The Nature of the Atonement Quotes

“But if the Christus Victor motif is not tethered to penal substitution, we might conclude that human beings are merely victims of sin, held in thrall by evil powers.”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

“If Satan and his hosts were conquered at the cross, one would expect to find more empirical evidence of this victory.”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

“In the Christus Victor view, we might rather hold that Jesus died as our substitute and bore our sin and guilt by voluntarily experiencing the full force of the rebel kingdom we have allowed to reign on the earth. As the new Adam—our new representative, the originator of a new humanity (Eph 2:14-15)—Jesus stood in our place, bearing the full consequences of our sin.”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

“The central call of every disciple is to imitate this life, manifest this kingdom, and thereby engage in this warfare.”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

“Whereas other models of the atonement tend to isolate the meaning of Jesus’ death from other aspects of his life, the Christus Victor model (at least as I’m presently fleshing it out) sees every aspect of Christ life—from his incarnation to his resurrection—as being most fundamentally about one thing: victoriously manifesting the loving kingdom of God over and against the destructive, oppressive kingdom of Satan.”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

“Christ has in principle freed the cosmos from its demonic oppression and thus freed all inhabitants of the cosmos who will simply submit to this new loving reign.”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

“James Kallas says: Since the cosmos itself is in bondage, depressed under evil forces, the essential content of the word “salvation” is that the world itself will be rescued, or renewed, or set free. Salvation is a cosmic event affecting the whole of creation. … Salvation is not simply the overcoming of my rebellion and the forgiveness of my guilt, but salvation is the liberation of the whole world process of which I am only a small part.20”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

“And it’s only because the one who once ruled the world has in principle been driven out (Jn 12:31), disarmed (Col 2:15) and destroyed (1 Jn 3:8) that disciples can be assured that no cosmic power can separate us from the love of God (Rom 8:35-39).”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

“Salvation clearly involves forgiveness of sins, but this forgiveness is itself rooted in a person getting freed from Satan’s grip, and therefore freed from the controlling power of sin.”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

“There has been a good deal of discussion surrounding what precisely Paul and others were referring to with these various titles, and while certain matters continue to be debated, there is widespread consensus that these powers are at the very least closely related to (and, some argue, identical with) the destructive spiritual force of various social structures and people groups—nations, governments, religions, classes, races, tribes and other social groups, for example.14 It is arguably for this reason that Paul does not see “sin” first and foremost as a matter of individual behavior, as most modern Westerners do. He rather conceives of “sin” (and related concepts such as the “law” and the “flesh”) as a quasi-autonomous power that holds people groups as well as individuals in bondage (e.g., Rom 3:9; 6:6-12; 7:7-20, 23, 25). This is why people can never hope to break the power of sin and fulfill the law by their own effort. As in much apocalyptic thought, Paul believed what was needed was nothing less than God breaking into human history to destroy the power of sin and rescuing us from the cosmic powers that keep us in bondage to sin. This is precisely what Paul and all early Christians believed happened with the advent of Jesus Christ. And this is the essence of the Christus Victor view of the atonement.”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

“Everything Jesus was about was centered on vanquishing this empire, taking back the world that Satan had seized and restoring its rightful viceroys—humans—to their position of guardians of the earth (Gen 1:26-28; cf. 2 Tim 2:12; Rev 5:10).”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views

“Though the motif of spiritual warfare is rarely given its full due, the biblical narrative could in fact be accurately described as a story of God’s ongoing conflict with and ultimate victory over cosmic and human agents who oppose him and who threaten his creation.”
― James K. Beilby, The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views