It is impossible to ignore the motif of victory in Christ’s work. Therefore Aulén’s contention that Christus Victor has been understated among Protestants is worth consideration. Towards the beginning of his book, Aulén outlines four reasons he believes the classic view has been neglected. One of them is his claim that many moderns find conflict imagery to be disagreeable, even primitive and crude. I saw this myself when sharing Oh, Sleeper lyrics with a friend. In one their tracks, God sings to Satan: “You’ll bow at my feet, or I’ll rip out your knees / and make of your face, all the carnage you crave.” My friend thought the imagery was unnecessarily violent and unsettling. But then so is a lot of what we read in the Bible.

Despite the criticisms levelled against Mel Gibson’s The Passion, especially from Protestant quarters, his portrayal of Gethsemane is profoundly theological. After pleading with the Father to be spared the cross, Jesus stands up and crushes a snake’s head. This striking imagery alludes to God’s promise in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” This has traditionally been called the protevangelion, meaning ‘first gospel.’ It promised that even though the reality for fallen humanity would be conflict with evil powers (Genesis 3:14), the promised end of that strife is victory. As Gibson depicts, Christ’s life was marked by conflict. Yet it ended in God’s promised conquest.
But where was that victory won? Identifying the serpent as Satan, in Revelation 12:11-12 we read that Satan was conquered by the blood of the Lamb. Mysteriously then, it is through his death—and resurrection—that Christ triumphs over evil and brings us back to God. To use an old but obscure word: at the cross Christ achieves ‘atonement.’
Atonement Theories
In my own experience, we often tend to downplay this dramatic struggle between God and evil when speaking about the atonement. But standing at either end of history we see a promise of conflict; and that same struggle climaxing in God’s victory. For these reasons, the Eastern Orthodox tradition (following the early church fathers) has long treated the Christus Victor view of atonement as primary—sometimes exclusively so. This view of the atonement received renewed attention amongst Protestants in the 20th century, thanks to Gustav Aulén.
Aulén outlined three views of the atonement: classic or dramatic (Christus Victor); objective (Latin); and subjective (Christus Exemplar). But for Aulén these were not three aspects of Christ’s unified work. Rather he set his classic view, or Christus Victor, over against the other two. Aulén’s view of the atonement centred on “divine conflict and victory.” However, the New Testament speaks of Christ’s atoning work in a variety of ways. These are related, even mutually dependant. Thus Kevin Vanhoozer urges us to think of a plurality of metaphors rather than polarised models.
In the remainder of this post I will briefly unpack Christus Victor using Aulén’s book and point out some of its undervalued strengths.
Introducing Christus Victor
In Aulén’s presentation of Christus Victor, Christ’s victory over the evil powers brings about a new relation between God and man, which we might call reconciliation or atonement. In the work of the Son, God reconciles man to God through conquering mankind’s enemies. This victory was dramatic, not dryly rational. In fact, Aulén described this divine drama as contra rationem et legam (against reason and law). It was not man atoning God through bearing his righteous judgment in our place, appropriated by an intellectual faith and resulting in imputed righteousness.
As Robert Letham writes: “Today there is almost universal distaste for thinking of God and salvation in legal categories.” Aulén certainly felt that the Latin (objective) view of the atonement was too rationalistic and abstract. There is some validity in his criticisms. Where Aulén comes unstuck is in claiming that Christ suffering the legal penalty for sin in our place cannot be fitted with the motif of victory.
An Atonement Theme; Not the Whole
One of the church’s leading historians, Justo González, writes: “From the very beginning the church proclaimed Jesus as its Saviour, and in the Patristic age there had been a variety of views as to how Christ saves sinners.” Thus Aulén overstates his position in claiming that Christus Victor dominated the church’s doctrine of salvation for the first millennium of its existence. Might we not see, in this variety of positions on the atonement that none can exclusively address the whole work of Christ?
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Written by Jared C. Wilson |
Saturday, April 2, 2022

Nobody gets out of here alive. Even the Christian must die. But dying isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you. Dying after you die is the worst thing that can happen to you. But for those who are united to Christ by faith – we have unconquerable, eternal life.

