Good Friday Preview: The Atonement is Bigger Than You Know

6 · Oswald identifies justification as the currently dominant framework for understanding the cross, suggesting this prominence is historically contingent and not necessarily ideal

I think that what has happened in my lifetime is that justification, the fact that Jesus offers himself as a guilt offering for our sins to satisfy God's wrath against our sin. That aspect of the cross has risen to prominence for some good and bad reasons, but maybe we'll get to that.

7 · Oswald introduces Origen's cosmic-victory emphasis on Christ's defeat of demonic powers, contextualizing early church atonement theology within a persecution context where external enemies (Satan, Rome) were more salient than internal guilt

So there's already two kind of aspects that you may not normally think of related to the atonement origin. We're still in the same basic time period. 184 to 253, he explored cosmic dimensions portraying Christ's death as a victory over demonic powers. These early ideas had a lot to do with dealing with Satan. Now, one might argue that in this particular cultural context, the main enemy was Satan and not sin. Okay, so that's another area you have to think about when you're thinking about theories of the atonement. It's like, well, what's going on in the culture at the time? And what was going on in the culture at the time was, sure, all these people were just as sinful as we were, but their main thing was, you know, Nero. Their main thing was sort of the boy, I can't think of his name. The main, not Nero, anyway, you know, their main thing was persecution, both from the Jews and the Gentiles, the Romans. And so you have to kind of ask yourself is what's going on in the development of the theory of atonement somewhat culturally influenced, Their main view was not so much the enemy within, but the enemy without, which was probably true. And it's probably how we would think if we were under Diocletian is who I was thinking of persecution.

8 · Oswald introduces Anselm's satisfaction theory — sin offends God's honor and incurs an infinite debt that only the God-man can pay

Now that's the early church. And then we can move on into like the, the medieval period beginning in, you know, say the, let's say the 1000s. A lot of this is where we begin to get into more of the justification type framework. Through a man named Aslam Anselm Anselm of Canterbury, he started to begin to think of justification as actually mostly about satisfying God's wrath. He wrote a book called Curidaeus Homo why God Became Man. And he argued that sin offended God's infinite honor and incurred a debt humanity couldn't repay. See, this is starting to sound more familiar. This is how we typically talk about the Gospel. And only as God, man, Jesus Christ, could he offer a satisfaction to God. His voluntary death was sufficient, uniquely because of his divinity, to restore or satisfy or propitiate divine justice. You might hear the word propitiate. Sometimes that just means, like to satisfy God's sense of justice. Again, we can definitely say this is biblical right now. There's, there's culture going on here too, though, because in the previous era, the main enemy was the attacker, you know, the persecutor, the synagogue of Satan, the Nero types. And so in that view, the main kind of accomplishment of justification has to do with overcoming the enemy. And all of that's true.

9 · Oswald explains how Christendom's cultural context — feudalism with its emphasis on lordship and honor — shaped Anselm's satisfaction theory, which became dominant in the Western church while the Eastern church retained a Satan-focused model

But then Christendom takes over and now you begin to see a cultural shift from the enemy without to the enemy within. And this more of a justification centered understanding of the Gospel comes to the fore through Anselm. He has this idea of God as Lord and he has honor. These are all feudal kind of, you know, as a feudal society, not futile. I realize my enunciation is often quite poor. Feudal F E U D A L There was a feudal context to the society at that moment. And so you cast in God as Lord, which isn't wrong. You know, that's, that's biblical. Whose honor demanded restitution. Christ comes to satisfy this, this sin debt incurred by people like you and me, and enables thus God to forgive sinners without compromising his justice. See, now we're in this medieval kind of explanation of salvation, which is still primarily our explanation of salvation. Critics would later note that Anselm's focus on divine honor could obscure God's love. But his theory of atonement definitely shifted, especially in the Western church, toward this sort of honor, established propitiation, justification kind of model. While in the east, so, you know, Asia and Africa, you still had this view of Satan as the main problem.

10 · Oswald synthesizes the historical survey by asserting that both Satan-focused and sin-focused atonement theories are biblical — the question is cultural emphasis and pedagogical wisdom

So now we have Satan as the main problem, and sin is the main problem. And the cross. Jesus is accomplishing all of this stuff. No one is arguing about whether any of this is biblical. It's all biblical. It's just that what seems to happen, especially in the Internet age, is people are dumb and Christian publishers are like, well, we, we can't do the level of nuance. I guarantee you. The podcast I'm doing right now is basically never done for most churches because it's confusing. It involves a layer of complexity. And truthfully, I don't know if I could do this podcast if my congregation wasn't generally well educated, know, in, at multiple levels, like generally well educated, biblically well educated, so forth. I feel like I can bring this stuff to you without it being, you know, a stumbling block.

