The Problems of Atonement: Justification and Substitution Atonement theology is quite controversial. Each tradition has its own way of explaining the historic and salvific event of the death and resurrection of Jesus. However, even within the realm of atonement theology there are a couple of issues that reign supreme as the center of most atonement controversies. These two subjects being: justification and substitution. What does it mean that sinners are justified by the blood of Christ? How is Christ a substitute for sinners? These two aspects of the atonement have received considerable scrutiny over the last century. These doctrines have been called unjust, incoherent, and many other slanderous terms. The question is though, are they right? In this essay I intend to give a defense for both the coherence and morality of both of these issues. Justification The doctrine of justification has come under great scrutiny over the last four decades. This, I feel, has been for the best. The idea of justification has drifted away from its biblical roots and has become a doctrine in the abstract. That is to say, the language of justification no longer draws its meaning from scripture, but from theologizing disconnected from the Bible. However, the theologians of late1 have returned to the drawing board, or should I say the Bible, and have come back with a wider and deeper understanding of this doctrine. I will outline the four major components of justification as they have been re-imagined in recent scholarship.2 These four components are: historicity, the righteousness of God, the faith of Christ, and verdict.3 First, justification can only be understood if it is placed within history and understood primarily as an event in time. As I showed in the previous essay, the atonement happened in a particular place at a particular time. The atonement is historical and thus objective. Justification, being the result of the atonement, means it is also historical and thus also an objective event. Too often Christians have turned justification into a subjective moment in their own life instead of allowing it to be an
1 Most notably N.T. Wright. 2 The following section is a summary and synthesis of the work of N.T. Wright and Peter Leithart. 3 These components are where the most confusion arises with regard to justification. I hope to clarify
these confusions in my overview.
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