Chapter 21
Christus Victor — Christ's Victory Over Sin, Death, and the Powers

Introduction: A Triumphant Cross

There is an image from the early centuries of the Christian faith that has never quite left the church's imagination. It is the picture of Jesus Christ as a warrior-king, striding through the gates of death, breaking chains, crushing the ancient serpent beneath his feet, and leading captives free into the light. This is the vision of Christus Victor—Christ the Victor. It is the belief that when Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave, he fought the greatest battle in cosmic history and won. He triumphed over sin, death, and the devil. He set his people free from the grip of powers too strong for any human being to overcome alone.

This picture of the cross as a cosmic victory is not a later addition to the Christian story. It is woven deeply into the fabric of the New Testament itself. The apostle Paul proclaimed that God "disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them" in Christ (Colossians 2:15, ESV). The author of Hebrews declared that Jesus, "through death," destroyed "the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14). The apostle John wrote that "the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). And in the dramatic visions of Revelation, we hear heaven's triumphant song: "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down" (Revelation 12:10).

In the twentieth century, the Swedish bishop and theologian Gustaf Aulén gave this theme a name that stuck. In his influential 1931 book, Christus Victor, he argued that this "dramatic" view of the atonement—Christ's victorious conflict against the powers of evil—was actually the dominant understanding of the cross throughout the first thousand years of Christian history. He called it the "classic" idea of the atonement. And his argument sent shockwaves through the theological world that are still felt today.¹

I believe Aulén was onto something genuinely important. The Christus Victor theme is not just a footnote in atonement theology—it captures a real, essential, and biblical dimension of what Christ accomplished on the cross and through his resurrection. The New Testament rings with the note of victory. The early church fathers celebrated it. Martin Luther revived it. And any understanding of the cross that ignores or minimizes this triumphal dimension is incomplete.

At the same time—and I want to be honest about this from the start—I do not believe the Christus Victor model is sufficient by itself to explain the full reality of the atonement. As powerful and biblical as it is, it leaves a critical question unanswered: How did Christ win this victory? What was the mechanism of his triumph? The answer, I will argue, is substitutionary atonement. Christ defeated the powers of evil precisely by bearing the penalty of sin in our place. The victory and the substitution are not competing explanations. They are two dimensions of the same glorious event. As Jeremy Treat has put it, "The cross is a victory (Christus Victor) by means of penal substitution."²

The thesis of this chapter, then, is straightforward: the Christus Victor model—which portrays Christ's death and resurrection as a cosmic victory over sin, death, the devil, and the hostile spiritual powers—captures a genuine and essential dimension of the atonement that complements and enriches substitutionary atonement, though it is insufficient as a standalone theory. We will explore Aulén's influential argument, examine the rich biblical evidence for the Christus Victor theme, engage with both supporters and critics, and then show how substitution and victory belong together at the cross.

Gustaf Aulén and the Recovery of a Lost Theme

To understand the Christus Victor model, we need to start with the man who put it back on the map. Gustaf Aulén (1879–1977) was a Swedish Lutheran bishop and theologian who published his landmark book in Swedish in 1930, with the English translation appearing in 1931. The book's original Swedish title was something like "The Christian Concept of the Atonement," but the Latin title Christus Victor captured his emphasis far better and has since become a standard term in theological vocabulary.³

Aulén's Three Types

Aulén's central argument was that the traditional way of mapping the history of atonement theology was fundamentally flawed. Most theologians assumed there were only two main views: the "objective" view (associated with Anselm's satisfaction theory, later developed into penal substitutionary atonement) and the "subjective" view (associated with Abelard's moral influence theory). You either believed Christ's death accomplished something objective before God, or you believed it primarily served to inspire and transform human hearts. Those were supposedly the only two options.⁴

Aulén said this picture was badly wrong. There was a third type—and far from being a marginal view, it was actually the oldest and most widespread understanding of the atonement in Christian history. This third type, which Aulén called the "classic" or "dramatic" view, portrayed the atonement as a cosmic conflict between God and the hostile powers of evil. In Aulén's words, the central theme was "the idea of the Atonement as a Divine conflict and victory; Christ—Christus Victor—fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the 'tyrants' under which mankind is in bondage and suffering, and in Him God reconciles the world to Himself."⁵

Aulén insisted that this dramatic view was genuinely objective—it described a real change in the cosmic situation, not merely a change in human feelings. But it differed from the "Latin" or Anselmian type in a crucial way. In the classic view, the work of atonement is "from first to last a work of God Himself, a continuous Divine work." God is the acting subject throughout the entire drama. By contrast, Aulén argued, the Anselmian view treated Christ's death as "an offering made to God by Christ as man," a work that, while initiated by God, was carried out "from below" as a human offering upward to God—what Aulén called a "discontinuous Divine work."⁶

