okay we now come to theme 2c of the christianity a level course and this theme looks at the topic of atonement and particularly a number of theories of atonement that you need to get your heads around and be able to compare and contrast and see the strengths and weaknesses of each one so if we take four clips from four quite famous films so here we see a clip from the lion the witch and the wardrobe harry potter star wars and saving private ryan you may think to yourselves well why did you put these four clips up well they all have something in common and that is ultimately that in each of these films one of the main characters whether it's aslan severus stape darth vader forgot the name of this sergeant miller i think it is give their lives for somebody else and that's basically in some way what we mean by atonement and it's quite clear that most ancient religions practice sacrifice to their gods some used human sacrifice but others use gifts of things like grain animals etc to show either thanks or for forgiveness of sins forgetting god's favor and to new and rest and strengthen their relationships with their gods who control the destiny of humanity and we can see that in the old testament sacrifices to god are offered for the reasons above but human sacrifice was clearly forbidden if we look at the story of abraham and isaac abraham is forbidden from sacrificing isaac and instead a sheep is provided just for that purpose so the phrase atonement which was originally coined by william tyndale in the 15th century break it down means at one moment it's reconciliation where somehow humanity is restored to a relationship with god so this the idea that christ atoned for our sins christ's death reconciled us in some way making us one with god that's what we mean by atonement as i mentioned very clear in the old testament that this went on we have the story of abraham and isaac abraham took isaac tied him up was willing to sacrifice him to god but was prevented from doing so but god was pleased with his willing obedience as a result of that promise that he and all his people would be blessed in his name and you can look at that story in more detail in genesis chapter 22 i've given you the reference over here the other key story on atonement that you need to be familiar with is that of the passover lamb and that was in the story of moses the tenth plague where lamb's blood was dorbed on the doors to protect the jewish firstborn from the tenth plague where the angel of death passed over the whole land of egypt and killed the firstborn of every man man every family and animal so the red blood signified that it was a house for the jews and the angel of the lord passed over those houses and didn't inflict death upon them you can read that story in exodus chapter 12 verses 1 to 13. and jews celebrate yearly the day of atonement a yearly ritual where sin is removed from the whole people and in old testament time that was done with two goats they were offered for the sins of the people again you can read about this in leviticus 16 7-10 and what happened was um the goats they drew lots as to which go what happened to each goat the first god was expelled sent out to the desert the high priest would lay his hands on the goat's head and it was then driven out into the wilderness symbolically representing the removal of people's sins it carried the sins of the tribe of the people of israel out into the desert symbolically and that is where we get the phrase scapegoat it was used as a scapegoat literally and represented satan sin etc second goat was sacrificed it was slaughtered blood was taken sprinkled on the altar of the holy of holies uh blood is was believed to be able to cleanse from defilement from impurity and restore to purity so there's your little quote from leviticus 16 34 this shall be a statute a law forever for you that atonement may be made for the people of israel once in the year because of all their sins so there's your view of atonement in the old testament at the same time other sacrifices were also given it wasn't just animals so you sometimes had flour or bread or frankincense tithes where a tenth of one's property was prescribed to be offered as thanksgiving to god or to win god's favor or to win god's forgiveness or as a sin offering for particular personal sins and if you look through leviticus chapters one to seven you'll see all these different offerings and there's a sort of diagram for you to have a vague idea about what the different offerings were you don't need to know in massive detail you just need to be aware that various different sacrifices were made in order to atone for sin etc so two new words for that for you sacrifice has two effects the first is propitiation which is as a pleasing offering it turns away god's anger his wrath it satisfies justice that's what we mean by propitiation so if something is propitiatory it's a pleasing offering it's turning away god's anger or you have expiation which is clear and guilt so it's expiratory it's like a punishment of a prison sentence you serve the punishment and that clears the guilt at the end of the sentence the crime is wiped out okay so in the new testament jesus's death is both propitiation and expiation and you need to be clear of that it's propitiatory because it honored god as an offering of a sinless a fully obedient life and turned away god's anger against humanity it's also expiatory because the blood of jesus shed for humanity cleansed humanity from their guilt before god now it's also very clear that the new testament frowns on the old testament concept of sacrifice and that's particularly found in the letter of hebrews some bibles attribute this letter to some paul it's very very unlikely this was the case and it was another writer but nevertheless hebrews states things like because it's impossible that the blood of balls of goats take away sins so you've got the idea that animal sacrifices are inadequate and ineffective you've got the fact that sacrifices don't have a lasting