Why Was Jesus Crucified (Theology)

I am not a theist, so none of these make a lot of sense to me, but I wanted to go through them so I have some familiarity. As far as I am concerned, Jesus was crucified because he was hailed as the king of the Jews, and as such was a threat to Roman law.

Penal Substitution

I guess this is easiest to understand. You are a horrible sinner who deserves to suffer in hell for eternity, but Jesus takes you punishment on your behalf.

Apparently Jesus on the cross for a few hours is the equivalent of billions of people suffering for eternity. And it is okay to punish one person for what another person did. In fairness, even some Christians have realised this makes no sense, and hence the other theories.

The idea is that God is perfectly just, and he cannot simply forgive your sins without justice being satisfied. Jesus' death gives God a loophole to show mercy... as long as you love and worship him of course.

Exodus 32 has the Israelites build a golden calf, making God angry, and Moses offers himself as a penal substitute for his tribe. Perhaps that is where God got the idea...

The idea can also be extracted from Isaiah 53 with some imagination. This is part of the "suffering servent" passage, which is about Israel, and Israel being punished for what Israel did. If, however, you pretend Isaiah 53 is about Jesus, you can see it as saying Jesus suffered for the sins of the people.

Governmental

This is similar to Penal Substitutiont, but sees the crucifixion as more a demonstration of God's wrath, rather than making up for the deficiency. As such, it acknowledges Jesus death is slight compared to the suffering of billions for eternity,

Ransom

The ransom theory says Jesus was a ransom paid to Satan, clearing a debt owed Satan for inherited sin.

It is not so popular nowadays, and with good reason. Why pay a debt to Satan? God is all powerful, and supposedly already cursed Satan, so why the need to a pay a debt to him?

In one version Adam and Eve sold their souls to Satan, and so were destined to be enslaved to Satan at the general resurrection. This is what is being paid off. God negotiated with Satan, saying Satan could have Jesus instead, but God cheated because Jesus cannot die.

Nothing in the Bible supports that view, and it does make God and Satan out to be somewhat equivalent in power, and God to be less than honest.

This was abandoned by the Catholic church after Cur Deus Homo was published (ca. AD 1097), but is similar to what happened with Aslan in CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, making me wonder if he held to this?

Satisfaction

While humanity fails to satisfy God's requirements, Jesus goes above and beyond that, and so, on balance, God is happy.

This is more about the honour God is given. If we sin we fail to give him the honour he should get; Jesus makes up the balance. It is a development of Ransom Atonement that eliminates Satan, on the  very reasonable basis that God should not owe or pay Satan anything.


Christus Victor

In this view, Jesus was victorious in liberating humanity from sin. It is in effect similar to paying a ransom, but quite different in its theology.

The big problem is that people sin today as much as they ever did. If this was true we would expect people across the world to stop being bad people at the moment Jesus died (or was resurrected?).


Recapitulation

This seems a less popular view. It says Jesus was a "do over" for Adam.

It predates the trinity, and does not fit with Jesus being God.

Moral Influence

This (and the related Moral example) sees the crucifixion as changing man's perception of God. This avoids Satan altogether and many other theological issues, and is apparently popular with liberal Protestants.

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