of
sinners, a debt which he did not owe. ... He was in no way
needy on his own account, or subject to compulsion from
others, to whom he owed nothing, unless it was punishment
that he owed them. Nevertheless, he gave his life...’
Christ gave more than he owed the Father, so the Father owed him a
reward. Christ, of his own free will, decides to reward the people who
have killed him by freeing them from death.
This is sometimes called a satisfaction theory. On this kind of theory,
Jesus gives to the Father something more than Jesus owed, and which
then can be a reparation for our sins.
Two objections to Anselm’s theory: (i) is honor really this important,
and does its make sense to say that we have taken away honor from
God? (ii) why on this view is the Crucifixion required? Why wouldn’t
simply coming to earth as a human being be enough?
"3

Swinburne’s account is a kind of satisfaction theory.
A later modification of Anselm’s theory holds that X=making it just for
us to die, and hence making it such that God — a perfectly just being
— should let us die.
What then is Y? On many views, it is Jesus suffering our punishment
for us, and hence making it possible for a just God to give us eternal
life. Call this a punishment theory.
What is Lewis’ central criticism of punishment theories? Would this
carry over to satisfaction theories?

WHAT DID CHRIST ACCOMPLISH ON THE CROSS?

ATONEMENT IN CAMPBELL, STONE AND SCOTT

John Mark Hicks

Harding University Graduate School of Religion

Atonement theology is a significant illustration of the theological flux that characterized the American nineteenth century. It was a time when the three major theories of atonement were hotly debated. The classic Protestant position (e.g., Calvin) is penal substitution where Christ vicariously suffered the full satisfaction of God's wrath toward sin in his own person. The competing traditional theory, which dates from the time of Abelard (d. 1142), is the moral influence theory where the cross is the symbol of God's persuasive love for humanity through which God ignites the flame of love in our hearts. The third major theory emerged out of the Dutch Calvinist-Arminian struggle in the early seventeenth century. It is called the governmental theory since Christ is the one through whom the moral Governor, God the Father, reorders a morally disordered universe in accordance with the fundamental moral laws of the universe. It appeared as a mediating hypothesis between penal and moral theories in the writings of the Dutch Remonstrants, especially Hugo Grotius (d. 1645).[ii]

David Wells has recently drawn attention to the appearance of these three major theories of atonement in nineteenth century American Reformed theology.[iii] Charles Hodge (1797-1878) of Princeton Seminary represented the conservative Reformed tradition, the Old School, as an advocate of penal substitution. Nathaniel William Taylor (1768-1858) of Yale College represented a moderate Reformed tradition, the New School, as an advocate of the governmental theory of atonement. Horace Bushnell (1802-76) of Hartford, Connecticut represented an emerging liberal Reformed tradition as an advocate of the moral influence theory of atonement. These three Reformed theologians, representing larger atonement traditions, waged a battle over the nature of the atonement in the early and mid-nineteenth century.

The Reformed tradition was not unique in this theological development. The doctrine of atonement was a center piece of discussion among American Methodists as well. Robert Chiles has detailed the transition of American Methodism from penal substitution in Richard Watson (1737-1816), to a governmental theory of atonement in Richard Miley (1813-1895), and finally to a version of the moral influence theory in Robert Knudsen (1873-1953).[iv]

The Restoration Movement was not immune to this nineteenth-century theological quarrel over the atonement. Neither was it immune to the pluralistic understandings of the atonement present in American evangelical theology. Paralleling the divergence of the Reformed and Wesleyan traditions, the American Restoration Movement had from its inception the presence of varied understandings of the atonement. While Thomas and Alexander Campbell represented a traditional penal substitution theory, Barton W. Stone represented a broad moral influence tradition and Walter Scott represented the governmental tradition. The purpose of this essay is to understand and detail the emergence of these varied views.

CHRISTOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES

Anyone familiar with the writings and controversies of the early Restoration Movement will not be surprised by the amount and depth of diversity within it. Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell, for example, differed on such important topics as the relationship between immersion and communion, whether the Reformers should wear the name "Disciples" or "Christians," the millennium, apocalyptic versus progressive worldviews, on the value and nature of Revivalism, and on whether the Reformation should unite with the Christian Connection among other things.[v] However, Christology was a primary theological dividing point between Stone and Campbell, and it is in this context that their differences on the subject of atonement are stated.

Because of Stone's Christology, Campbell appears generally suspicious of the older Reformer. In 1827, Campbell expressed his concern about the growing sectarian character of the people who had assumed the name "Christian." He feared that "certain opinions, called Arian or Unitarian, or something else, are becoming [their] sectarian badge" and "that some peculiar views of atonement or reconciliation are likely to become characteristic of a people who have claimed the high character and dignified relation of the Church of Christ."[vi] Indeed, at the beginning of his letter, Campbell accepted Stone as a brother because Stone had once told him that he "conscientiously and devoutly pray[ed] to the Lord Jesus Christ as though there was no other God in the universe than he."[vii] Stone replied that he never said any such thing, and that if this was Campbell's acid test, then he would have to be excluded from the number Campbell calls "brethren."[viii] Consequently, Campbell was never entirely comfortable with Stone.[ix] For Campbell, the Christological test, whether applied to Stonites or to Calvinists, would be whether they "supremely venerate, and unequivocally worship the King my Lord and Master, and are willing to obey him in all things."[x]

After the union in 1832, Campbell believed that the "Christians" had left their sectarianism and opinions behind and had come to affirm the substance of his Christological test.[xi] Stone himself indicated that uniting with the Reformers meant that he would lay aside all the speculations of his former days and speak only in the "words of inspiration."[xii] Indeed, in 1844, Campbell believed that his movement had swallowed up the Stonite speculations so that the time of their "Newlightism" was a former day.[xiii] He had hoped that the Christians and the Reformers had come to share some Christological common ground. For Stone's part, while he had earlier flirted with Arianism, by his death he had rejected all such speculative language and come to rest only, he claimed, in the words of Scripture.[xiv] Stone acknowledged his debt to Campbell for rejecting speculation and "expressing the faith of the gospel in the words of revelation."[xv] In his last decade, his Christological statements are replete with biblical phrases without extended speculation as to their ultimate ontology.[xvi] Campbell, however, was always sensitive to defend his association with the Stonites while distancing himself from the Unitarian Christian Connection precisely on Christological grounds.[xvii] In the light of this concern, Campbell now engaged such issues as Trinity and Atonement when in 1830 he had counseled preachers that such topics were too well-known to discuss.[xviii] What he had assumed in 1830 now, in 1833, had to be defended and proclaimed in the light of the union between the Christians and Reformers as well as Campbell's growing sense of urgency about how some Christological issues were understood. The union between the Christians and the Reformers prompted some, especially Dr. James Fishback, who was sympathetic with the Reformers, to attack Stone's Christology.[xix] In this context Campbell went on the defensive to clarify his own Christology.

