Atonement Theologies – Ransom Atonement

Who?

Gregory of Nyssa, Irenaeus of Lyons, Origen, Anselm

What?

Essentially, this theory claimed that Adam and Eve sold humanity over to the Devil at the time of the Fall; hence, justice required that grace pay the Devil a ransom to free us from the Devil's clutches. God, however, tricked the Devil into accepting Christ's death as a ransom, for the Devil did not realize that Christ could not be held in the bonds of death. Once the Devil accepted Christ's death as a ransom, this theory concluded, justice was satisfied and God was able to free us from Satan's grip.

Reference

Mark 10:45: "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many";

1 Timothy 2:5-6: "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time"

In Use?

• Anabaptist Peace Churches
  

• Eastern Orthodox Churches are similar
  
• Generally not in use in the West
  

Pro

A Baptist seminarian who converted to Orthodox Christianity considers the Ransom Theory as more highly supported by biblical passages than are the other theories.

He wrote that the Ransom/Classic Theory was "...the view of the New Testament Christians. The New Testament makes few references to guilt, justice, satisfaction, and other distinguishing marks of the satisfaction theory, but is overwhelming in references to the distinguishing marks of the classic idea." Some citations are:

• Passages like 1 Corinthians 15:21-26, 1 Corinthians 15:55, Hebrews 2:14-15, 2 Timothy 1:10, and Matthew 27:52-53 which refer to death as an enemy, and describe Jesus' death and resurrection as being victorious over death and destroying death for believers.
  

• Passages like Romans 6:18, Romans 8:21, Galatians 5:1, Romans 6:7, and Revelation 1:5 emphasize setting the captives free, a strong theme in the ransom theory.
  

• Revelation 5 and 19 describe Jesus as a victorious conquering king who has conquered death.
  

 

Con

 

The Ransom theory, as well as other violence-based atonement explanations, suffer from an inconsistency in Christian teaching:

• The church has traditionally taught that a person is responsible for their own sin, and that a person cannot morally be punished for the sins of others. Of course, they deviated from this teaching, as when they taught as late as the mid-20th century that modern-day Jews were responsible for the execution of Yeshua (a.k.a. Jesus Christ). But in general, people were not held responsible for the sins of others.
  

• The church has also historically taught that the default destination for all humans currently living, after death, will be Hell because of the Adam and Eve's transgression in the Garden of Eden when they ate the forbidden fruit. All will be tortured in Hell, unless they are saved through sacraments and/or good works and/or faith. The sin of Eve and Adam were imputed to the entire human race. More liberal Christian faith groups have deviated from this belief and teach universalism -- that nobody will spend eternity in Hell.
  

• Most liberal and many mainline Christians believe that Adam and Eve were mythical humans. That is, they didn't exist as actual people. Without that belief, this atonement theory collapses.
  

• Some Christians note that Eve and Adam were created as proto-humans without a sense of sin. After all, they ate the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in order to develop a knowledge of good and evil. Being without a moral sense, they cannot be responsible for eating the fruit any more than an animal might. Again, if the first parents are not responsible for eating the fruit, the atonement theory collapses.
  

• Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You states that there is no support in the Bible for the concept that Satan has a legitimate claim on sinners. He suggests that the "Biblical word ransom simply means 'redemption-price;' it does not necessarily imply a price paid to Satan."
  

Several passages in the Bible imply that Christ's death was a ritual sacrifice to God, and thereby not to Satan:

• Isaiah 53:10: "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand." King James Version.
  

• Ephesians 5:2: "And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour." KJV. 9 The reference to a sweet smelling savor is seen throughout the Hebrew Scriptures in reference to animal sacrifices in the Temple being cooked at the altar, with the fragrance wafting upwards towards Heaven where God was seated on his throne. The ancient Hebrews believed that Heaven was only a few hundred feet above the earth.
  

Origen's version requires that God acts in a deceitful manner. That is does not match the traditional Christian belief about the justice, honesty, and truthfulness of God.

