In this essay, Edith M. Humphrey, seeking to recapture a holistic view of the atonement, focuses on the way that key Pauline texts (especially Colossians 1, Galatians 3 and 2 Cor 5) were read by fourth- and fifth-century interpreters. She argues that a full picture of the atonement needs to emerge that incorporates redemption, reparation, representation, righteousness, rescue, recapitulation, reconciliation, and revolutionary recreation. This full picture is drawn from the entirety of what Christ was, is, and did pro nobis, and with some surprises for those who draw too strict a line between “Western” and “Eastern” interpretations of Paul. Over against N. T. Wright’s insistence that atonement needs to be reimagined, Humphrey argues rather that it needs to be retrieved. In the patristic commentators, Humphrey demonstrates, we can find such a vision of the atonement.
Continue reading “Reclaiming All Paul’s Rs: Apostolic Atonement by Way of Some Eastern Fathers”
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