Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

122 • P LANTING C HURCHES AMONG THE C ITY ’ S P OOR : V OLUME 1

enable sinful humankind to see how loving God was and is. Jesus died as a demonstration of God’s love to humankind.

3. Christus Victor motif: called the “classic” view of the atonement. This view stresses the image of cosmic battle between good and evil, between God’s forces and Satan’s. “In that fray God’s son Jesus Christ was killed, an apparent defeat of God and victory by Satan. However, Jesus’ resur rection turned the seeming defeat into a great victory, which forever established God’s control of the universe and freed sinful humans from the power of sin and Satan” (J. Denny Weaver, The Nonviolent Atonement , Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001, pp. 14-15).

a. Called “classic” as the prevailing view of the early Church

b. A number of variations (none either biblical or convincing!)

(1) Ransom price paid to Satan in exchange for freeing sinners he held captive

(2) Satan was deceived because he failed to perceive the presence of God (i.e., the deity of Christ) hidden under his flesh c. The native language of the Apocalypse, the early Church, and the general sense of Scripture: Christ has come to die for sins, rescind the curse, defeat Satan and the powers, destroy the devil’s works, and to reestablish the reign of God in the earth!

B. Why did the biblical Christus Victor motif lose favor, after nearly 1,000 years of acceptance?

1. Aversion to the idea of Satanic rights that God might need to respect

2. Discomfort with the military and battle symbolism it produces

3. Modern cosmological problems with defining the Story in terms of malevolent, sentient evil personages which must be subdued