Many versions of the ransom theory assume that Satan is unaware of the "magical powers of Yeshua". The later version assumes that Satan is deluded into thinking that he is more powerful than Yeshua. Yet Satan is portrayed in the Bible as a dedicated, intelligent, and evil angel, not a quasi-deity who is so disconnected from reality that he is unaware of Yeshua's capabilities. Satan is not described in the Bible as suffering from delusions of grandeur.

The entire concept of Satan as a living entity is rejected by many Christians today; they view Satan as a symbol of evil, not as an actual person. If Satan is not an all-evil quasi-deity, Origen's theory collapses.

The Bible identifies Satan as a created being; a fallen angel who disobeyed God. Similarly, humans are commonly portrayed as created beings who have disobeyed God and fallen. There is no obvious rationale for assuming that Satan had control over all of humanity any more than the reverse might have been true.

Since God is omniscient, omnipotent, omni-beneficient, just, and ethical, it is illogical to assume that he would be willing to allow his son to be tortured to death if there were another way to achieve atonement. God might have, for example, simply forgiven Adam and Eve for their sin. According to the gospels, Yeshua repeatedly taught that extending forgiveness is to take the moral high road.

Professor of Philosophy Michael Martin writes: "Since, on the ransom theory, after Jesus' death and resurrection, human beings were out of the devil's clutches, it would seem that the way to salvation would simply be to follow a life free from sin so as not to fall under the devil's control. What has faith in Jesus got to do with this? The ransom theory supplies no answer."

There are three additional criticisms of the Ransom Theory which also apply to other atonement theories. They attribute to God the same sort of cruel, hate-filled, punishing behavior seen in the lives of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, etc:

• There is no obvious mechanism whereby a person can achieve salvation and atonement with God by simply expressing faith and/or trust in Yeshua.
  

• If trusting Yeshua were the only path to atonement and salvation, then those who have followed a non-Christian religion would not achieve salvation and atonement. They would be sent to Hell after death for what is basically the commission of a thought crime -- believing in the wrong God or in no God. Current moral belief systems -- both religious and secular -- consider punishment for thought crimes to be immoral and unjust.
  

The ransom theory would also route many non-Christians to Hell after death for the simple reason that they have not had the opportunity to learn of Yeshua, Christianity, or the gospel message. Being ignorant of Yeshua, they could not trust him as Lord and Savior and be saved. The Ransom Theory punishes non-Christians for not having made a decision in favor of someone of whom they are unaware. This appears to many people to be irrational, unjust, and immoral.

 

References

Gary E. Gilley, "The Word-Faith Movement," Biblical Discernment Ministries, (2000), at: http://www.rapidnet.com/

Craig Tanner, "Major views of the atonement," (2004) at: http://www.avoidingevil.com/

Paul Laughlin, "Remedial Christianity: What every believer should know about the faith, but probably doesn't," Polebridge Press, (2000), Page 173 to 183. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

Michael Martin, "The Case Against Christianity," Temple University Press, (1991), Pages 252 to 263. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store

Phil Johnson, "The Nature of the Atonement," Grace to You, at: http://www.biblebb.com/

David Williams, "The various theories as to the meaning of the atonement," (1997), at: http://www.geocities.com/

Dave Armstrong, "The 'Ransom Theory' of Atonement in the Fathers," (1998), at: http://ic.net/

"VanB12345@aol.com" "Orthodox theory of atonement," at: http://listserv.indiana.edu/

Phil Johnson, "The Nature of the Atonement," (2003), at: http://www.biblebb.com/

B.A. Robinson, Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance "The Christian Concept of Atonement: The Ransom Theory", http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_atone7.htm

Orthodox Christology

Dear Gene:

    I hope I can begin to answer your question: what is orthodox Christology?

