Atonement has been described as the central doctrine of Christianity and yet, surprisingly, the church has never insisted on a particular understanding of how redemption in Christ was achieved. Instead, a miscellany of metaphors has been employed, each picturing ‘something’ of Christ’s work. Recent debate within Reformed Evangelicalism has been characterized by claims for hegemony to be granted to penal substitution versus counter-arguments for a kaleidoscopic, multi-model understanding. Notably absent in these discussions, however, are two considerations. One is any common nexus to draw atonement thought together. The other is any positive theological contribution deriving from God’s preexisting relationship with Israel (the presumed role of which has rather been to provide a negative contrast of law-versus-grace and works-versus-faith, as the dark background against which the light of Christ may shine more brightly). Recent scholarship, however–particularly the ‘new perspective on Paul’–has comprehensively dismantled the old stereotypes concerning first-century Judaism. This book asks how differently we might think about the atonement once it is brought into conversation with the new scholarship. It concludes by proposing a ‘new perspective’ on atonement in which Christ is central, Israel and Torah are affirmed, and the traditional metaphors continue to find their place.
关于作者
Stephen Burnhope is a writer, speaker and church consultant. He received a Master of Arts degree (with Distinction) in Aspects of Biblical Interpretation from the London School of Theology, before completing a Ph D in Systematic Theology at King’s College London. He’s the author of Atonement and the New Perspective (Wipf & Stock, 2018), which was his Ph D thesis. Stephen was previously Senior Pastor of Aylesbury Vineyard Church in the UK.