effect you get this quote day after day every priest stands and performs its religious duties again and again he offers the same sacrifice which can never take away sins so as far as the new testament concerned jesus is the one single unique eternally effective offering or sacrifice goats sheep grain frankincense wine olive oil whatever do not work the only sacrifice that would work for god with expiatory and propisitory is jesus and here's the quote from hebrews because by one sacrifice he was made perfect forever though he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy and where these have been forgiven there's no longer any sacrifice for sin so the constant sacrifice is not needed the price has been paid so having had a brief discussion of what atonement is and introduce you to the words propitiation and expiation let's now look at the models of atonement that you need to know for the syllabus now it's quite clear that the early christian theologians took up this image of jesus as a sacrifice they believed that humanity had nothing of sufficient value to sacrifice to god for their sins and they argued that god had provided a sacrifice himself very similar to the story of abraham and isaac in genesis where a lamb is provided by god for abraham to sacrifice lamb is caught in thorn bushes nearby and that is the sacrifice that abraham gives instead of his son isaac but there's a flip side to this some theologians have argued that no loving god would offer his only son as a sacrifice in order to satisfy this sense of justice that he has so let's start to look at each of these models in detail and we're going to start with the ransom model of atonement and the ransom model of atonement really comes from early christianity and some of the earliest christian theologians and it goes something like this so humanity mankind's given into the temptations of satan so they're like someone that's been overcoming a battle sin is like a state of slavery so christ's deaths so if christ's death could set man from sea from set man free from sin from slavery this is comparable to the way that a captive is set free by the payment of a ransom so if you think about early battles in early wars if someone was captured in a battle they would be offered as ransom and they you have to pay the ransom to free that person from um the person that's captured them so this early view of atonement sees jesus's death as a sacrifice to god that brings us spiritual freedom but it's a ransom so as i said in a battle when a captives ransom the ransom price is paid to the one who holds him captive now in this case when we're looking at atonement the person that's holding captive is the devil the price is paid to satan but yeah so irenaeus he writes that christ as the second person of the trinity dealt justly even with satan buying back from him the things which were his own the early christian writer origin later took up this idea that christ was given up in ransom paid to the devil but in doing so the devil had been tricked because he'd been hooked by the debate of the divine nature of christ but it wouldn't be possible for him to have ownership over god or to bear the torture of keeping him and then augustine runs with this he agrees with origen and he says that christ deceived the deceiver the lord's cross was the devil's mousetrap greatly quote there the bait that caught him was the death of the lord so basically he had this idea that the ransom's pain but at the same time the devil was tricked and ultimately god and jesus win out and humanity is released all of humanity is released now there are some problems with this view first view of the first problem being that this theory really does give satan the devil a lot of power the devil holds god to ransom god must pay to release his own creation surely one could argue god's sovereign and all powerful and knows nothing to anyone it doesn't seem to make sense and there's also this issue that it turns god into a deceiver acting deceitfully to the devil you know think about augustine or origin's view of bait the devil's mouse trap so the ransom model is developed a little further and it sort of moves into what is called the debt satisfaction model and that's put forward by anselm and that dates from the 11th century and so ansel is adapting origen's ransom model he wrote a book called cur deus homo which basically translates as why did god become man so he's thinking of the he's exploring the idea of the incarnation so he's working out well why was it necessary for jesus to be incarnated as a man why did jesus need to die die human death in order to save us couldn't god just have decided to forgive us why does all this stuff have to happen now anselm rejects this view that god's a cruel tyrant who you know delights in and requires the blood of his son as a penalty for sin so that doesn't work for anselm that can't be the case he also rejects this idea that god requires the sacrifice of an innocent life because otherwise he's uh he's uh unable to forgive the guilty or he has to buy off the devil that also doesn't work for ansel so he's rejecting those parts of the ransom model the devil's acted unjustly against us in leading us to sin and therefore for anselm he don't he doesn't have any rights over us we don't need to pay off this ransom the whole thing doesn't make sense so what does anselm see atonement has well he does agree that humanity owe a debt but the debts not to the devil the debts to god because humanity has sinned against god they've refused to give god the obedience and love that god deserves and therefore humanity needs to repay god that debt and return in a sense the honor that god is due and that is the debt that anselm is talking about the fact that we've turned from god we aren't giving him the honor he deserves now for anselm no human being can repay this debt and the reason they can't repay the debt is because we are all stained we're all sinful we're not worthy there's no one who can honor god with a sinless and obedient