11 · Oswald offers a gendered analogy — women's inward focus and men's outward focus — to map the Eastern/Western split on atonement emphasis (Satan vs

So, you know, there's this, this split that we see now, Eastern world, Western world, one having to do mostly with power, the power of the devil, the power of demons and so forth. And on the other side, you have the power of sin, issues of guilt and shame and so forth. Very much of an inward focus. You can think of it like in, in some ways very masculine and feminine split. Women are typically far more aware of what's going on inside of them. And men are typically far more aware of the threats that are going on outside of them. And maybe I'm not right about that. I don't know. I don't want to go out on a branch too far on this conversation. If you want to listen to this kind of level of complexity and nuance, you're going to have to deal with me being kind of half right, retreating from a, an idea that entered my head and so forth. Not going to write scripts for these things. That's going to completely ruin the point of this.

12 · Oswald introduces Peter Abelard's moral influence theory as a liberal reaction to Anselm's satisfaction theory, rejecting the idea of God requiring satisfaction in favor of a 'grandpa God' who merely models love

So around 1079 or so late, thousands. Peter Abelard counters again with the moral influence theory. This is essentially a recapitulation. Sorry, that's the wrong use of the word because that's unnecessarily confusing. It's just bringing back up origins or I'm sorry, Clement's ideas of a moral influence. And you begin to have, I guess you begin to have around 1100 A.D. initial splits between conservatism and liberalism. Believe it or not, his concern was essentially to not portray God as the kind of God who would need to be satisfied, whose justice would need to be satisfied, but just a really understanding, grandpa kind of God, which, you know, is the God that you see in a lot of Methodist churches today. So that split is actually really old. He, he responded to Anselm's theory of atonement or satisfaction by saying that makes God sound like he's mean. And in reality, what's going on here is Jesus is just showing us the way.

13 · Oswald briefly introduces René Girard's scapegoat theory as a modern descendant of Abelard's moral influence theory, rejecting penal substitution in favor of Jesus modeling an escape from scapegoating violence

Who's the guy? Gerard. Gerard would have grabbed hold of his understanding of the atonement. Rene Girard. His understanding of the atonement would be. Abelard influenced just this idea that Jesus, the atonement is not some kind of literal appeasing of God's wrath. It's just a modeling of an escape from a way out, of an off ramp from the scapegoat blame mentality that was, you know, causing so much problems in society. I don't know how many of you have read or are familiar with Gerard, but that's kind of Gerard.

14 · Oswald introduces the Reformation's penal substitutionary atonement, noting that Luther and Calvin built on Anselm but reframed the discussion around God's wrath and human guilt — the familiar evangelical gospel framework

Okay, so now we are moving now into the mid 14 to 1500s and we start to deal with the Reformation and their view of the atonement. Some would say that the Reformation brought new clarity. Others would say it brought new controversy to the atonement theology. A lot of guys like Luther and Calvin built on Anselm, but reframed the discussion around God's wrath and human guilt. Luther's emphasis was that Jesus bore God's judgment against sin. See, now you're hearing stuff that is more familiar to you. And he secured forgiveness for believers. Luther's focus is on the atonement in lining with justification.

15 · Oswald explains Calvin's systematization of penal substitution — Christ as an eternal being enduring eternal wrath for eternal sin against an eternal God

Calvin systematized in particular penal substitution teaching that Christ endured God's wrath. So Calvin's perspective was especially focused on sort of what hell is. So hell is the eternal payment for an eternal offense. You sinning against an eternal being means his offense is eternal and that your sin against an eternal being registers eternally. And so to pay for that sin you must suffer eternally. And Calvin was saying, well now we have Jesus who is an eternal being who is paying the eternal offense of sin. And Calvin's drawing from Isaiah 53 and Romans 3:25, he portrays Christ as the propitiation who satisfies God's divine justice. So you know, this is the gospel that you're used to hearing. Penal substitution clarified how a holy God forgives sin. It resonates with the Reformed emphasis on grace and Scripture. The question is not. Well, the question splits here because there are some who argue that it portrays God as vengeful or that it divides the Trinity with the Father punishing the Son. And then others would be largely concerned with just, you know, this being the main point of the gospel.

