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

13.4.2010: detail from the 12th cent. Byzantine mosaic of the Last Judgement in Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello.

How the Anabaptists Emphasized the Cross

Because the Anabaptists have generally emphasized faith that is evidenced by works and thus on Jesus’ life as an example to be followed, it may prima facia appear that the saving work of the cross was less central to the early Anabaptists than it was to the Reformers and to Evangelicals. In reality, I would argue, this is not at all the case.

Given how persecuted the early Anabaptists were, it’s not surprising that they rarely discussed atonement theories in a formal way, let alone that they never embraced any particular theory. However, when Sattler, Hubmaier, Denck and other Anabaptist leaders did write and speak about the work of Christ on the cross, they actually reflect aspects of each of the major models of the atonement in Church history. Yet, in summing up their views, Thomas Finger observes that, “[a]mong traditional models … Christus Victor can be called historic Anabaptism’s primary expression of Jesus work.” This is true, however, only “providing we add that they experienced this as more present and participatory, and more specifically shaped by Jesus’ life than most.”[1]

In other words, the central emphasis tended to be on the manner in which Jesus’ humble, self-sacrificial life and death defeated forces of evil. Yet, this emphasis was not only regarding what Jesus did for us; it included what Jesus does in us and through us. To use Finger’s terminology, their Christus Victor model was not only “conflictive” but “transformative.”[2] Because they understood Jesus’ cruciform way of defeating the powers to be something they are called to participate in, they refused to engage in violence, even as an act of self-defense when persecuted and martyred by other Christian groups.

In this light, I would argue that, in a wholly informal way, the early Anabaptists tended to integrate Jesus’ death with every other aspect of his life, which is precisely the position I argue in Crucifixion of the Warrior God. And so, while one doesn’t typically find as strong a formal emphasis on the saving significance of the cross among them as one finds among the Reformers and Evangelicals, I would argue the cross was no less thematically central to them than it was to these others.

If anything, I would argue it is more central inasmuch as the Anabaptists understood the cross not only to be the thematic center of everything Jesus was about, but also as the thematic center of everything his followers are to be about. As is the case in the NT, the early Anabaptists generally understood that to follow the one who lived a cruciform life and died a cruciform death, one must be willing to adopt a cruciform lifestyle.

[1] T. Finger, A Contemporary Anabaptist Theology: Biblical, Historical, Constructive (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2006), 350.

[2] ibid., 341, 343

Photo credit: Nick in exsilio via Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-SA

Related Reading

Rachel Held Evans Interviews Greg on Benefit of the Doubt

We shared an interview that Frank Viola did with Greg yesterday, and we’re thrilled to share an interview that Rachel Held Evans posted today. Rachel is very familiar with the resistance and criticism that comes when dearly held beliefs are challenged. We feel like she is a kindred spirit in this regard. We hope you’ll…

Why Bart Ehrman Doesn’t Have to Ruin Your Christmas (Or Your Faith) Part 4

This is the fourth of several videos Greg put together to refute Bart Ehrman’s claims published in the article What Do We Really Know About Jesus? We hope you’re enjoying these! They really provide a great overall approach to Biblical Criticism. If you missed the first three installments you can find them here, here and here.

Does Paul Condone Vindictive Psalms? A Response to Paul Copan (#1)

In a recent paper delivered at the Evangelical Theological Society, Paul Copan raised a number of objections against my book, Crucifixion of the Warrior of God. This is the first of several blogs in which I will respond to this paper. (By the way, Paul and I had a friendly two-session debate on Justin Brierley’s…

Overview of Crucifixion of the Warrior God

Greg reviewed the content of his new book, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, as a part of the Woodland Hills Church Covenant Partner gathering on March 5, 2017. If you want a fairly succinct synopsis of the thesis of his book, look no further. Ten years ago, Greg set out to write a book justifying the…

Did Jesus Believe in Satan?

Jesus’ teaching, his exorcisms, his healings and other miracles, as well as his work on the cross, all remain somewhat incoherent and unrelated to one another until we interpret them as acts of war. As in apocalyptic thought of the time of Jesus, the assumption that undergirds Jesus’ entire ministry is that Satan has illegitimately…

What Makes the Good News So Good

While God was revealed in various ways and to various degrees through the law and the prophets of the Old Testament, in Jesus we finally have the one who is “the exact representation of God’s being” or essence (hypostasis, Heb. 1:1-13). This is the heart of the Good News that reverberates throughout the New Testament.…