life and even if there were that would only be returning to god no more than is due to him after holy is the creator and it would fail to honor him so for this reason jesus becomes man to pay the debt humanity owed to god he lives a sinless fully obedient life to offer to god something that would honor him far more than a mere human life and that's the self-offering of god itself so by dying as an offering to god jesus satisfied the debt restored to god the honor that was due winning from god and over abundance of his favor and the posh word for that is a super regation of merit as superregation is an over abundance and that over abundance is passed on to humanity the human debt can only be paid by human but god can only be honored by something greater hence the need for the sacrifice of the god man hopefully that makes sense that is ansel's logic now obviously there's still some problems with that and the main problem is it's sort of very much bound for ransom and some remember he's writing in the 11th century it's a very feudal view of the way things work and of course ansel was a product of the feudal system where the lords of the manor control the serfs and the peasants etcetera etcetera and they all owed a debt etc so this idea of restoring honor was very typical in a feudal society peasants and serf had to show their obedience their service to their lord and they owed them for being their protector on their land so it's not a biblical model of relationships and so perhaps one could argue it's inappropriate to see jesus death in this way at the same time it makes god appear as a sort of exacting feudal overlord concerned for his pride his pride somehow got to be satisfied with the suffering of his son he's like a debt extractor holding debts over us which he demands to be repaid with interest and you could argue this is not a generous god and it's not a loving god and it's not a forgiving god so there are issues with the debt satisfaction model so that then leads us on to the penal substitution model which was popular with the protestant reformers of the 16th century uh if you think of the word the penal system penitentiary basically we're talking about crime and prisons that's where the word comes from okay so the protestant reformers are emphasizing jesus's identification with sinful humanity so what we've got here is that jesus's death for them was a substitution for our death which is the logical consequence of sin you know that we have the quote in the bible the wages of sin or death we die naturally obviously but our sins bring us spiritual death we are unable to be with god due to them so how this penal substitution model works is that the son of as the son of god the sacrifice is made on our behalf half it's unique and it's forever effective and so the reformers argue jesus had to die not only because he was substituting himself for us because but because only this would satisfy god's wrath his anger against sinners so breaking even one commandment is going against god himself because the law is an expression of god's character sin can't be overlooked because it offends god the price has to be paid for god's justice requires that we deserve to be punished but since he's also merciful god himself becomes the substitute that carries the punishment in jesus it's like a judge passes a sentence and says right mr sprinkle i am sentencing you to pay 10 000 pound fine and that's my sentence i have to pay it i have been sentenced by the judge who has enforces the law and then my best friend comes up gets out his checkbook and writes pay the bearer ten thousand pounds and goes there you go mr sprinkles debt is paid i've done nothing but someone else has paid the price for me think of that in in that sort of way or somebody else serves the prison sentence for so the penal substitution model is very much showing jesus death in sacrificial terms he's like the passover lamb whose blood saved the jews from the punishment of the tenth plague he's like the scapegoat of the day of atonement so think of it in that way the blood pays the price so just as the blood that was offered on the altar had appearing of purifying effect on the on the on the nation of israel and here you've got a lovely quote from mark which sort of sums all this up for even the son of man didn't come to be served but to serve to give his life as a ransom for many or you can have jesus here saying this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins or you can have support in romans god presented christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith he did this to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished so hopefully that makes sense but nevertheless as with all these atonement theories there's a problem several in fact so let's think about this in emphasizing god's justice requiring punishment exacting punishment atonement is seen in terms of the criminal justice system with god presented as a vengeful wrathful judge seeking to satisfy his sense of justice and express his judgment on human sin but it ignores the injustice that an innocent person is receiving the punishment is it just that jesus died he was innocent and yet he was punished some argue it's a model rooted in violence it makes it seem that the sun is split from the father and has to save us from the father's wrath and here we've got the idea that the trinity is one and it would be incorrect to think of christ as loving and forgiving and the father punishing so go back to theme 2b when we look at the trinity god is shown as merciful and forgiving in the act of substituting his son as his own self for us but not in the way that we see jesus as treated and also i think you could argue it doesn't make any sense of why the resurrection happened if what mattered was jesus dying as a substitute victim why wasn't the cross the end of the story and in fact you could say the whole story of jesus is life and the fact of the resurrection suggests that jesus achievement was not primarily to allay god's anger