We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?
If asked why Jesus had to die on the cross, most Christians today would immediately answer, “To pay for my sins.” Jesus certainly paid the price for our sins, but it might surprise some reader to learn that this wasn’t the way Christians would answer this question for the first thousand years of Church history. The main reason Jesus died on the cross, according to this earlier view, was to defeat Satan and set us free from his oppressive rule. Everything else that Jesus accomplished, including paying for our sins, was to be understood as an aspect and consequence of this victory.
This earlier understanding of why Jesus had to die is called the Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ is Victorious”) view of the atonement. In my estimation it captures the profound beauty of the New Testament account better than the view that focuses exclusively on what Jesus did for us.
The Christus Victor motif is strongly emphasized throughout the New Testament. Scripture declares that Jesus came into this world to “drive out the ruler of this world” (Jn 12:31), to “destroy the works of the devil” (I Jn 3:8), to “destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14-15) and to ultimately “put all his enemies under his feet” (I Cor 15:25). Jesus came to overpower the “strong man” (Satan) who holds the world in bondage and to work with his children to “plunder his house” (Lk 11:21-22). He came to end the reign of the cosmic “thief” who seized the world to “steal and kill and destroy” the life God intended for us (Jn 10:10). Jesus came to earth and died on the cross to disarm “the rulers and authorities” and make a “public spectacle of them” by “triumphing over them on the cross” (Col 2:15).
Beyond these explicit statements, there are many other passages that express the Christus Victor motif as well. For example, the first prophecy in the Bible foretells that a descendent of Eve (Jesus) would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The first Christian sermon ever preached proclaims that Jesus in principle conquered all God’s enemies (Ac 2:32-36). And the single most frequently quoted Old Testament passage by New Testament authors is Psalm 110:1 which predicts that Christ would conquer all God’s opponents. (Pslams.110 is quoted or alluded to Mt 22:41-45; 26:64; Mk 12:35-37; 14:62; Lk 20:41-44; 22:69; Ac 5:31; 7:55-56; Rom 8:34; I Cor 15:22-25; Eph 1:20; Heb 1:3; 1:13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15,17,21; 8:1; 10:12-13; I Pet 3:22; and Rev. 3:21) According to the great New Testament scholar Oscar Cullman, the frequency with which New Testament authors cite this Psalm is the greatest proof that Christ’s “victory over the angel powers stands at the very center of early Christian thought.”
The Incarnation of the Son of God fulfilled God’s original dream of uniting himself to humanity to acquire a bride and co-ruler. But it’s clear from the Christus Victor motif we’ve just examined that, because of our rebellion, the Incarnation also involved a rescue mission that included a strategy for vanquishing the powers of darkness.
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, Christus Victor, Crucifixion, Jesus, Penal Substitution View of Atonement, Satan, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Christus Victor view of Atonement
Related Reading

A Book That Won’t Leave You Unchanged
St. Ignatius of Loyola, the 16th century founder of the Jesuits, taught that to experience the transforming power of Scripture, we need to read it “with all five senses,” using our imagination to get on the inside of the characters and story we’re reading about. A just-released book by Frank Viola and MaryDeMuth entitled “The…

Do the Gospels Promote Anti-Semitism?
Over the last couple of weeks we have been looking at various passages from the Gospels that have been used by some to argue that Jesus condones violence. Here is a link to each of them: The Cleansing of the Temple and Non-Violence Was Jesus Unloving Toward the Pharisees? Violent Parables? Why Did Jesus Curse…

The Politics of Demonization
Jonathan Martin posted a blog this week that we wanted to share called the politics of demonization (demonic talk on immigration, & other things). Have you noticed the hateful ways that we characterize the “other” in public discourse? Jonathan suspects (and we agree) that there’s a powerful force driving this tendency in all of us. As he puts it…

The Politics of Jesus, Part 2
Even in the midst of politically-troubled times, we are called to preserve the radical uniqueness of the kingdom. This, after all, is what Jesus did as he engaged the first century world with a different kind of politics (see post). To appreciate the importance of preserving this distinction, we need to understand that the Jewish…

Warfare Worldview: A Basic Definition
The warfare worldview is based on the conviction that our world is engaged in a cosmic war between a myriad of agents, both human and angelic, that have aligned themselves with either God or Satan. We believe this worldview best reflects the response to evil depicted throughout the Bible. For example, Jesus unequivocally opposed evils…

Violence: What Did Jesus Do?
Thomas Quine via Compfight Here’s a spot-on reflection on what Jesus taught us about responding to violence. Whatever you think about the justification of violence in particular situations, as Christians we simply cannot escape the fact that Jesus demonstrated another way. From the reflection: And though he had access to unlimited power to have himself released…