The Historical Claim

Armed with this threefold classification, Aulén made a sweeping historical argument. He claimed that the dramatic, Christus Victor understanding was the dominant view of the New Testament itself; that it was held by virtually all the Greek fathers, from Irenaeus in the late second century to John of Damascus in the eighth; that it prevailed among the leading Western fathers as well, including Ambrose, Augustine, Leo the Great, and Gregory the Great; that it was lost when medieval scholasticism replaced it with Anselm's satisfaction theory; that Luther recovered it with power and passion; and that subsequent Protestant scholasticism lost it yet again by reverting to a rigidly forensic model.⁷ As Aulén declared with characteristic confidence, the classic idea "was, in fact, the ruling idea of the Atonement for the first thousand years of Christian history."⁸

Fleming Rutledge provides a helpful summary of why Aulén's book has remained on theological reading lists for nearly a century. Every student of theology encounters it. The importance of the book's central argument—that the victory theme is genuinely biblical and was the dominant emphasis of the early church—is now "generally accepted," even though, as Rutledge notes, the book "should be read in light of subsequent developments."⁹

Evaluating Aulén: Strengths and Weaknesses

I want to be fair to Aulén, because I think he got some genuinely important things right. But I also think his argument has significant weaknesses that need to be acknowledged honestly.

What did Aulén get right? First, he was absolutely correct to draw attention to the victory theme as a vital and often neglected dimension of the atonement. John Stott acknowledged this when he wrote that Aulén was "right to draw the church's attention to the cross as victory, and to show that by his death Jesus saved us not only from sin and guilt but from death and the devil, in fact all evil powers as well." Stott added that Aulén's thesis was "relevant too in a century torn apart by two world wars and in a European culture aware of demonic forces."¹⁰

Second, Aulén was right that the victory theme pervades the New Testament and the Church Fathers. As we explored in Chapters 13 and 14, the patristic writers are saturated with the language of Christ's triumph over sin, death, and the devil. The "note of triumph," as Stott put it, "sounds like a trumpet-call through the teaching of the early church."¹¹

Third, Aulén was right that Martin Luther revived this dramatic emphasis with extraordinary force. Luther's hymns and catechisms are full of the language of cosmic warfare—Christ battling and defeating the "monster" of the devil, liberating captives from the tyranny of sin, law, curse, and death. As Aulén demonstrated, Luther's reading of Paul featured all the characteristics of the dramatic type: God as the acting subject, the cosmic and universal scope of the drama, the presence of hostile powers, the conclusive defeat of the enemy, and the arrival of something altogether new.¹²

But where did Aulén go wrong? Several important criticisms deserve attention.

First, Aulén overstated his case by drawing too sharp a contrast between the satisfaction and victory motifs, as though they are "mutually incompatible alternatives." Stott was on target when he pointed out that "the New Testament does not oblige us to choose between them, for it includes them both."¹³ As I argued in Chapter 15, the Church Fathers who celebrated Christ's victory over the powers also used substitutionary and even penal language. These themes existed side by side in the patristic tradition. Aulén's claim that they represent sharply distinct "types" obscures this important fact.

Second, Aulén's treatment of Anselm was not altogether fair. As Stott noted, Aulén criticized Anselm for supposedly teaching that the atonement was a merely human work offered to God "from below." But as we saw in Chapter 16, Anselm actually emphasized that only God himself could provide the satisfaction that was needed, precisely because the debt of sin was too great for any mere human to pay. Aulén's characterization of the "Latin" view was something of a caricature.¹⁴

Third, and most critically, Aulén minimized the substitutionary language that is genuinely present in the Church Fathers. As we documented extensively in Chapter 15, the patristic writers did not merely speak of victory; they also spoke of Christ bearing our sins, dying in our place, and suffering the penalty that was due to us. By sorting the Fathers neatly into the "classic" type and dismissing substitutionary elements as belonging to a later "Latin" development, Aulén misrepresented what the primary sources actually say. David Allen rightly observes that "most patristic theologians also held to some form of a satisfaction/substitutionary atonement," even alongside their Christus Victor emphasis.¹⁵

Fourth, the Christus Victor model, by itself, does not really explain how the atonement works. As Oliver Crisp has noted, it does not address how the cross actually deals with the problem of sin. It functions more like a powerful metaphor than a fully developed model. Allen echoes this criticism when he points out that "Christus Victor does not really explain how the atonement itself functions to deal with the sin problem" and that it "focuses more on the result of the atonement in terms of what is accomplished" without explaining the mechanism.¹⁶ Only substitutionary models address the how—how sin is dealt with, how guilt is removed, how the broken relationship between God and humanity is actually healed.