This Christological tension between Stone and Campbell, however, extended to the nature of the atonement. Campbell was aware from the beginning of Stone's views on the atonement, but believed that he had shelved them at the time of the union. It was a common rumor that Stone had "publickly relinquished [his] former views of the atonement" which Stone emphatically denied.[xx] As a result of his encounter with the Reformers Stone had determined to speak about the atonement "only in the language of Scripture, and not to introduce any previous opinion, or speculation [he] may have entertained on the subject."[xxi] Nevertheless, Stone continued to press his views in the Christian Messenger because he felt many among the Reformers were "partially ignorant of the doctrine of atonement."[xxii] Indeed, alongside of such perennial topics as baptism, the Holy Spirit, unity and the church, the atonement is the most discussed item in the pages of the Christian Messenger.[xxiii]

In 1833, not long after the union of the Christians and the Reformers, Thomas Campbell was asked to review an 1829 book by Noah Worcester entitled The Atoning Sacrifice: A Display of Love--not of Wrath.[xxiv] The work advocated a moral influence theory of atonement. Stone recommended Worcester's book along with his own 1821 Address to the Churches for those who wish to understand his own view of the atonement.[xxv] In 1829, immediately after the publication of Worcester's work, Stone had provided some extended extracts from it with an endorsement of its views.[xxvi] While Thomas Campbell found much in the book to approve, he thought it contained some "radical mistakes."[xxvii] What was originally intended by Thomas Campbell as a private communication became, in the hands of Alexander Campbell, a bone of contention between the Stonites and the Reformers as Thomas Campbell and Stone exchanged letters.[xxviii] There is little doubt that Alexander Campbell published his father's strictures on Worcester as an assessment of Stone's understanding of the atonement. He prefaced his father's review with the hope that "it might be of use to some of our readers" even though it was intended only for William Z. Thompson of Kentucky.[xxix] Campbell would later tell Stone that "our brethren desire argument and evidence on this subject."[xxx] In 1840-41 Alexander Campbell and Stone would discuss the subject at length in a formal exchange of letters,[xxxi] and it would remain a topic of discussion till Stone's death in 1844.[xxxii]

Shortly after the 1833 exchange between Thomas Campbell and Barton W. Stone, Walter Scott entered the fray. In 1834 Scott published the first of six articles on the death of Christ.[xxxiii] He was criticized for inaugurating the series because it was believed that it would exacerbate the tensions within the union. In his third article Scott explained that he could not ignore this cardinal doctrine and believed no one could be an "intelligent proclaimer of the gospel" if they were "ignorant of the death of Christ, in its various relations and uses."[xxxiv] Apparently, the criticism grew because in his fourth article he speaks of the "prejudice against even the investigation of this subject" which had developed among the Reformers because it had "proved a bone of constant and virulent contention among all parties."[xxxv] However, Scott's intent was to speak to the broader meaning of the death of Christ and not simply about its atoning efficacy. He felt that the topic had become too narrowed. In the next year (1836), he published his Gospel Restored where he repeated many of his concerns.[xxxvi]

Scott advocated a governmental theory of atonement in opposition to a penal theory of substitution.[xxxvii] Stone, however, did not let this view of atonement, which contained an attack on the moral influence theory, go by without comment. He published a review entitled "A few friendly remarks on brother Walter Scott's views of atonement, contained in his last book, "The ancient Gospel restored."[xxxviii] In brackets, Stone added his purpose to the title, "I have made these remarks in order to turn the attention of the brethren from speculation to the scriptures of truth."[xxxix] It is clear, then, that in the mid-1830s, after the union of the Christians and the Reformers, the discussion of atonement was a vital one. It went to the heart of how to understand the work of God in the gospel. Campbell, Stone and Scott all believed it to be central to the Christian faith, and all proclaimed it as foundational. But they understood the nature of this divine work quite differently. I now turn to the task of understanding their differences as expressed in their exchanges in the mid-1830s.

THE DISCUSSION OF 1833-1836

Campbell on Worcester

The thesis of Worcester's book was to demonstrate that the sacrifice of Christ was a display of love rather than wrath. The sacrifice of Christ consisted wholly in the moral influence of God's love to bring about the repentance of the sinner whom God could then forgive.[xl] Campbell responded from the framework of a traditional understanding of penal substitution and he placed two major concerns before the reader. First, the moral influence theory misunderstands the ground of justification or forgiveness. The righteousness of God, or the righteousness of faith is not, as Worcester represents it, the righteousness which God requires for the remission of sins, but the act of God in Jesus Christ through the sacrificial sin-offering. The righteousness by which we stand before God derives from the sacrifice of Christ and not out of the reformed life of the sinner. If saving righteousness is the righteousness of our repentance to which God leads us through the death of Christ, then there is no real need for the sacrifice of Christ because "good men before the coming of Christ, as well as since, possessed this righteousness."[xli] They attained righteousness independent of the work of Christ on the cross. Campbell believed that something objective took place at the cross which grants the righteousness of God through faith. The righteousness of God is God's act rather than our compliance. Faith in Christ's blood constitutes our "justifying righteousness" rather than works of repentance.[xlii]

Second, the moral influence theory does not give sufficient weight to God's justice or holiness. Any attempt to explain the cross of Christ as a "mere example, or a display of love, without regard to justice" subverts the "basis of the divine government" and robs "the gospel of all that glorifies the wisdom and power, the justice and mercy of God in putting away sin and in saving the sinner."[xliii] The justice of God is magnified through the Son's endurance of the "penal effects of sin"[xliv] or the law's "penalty in behalf of his people."[xlv] God must be both just and justifier, and this is accomplished through penal substitution where Christ suffers the punishment due humanity. In Christ, God justly put away sin so that the sinner might be saved. Justice, therefore, must be seen as an operative principle in our salvation. The work of Christ is not only a display of love, but is also a manifestation of God's justice.

