How is the Wrath Of the Father Appeased if Not PST Atonement?

Those passages are essentially a key part of the Christus Victor view as well. But that position stands in contrast to PSA. That is what I mean about the passages are common to both views while both views cannot be correct.

 

My apologies.

I am on my phone brouser and it makes the thread titled:

How is the Wrath Of the Father Appeased if Not PST Atonement?

And the reply:

To appear that you started the thread. When I get to a computer I will address the writer of the OP. I guess he withdrew but it makes your post look like the first.

Again, my apologies.

 

Yes. But not yet on this thread :Biggrin.

 

You misunderstood what I was saying (sorry, that was my fault). I do not claim PSA (the Theory of Penal Substitution Atonement) to be a part of Christus Victor. I am claiming that Christus Victor includes penal and substitutionary aspects because they are biblical. PSA and Christus Victor are competing theories (they cannot be reconciled because they view redemption entirely differently).

PSA views the cross as Jesus taking upon Himself the punishment demanded under God's law (divine justice against sin) so that our debt as a result of sin is paid.

Christus Victor views God as sending Christ to come in the likeness of sinful flesh and experience the full weight of the powers of darkness (the powers of this world, sin and death, the wages of sin) and then be vindicated having victory over those powers.

Where PSA views salvation a matter of God's righteousness manifested through the law as Jesus suffers the judicial punishment instead of us, Christus Victor views salvation as a matter of God's righteous manifested apart from the law as all who are "in him" are "reckoned" to have died and been raised with Him so that from God's perspective their sins are no longer accounted against them and they stand on resurrection ground.

Those are competing views.

 

You are, of course, wrong. But it may be in how I worded my claim (if so, I apologize. I may not have been clear to someone not holding my position). Let me use different words:

Colossians 2:8-15 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. .... He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

I understand that PSA does not deny the passages that Christus Victor use.

That is my point. The difference is not Scripture at all.

The difference is how we interpret Scripture.

I cannot answer for you, I can only answer questions about my view that you may have.

Likewise, you cannot answer for me. But hopefully you can answer my questions of your view.

Why do you believe that the cross is God's punishment when Peter (in Acts) tells the Jews that they are guilty of handing Christ over to godless men who killed him, but that this was in accordance to God's predetermined plan and God vindicated Christ by raising Him from the dead.

It seems that you are putting God in place of "godless men" in that passage (but again, I am not saying you are, just asking for clarification).

 

Scripture says we who are in Christ escape the wrath to come.

Again, Scripture says we who are in Christ escape the wrath to come. Those who are not in Christ experience God's wrath.

 

To an great extent I agree.

I agree that PSA focuses more on one aspect of the atonement and Christus Victor another. I have always suspected one reason the Early Church held to a Christus Victor view (in the form of one of a few ransom theories) is because of what it was going through.

But at the same time there are aspects of PSA that cannot be true if Christus Victor is true (and vice versa).

I think we consider the views and text them the best we can against Scripture. When I do, I come out with the Christus Victor view. For most of my life I came out with the PSA view. But I came to see some of my basic assumptions wrong, and that changed my position. Others come out with the PSA view.

We can discuss our differences and disagree without being disagreeable and hopefully come to understand what the other believes and why. Until assumptions change beliefs will not change.

To quote Everlast (always popular on Christian forums :D ) "You know where it ends ,Yo, it usually depends on where you start"