Cross, Resurrection & Atonement
How do the biblical metaphors of victory, sacrifice, reconciliation, representation, and liberation relate?
No single atonement model exhausts the paschal mystery; each must be judged by its account of God, agency, violence, and new creation.
The paschal mystery is approached through Scripture’s plural metaphors and judged by each model’s doctrine of God, agency, violence, and new creation.
- 01
Map major atonement models to biblical patterns
- 02
Evaluate accounts of divine and human violence
- 03
Construct a non-reductive soteriological claim
- 01
A plurality of metaphors
Victory, sacrifice, reconciliation, representation, liberation, and justification name irreducible dimensions of one event.
- 02
The agent of reconciliation
God is not a third party persuaded to become gracious; God is in Christ reconciling the world.
- 03
Violence under judgment
The cross exposes and overcomes creaturely violence; it cannot sacralize abuse or make suffering good in itself.
- 04
Resurrection completes the claim
Atonement is the passage into new creation, not only the cancellation of guilt.