It would be better to wrestle with the authors’ thoughts in a place where they have the space to spell things out a little bit more.

I appreciate your book review. Although you seemed to just aim right at Body. Body has great articulation and great rhetoric.

I think if Boyd is endorsing a theory within theology you are already revolting against. If Boyd is arguing for it, you want to argue against it. You even give Boyd’s section two big paragraphs of critique when you only give the other 3 theologians three small paragraphs.

The idea that Boyd is self-contradicting himself is a bit off. You state in relation to Boyd’s argumentation:
“Jesus indeed died as our substitute, bore our sin and guilt, was sacrificed for our forgiveness, and was punished by the Father in our place” (p. 43).

…that Jesus literally experienced the Father’s wrath or that the Father needed to punish his Son in order to be able to forgive us” (p. 43). These two sentences occur in the same paragraph, and yet they are hopelessly self-contradictory!

These two quotes are not in contradiction. They are in the same complete of thought. Jesus being sacrificed is the same exact thing as Jesus experiencing His Father’s wrath. The commonality is that regardless how Jesus is being presented, either he is experiencing it or being a sacrifice, His Father is still arranging the punishment. How is punished by the Father in our place any different than the Father needed to punish His Son in order to forgive us? These two sentences are directly from your quotes, that are claiming to be contradictory. Seemingly, there is a little difference in language, but Jesus’ Father is still conducting the wrath.

The bottom line: Critique every author fairly and do not show your bias. Do not throw your bias into the author’s argumentation and, again, do not throw your bias in your review. Come on…..you have your PHD….you know better than that…………
Without even looking at your Church and educational background, I can immediately know that you: are extremely conservative, probably went to DTS somewhere down the line, and you were raised southern Baptist.

You and I both know Boyd’s argumentation was better presented, articulated, and persuading then any of those authors. Lets just give credit, where credit is due.

Heb. 3:14-17

Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham. Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

With regard to what Denny said, from this vantage point, I don’t see how we can argue that Christus Victor is not only the most quantitative position but also the most satisfying in terms of incorporating the entire biblical witness.

Denny, nice job in bringing up the differentiation between quantity and quality. That’s a great hermeneutic!

Thanks for commenting and great question. My answer is this. I do not think that we can determine the “central” meaning of the atonement by measuring the proportion of the NT that explicitly teaches it. It’s not a question of quantity. If it were merely a question of quantity then Boyd and the church fathers would be right in identifying the Christus Victor motif as the central meaning of the atonement. But I don’t think that’s the issue–it’s certainly not the issue in Schreiner’s argument. The issue is which atonement theory best incorporates and explains all of what God intended to do in this climactic moment in the history of redemption.

Thanks,
Denny

One question for you. I’m all for penal substitution and all, I mean, it’s just there (e.g. Rom. 8.3; Gal. 3.13 etc). But I honestly wonder whether we can legitimately say that PS is the central doctrine of the atonement from which all the others flow. The reason I say this is because Luke-Acts takes up 28% of the NT and it does not express PS in the preaching of Jesus and the Apostles to my knowledge and Luke focuses more on Jesus’ resurrection and exalation than his death (it does deny PS either I’d note). What do you think?

It’s sort of like the classic debates between Armenianists and Calvinists – I may not be sure where my beliefs fit into the grand scheme of those terms, but in the end, it doesn’t matter ’cause I know where I stand in relation to God.

Have a good day, all.