Stone on Campbell

Stone was disappointed that Campbell, who had pled for the "reformation on Bible facts alone," now attached "so much importance to his opinion of the sacrifice of Christ."[xlvi] His major disappointment with Campbell was on his insistence that the sacrifice of Christ was a display of wrath as well as love. Stone sees "nothing more than the greatest possible display of [God's] love to the world" in the death of Christ.[xlvii] The cross manifested all of the divine perfections, and "all his perfections harmonized in the plan and work of saving" humanity.[xlviii] This included justice.[xlix] The bottom line, however, is that love of God is the root and full manifestation of God's perfections. Stone's starting point is the theological axiom "God is love," and the function of the cross is to reveal God's glorious love for sinners. As D. Newell Williams summarizes Stone's theology, "God's justice serves God's grace."[l] Consequently, the cross does not function as a punishment of sin or a sign of wrath, but is God's way of leading sinners to repentance through his loving actions. "The sufferings and death of Jesus, are the highest display of God's infinite love, grace, and goodness to the lost world."[li]

Stone believed that the cross of Christ was a significant "moral influence upon the sinner," but had no moral effect or influence upon God.[lii] The purpose of the cross was to lead humanity to repentance; it was not to effect a mighty change in God from wrath to grace.[liii] God has acted in Christ to effect a change in us; to lead us to "faith, repentance and obedience." What has God done? "He has given us in his Son an exhibition of himself, his will, his amazing love, grace, mercy and goodness, by which believed the sinner is led to repentance, to mourn and be sorry for his sins, and to turn from them to God with a true heart determined to obey the Lord in all things."[liv] When we believe the facts about Jesus, and understand the love of God exhibited in them, then this intellectual belief "produces a moral influence or effect on the mind, to reconcile us to God--to lead us to repentance and consequently to remission of sin."[lv]

Stone accepted George Campbell's understanding of Romans 1:16-17 as definitive. The righteousness of God, according to Stone, refers to the "righteousness which God requires."[lvi] It refers to "God's plan of justification," where the righteousness of God is understood as that righteousness which he requires in "obedience to the law of faith, or the Gospel, which is to believe, to repent, confess the Savior before men, and to be baptized in his name." It is to this "obedience to the faith, [that] justification or pardon is granted."[lvii] Just as Stone rejects the imputation of guilt to Christ as sin-bearer, so he rejects the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the believer because it is rooted in the "unscriptural notion of Christ's substitution".[lviii] Instead, we are "justified by works" when "faith leads us to obedience, to reformation, to baptism and to all the requirements of the gospel." Reconciliation, or atonement, is the effect of the whole gospel plan which leads us to repentance and "becomes effectual through faith and obedience."[lix] The work of God in Christ is to influence us to repentance, to lead us to faith. The gospel plan is effectual through our transformation, our faith and obedience, on account of which God pardons us.

Since Christ's sacrifice has no effect on God, but only affects humanity; and since there is no barrier to the forgiveness of sins except the impenitence of the unbeliever, the gospel "plan is that the sinner must repent in order to be forgiven."[lx] This has been God's plan in every dispensation since "the beginning of the pardoning of sin." Just as the sacrifices of the Old Testament were intended to lead to repentance, so the sacrifice of Christ has the same purpose. The preaching of the cross of Christ leads sinners to repentance, and therefore it is the "foundation of repentance."[lxi] God, then, has "one plan under the gospel, and this plan includes all those things already named, as faith, repentance, confession, prayer, baptism, and obedience....All are necessary to salvation, or remission of sins, according to the plan of our God ordained in the gospel."[lxii]

Stone unequivocally rejects any idea that Christ suffered the spiritual punishment due sinners, or bore their guilt on the tree. There is no imputation of guilt except to the guilty and there is, consequently, no imputation of righteousness except to the righteous. "According to God's government," Stone argues, "the sinner alone shall suffer the punishment due his iniquity--his wickedness shall be on him alone, and not imputed or transferred to the righteous, for the righteousness of the righteous shall be on him alone, and not on the wicked."[lxiii] The point, then, is that sinners are declared just "because they are so indeed."[lxiv] When the sinner "becomes holy, he ceases to be the object of condemnation and wrath."[lxv] As a result, according to Williams' interpretation of Stone, "no person, who is not just, can be justified before God,"[lxvi] or "that believers are declared just because they are just."[lxvii] When the sinner repents, the sinner has removed the barrier to forgiveness, and has become righteous by compliance with the gospel plan. Since he is righteous, God counts him as righteous. He has been transformed by the love God into a lover of God through faith in Jesus Christ.[lxviii] Stone quickly adds, however, that "the whole work of regeneration and salvation from sin, is the work of" God through the Spirit who "begins, carries on, perfects the whole work. It is a work infinitely beyond the power of man, who can not make one hair white or black--who is unable to change his nature as the Ethiopian his skin, or the Leopard his spots."[lxix] It is the transformative work of God in the hearts of people. God saves us through the work of sanctification whereby we are made righteous by the Spirit of God as we seek his will.

Stone's theology of atonement is moral rather than penal. He objects to forensic understandings of salvation at every turn.[lxx] Instead he frames the atonement in relational or personal terms. The curse of the law is interpreted as the "misery arising from the want of love to God and man" rather than as forensic punishment.[lxxi] This curse is removed when the heart is moved to love God. God moves us through the expression of his love in the incarnation, ministry, life and resurrection of Jesus. Stone's theology of atonement is more incarnational than atoning; it is paticipatory rather than substitutionary. Christ suffered for us in that he suffered with us. "He suffered pain, distress, persecution and death--not because, or on account of his sin (for he had none), but for, or because of ours....Hence, as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same--the same flesh and blood, subject to the same afflictions, pain and death. He thus bore the burden of our sin, that he might bear away our sin and sanctify us, and so make an atonement or reconciliation between God and us." In bearing the burden of our iniquity, Christ "not only suffered in body, but also in soul."[lxxii] Jesus Christ bore our griefs and sorrows, according to Isaiah 53, in that "he experienced in himself the griefs and sorrows of our fallen nature...tempted in all points like as we are--and in all our afflictions he was afflicted."[lxxiii] The love of God is manifested in the cross, then, not as some kind of answer to justice, but out of a loving desire to reunite God and humanity expressed through an incarnational identification with us.