16 · Oswald's central critique emerges: Luther held penal substitution as central but not exclusive, while contemporary evangelicalism has over-focused on justification to the point of creating a docile, introspective people

Luther didn't, for instance, Luther didn't limit his view of the gospel. I think this is the key thing where, where I wind up with all this if you're wondering. He held penal substitution as central, but he didn't limit the gospel to that. He celebrated Christ's victories over Satan, he celebrated Christ's accomplishment over fulfilling the law and so forth. And this is, I think actually we need to get back to that. I think we have gone too overly focused on justification. In my opinion justification is the perfect. An overemphasis of justification creates a docile people who are easily controlled because everything is always about their sin. And it's not that simple. It's just not there. We have enemies, those enemies need to be dealt with and they're not all internal. And so justification seems to be the perfect sort of gospel summary for the highly effeminate, neurotic, self focused. But it seems to simultaneously maybe give them particular sorts of encouragement while leaving the less introspective, less neurotic, more of a taking ground kind of person. It sort of doesn't have a lot for them. And the truth is, is that when you read the New Testament you see it's in the Old Testament you see that the Gospel's got plenty for both.

17 · Oswald transitions from critique of penal substitution's dominance to introduction of Christus Victor as an alternative framework, noting Gustav Aulén's 1931 recovery of the early church's classic view

So now we're ready to talk about the Christus Victor theory which emphasizes Christ's victory over sin, death and Satan. Early foundations, Irenaeus, Origen, and then in 1931 Gustav Alins book Christus Victor reintroduced the Theory and arguing that it was the classic view. Christ's victory over sin, Satan and death is the classic view.

18 · Oswald reiterates that all atonement theories have biblical grounding — the question is not validity but emphasis and integration

And he has his scriptural text. None of these people lack scriptural texts. Like they all have them.

19 · Oswald introduces the core claim of Christus Victor: Christ's death was a divine conflict, not merely a legal transaction

And one of his is John 12:31. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. We saw this in John 16 last Sunday. You know, in this world you have trouble, but you will have trouble, but I have overcome the world. So Alan's framework for Christ's work was it was a divine conflict, not a legal transaction. You get that like that's essential. And that's what we're going to explore on Good Friday. Normally Good Friday services explore legal transaction. Nothing wrong with that. That's biblical. But what is also biblical is divine conflict. That Jesus death on the cross didn't simply propitiate God's wrath, it somehow or another made open mockery of Satan and his demons and put them to shame and in fact bound them in some way or another establishing victory over them.

20 · Oswald provides biblical grounding for Christus Victor by citing Jesus's declarations of victory over the ruler of this world

So you've got obviously John 12:31 and John 16:33 where Jesus talks about his power over the world.

21 · Oswald uses the prison-fight analogy ('punch the biggest guy to establish dominance') to illustrate Christ's defeat of the one who has the power of death, framing the cross as a cosmic dominance-establishing act

Hebrews 2:14 is a really key verse. You know, it talks about in Hebrews that we have been subject to lifelong fear that is due to our. A lifelong fear that is a kind of slavery that is due to our fear of death. And Jesus comes and beats up the one that has the power of death. The old joke in the Oswald home is if you ever get thrown into prison, you go up to the biggest guy the first day and you punch him in the face just to establish your dominance. And we've created a multitude of variants on that joke. But there's something to be said that's a Christian idea, it's a Christ centered idea to some degree.

22 · Oswald develops the Genesis 3 eating scene as a dark Lord's Supper — Adam and Eve fellowshipping with Satan, participating in his covenant of death

The Bible does in fact depict the cross as a battlefield where Christ's obedience undoes Satan's claim over humanity. I mean, not to go too far astray, but the biblical way of thinking is when you eat a meal with someone, you're fellowshipping with them, you're agreeing to their terms, you're agreeing to their way of life. Life. And so that's why we don't eat with the Gentiles. And so when you go to Genesis 3 and you see them eating with the devil, it has this sense of almost like a dark evil Lord's table with Satan presiding over it and they're participating in his covenant of death. This is stuff that's been talked about forever.

23 · Oswald introduces Jim Hamilton's thesis that Genesis 3:15 is the Bible's first gospel and foundational plot line — the seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head despite suffering

So there are various values to this Christus Victor theory. It creates a atonement concept that is far bigger than the individual and integrates Christ's victory with his incarnation and resurrection. And it doesn't depend so much on judicial models, which are legitimate, but also not everything. Okay, now let's wrap up here by. I want to talk about a particular guy who is doing work in this field, and that would be Jim Hamilton. He's a biblical theologian, I think, still at Southern, also a pastor. And he argues in his book God's Glory and Salvation through judgment that Genesis 3:15 is the Bible's first gospel. And that is a Christus Victor type gospel. Genesis 3:15. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Talking about the offspring of Eve and Hamilton sees this as the Bible's foundational plot line. God curses the serpent, promising that a seed of the woman will rise up one day crush evil despite suffering. And this sets the stage for redemptive history, you know, as we know it. Jesus fulfills this promise. Obviously, he's his death. The bruised heel defeats Satan, the crushed head. And we see this in John 16:11 and Revelation 12, 9. And the cross becomes this climactic moment where God's judgment on sin secure salvation.