but to offer human beings a new life in the transforming power of god which frees us from sin so it would appear that the resurrection isn't as important under this model and if you look at the bible there are examples of god forgiving unconditionally not requiring a payment we have the lord's prayer which says you know forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us in acts 8 2 we get this quote repent of this wickedness and pray to the lord in the hope he may forgive you these passages don't imply that forgiveness must be obtained by punishment or someone's punishment you can have a look at the cartoon now on the left to hopefully that might make a little more sense uh the penal substitution model and the other criticism you can make here is the penal substitution model focuses exclusively on jesus death and ignores the meaning of his life and vision mission and some people have argued that perhaps it needs to be linked to other theories of atonement which we're going to look at in the next couple of slides such as the moral example theory or the christus victor theory jesus dies sacrificial atoning death because the way he lived confronting evil and in living so unselfishly for others possibly so let's look at one of those ones which we just mentioned the christus victor model put forward by gustav allen in the 19th century so 200 years before jesus there was an increasingly held view by the jews that the world was held hostage by evil powers satan was seen as the real ruler of this world possessing all kingdoms and giving authority to rule over them now allen argues that jesus saw his mission to be about wrestling control from the devil and reclaiming god's creation for god we're saved when we're liberated from the grip of evil and our destruction due to our sins has got rid of is nullified so jesus defeats the powers of evil by living a life of complete obedience to god and self-sacrifice he confronts evil he confronts injustice he confronts discrimination at every level racism sexism the legal uh the legalism and judgmentalism of the pharisees he he heals peoples he performs exorcisms even to the point of his own arrest and crucifixions these acts are acts of war against destructive powers as well as an example for us to follow so under the christus victor model jesus sacrifice is not a price paid to the devil but a necessary cost of wagey war against the powers of evil so there's a subtle difference there so if you think about your old testament history every time israel messes up god hands the nation of israel over to our enemies as a punishment for our sins in the new testament jesus is similarly handed over by god to death not as a substitute victim of god's anger but to defeat these powers which is shown through the resurrection so salvation under the christus victor model is seen as a liberation from evil powers it depicts god as truly loving acting and acting in his son for our freedom however what it also shows is the real objective nature of evil and the very real suffering that comes in the struggle against it so have a think about this in terms of biblical quotes if we take psalm 110 the lord says to my lord sit at my right hand until i make your enemies a footstool for your fear for your feet it's an idea of a battle there between good and evil now is the time for judgment on this world now the prince of this world will be driven out that's jesus speaking in john's gospel prince obviously referring to satan there so maybe christus victor has some biblical justification or saint paul writing in ephesians for our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers against the authorities against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms so that battle between good and evil is emphasized here and then paul again in his letter to the colossians and having disarmed the powers and authorities he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross the idea that the cross the resurrection brings victory so you may like the christus victor model you may disagree but here are some of the potential problems with it certainly what it does is it downplays the notion of individual responsibility for our guilt for our sins against god jesus is acting on a much more cosmic level as opposed to a personal level you know to force out again he's fighting the forces of evil and our personal sin is not really the issue that he's come to deal with so many christians don't like this view um also the model doesn't explain why the victory over satan brings forgiveness of sins at all it's also very difficult to explain why jesus must sacrifice himself in this model although jesus sacrifice does defeat the devil's temptation against selfishness and disobedience and you can look at jesus's struggle in the garden of gethsemane in mark chapter 14 as an example of that it's not in itself an act of warfare that takes back control from the devil so it doesn't seem to make sense and one can also argue that jesus ministry seems more arguably to be about proclaiming the kingdom of god to people rather than being primarily about spiritual warfare although an element of this was evolved but the emphasis seems much more on the kingdom of god so maybe the christus victor model has skewed it too much the other way and that then leads us on finally to the moral example model this is popular with 20th century modern liberal theologians although it was originally suggested by augustine in the fourth century and later abellard in the 11th century so let's have a look at the moral the more example model so if we go to the enlightenment of the 18th century a time when people began to turn to science and accept that only reason was the way of truth uh if something didn't make sense to reason he was pushed aside things like the doctrine of the trinity that doesn't make sense to reason let's not discuss it similarly in the enlightenment jesus was seen more as just a human teacher an inspirational role model an example for self-improvement so moral example