Today’s Celtic thought brings us to the teaching of Christus Victor rather than the teaching of Substitution Atonement (I deserve to die due to my sin, Jesus took my place so that I could be made right with God) that many of us have been brought up with. In the early years of the church the main teaching was that of Christus Victor (Christ died on the cross to defeat all the works of evil and to defeat Satan) rather than substitution atonement which only became ‘popular’ in the last 800 or so years.

As we have already seen earlier in our Lent journey, the Celtic Christians understanding was that we were already ‘made right’ with God because we are all, created in the image of God and so God dwells within each one of us, working with us to become the person we were originally created to be.

Whilst there is truth in both teachings, and the Celts would certainly have had an outlook of both/and rather then either/or, the teaching of Christus Victor resonates more with me at the moment. The fact that I, that all of us, are born in original blessing suggests we are already ‘ok’ with God and don’t deserve to die. If we don’t deserve to die then Jesus must have been doing something other than simply taking my place, our place, on the cross. Defeating evil and Satan so that the whole of creation could be what it was originally created to be jut seems to make a lot more sense. The cross is then no longer seen as a place of sacrifice but more a weapon that can be used to protect and save.

This teaching is quite new to many of us, and it is worth a good consideration and I genuinely wonder what others think about this. I wonder, too, why I feel some ‘concern’ even writing this. Concern that challenges ‘am I really a Christian?’ believing something different to what I have been taught across the nearly 60 years of my life.
So …. Substituion Atonement or Christus Victor …. what do you think?