Quotes from James K. Beilby

Christianity should be believed, Lewis routinely said, because it is true, not because it makes you happy, healthy, wealthy or popular. Speaking about his own conversion, he said: "I haven't always been a Christian. I didn't go into religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that.

This teaching cannot be used to justify moral carelessness, however, "for it is impossible for those who are engrafted into Christ by true faith not to bring forth the fruit of gratitude."24

Though the motif of spiritual warfare is rarely given its full due, the biblical narrative could in fact be accurately described as a story of God's ongoing conflict with and ultimate victory over cosmic and human agents who oppose him and who threaten his creation.

Everything Jesus was about was centered on vanquishing this empire, taking back the world that Satan had seized and restoring its rightful viceroys—humans—to their position of guardians of the earth (Gen 1:26-28; cf. 2 Tim 2:12; Rev 5:10).

But if the Christus Victor motif is not tethered to penal substitution, we might conclude that human beings are merely victims of sin, held in thrall by evil powers.

Salvation clearly involves forgiveness of sins, but this forgiveness is itself rooted in a person getting freed from Satan's grip, and therefore freed from the controlling power of sin.

And it's only because the one who once ruled the world has in principle been driven out (Jn 12:31), disarmed (Col 2:15) and destroyed (1 Jn 3:8) that disciples can be assured that no cosmic power can separate us from the love of God (Rom 8:35-39).

James Kallas says: Since the cosmos itself is in bondage, depressed under evil forces, the essential content of the word "salvation" is that the world itself will be rescued, or renewed, or set free. Salvation is a cosmic event affecting the whole of creation. … Salvation is not simply the overcoming of my rebellion and the forgiveness of my guilt, but salvation is the liberation of the whole world process of which I am only a small part.20

Christ has in principle freed the cosmos from its demonic oppression and thus freed all inhabitants of the cosmos who will simply submit to this new loving reign.

Whereas other models of the atonement tend to isolate the meaning of Jesus' death from other aspects of his life, the Christus Victor model (at least as I'm presently fleshing it out) sees every aspect of Christ life—from his incarnation to his resurrection—as being most fundamentally about one thing: victoriously manifesting the loving kingdom of God over and against the destructive, oppressive kingdom of Satan.

The central call of every disciple is to imitate this life, manifest this kingdom, and thereby engage in this warfare.

In the Christus Victor view, we might rather hold that Jesus died as our substitute and bore our sin and guilt by voluntarily experiencing the full force of the rebel kingdom we have allowed to reign on the earth. As the new Adam—our new representative, the originator of a new humanity (Eph 2:14-15)—Jesus stood in our place, bearing the full consequences of our sin.