What Did the Cross Accomplish?: A Conversation about the Atonement

by N.T. Wright

The doctrine of the atonement is an ideal subject to test what I am advocating. The cross is, after all, the crux (no pun intended) of the matter for Christians. But doesn’t the fact that the cross is the center of the Christian theology seem, if I may say so, a bit odd? Does it not seem odd that when Paul came to Corinth, he was resolved not to preach the greatness of God, or the love of God, or even the law of God, but rather the crucifixion of Jesus, a messianic claimant who had been brutally killed like so many “messiahs” before him? Does it not seem odd that near the end of his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”?10 What of the sort of death by which Jesus died? Crucifixion, one of the lowest forms of death in the ancient Greco-Roman world, was so low that Roman citizens were almost never crucified!11 Even though crucifixion was a notoriously inefficient form of execution, it nevertheless was a very effective form of intimidation. Not only did victims of crucifixion die a humiliating and excruciating death, they also were generally denied a proper burial.12 In a culture where the majority of the religions had strict guidelines for what to do with a body after death, this was in effect a declaration: “You may choose your preferred deity, but remember this: Caesar is Lord!” Yet Jesus turned this declaration on its head by dying on a cross a...