    The simplest approach is to understand what these two terms mean. Christology is the attempt to answer the question "Who is Jesus Christ?" Orthodox is one of those Greek terms we have adopted in the Church: "ortho" means right and "doxa" is opinion: then orthodox Christology literally means to have the right opinion about who Jesus Christ is. My Greek dictionary has some notes about the translation of "doxa", noting that it can also mean glory or worship, so we should remember that our phrase can also mean to have the right worship: so our opinion or understanding of who Jesus Christ is can affect our worship (think John 4:23).

    As the Church was organizing and structuring itself, the leaders were struggling to have a "standard party line" with regard to the things we could say about Christ. What were the arguments pulling people one way or another?     The core of the first big argument is "Who was Jesus Christ?" The first Council of Nicea met to answer this question and to provide a means for believers to have a statement (creed) to be able to provide all Christians with a single answer: the driving force behind this was many of the heresies we have discussed, but primarily to discuss and dismiss a presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt called Arius. Arius could only understand Jesus as a created being – creation produces something different than the creator – therefore, for the Arians, Jesus could not be of the same essence or substance as God, since there would have been a time when God existed but, Jesus did not. The response to this understanding was led by a Bishop named Athanasius (he was actually only a deacon at the time), who upheld the understanding of the Christian God as Trinitarian. The Athanasian counter argument was that the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all co-eternal and consubstantial – the fancy Greek term is homoousios. Co-eternal means that the Trinity has existed for eternity and there was no time when all three did not exist, and consubstantial means that all three persons of the Trinity are of the same being (one God – three persons) and that the Son was generated "eternally of the Father's own being" which is also the source "from which the Holy Spirit proceeds": we use the term begotten rather than generated, but this means that Jesus is of the same essence/substance of God, instead of being created, and therefore being different. Athanasius and the Trinitarians won the day and formulated the Creed of Nicaea, around C.E. 325, with some editing occurring in C.E. 381.

    The second of these ecumenical councils which directly impacts our understanding of Christ, was the Council of Chalcedon, which met in C.E. 451. The purpose of this council was to answer the question "What was Jesus?" This council did not deal with only one heresy, but several. The Nestorian's belief that Jesus had two natures, and one body, but that the two natures are only in a moral kind of union – Christ is not God, but God is in Christ – which leaves Christ in a kind of schizophrenia. The Eutychian camp believed that the Divinity of Christ was so fused into the humanity of Jesus that Jesus Christ became a hybrid of sorts – a God-Man – and therefore He is really neither fully God nor fully human. The Apollinarianist's believed that Jesus had a human body and a human soul, but had the mind of Christ, rather than a human mind, since having a human mind leads us to sin, and Jesus Christ could not sin.

As if all of these were not enough, there was a dispute between Eastern & Western Christians. The Eastern Christians were influenced by Origen, philosophers like Plato, and even Athanasius who all understood that Jesus had a human body, but a Divine Soul, and while this continued to allow the unity (consubstantiality) of the Trinity, the Eastern Church struggled to keep Jesus fully human. Unfortunately this led to many seeing Jesus as a single Divine person, rather than fully God and fully human. The Western Church, influenced by leaders such as Tertullian and Aristotelian philosophy, taught that the Divine Word is known only through the human Jesus. While this allowed the Western Christians to accept the two natures of Jesus Christ, they sometimes struggled with the unity of the person of Jesus.

The result of this discussion at Chalcedon was not a single answer to the East-West differences, but rather to set limits within which, both sets of Christologies worked, and to provide responses to the heresies. The ultimate purpose of Chalcedon was to create a formula in which the unity of the person (one being) had two equal, but full natures – fully human, and fully Divine. And so Jesus Christ was described as having two natures, but one person (hypostasis): this is called the hypostatic union.

So what is orthodox Christology? Orthodox Christology is an understanding of Jesus as the second person of the Trinity, traditionally called the Son, or Logos: He has existed for all time and is of the same substance as the Father, and the Holy Spirit. The Godhead exists as three persons (hypostases) but as one nature. Furthermore Jesus Christ is understood as existing as a single human being, with two distinct natures – one completely human, one completely Divine, with neither nature subtracting from the fullness of the other.

I hope this helps answer your question.

In Christ,

Mark