Ultimately, Stone's theology of atonement was forged in the context of revivalism. As he attempted to call sinners to faith in his early years, he was "embarrassed" by the Calvinistic doctrine of penal substitution.[lxxiv] Out of this embarrassment three convictions were clarified: (1) God loves the world and is willing to save everyone to which he has given evidence in Jesus Christ; (2) everyone has the natural and moral ability to respond to the preaching of the gospel for salvation and (3) he wanted to avoid universalism and maintain the urgency of evangelism.[lxxv] Genuine revivalistic preaching meant that God wanted to save everyone who heard and everyone who heard had the ability to respond, and those who did not were lost. Thus, the free and full offer of God's grace to everyone and the necessity of their response was the fundamental premise of Stone's revivalism and the fundamental theological principle of his doctrine of atonement. Stone writes, "I assume the free and full offer of the gospel to all men, to be one of those cardinal points by which I gauge all my other views of truth. I hold no doctrines--and by the grace of God never can hold any--which will be in my view inconsistent with the free and full offer of the gospel to all men; or which will bind my hands, or palsy my tongue, or freeze my heart, when I stand before sinners to tell them of a dying Savior."[lxxvi]

Campbell on Stone

Campbell focused his response by addressing the question of how Christ's blood effects the remission of sins. Both he and Stone would confess the fact, but disagree on the theory.[lxxvii] Stone objects to the notion that the blood of Christ removed any "legal obstructions" or effected a "forgiving disposition in God." God is willing to forgive every penitent sinner, but his justice would prevent him from forgiving an impenitent sinner. God can clear the guilty but not the "impenitent."[lxxviii] Campbell understands that this places the "legal obstruction" in the "disposition of the sinner" rather than in the justice of God. God's act in Christ, then, has nothing to do with sin, but only with the sinner. It does not treat sin through justice. On the contrary, if "nothing on the part of God stands in the way of forgiveness of the penitent sinner, what is the use of the gospel dispensation" or the work of Christ on the cross? "What need [is there] of the gospel--that is, of Christ, and him crucified?"[lxxix] According to Stone, God dealt with sinners, not with sin, but Paul's gospel is that Christ died "for our sins."

God's justice must deal with sin as a category rather than merely with the heart of the sinner. Campbell argues that God's "moral excellencies" and his immutable holiness necessitate some act of God which vindicates his justice in relation to sin. He rejects any "milder evangelic law" which denies the "real divinity, and legal substitution of Jesus Christ."[lxxx] God in Christ "glorified his justice as well as his mercy in the salvation of sinners by the blood of his son." His obedience evidenced "to the whole creation the infinite evil of sin, and also his infinite justice in suffering no instance of disobedience to pass without the infliction of a just recompense of reward."[lxxxi] The "milder evangelic law" looks to the sinner to save himself by his own penitence and change of disposition. In such a case, the sinner is "justified by law" rather than "grace."[lxxxii] Moral influence is sufficient for a justification by law or works, but it is not sufficient for a justification by grace. It ultimately renders the work of Christ unnecessary since the righteousness which moral influence produces is a fruit present four thousand years before Christ. The moral influence theory reduces the "mediation of Jesus Christ" to the prophetic ministry of John the Baptist.[lxxxiii]

The problem, as Stone delineated it and Campbell understood it, is how the innocent can suffer for the guilty, or how the punishment due to the sinner can be transferred to the righteous Son of God. Stone wrote that if he believed such a thing, he would become a universalist since the full ransom of every person would have been paid, but his sense of justice could not permit such a substitutionary understanding of the death of Christ.[lxxxiv] The innocent cannot die for the guilty. Campbell responded that we should not permit universalistic implications or humanistic understandings of justice to alter the plain meaning of the scriptures on this central subject. The scripture must be believed even if there are "objections" which "we cannot answer."[lxxxv] For Campbell, the confession of Scripture is that Christ is our propitiation and we are justly acquitted from all guilt "because the just desert or wages of [our] sin, viz. sorrows, sufferings, and death, to the full amount of its demerit, has been inflicted upon, and endured by, [our] surety, the Redeemer."[lxxxvi] For God to acquit the guilty justly, there must be a surety or a substitute who bears the just and "infinite demerit and evil of sin."[lxxxvii]

But it is precisely this substitutionary exchange grounded in the demands of God's infinite justice to which Stone objects. If Christ suffered the punishment due to sin, why did he not suffer its full intensity and eternity?[lxxxviii] Campbell's answer is that the payment for sin is not a matter of quantity, but quality. The "personal dignity of the Son of God" and his status as a "person of infinite worth" in whom the fullness of divinity dwells functions as an "equivalent for all the penal consequences of sin."[lxxxix] The infinite demerits of sin demanded an infinite ransom in the person of the infinite God himself, Jesus Christ. To undermine the depth of sin will correspondingly undermine the divinity of Jesus. As the demand of sin's demerit is lowered, so is the estimate of Jesus who purchased the price of that demand. Campbell believes that a low view of atonement corresponds with a low Christology. As a result, the problem is broader than a theory of atonement, but returns to the more fundamental question of who Jesus Christ is.

Scott's Governmental Theory

When Scott began his series on the "Death of Christ" in 1834, he did not directly assault any individual and his intention was broader than the atoning efficacy of the death of Christ. However, as the series progressed, and in the wake of his 1836 Gospel Restored, it is clear that Scott positioned himself between Campbell and Stone. It may have been his intention to mediate between them within the context of the union of Christians and Reformers and, at the same time, provide a wider base of agreement on the meaning of Christ's death. His contribution is two-fold. First, he advocates a governmental theory of God's justice in the atoning death of Christ. Second, and more importantly for his purpose, he provides a holistic perspective on the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. Scott argues that Christ's resurrection is as central an event as his death, and that this has been left out of the discussion of Christ's atoning work.

Scott believed that justice must play a role in a proper understanding of what Christ's death accomplished. Focusing on Romans 3:25-26, Scott maintains that the atonement was at least partially a function of justice. In view of the "propitiatory sacrifice" of Jesus, God has demonstrated his justice. Scott, however, rejects both a penal substitution and a moral influence understanding of this justice. On the one hand, the death of Christ was not an "equivalent" or "precise amount of vengeance" rendered to God for sin.[xc] This would be a commercial or mercantile sense of justice. If God fully paid the price of sin, then there is no room for mercy because the debt would have been discharged. On the other hand, the moral influence view has no role for justice at all.

Scott believed the demonstration of God's justice is political or governmental in character. Commercial justice pays an equivalent, but political justice seeks the "common good" for the purpose of the punishment of the criminal, public safety, and respect for law.[xci] In Jesus Christ, God "purposed to clothe his law with a sanctity that should make it reverenced, make it obeyed."[xcii] Sin had dishonored the law of God, and God's justice was undermined. How can God permit sin to reign? God's answer was to "set forth" Jesus Christ "as a propitiatory" example in order "to do honor to the majesty of law and the character of God as the Ruler of the World."[xciii] God enforced the law in Jesus Christ in order to demonstrate his hatred of sin, and at the same time offer mercy consistent with his public justice. For Scott, God substituted the life of one, Jesus Christ, for the life of the many--God in Christ suffered public justice for sinners.[xciv] Thus, God as moral governor, "instead of exposing his character for injustice" by ignoring the punishment due to sin, "establishes his character" as a "public functionary": he demonstrates his justice and offers his mercy. Therefore, in the light of what God did in Jesus Christ, God has demonstrated his justice even while he fails to punish the sinner through his mercy. God has thereby maintained the order of moral justice while at the same time restoring the order of creation which had been destroyed through human sin. Through Jesus Christ, God restored moral order to the universe and offered mercy to those who had previously subjected it to moral choas.