theories don't see jesus death on the cross as achieving any spiritual victory or mysteriously freeing us from sin or making a difference to anyone else they have seen as superstitions from a bygone age rather jesus's death shows the extent of god's love for us in being willing to sacrifice and to suffer death while still showing us forgiveness that's what it's about he's a moral example so these theories believe individuals are responsible for their own actions and no one else could do anything on our behalf so jesus's death is not seen as bringing us direct spiritual benefits but it's only effective in inspiring us to become better people living more unselfishly for others inspiring us to a deeper love for jesus and this love for jesus in turn turns our hearts makes us repent from sin and is a source of strength for us to act against evil and sin and to follow jesus's example to be more christ-like for wanting a better word so if we look at biblical um quotes this we've got matthew 16 24 jesus said to his disciples whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves take up their cross and follow me and then we get the famous john 3 16 which um if you go to any sporting event in america hence why i take this clip here there's always someone that's got this this reference up on a poster and it's basically because it sums up christian belief in one verse for god so loved the world he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life so john 3 16 wherever you go there it is sums up christianity really good quote to remember for these atonement theories so what are our problems with moral example models so first of all it doesn't make any sense of why jesus had to die because it's about his life and teachings if his life and teaching show god's love for us and others it's a perfect moral example of living he doesn't have to die um it also suggests that we as humans could improve ourselves by our own efforts so we just save ourselves through doing good actions works rather than faith now later in the course we're going to be looking at faith versus works so uh hold on to that idea this idea that you can just achieve salvation by doing stuff as opposed to really believing or having faith so that would appear to make the death of christ useless and so paul rejects the idea that simply fulfilling the jewish laws religious commandments can ever by themselves achieve salvation but he does agree with in james winston james in the in the book of james in the new testament that doing good works is a part of life of faith does lead to salvation but it can't bring it on its own and we could also think about if jesus's death was one of the most powerful moral examples known to man and an ultimate source of living of wisdom and living well of of knowledge in living well it doesn't make much sense of how the atrocities of the 20th century could have taken place it's very doubtful that wisdom on itself or knowledge could save humanity and it takes a very narrow view of the universe it sees it as mechanical materialistic it excludes spiritual realities so if we that we've looked at those models let's start to evaluate them think about how in an essay you might um argue for and against them and one of the first things you might want to consider is do they portray god or do some of them portray god as a somewhat cruel tyrant you know you could argue that some of these models uh seem to present god in a way that's not really a christian christian understanding of the nature of god if you look at the ransom model god's a deceiver he deceives the devil with the bait of christ if we've got the debt satisfaction model god's exacting he's keeping accounts of what humanity owes him he requires his pride to be compensating he's unwilling to forgive freely he requires the price of the sun's suffering to be satisfied if we look at the penal substitution model he's a he's a wrathful angry god seeking to vent his anger vengeance on humanity thinking it's it's right to inflict his anger on an innocent victim that doesn't deserve it his son is that justice is it cosmic child abuse it's a strange logic that death and suffering compensate for the generosity of forgiveness and as we said before it appears to be a model rooted in violence on the other hand one could argue look at the penal substitution view it does retain the sense of sin as something serious something that can't be waved away and has to be dealt with it keeps a strong sense of justice of the seriousness of the unacceptability of sin in jesus name sorry i've said in jesus god is himself the sacrifice that satisfies his justice remember abraham was forbidden to sacrifice his son shows god's mercy also in the penal substitution view god's jesus is a willing sacrifice he himself chooses and follows this path the trinity acts and wills as one the son sufferings not against his will child abuse criticisms fail to recognize this because obviously he's part of the trinity and it is biblical and you only have to look at the suffering servant texts in isaiah and here is one of them he was pierced for our transgressions or sins he was crushed for our iniquities upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds we are healed so the suffering servant passage in isaiah clearly uh talks about the possibility of god's chosen messiah acting in a sacrificial way to benefit humankind spiritually and it goes with the biblical models of covenant where one person's life is bound up with god so we can look at abraham or moses or david and all of these covenants involve some sacrifices that bring great blessings and you know other people are invited to be part of this covenant this covenant too and benefit from these blessings on the other hand the ransom and debt satisfaction models do take seriously the fact that the sin has a cumulative effect and sinful humanity is a humanity that dishonors itself and god it's taking seriously the relationship of responsibility between the creature and the creator god's not just a capricious