by Newman Nahas
In a companion essay, I argue that the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is unsound. In this essay, I address the natural follow-up: If Christ did not die to satisfy the requirements of retributive justice, how did His life, death, and resurrection save us?
There is no shortage of answers that arise out of scripture. Some of the images that emerge from scripture are summarized below in the table, and then discussed further in the text. What is clear from these images is that Christ did not just undertake a "simple juridical, exterior operation"—like a judge banging a gavel and declaring our status changed. He came to accomplish "the restoration of communion and the healing of human nature itself." (Stăniloae, Vol. 2, pp. 31, 62). The focus is on ****transformation—a "new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17).
| Image | Description | Biblical language |
|---|---|---|
| Physician | Christ heals our broken existence by uniting it to Himself | Christ “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), assuming “our infirmities and bearing our sicknesses” (Matthew 8:17) to heal them as “the physician” (Mark 2:17), by whose “stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24). |
| New Adam | Christ restores (through His obedience) what Adam fractured through disobedience | Christ lived a perfect life, so that “by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). He “humbled Himself… to the point of death” (Philippians 2:8) and “redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13), thereby “condemning sin in the flesh” and reversing the curse (Romans 8:3). |
| Ransom | Christ offers His life to liberate us from sin, death, and the devil | Christ gave “His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28) for those captive to sin (Romans 6:6), death (1 Corinthians 15:26), and “him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). We were “purchased… for God,” not from God (Revelation 5:9), that we may receive the “adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:5). |
| Sacrifice | Christ is the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, and the sacrifice whose divine blood purifies and vivifies | “God presented Christ as a hilastērion” (Romans 3:25). “For if the blood of bulls and goats… sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ… cleanse” (Hebrews 9:13–14). This blood “cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7) and imparts divine life, for “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). He “Himself bore our sins in His own body” (1 Peter 2:24) as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). |
| Victor | Entering death as Life Itself, Christ destroys death and overthrows the powers | Because “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9), it was “not possible that He should be held by” the powers of darkness (Acts 2:24). He died so that “through death He might destroy him who had the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14). Thus, death appeared to have swallowed Him, but it was “death that has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54). |
| Deifier | The Risen Christ makes us partakers of the divine nature and lives in us | By His rising, God “raised us up together… in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6) and “raised us with Him through faith” (Colossians 2:12), enabling us to become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). “We shall be like Him” (1 John 3:2), because now “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). |
God is Life itself—the source and sustainer of existence. Separation from Him naturally results in death, not as an added punishment for justice's sake, but as an inevitable ontological consequence. A branch severed from the vine doesn't need to be punished to wither (John 15:5-6). As a result of sin, we faced what Fr. Georges Florovsky called a "metaphysical catastrophe"—the "decomposition of the human being" (John 1:4; Ps. 36:9).
This is why the warning in Eden was existential, not punitive: "In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Gen. 2:17). Humanity became "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1), subject to him "who had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14), and enslaved by "the corruption" (Rom. 8:21).
Since this was catastrophe beyond legal status, the solution, therefore, needed to go beyond acquittal. As Athanasius (d. 373) explained, the issue was not merely that man had "done wrong—for this, repentance would have sufficed"; instead, the issue was that we "had fallen into a corruption, a transiency that threatened him with annihilation" (Pelikan, p. 204, citing Inc. 7.5).
A sick man usually needs a physician more than a lawyer.
"That which He has not assumed He has not healed." Gregory Nazianzen.
Christ was "made like His brethren" (Heb. 2:17) in all things, including death, to heal all things, including death. He is the "wise Doctor of our souls," who "took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses" (Matt. 8:17). Thus, the healing that reaches its climax at the Cross begins at the incarnation.
This idea is also talked about in terms of Christ as the "last Adam" (1 Cor. 15:45), who recapitulates (“redoes”) humanity's journey, but does it right this time. Christ "passed through every stage of human growth, hallowing each and redeeming each by 'being made for them an example of piety, righteousness, and submission'" (Pelikan, p. 144). Where Adam grasped at divinity through disobedience (Gen. 3:5), Christ revealed it through obedience (Phil. 2:8). "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous" (Rom. 5:19).
Thus, Christ is simultaneously Physician (Mark 2:17) and Medicine. Augustine captures this: "The Good Samaritan came down to the wounded traveler (Luke 10:30-37)… And what medicine did He use? Himself."