But Scott's intention was not to give a full account of the atoning efficacy of the death of Christ. In fact, he believed that the subject had often been abused and meaning of his death distorted.[xcv] Rather, he sought to see the death of Christ in a holistic fashion--to see it in its incarnational context, and especially in the light of the resurrection. Stone was not limited by his governmental theory to a singular theme. Indeed, Stone's holistic vision of the death of Christ anticipates the moral power of Bushnell's vicarious suffering and the themes of Christus Victor.[xcvi] The death of Christ was the means by which the moral quality of the Messiah was perfected, and the mortality of the human race was overcome. Through incarnation, ministry and death, God in Christ was perfected through and touched with the "feeling of our infirmities." He overcame the Satanic powers which rule the world.[xcvii] Through the resurrection, God in Christ reversed the mortal effects of the fall.[xcviii] He conquered the powers of death. The atonement was a divine act by which Satan was conquered and human freed from their bondage.

According to Scott, the death of Christ is the means by which God provides for the grounding of humanity's faith and hope. The event of the resurrection is the fact which we believe that inspires hope. The death of Christ is the means by which the wisdom of God chose to assure us of his love and ground our faith in the future through the resurrection of Jesus.[xcix] Consequently, Scott sees the incarnation (and death of Christ as part of the incarnational identification) and resurrection as the core redemptive events even though the death of Christ was the exemplary demonstration of God's justice. The propitiatory work of Christ is but one "use" of the "fact" of God's incarnational and life-giving act of God in Christ.[c] The death of Christ must be seen, according to Scott, in its broader relations and not abused in terms of a specific aspect of its intent.

In 1852, Scott published his Death of Christ, Written for the Recovery of the Church from Sects.[ci] After delineating the positions of many sects, and arguing against the Calvinistic system, he summarized the biblical position in two statements: (1) "God has attributed the sin of one to all," i.e., the sin of Adam to all his posterity; and (2) "And the sins of all to one," i.e., the sin of all to Christ. "The facts in this basis are," according to Scott, "that man has forfeited his life and blood, and that his redemption is not by truth, law, logic, or moral suasion, but by BLOOD--the BLOOD of the Cross--the BLOOD of the Son of God." This calls for humility on the part of all theologians, and a simple affirmation of the "facts."[cii] We are called to preach the facts, to evangelize the world and draw comfort from the gospel. "Theories and hypotheses about Adam's sin and Christ's death...may be game for theologists," but they do not promote unity and evangelism, or ultimately reach "the soul longing for heaven."[ciii] According to Scott, theology does not serve evangelism; it hinders it.

Stone on Scott

Stone complained that Scott used a "good deal of philosophy in his definition of justice." He introduced scholastic distinctions which obscure the simple faith of Scripture. "Shall we establish a philosophic theory of justice, by which to judge of God and his ways?" Justice, according to Stone, is simply "to do right" for both God and humanity. God cannot "do right" and ask the innocent to suffer for the guilty, and humanity cannot be right with God without doing right.[civ] Stone understands that the death of Christ had something to do with the justice of God as Romans 3:25 states, but he is unwilling to speculate on what it is. "God has not revealed" what it is. "Why indulge in such speculation? Is it not sufficient to believe that God, through the mediation of his son, has declared that he can be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus?"[cv]

Scott's discussion, however, prompted Stone to explain his understanding of the function of the resurrection in the reconciliation of God and humanity. "It is conceded that Adam and his seed would have been under the power of death, natural death, forever, had not the resurrection interposed." God threatened natural death, and it was executed upon Adam and his posterity. However, the resurrection of Jesus restores natural life to all of humanity.[cvi] Just as in Adam all died, so in Christ all are raised. Just as we were treated as sinners in Adam and subjected to death, so we are treated righteous in Christ and given life. But "after all are raised from death, then must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, to answer for their own deeds, and not the deeds of Adam."[cvii] The work of Christ in the resurrection gives humanity the opportunity to stand before God to account for their own works. In other words, "by [Christ's] death and resurrection, the whole world, the just and unjust, are justified and saved from the natural death, brought upon the world by the first Adam." This is Christ's true substitutionary work. But salvation from eternal death is predicated upon the faith and obedience of individual, that is, God justifies those who are moved to be righteous by the love of God displayed in the death of Christ.[cviii] It is in this context that Stone rejects any division in the "life, death and resurrection of Jesus in our justification."[cix] But Stone's soteriology seems to simply restore us to a pre-fall Adamic state where we are justified by our Spirit-prompted holiness rather than by the work of Christ.

SUMMARY OF DIFFERENCES

The discussion of the atonement in the mid-1830s between Restoration leaders mirrors the discussion of the atonement in other segments of American Christianity. The issues are fundamentally the same whether in Reformed, Wesleyan or Restoration circles.[cx] At the heart of atonement theology is our view of God, sin and the relationship between the two, as well as who Jesus Christ is.

The relationship between the justice or holiness of God and the love of God was hotly contested in the nineteenth century. Do we see God's justice serving his love, or must God's love submit to or act in accordance with his justice? Campbell held God's love and justice to be equally ultimate so that neither is undermined. God's justice is inviolable, but his love moved him to self-propitiation in Jesus Christ. His theory of atonement, consequently, emphasized the penal. Stone, on the other hand, saw God's justice as serving his love. Love is the fundamental controlling element. Stone's theory of atonement, then, was primarily relational or moral. Like Campbell, Scott saw the justice of God as inherent in a theology of atonement, but unlike Campbell did not think of it in commercial or retributive terms. Nevertheless, justice was a necessary component for atonement.

Paralleling their views of justice, the three Reformers saw God's responsibility to sin differently. Campbell believed that God, due to his holy nature, was determined to punish sin because sin deserved punishment. God's justice was retributive. Stone, however, did not think God was under any kind of internal compulsion to punish sin. Rather, God "punished" sin for its transformative effect, and not for its retributive or deterrent character.[cxi] Justice is not an inflexible principle, but is relaxed when the transformation of the sinner has taken place. God in Christ suffered for our sins in order to transform us rather than to punish us or punish Christ in our place. Nevertheless, Stone believed that God's justice could not forgive the impenitent sinner. There was something within God that acted as a barrier to God's loving forgiveness for the rebellious sinner. Scott, like Campbell, believed that sin must be punished, but the motive was not retribution but demonstration. It demonstrated God's hatred of sin, and his willingness to punish sinners. God acted out of concern for the moral order of the universe rather than for the punishment of sin as such. It was not as merchant, but as moral governor that God in Christ suffered on the tree.