tyrant so that's looking at whether god is a cruel tyrant the other thing you could do with the evaluation is you could say well are the models mutually exclusive in other words can you can you only have one model of atonement or can you have an amalgamation of one or more so that they make more sense so let's explore that so if we take the moral example model and some of the weaknesses and problems around it you could argue it's compatible with many other models so okay it was an early model fourth century it emphasized the moral goodness of jesus's life it's an atonement model in the sense that jesus's life could inspire devotion repentance and improvement but by itself this model doesn't speak of the necessity of his death only that his death was a great example of self-sacrificial love it also implies salvation through works that jesus inspires us to improve our behavior by doing good things by our own efforts and it's this that saves us and we know that paul rejects that view as justification by works contradict because it contradicts justification by faith and it makes jesus death pointless so therefore this model needs to be complemented by another model that redresses that balance and shows the value of jesus's death as something that god did for us so you can have the moral example model that's fine but you also need to complement it with another model that's addressing that idea of balance that shows the value of jesus's death so you could use the penal satisfaction model which does emphasize the way that jesus death was necessary as propitiation and expiation for sins you know it's personally committed and the need to receive this forgiveness by faith through him so maybe a combination of penal satisfaction and the moral example model work well for atonement or you can use the debt satisfaction model with the moral example model since only jesus's perfect life often sacrifice propitiates god and restores to god the honor that's due to him you make up your own mind whether you think it works at all or um we could look at the moral example model we could say well it doesn't explain why jesus ending up dying and rejecting the death of the criminal and you could argue well that gap could be complemented by the christus victor model because that presents jesus as acting in ways that are not only moral but confronting evil on every level causing conflict incurring the anger envy of others etc so you could therefore say his death was therefore the result of the reaction of the powers of evil to his mission and his moral example moral example plus christus victor helps to explain why he died in the way he did so you could combine those two theories of atonement if you liked if we take the christus victor model well that emphasizes jesus struggling with cosmic powers of evil that hold not just humanity but the whole of creation hostage but therefore that's not compatible with models that emphasize our personal debt to god as the main thing that jesus must deal with so the christus victor model really doesn't work well with a penal substitution view because that requires that a person personally believes in jesus through faith to obtain the benefits of forgiveness of sin also christus victor doesn't work well with a debt satisfaction model because that also emphasizes the overall debt of humanity to god rather than the controlling powers of evil and it focuses on the goal of restoring the honor due to god which only the god man could repay so he got some examples of where the um the models don't work well together if we carry on with the christus victim model on the other hand you could argue does fit with a ransom model which could be seen as a you know an earlier form of it here too you've got the main focus of releasing the devil's grip over humanity uh but of course the christus victor model i think is superior because it avoids the problems of having to portray god as deceiving the devil you could also argue it could complement the moral example model helping to explain why his good life resulted in his death more example challenges the powers of evil's results in hostile reaction we've talked about it earlier if we take the penal substitution model well that as we know emphasizes the need for jesus is death as propitiation expiation forgiving sins of those who accept his death on their behalf with faith as a biblical model it shows continuity with old testament sacrifices it's superior and distinct from the more example theory in explaining how sin is dealt with on a supernatural level the more example theory obviously has no supernatural elements and sees jesus's life only in terms of moral example which has no spiritual effects on sin but you could argue that the penal substitution model can be complemented by the moral example model because the penal substitution model only focuses on jesus death but for most people his life is also significant so the moral example model would give us a better appreciation of the whole of jesus's life and help emphasize the fact that a good life is the appropriate response of faith to what jesus did for us as the because the two are linked so maybe the penal substitution more example model is a way to go finally last slide if we take the penal substitution model you could argue it's similar to the debt satisfaction ransom models because as in these there's also a requirement for jesus sacrifices the only way sin can be cleansed or that the devil releases power over humanity so these models also recognize a need to satisfy justice in terms of a debt paid to god or in terms of recognizing the just effects of sin as bondage to the devil so hopefully that'll make sense so make sure you're clear with the models and make sure you are clear how they link or how they don't and so my final thought here is if you're taking a penal substitution model it really doesn't link very well to christus victor because that sees sin as a result of a cosmic struggle rather than personal guilt to be removed okay good luck with this topic