Crucified with Christ is written for a Christadelphian audience and explores, what for many will be, unfamiliar territory. Unlike other Christadelphian books about the atonement, Crucified with Christ is not primarily aimed at trying to explain the atonement or to promote some particular perspective on the atonement, but rather seeks to demonstrate that the view of the atonement advocated by the Christadelphians (“representative” or “participatory”) has had some adherents throughout history and has now become the dominate theory amongst modern scholars.
The book begins by describing the various models of the atonement that have been posited throughout history, including some information about their most prominent proponents. For example, the representative model is most often associated with Peter Abelard (d. 1142) but, the author proposes, can be found as early as Clement of Rome’s letter to the Corinthians (c.96).
After this introductory material, there is a chapter about the history of the understanding of the atonement. Though the majority of early Christian writers from the fourth century onwards adopted a substitutionary or ransom model of the atonement, Burke identifies a number of early Christian writers who held a participatory view, either exclusively or in combination with another model. It is fair to say that this is not an in-depth analysis of early Christian understandings of the atonement; the purpose is to demonstrate that such views existed, not to engage in historical exposition. A similar exercise is undertaken for the medieval and early modern era, giving a clear if succinct overview of those advocating a participatory model of the atonement.
The next chapter charts the rise and fall of penal substitutionary atonement. Burke identifies a number of problems with the penal substitutionary model that, despite its prior dominance, have eroded its support amongst scholars and laity. Not only is penal substitution not taught in the Bible, nor by some of the earliest Christian writers, it is also considered morally objectionable. The idea that God requires a price prior to forgiveness is inconsistent with the moral stipulation for us to forgive freely, and the idea that God should punish the innocent for the crimes of the guilty is opposite of justice. Burke also highlights that penal substitution can pose problems for Trinitarians as it seems to place Father and Son in opposition to one another. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this analysis is the proposal that the penal substitution is spiritually damaging. Substitution makes believers inactive in their own salvation, leading some who have ‘accepted Christ’ to live their life no differently than they had before. It is even noted that some commentators worry that substitution has encouraged acts of violence by Christians.
The subsequent two chapters illustrates the rise of the participatory model in modern scholarship, leading to the current dominance of this view amongst scholars both liberal and (to a lesser degree) conservative.
The final chapter compares Christadelphian interpretations of the atonement with scholarly interpretations, illustrating that much of what Christadelphians have advocated for over a century is now not only academically respectable but dominant. Burke notes how Christadelphians have accepted the moral influence view as a valuable aspect of, but not a sufficient explanation of, the atonement. He also notes that at times Christadelphians have accepted Grotius’ ‘governmental’ view of the atonement (where Christ’s death is seen as an example of what sin deserves), as part of their representative model. He argues that this was a regrettable over-reaction to Clean Flesh theories. Burke illustrates the inadequacy of Grotius’ view by saying that it would be impossible for us to adopt the same pattern of forgiveness (i.e. forgiving the sin, but punishing someone to make an example of them).
Anyone familiar with Jonathan Burke’s writings will be aware of his style, whereby he places a lot of supporting information in footnotes. This approach has both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, allows the author to present a succinct overview of, say, a list of writers who adopt the participatory model whilst also giving justification for that assertion, should be queried, in the footnotes. On the other hand, this sometimes creates pages that are bottom-heavy and some readers may find this distracting.
The author has a good grounding in historical and modern scholarship, as well as works from within our community. As one having an interest in early Christian literature, I would have liked to see more discussion of early Christian writers – particularly Ignatius of Antioch – but this may have been a distraction from the purpose of the work. In addition, it would have been nice to see engagement with recent Christadelphian treatments of the atonement, including Graham Jackman’s Language of the Cross and John Launchbury’s Change Us Not God. However these omissions do not detract from the main purpose of the book, which is demonstrate that participatory view of the atonement, which Christadelphians have long advocated, is winning the argument amongst modern theologians. As Burke concludes, though we do not depend on vindication from scholars, our community should be pleased by this scholarly support. He urges, “we should not waste this valuable assert. We should find ways of incorporating it into our preaching and our outreach to other Christians, especially those confused or concerned by the contradictory and violent substitutionary models of the atonement” (p. 71).
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)