24 · Oswald explains why he finds Hamilton's Genesis 3:15 framework compelling: it integrates all atonement theories under a single narrative arc

And the reason why I like that so much is I think it just grabs everything. It grabs justification, it grabs recapitulation, it grabs Christus Victor. It just sort of creates this narrative unity that says the whole Bible is about this promise. The very first promise after sin, Genesis 3:15, we got Abel to Abraham to David. God preserves his seed, culminating in Christ. You know, I was thinking about how Rachel, back in Genesis, she has this son and it's this huge answer to prayer. And she names him Joseph, which is in the Hebrew Yoseph, which is more add on. You know, an add to the word. Joseph means to add to, to continue, to continue to carry something on. And how you've got all these Josephs in the Bible and they always step up in a moment where a thing is about to fail and become ruined for lack of resources, generally speaking. And Joseph, the father of Jesus, is that guy in the Gospels. And then Joseph, who now we know as Barnabas, is that guy in the early church. And there's like lots of these guys. And the idea seems to be that like God has this plan and every once in a while someone has to step into that plan to keep it going. Those are the Yosephs, those are the Josephs but the plan always culminates in Jesus going to the cross and kill, defeating Satan.

25 · Oswald articulates Hamilton's synthetic achievement: integrating Christus Victor with penal substitution under God's kingdom purposes

Hamilton's view in this sense aligns with the Christus Victor theory by framing Christ's work as a triumph over Satan, sin and death, but includes the legal payment because he's talking about sin and justification and so forth. And so this perspective, I think, integrates atonement with God's kingdom purposes. Jesus liberates creation, not just man. Everything. He liberates everything. Revelation 21. Behold, I'm making all things new.

26 · Oswald previews the Good Friday service: a larger gospel framework emphasizing Christus Victor and Satan rather than individual sin, presented more accessibly than this academic survey

So I'm going to figure out a way to do all this without all the, all the qualifications and so forth for Good Friday. But if you're wondering what Good Friday is going to be, I'm going to try to give you a larger view of the gospel, probably with a bit more emphasis on Christus Victor. And, and so Good Friday is going to be a little different this time. It's not going to focus mostly on your sin, is going to focus mostly on Satan. And, well, we'll see how that goes.

27 · Oswald connects the sermon's theological creativity to covenantal security at Providence — a nearly decade-long mutual commitment between pastor and people that enables risk-taking and innovation

But the nice thing, and just as a, just as a last word, guys, what's going on theologically at Providence is an extension of what we would think of as the basic terms of covenantal security. See, I don't have to, like, I don't have to dance for my supper every week. I can do things that are a little outside of expectations. I'm not trying to feed the machine, so the machine feeds me. There's a commitment that's extant in this particular church between the pastor and the people. It's been a commitment that's not that far away from a decade long at this point. And what you get when you get that commitment is you get a modicum of creativity that winds up being a real blessing to people. And I bring that up because if you want to know what you have to do with your marriage, it's that. It's that and what you have to do with parenting. Create a unquestionable level of commitment so that all of. So that you can escape the performative and enter into the innovative.

28 · Oswald closes by reiterating the sermon's main thesis: the cross is not reducible to individual sin and justification but includes cosmic dimensions — confounding the wise, shutting up Satan, binding the devil, defeating death

And anyway, so we'll see. We'll see if that works out. I think it'll be interesting, if nothing else. Jesus has done so much with his cross is the big point. It's not just one thing. It's definitely not just about you or me or even our sin. Think about how weird that would be to frame this enormously glorious, massive thing around just people's sin. Is that really a sufficient explanation? The Bible doesn't pretend that it is. The Bible talks about all sorts of explanations, including confounding the wise in their own wisdom, shutting up Satan, binding the devil, taking away the power of death, and so forth. So I'm going to try to figure out. Today's Monday. I'm trying to figure out how to talk about this more coherently on Friday. All right, folks. Well, that's all I've got for you this evening. I will let you go think about these things. Looking forward to seeing you on Good Friday, Sam. The army blues.