Growing out of their views of God and his relationship to sin and sinners, the three had different understandings of what the sacrifice of Christ accomplished. Campbell believed that God accomplished the payment of sin's debt and the imputation of Christ's righteousness through the substitutionary work of Christ. God objectively removed the barrier of justice and opened a way for mercy to be applied in Christ. The work of Christ had an objective effect on God's relationship to the sinful world. Stone, however, denied that the work of God had any effect on God. Rather, Christ's work through the incarnation was a display of love whose object was to turn sinners to repentance. The work of Christ's death is the effective turning of sinners to God by the persuasive power of God's love in Christ. The work of atonement is subjective and essentially pneumatological in character. Scott, however, did not buy into either extreme. The work of Christ is not purely subjective. Rather, it was a public, objective demonstration of God's justice which salvaged God's position as moral Governor. His view, like Campbell's, sees the work of Christ as tearing down or removing the barrier of God's justice, though the nature of the barrier is considerably different. More than either Campbell or Stone, Scott saw the work of Christ as fundamentally incarnational in character. It was God's emphathetic identification with us which culminated in Christ's death. It was the dynamic power of God's work in triumphing over death in the resurrection that was the essence of what Christ accomplished. Scott represents some of the themes of Christus Victor and thus his view of atonement has a dynamic character.
May 4, 1995

Dr. Philip Dare, Editor

Lexington Theological Quarterly

631 South Limestone St.

Lexington, KY 40508

Dear Dr. Dare,

Last November I delievered the enclosed paper to the Restoration Theological Fellowship at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in Chicago and recently at the Pepperdine Lectures. I have been encouraged to submit it for publication. Consequently, I submit my paper to LTQ for potential publication.

The present article is actually half of what I presented. The second half deals with the development of atonement theology in the second half of the 19th century among Restorationists. It notes the work of Milligan, Lard's Quarterly, McGarvey, Munnell, Garrison and how this topic was debated in the Gospel Advocate, Christian-Evangelist, and Christian Standard. If you are interested, I could submit that second half as well and present them in two parts. However, I do not wish to take up too much space or be presumptuous. If you think it best, I will submit the second half to another journal. But I will wait to hear from you before I do so.

I have published in Restoration Quarterly (I have two articles which will appear there this year), Evangelical Journal, and in other more popular and semi-popular journals.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

In His Care,

John Mark Hicks, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Christian Doctrine

[i]Thomas Campbell, "To Barton W. Stone," MH 4 (December 1833), 596.

[ii]An excellent survey of atonement theories as well as the biblical material is H. D. McDonald, The Atonement of the Death of Christ in Faith, Revelation, and History (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985). An older, but still important survey is Robert S. Paul, The Atonement and the Sacraments: The Relation of the Atonement to the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1965). For a discussion of the Calvinist-Arminian-Remonstrant complexities of atonement theology, see my "The Theology of Grace in the Thought of Jacobus Arminius and Philip van Limborch: A Study in the Development of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Arminianism" (Ph.D. disseration, Westminster Theological Seminary, 1985), pp. 189-206.

[iii]David F. Wells, "The Debate over the Atonement in 19th Century America," Bibliotheca Sacra (April-June 1987), 123-43; (July-September 1987), 243-53; (October-December 1987), 363-76; (January-March 1988), 3-14.

[iv]Robert Chiles, Theological Transition in American Methodism: 1790-1935 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1965), pp. 144-83.

[v]These differences are discussed in various places. See Dean Mills, Union on the King's Highway: The Campbell-Stone Heritage of Unity (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1987), pp. 67-70, 90-98; William Garrett West, Barton Warren Stone: Early American Advocate of Christian Unity (Nashville, TN: The Disciples of Christ Historical Society, 1954), pp. 153-175; and George Richard Phillips, "Differences in the Theological and Philosophical Backgrounds of Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone and Resulting Differences of Thrust in their Theological Formulations," (Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1968). Recently, Richard T. Hughes has argued for a major worldview difference between Stone's vision of Christianity and Campbell's along the lines of apocalyptic versus progressivism, "The Apocalyptic Origins of Churches of Christ and the Triumph of Modernism," Religion and American Culture 2 (Summer 1992), 181-214.

[vi]Alexander Campbell, "To the Christian Messenger," The Christian Messenger 2 (November 1827), 10. The Christian Messenger is hereafter cited as CM.

[vii]Ibid., p. 6.

[viii]Barton W. Stone, "Reply," CM 2 (November 1827), 11.

[ix]Campbell was not enthusiastic about the union with the "Christians," and, according to West, if it had been up to Campbell's initiative, the union would have never taken place. Cf. West, Stone, p. 139.

[x]Campbell, "To the Christian Messenger," 7. Campbell writes in another place: "I regard no man as a believer in Jesus as the Messiah, who denies that he is a divine person, the only begotten of God; or who refuses to worship and adore him with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength." Cf. "Mr. Broaddus," Millennial Harbinger 4 (January 1833), 9. The Millennial Harbinger is hereafter cited as MH.

[xi]Campbell, "Mr. Broaddus," 9: "As far as my acquaintance with all the brethren extends, North, South, East, or West, (whatever their former opinions I know not,) they all accord in rendering the same honor in thought, word, and deed to the Son, as they do to the Father who sent him."

[xii]John Augustus Williams, Life of Elder John Smith; with some account of the Rise and Progress of the Current Reformation (Cincinnati, OH: R. W. Carroll and Co., 1870), p. 455. Cf. West, Stone, pp. 147-150.

[xiii] [xiii]Campbell, A Debate Between Rev. A. Campbell and Rev. N. L. Rice (Lexington, KY: A. T. Skillman & Son, 1844), 865. Friends of Stone, including John Rogers and John Allen Gano, resented the implication that Campbell had saved Stone. Campbell published their protest, "Elder B. Stone," MH 15 (September 1844), 414-5.