Because Jesus is God we can know that he is able to save. But we are encouraged not just that Christ is able to save, but in knowing that he has actually exercised his ability to save us.
In other words, to say that God is able to save isn’t exactly the good news, because God is able to do many things that he nevertheless chooses not to do. Whenever he says “no” to one of our prayers, for instance, we should not construe him to mean that he’s saying “I can’t.” (Unless we’re asking him to sin or otherwise act against his nature.)
I’m thinking along the lines of the old Carl Henry saying: “It’s only good news if it gets there in time.”
That Christ is able to save is no benefit to those who do not find themselves taking refuge in him!
Well, Christ is an able Savior and because he’s always on time—indeed, he has authored time itself— he’s an unconquerable Savior.
Look, for instance, at John 17:9-19, where in his “high priestly prayer” Jesus turns from praying for himself to praying for his friends. Christ’s interceding on the sinner’s behalf is GOOD NEWS, and here it rises to the surface of his prayer in wonderful relief:
I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
He has given us the only kind of life he has within himself – ETERNAL LIFE.
The primary facet of eternal life on display in vv.9-18 is the eternality of it, the forever protection Christians have by Christ himself. Review from the passage, for instance:
v.10 = all yours are mine and mine are yours, meaning we belong to God
v.11 = the Father is keeping us
v.12 = he has guarded us, and not one of them has been lost
v.15 = keep them from the evil one
vv.16-17 = sanctify them (or set them apart)
All of this points us the safety we have in Jesus!
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Whatever flood you’re facing, whatever loss you’ve endured, whatever sickness or strain or hurt or pain the Lord has brought into your life, please know, dear saint, that he has tailored it just for you. God wastes nothing—not even your affliction—but means to do you everlasting good in every movement of Providence.

Dear brother or sister, are you in the valley? Has the grey cloud of pain and uncertainty been hovering above you? Has a sword pierced your heart and driven you to despair?
If you’re in the pit of affliction, then I hope this truth will be a ray of light and comfort from heaven: Your God tailors your trials just for you.
With his kind and sovereign hand, God designs your pain and hardship precisely for you. Your Father is not some Olympian Zeus hurling lightning bolts aimlessly at the earth below. He is not arbitrary, unfeeling, or aimless in his distribution of severe mercy. No, your faithful Shepherd knows you, knows your need, and knows how to bless you better than you do yourself. He skillfully threads every moment of your life – including your suffering – into perfectly tailored, righteous robes (Rev 19:8). God is precise in afflicting you because God knows everything about you, and his purposes in your pain are good and unfailing.
To prove my point, and I hope to bring you glorious peace in your storm, let me show you four reasons that God tailors your trials for you according to the Scriptures.
God Tailors Your Trials To Teach You
The Puritans often spoke of “the school of suffering,” casting God as their divine teacher whose lessons are often more painful than we’d prefer. But the obedience and knowledge those lessons produce, according to Psalm 119, far outweigh the price we pay in tears.
“You have dealt well with your servant, O LORD, according to your word.Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments.Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word…It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.”Psalm 119:65-67, 71-72
Oh, how we wish we could learn without the rod! But God knows that discipline is often necessary for sinners like us to “yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Heb 12:11). Notice how the psalmist, in retrospect, sees how he “went astray” before his affliction, and how his prayer for God to “teach me good judgment and knowledge” was answered in his affliction. How blessed to learn this hard truth before our suffering, that we might say in the midst of our pain “it is good for me that I was afflicted!”
And what, ultimately, does affliction teach us? Countless truths about God, his faithfulness, his tenderness, and his love, to be sure. But notice what the psalmist learned through his affliction: “The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” God afflicts us to teach us the value of his Word. Treasuring God’s Word is not only better than money, but it’s also better than not suffering. God sends bitter winds to chill us so that we might seek warmth by the fire of his Word. In his wisdom, God allows pain to enter our lives so that he might teach us to trust his Word.
God Tailors Your Trials To Humble You
It’s not always the case that God sends storms to confront a Jonah’s pride, but sometimes that’s exactly his design. Take, for instance, the apostle Paul’s explanation of his thorn in the flesh:
“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.”2 Corinthians 12:7
Whatever you conclude the thorn in the flesh to be (a physical malady, a false teacher, or an imprisonment), Paul knows that it is from God and for him – it was “given to me.” And, apparently, Paul knew why God gave it to him: “to keep me from becoming conceited.” In fact, this purpose of God in Paul’s affliction is so important that he says it twice! And Paul begs Christ three times for its removal, only to be told, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). In God’s wise plan, he gave Paul both an exalted spiritual experience and a painful thorn. God guarded Paul against pride with pain.

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