Twenty-Five Soteriological Questions

This is question seven. What is the Christus Victor view of the atonement?

Gustaf Aulén in his 1931 Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement, presented his Christus Victory which is like the ransom to Satan view but expands the victory of the atonement beyond just Satan to demons and all evil. Aulén defends his view: “Its central theme is the idea of the atonement as a divine conflict and victory; Christ — Christus Victor — fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the ‘tyrants’ under which mankind is in bondage and suffering, and in him God reconciles the world to himself.”[1]

Gustaf Aulén, also reduced the many different images and theories into three basic paradigms. The first paradigm is “The Christus Victor paradigm, known alternatively as the classic or dramatic model, can be described as Satanward in its focus.”[2]  The second paradigm is the objective model with its Godward focus. This view is supported by Isaiah 53:5, 2 Corinthians 5:21, and Romans 3:23-26. The Godward focus of the atonement is taught in the penal substitutionary atonement and the satisfaction view.

The third paradigm is the subjective model which has a manward direction. The subjective view of the atonement was held to by the famous opponent of penal substitution, Faustus Socinus (1539-1604). His view is known as the moral example theory.

The view of the Christus Victor of atonement advocates Jesus by his incarnation, life, death, and resurrection defeated Satan. This view of the atonement according to Boyd “is more fundamental and more encompassing than other atonement models.”[3] Boyd states that “the Christus Victor model is able to encompass the essential truth of other atonement models”[4] except the penal substitutionary view of atonement which he adamantly rejects.

Boyd affirms the substitutionary death of Christ while rejecting the penal substitutionary death of Christ where Christ in a legal since bore God’s just wrath for our sins. He writes: “Christus Victor model need not hold that our individual sins, guilt and deserved punishment were somehow legally transferred onto Jesus, that Jesus literally experienced the Father’s wrath or that the Father needed to punish his Son in order to be able to forgive us.”[5] So Boyd can endorse every atonement theory except the penal substitution view.  

            [1] Gustaf Aulen, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement (London: SPCK, 1931), 30.

            [2] Ibid., 31.

            [3] Gregory Boyd. “Christus Victor View” in The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views eds. InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.,’ James Beibly and Paul R. Eddy, eds., The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 24, Kindle Edition.

            [4 ] Ibid., 42.

            [5] Ibid., 43.