[xiv]Stone, "The Editor's remarks on brother H. Cyrus' letter, No. 2," CM 9 (July 1835), 163: "Arius asserted that Jesus Christ was a created intelligence of the highest order, and Athanasius contended he was begotten, not made...and to this [Athanasius, JMH] have I subscribed long ago, as the most probable. See my letters to Doc. Blythe. I acknowledge that much speculation has been used on both sides of the long vexatious question. I, like many others, have indulged in it; but convinced of its inutility, and bad effects in society, have for several years back relinquished these speculations, and have confined myself to the language of scripture in my public teaching." Cf. David Newell Williams, "The Theology of the Great Revival in the West as seen through the Life and Thought of Barton Warren Stone," (Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1979), pp. 115-116. Stone felt "disposed to use scriptural terms, when speaking on this subject, and therefore call Jesus the Son of God, the only begotten, &c. I can see nothing in scripture to justify the idea of the Son of God being created, the idea appears too low." Cf. "Queries," CM 7 (May 1833), 139.

[xv]Stone, "Reply to Brother John Curd's Letter," CM 8 (August 1834), 239.

[xvi]For example, Stone, "Letter IV: To a Presbyterian Preacher," CM 2 (August 1828), 247: "The doctrine that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God, and not the living God himself--that he existed a distinct intelligent being from the Father in heaven before creation, and by whom God created all things--that this being was sent into the world by the Father, not to do his own will, but the will of him that sent him--that he was made flesh and dwelt among us,--that he suffered, died and ascended up where he was before--This doctrine we cannot but believe."

[xvii]See, for example, "Methodistic Calumny" MH 4 (July 1833), 300-304 and "Letter from Henry Grew," MH 4 (July 1833), 304-309. Cf. West, Stone, pp. 176-188.

[xviii]Alexander Campbell, "Sermons to Young Preachers--No. 4," Christian Baptist 7 (April 1830), 215.

[xix]Stone, "Reply to Brother John Curd's Letter," p. 239: "You wish to understand the Doctor's opposition to us. I cannot do it; unless it is, because of the union between us and the Reformers, (once so called.) This I am satisfied is the true reason; yet I may be mistaken."

[xx]Ibid.

[xxi]Stone, "[Untitled] " CM 10 (July 1836), 103. When he is attacked, Stone complains that he speaks only "in the very language of scripture." Cf. "Remarks of the Editor," CM 9 (June 1835), 140.

[xxii]Stone, "Reply to Brother John Curd's Letter," p. 239.

[xxiii]This assertion is based on the index of The Christian Messenger prepared by students at Harding University Graduate School of Religion. Their index indicates 139 items about baptism, 56 items on the Holy Spirit, 48 on the church, 46 on unity, and 55 on the atonement. Cf. Index to the Christian Messenger, edited by Barry A. Jones and Charles C. Dorsey (Lincoln, IL: privately published, 1984).

[xxiv]Noah Worcester, The Atoning Sacrifice: A Display of Love--not of Wrath (Cambridge: Hilliard and Brown, 1829).

[xxv]Stone, "The Conference in Terra Confusa," CM 5 (August 1831), 170. Cf. Stone, An Address to the Christian Churches in Kentucky, Tennessee & Ohio on Several Important Doctrines of Religion, 2nd edition (Lexington, KY: I. T. Cavins & Co., 1821).

[xxvi]Stone, "Dr. Worcester on the Atonement," CM 4 (December 1829), 2-6.

[xxvii]Thomas Campbell, "Worcester on the Atonement," MH 4 (June 1833), 256-62.

[xxviii]Stone, "To Elder Thomas Campbell," CM 7 (July 1833), 204-210; (August 1833), 225-30. Thomas Campbell, "[Letter]," MH 4 (August 1833), 421-25; (September 1833), 439-45; (October 1833), 503-508; (November 1833), 548-53; and (December 1833), 594-98.

[xxix]Alexander Campbell, "[Bracketed Remarks]," MH 4 (June 1833), 256. Cf. also Thomas Campbell, "To Barton W. Stone," MH 4 (December 1833), 598: "I little thought when I wrote to gratify friend Thompson, that it should prove an occasion for what has taken place between us."

[xxx]Campbell, "Letter VI.--To. B. W. Stone," MH 12 (March 1841), 118.

[xxxi]The original discussion was published both in the Christian Messenger and in the Millennial Harbinger. I will be citing the exchange from the Millennial Harbinger. Stone's articles, "Atonement," appear in MH 11 (June 1840), 243-46; (July 1840), 289-93; (September 1840), 387-90; (October 1840), 464-70; 12 (January 1841), 12-18; (February 1841), 59-65; (March 1841), 113-18; (April 1841), 156-63; (June 1841), 248-52; (July 1841), 295-300; (August 1841), 369-72; (September 1841), 389-93. Campbell's replies appear in MH 11 (June 1840), 246-50; (July 1840), 294-98; (September 1840), 391-96; (October 1840), 471-73; 12 (January 1841), 18-24; (February 1841), 65-68; (March 1841), 118-22; (April 1841), 163-67; (May 1841), 234-37; (June 1841), 253-58; (July 1841), 300-304; (August 1841), 373; (September 1841), 394-402.

[xxxii]Just months before his death, Stone was planning to publish the 1840-41 exchange between Alexander Campbell and himself with an extended appendix. Campbell wanted to add his own appendix, but Stone died before it could be published. Cf. "Discussion," MH 15 (September 1844), 417.

[xxxiii]Walter Scott, "On the Death of Christ," The Evangelist 3 (October 1834), 217-19; (December 1834), 275-78; 4 (March 1835), 49-52; (April 1835), 73-77; (May 1835), 103-106; and (June 1835), 121-23.

[xxxiv]Scott, "Death of Christ," 4 (March 1835), 49.

[xxxv]Scott, "Death of Christ," 4 (April 1835), 73.

[xxxvi]Scott, The Gospel Restored. A Discourse of the True Gospel of Jesus Christ. Cincinnati: O. H. Donogh, 1836.

[xxxvii]Ibid., pp. 79-87.

[xxxviii]Stone, "A few friendly remarks..." CM 10 (November 1836), 169-73.

[xxxix]Ibid., 169.

[xl]Thomas Campbell, "Worcester," p. 258.

[xli]Ibid.

[xlii]Ibid., p. 261.

[xliii]Ibid.

[xliv]Ibid.

[xlv]Ibid., p. 259.

[xlvi]Stone, "To Elder Thomas Campbell, Senr.," CM 7 (July 1833), 205.

[xlvii]Ibid., p. 207.

[xlviii]Stone, "II. To Elder Thomas Campbell," CM 7 (August 1833), 299-300.

[xlix]Stone, "Address," p. 110, in Works of Elder B. W. Stone to which is added A Few Discourses and Sermons, ed. by Elder James M. Mathes, 2nd ed (Cincinnati: Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Co., Printers, 1859).

[l]D. Newell Williams, "The Power of Christ's Sacrifice: Barton W. Stone's Doctrine of Atonement," Discipliana 54 (Spring 1994), 27.

