Christians connect Jesus' death and resurrection with rescue from sin and death. They do not all give the same explanation of how this happens. The New Testament uses several images, and many Christians draw on more than one to explain Christ's saving work.
What is atonement?
Atonement concerns the restoration of relationship between God and humanity through Christ. Reconciliation means overcoming estrangement; redemption pictures release from captivity; sacrifice draws on worship and offering. These images are related, but not interchangeable.
Read an argument by asking what problem it identifies and how Christ addresses it. Is the problem guilt, slavery to evil, mortality, damaged human life, or some combination? Ask whether an explanation gives room to all these biblical images or leaves some unexplained.
Penal substitution: Christ bears judgment in our place
Penal concerns punishment; substitution means acting in another's place. Many Reformed and evangelical Christians argue that sin deserves divine judgment and that Jesus voluntarily bears that judgment for sinners. Forgiveness therefore upholds justice instead of treating wrongdoing as unimportant.
Supporters appeal to Isaiah 53, Galatians 3:13, Romans 3:21–26, and 1 Peter 2:24. Thomas Schreiner's Substitutionary Atonement presents the case and explains why he regards it as central to other benefits of the cross.
The challenge: critics ask whether punishing an innocent person is just, or whether the picture separates a loving Son from an angry Father. The response: advocates emphasize Christ's voluntary self-giving and the united action of Father, Son, and Spirit. They argue that Christ represents humanity rather than being an unrelated third party. Critics still question whether the biblical images require this particular account of transferred punishment.
Sacrifice and satisfaction: restoring a broken relationship
Satisfaction concerns making good what sin has damaged. Catholic teaching speaks of Christ's loving obedience and self-offering as reconciling humanity with God. It includes substitutionary language, but should not automatically be identified with every Protestant version of penal substitution.
The Catholic Catechism, paragraphs 613–623, develops sacrifice, covenant, obedience, and satisfaction together. Hebrews' account of Christ's self-offering and Romans 5's contrast between disobedience and obedience are important to this reasoning.
The challenge: readers ask why a loving God requires an offering, and whether humans are thereby buying divine favor. The response: Catholic teaching makes the initiative God's gift: the Father gives the Son, and the Son freely offers himself in love. The account concerns God's action to reconcile, not people persuading an unwilling God to become kind.
Christus Victor: overcoming the powers that enslave
Christus Victor means Christ the victor. This approach emphasizes Christ's defeat of sin, death, and evil. Hebrews 2:14–15 pictures release from fear of death; Colossians 2:15 pictures hostile powers being overcome. Jesus enters death and rises, opening a life that these powers cannot finally destroy.
The Orthodox Church in America's Resurrection develops this victory and participation in Christ's life. The account is prominent in Orthodox worship, but victory is also affirmed by many Catholics and Protestants.
The challenge: critics ask how victory deals with personal guilt, and what exactly the powers lose. The response: advocates connect liberation with forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformed life. A victory account need not deny sacrifice. Nor does it require imagining that God owes a payment to the devil; historical ransom explanations are varied.
Healing and transforming love: humanity renewed in Christ
This approach asks how damaged human life is made whole. In the incarnation, God's Son shares human life; in death and resurrection, that life is renewed. Athanasius' On the Incarnation, especially sections 8–10 and 20, argues that Christ addresses humanity's corruption and mortality from within. His reasoning also includes sacrifice and dying on behalf of others.
A related emphasis concerns the cross revealing love that brings repentance and changes conduct. Romans 5:8 connects Christ's death with God's love, while 1 Peter 2:21–25 joins example, bearing sins, and healing. Moral influence names the emphasis on love transforming the believer; it is distinct from, although compatible with, the healing account.
The challenge: critics ask whether an inspiring example alone can rescue people from death or reconcile them with God. The response: healing advocates affirm a real divine action that makes participation in Christ possible. Christians combining moral transformation with other models likewise argue that the cross does more than teach an ethical lesson. An account that treats Jesus only as an inspiring example has a harder time answering that objection.
Keep the whole story in view
Traditions differ within themselves, and these models do not map neatly onto denominations. Compare their readings of the same passage before deciding that their vocabulary describes entirely different events. Return to Who is Jesus?, then read a Gospel's death and resurrection account as a connected narrative.
Sources & further reading
A question in the margin is a good place to begin.