The nature of Christ’s atonement is becoming a common discussion. It’s an important one, one upon which our salvation rests. What exactly did Christ do in His death that freed us from sin? Bound up in this is our understanding of what it is that separates us from God. What interferes with full fellowship? What prevents God from embracing all of His creatures in His love? What must we be saved from if we are to be saved to God?
Increasingly popular is a theory called the Christus Victor theory of the atonement. Its proponents claim that Christus Victor is the classical understanding of the atonement, one held by the majority of the church until Anselm of Canterbury developed a substitutionary model of the atonement in the 11th century. According to the Christus Victor view, Christ’s death is primarily about His defeat of the powers of darkness. Man is captive to Satan, and he can only be freed through Christ’s victory over Satan. Man’s captivity in the realm of darkness keeps him from God. Salvation, then, is about his being rescued from Satan. Christ’s death is a display of divine power, Christ showing that He is greater than even death itself. Through His power, He breaks the bonds of sin, Satan, and death, and frees us from captivity.
Christus Victor rests heavily on the work of Gustaf Aulen, whose work was published 60 years ago in the book entitled Christus Victor. He quotes extensively from the early church, showing that they frequently referred to Christ’s work in the atonement as a victory over Satan. He believed this was the prevailing view of the early church, thus he called it the classical view of the atonement. His work has had an outsized effect on the church, reintroducing ideas of the atonement that have been foreign for several centuries. The question is, are his claims legitimate?
Far from being the long-held position of the church, Christus Victor as it is in circulation among us is a modern invention. Crucial to this understanding is realizing that, while the early church said things that sounded very much like Christus Victor, they also were quite comfortable using substitutionary language to describe the atonement. Poor scholarship allows one to prop up Christus Victor ideas while ignoring the other atonement themes also present in the early church writers. They certainly taught Christus Victor themes, but they did so alongside a full-orbed definition, one that included substitutionary atonement and justice satisfaction.
Distinct from the early church’s view of the atonement, the modern definition of Christus Victor is opposed to any kind of wrath-bearing, justice-satisfying, sin-propitiating understanding of the atonement. Thus it overturns the biblical gospel by turning our attention away from our personal culpability, rather looking to Adam’s mistakes and Satan’s dominion over us to excuse our sinful behavior. In Christus Victor, our problem becomes, not our sin, but our situation. We are victims, not villains. We sin because we are enslaved to Satan, not because we are sinners. Christus Victor has no mechanism for absolution of sin; rather, we need freedom from captivity.
This blame-shifting redefinition is little different than Adam’s game in the garden. Rather than own our sin, it excuses it. Rather than maintaining God’s perfection, it softens it to minimize the severity of our own rebellion. But salvation does not come to those who excuse their sin. Rather, we must “confess our sins.” When we own our sin, confessing it in brokenness and contrition, God is “faithful and just to forgive us our sins.”
Does Christus Victory highlight some biblical themes? Certainly. We are freed from Satan’s power through Christ’s death. But is freedom from Satan what the atonement is primarily about? Certainly not. Rather, freedom from Satan’s clutches is accomplished by Christ’s payment for our sins. As is laid out so clearly in Hebrews 2, Christ through death destroyed him who had the power of death, the devil. What in His death destroyed the devil’s work? His substitution. He was made like us so he could “make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17). This propitiation is none other than His substitutionary death. He “put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Hebrews 9:26). His death delivers us from sin. Delivery from sin delivers us from Satan. Far from Christus Victor (which makes sin an effect of bondage to Satan), this is clear that bondage to Satan is an effect of our bondage to sin. Kill sin, and the bondage is broken.
Similarly, Colossians 2 says that Christ has “forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” We see here that forgiveness comes through Christ’s paying the penalty for our sins. That payment was made on the cross. And the effect of this victorious substitution is that the principalities and powers (Satan and his demons) are disarmed and humiliated. Trespasses are forgiven through Christ’s death. By this we are not only freed from sin and death, but also from Satan. So yes, Christ is the victor over sin, Satan, and death, but He is victorious precisely because He has paid our debt. He died for us, bearing our sin, taking our place, becoming sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). It is this justice-satisfying substitution that frees us from Satan’s iron grip. But without substitution, there is no freedom. Christus Victor’s denial of substitution removes the substance of the gospel. All that’s left is powerless absolution.
Is Christus Victor an acceptable atonement theory? When it is used to sidestep the just wrath of God, it is not. When it is used to minimize our sin, it is not. When it is used as a cop out, it is not. When it is used in contradiction to the clear teachings of Scripture, it is not. Christus Victor is gaining ground because it depicts a softer, kinder God, not one of wrath but one of grace, not one of justice but one of mercy. Yet without wrath, grace is no grace. Without justice, mercy is no mercy. Minimizing God’s perfections has only the effect of minimizing His salvation. It is precisely because sin deserves eternal punishment that salvation is so marvelous. It is because God is perfect and holy that we are amazed to be brought into His presence through Christ. Sinners with the Sinless. Unholy with the Holiest of All. We were soiled and detestable. Only through Christ’s substitutionary death can we be made clean.