[li]Stone, "Queries," CM 7 (May 1833), 140.

[lii]Stone, "Reply," CM 10 (July 1836), 110.

[liii]Stone, "Reply to Brother John Curds Letter," CM 8 (August 1834), 235-6.

[liv]Stone, "Forgiveness. No. 2," CM 8 (February 1834), 53.

[lv]Stone, "Elder Thomas Campbell," CM 7 (August 1833), 7.

[lvi]Stone, "Address," 273.

[lvii]Ibid., 274.

[lviii]Stone, "The Conference in Terra Confusa," CM 5 (July 1831), 152; cf. pp. 149-153 and "Address," pp. 127ff.

[lix]Stone, "Conference in Terra Confusa," CM 5 (August 1831), 173.

[lx]Stone, "Reply," CM 3 (July 1829), 221.

[lxi]Ibid, pp. 221-22.

[lxii]Ibid., p. 223. Stone comments on the word "necessary" with these words: "Though this be the Lord's plan of saving and forgiving, as ordained in the gospel, yet we are very far from saying that he will forgive no other. This would be to cut off all the heathen, who have not heard the gospel, from forgiveness, however penitent they might be--this would contradict a matter of fact, recorded of the Gentiles at the house of Cornelius" (p. 223).

[lxiii]Stone, "Reply," CM 10 (July 1836), 108. Cf. Stone's "Address," p. 92.

[lxiv]Stone, Atonement: The Substance of Two Letters Written to a Friend (Lexington, KY: Joseph Charless, 1805), pp. 14-15.

[lxv]Ibid., 5-6.

[lxvi]Williams, "The Theology of the Great Revival," 102.

[lxvii]Ibid., p. 106.

[lxviii]Cf. Williams, "The Power of Christ's Sacrifice," p. 23. He cites Stone, Atonement, pp. 14-15.

[lxix]Stone, "Address," 141.

[lxx]For example, he writes, "The doctrine of justification according to the New Testament has been misunderstood generally by theologians. They have considered it in the forensic sense. Cf. "The Conference in Terra Confusa," CM 5 (August 1831), 171.

[lxxi]Stone, Atonement, pp. 20-24. I am indebted to Williams, "Theology of the Great Revival," 103, for this reference.

[lxxii]Stone, "Address," pp. 107-108.

[lxxiii]Stone, "Comment on Isaiah LIII, 6-12," CM 4 (April 1830), 102.

[lxxiv]Stone, The Biography of Elder Barton W. Stone, written by himself: with additions and reflections by Elder John Rogers (Cincinnati: published for the author by J. A. & U. P. James, 1847), 56.

[lxxv]Williams details the significance of these two perspectives in his dissertation, "Theology of the Great Revival," pp. 78-95.

[lxxvi]Stone, "Charges Exhibited Against Mr. Barnes," CM 5 (September 1831), 202.

[lxxvii]Stone, "Elder Thomas Campbell," CM 7 (July 1833), 208: "That the blood of Christ does effect the remission of sins is an undoubted truth. But how, is the question." Thomas Campbell, "To Barton W. Stone," MH 4 (September 1833), 439 responds to the question.

[lxxviii]Stone, "Elder Thomas Campbell," CM 7 (July 1833), 208.

[lxxix]Thomas Campbell, "To Barton W. Stone," MH 4 (September 1833), 439.

[lxxx]Ibid., 440.

[lxxxi]Ibid., 442.

[lxxxii]Ibid.

[lxxxiii]Ibid., 444.

[lxxxiv]Stone, "Elder Thomas Campbell," CM 7 (July 1833), 210.

[lxxxv]Thomas Campbell, "To Barton W. Stone," MH 4 (October 1833), 505.

[lxxxvi]Thomas Campbell, "To Barton W. Stone," MH 4 (December 1833), 596.

[lxxxvii]Thomas Campbell, "To B. W. Stone," MH 4 (November 1833), 548.

[lxxxviii]Stone, "Elder Thomas Campbell," CM 7 (August 1833), 226.

[lxxxix]Thomas Campbell, "To B. W. Stone," MH 4 (November 1833), 549.

[xc]Scott, Gospel Restored, p. 80. This material on political justice is also found in "Death of Christ," The Evangelist 4 (May 1835), 103-106.

[xci]Ibid., 81.

[xcii]Ibid., 82.

[xciii]Ibid.

[xciv]Ibid., 83.

[xcv]Scott, "Death of Christ," The Evangelist 3 (October 1834), 217.

[xcvi]Horace Bushnell, The Vicarious Sacrifice, Grounded in Principles of Human Oligation (New York: Scribner's, 1866). The best expositor of Christus Victor is Gustav Aulén, Chritus Victor, translated by A. G. Herbert (London: SPCK, 1931). See McDonald, pp. 258-65, 299-302.

[xcvii]Scott, "Death of Christ," The Evangelist 4 (June 1835), 122.

[xcviii]Scott, "Death of Christ," The Evangelist 4 (March 1835), 51-52.

[xcix]Scott, "Death of Christ," The Evangelist 4 (April 1835), 75-77.

[c]Scott, "Death of Christ," The Evangelist 3 (December 1834), 277-78.

[ci]Scott, He Nekrosis, or The Death of Christ, Written for the Recovery of the Church from Sects ( Cincinnati: Walter Scott, Publishers, 1853; reprinted by College Press of Joplin, MO, n.d.).

[cii]Ibid., 82.

[ciii]Ibid., 87.

[civ]Stone, "Walter Scott's Views of Atonement," CM 10 (November 1836), 169-70.

[cv]Ibid., 173.

[cvi]Ibid., 172. Cf. Stone, "The First and Second Adam," CM 13 (May 1843), 12-17.

[cvii]Stone, "Address," 129. Cf. Stone, "Reply," CM 6 (March 1832), 81: "Now it is not the fact that the many, or all mankind are really made morally righteous or holy by the obedience of Christ; therefore we cannot conclude that the man, or all mankind are really made morally sinful by the disobedience of Adam. They were constituted sinners, or treated as such, because they were condemned to die. So shall (it is in the future tense) all men be constituted righteous, or treated as righteous, because they are justified to life, or raised from the dead, and thus delivered from the condemnation brought on them by the first transgression."

[cviii]Stone, "Queries," CM 7 (May 1833), 139.

[cix]Stone, "Reply to Brother John Curd's Letter," CM 8 (August 1834), 238.

[cx]Wells provides an extended summation of these issues within the Reformed tradition, "Collison," pp. 364-76.

[cxi]Williams notes this aspect of Stone's concern for justice, "Power of Christ's Sacrifice," p. 28.