Substitutionary atonement
Postulation about the significance of Christ's death / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Penal substitution.
Substitutionary atonement, also called vicarious atonement, is a central concept within Western Christian theology which asserts that Jesus died "for us",[1] as propagated by the Western classic and objective paradigms of atonement in Christianity, which regard Jesus as dying as a substitute for others, instead of them.
Substitutionary atonement has been explicated in the "classic paradigm" of the Early Church Fathers, namely the ransom theory,[2] as well as in Gustaf Aulen's demystified reformulation, the Christus Victor theory;[2][note 1] and in the "objective paradigm," which includes Anselm of Canterbury's satisfaction theory,[3] the Reformed period's penal substitution theory,[4] and the Governmental theory of atonement.[note 2]