The Biblical Foundations of Christus Victor

Whatever weaknesses exist in Aulén's historical argument, the biblical foundations for the Christus Victor theme are extraordinarily strong. Victory over evil is not a marginal thread in Scripture—it is one of the most prominent themes running from Genesis to Revelation. Let's walk through the key texts.

Genesis 3:15 — The Protoevangelium

The story of God's triumph over evil begins, remarkably, at the very moment when evil first enters the human story. In the Garden of Eden, immediately after the Fall, God speaks these words of judgment upon the serpent:

"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." (Genesis 3:15, ESV)

This verse has been called the protoevangelium—the "first gospel"—because it is the very first announcement of God's plan to defeat the serpent through a descendant of the woman. The imagery is vivid: the serpent will wound the woman's offspring (a bruised heel—painful but not fatal), but the woman's offspring will crush the serpent's head (a fatal, decisive blow). The language of conflict and victory is present from the beginning. As Stott notes, every Old Testament text that declares God's present rule or his future rule through the Messiah can be understood as "a further prophecy of the ultimate crushing of Satan."¹⁷

William Hess, in his book Crushing the Great Serpent, rightly emphasizes the significance of this passage as the foundation for a victory-centered understanding of the cross. For Hess, the entire biblical drama is oriented toward the moment when the offspring of the woman—Jesus Christ—crushes the head of the great serpent, fulfilling the promise given in Eden. As Hess writes, "Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the victor over the evil forces of this world."¹⁸ I agree wholeheartedly with Hess on this point, even as I will later argue that he goes too far in rejecting the substitutionary dimension of Christ's work.

Colossians 2:13–15 — The Paradigmatic Text

If there is a single passage in the New Testament that most powerfully brings together the themes of victory and substitution, it is Colossians 2:13–15. This text is so important that we need to examine it carefully:

"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him." (Colossians 2:13–15, ESV)

Notice what Paul does here. In a single, breathtaking passage, he brings together two distinct but intimately connected aspects of the cross.

In verse 14, the language is forensic and legal. There is a "record of debt" (Greek: cheirographon, χειρόγραφον)—a handwritten document of indebtedness—that stands against us with its "legal demands." This is the language of guilt, law, and penalty. The broken law condemns us. We owe a debt we cannot pay. But God has "canceled" this record of debt, "wiping" it clean (the Greek word exaleiphō, ἐξαλείφω, literally means to wipe away or blot out) and "nailing it to the cross." Some scholars, including Joachim Jeremias, have suggested an allusion to the titulus—the placard nailed above a crucified person's head listing his crimes—as though the charges against us were inscribed over Jesus' head on the cross.¹⁹ Whether or not that specific allusion is intended, the meaning is clear: God deals with our legal debt by paying it at the cross.

Then, in verse 15, the language shifts dramatically to the vocabulary of cosmic warfare and triumph. God "disarmed" the rulers and authorities—stripping them of their weapons or their dignity—"put them to open shame" in a public spectacle, and led them in a triumphal procession, "triumphing over them in him." The imagery is of a Roman triumph, where a victorious general would parade his captured enemies through the streets in humiliation. As Alexander Maclaren suggests, we can picture Christ "stripping his foes of arms and ornaments and dress, then parading them as his captives, and then dragging them at the wheels of his triumphal car."²⁰

Here is the crucial point: Paul does not present these as two separate events. He does not say, "First, God dealt with your legal debt, and then, in a separate action, he defeated the spiritual powers." No. Both things happen together, at the cross, in the same act. The cancellation of the record of debt (verse 14) is the means by which the powers are disarmed and defeated (verse 15). As Stott insightfully observes, "it is surely significant that Paul brackets what Christ did to the cheirographon (canceling and removing it) with what he did to the principalities and powers (disarming and conquering them).... Is not his payment of our debts the way in which Christ has overthrown the powers? By liberating us from these, he has liberated us from them."²¹

Allen makes the same integrative point with characteristic clarity: "The cross is a victory (Christus Victor) by means of penal substitution." Jeremy Treat, whom Allen cites approvingly, explains: "Penal substitution has priority... in the sense that it is more directly related to the God-human relationship.... Penal substitution directly addresses the root problem between God and humanity (wrath/guilt), whereas Christus Victor addresses the derivative problem of human bondage to Satan."²² The powers hold humanity captive through the legal claim of sin and guilt. When Christ bears the penalty and cancels the debt, the legal basis of their captivity is removed. The chains shatter. The prisoners go free.

Hebrews 2:14–15 — Destroying the One Who Has the Power of Death

The Epistle to the Hebrews provides another critically important text for the Christus Victor theme, and—like Colossians 2—it combines victory language with substitutionary and sacrificial categories:

"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage." (Hebrews 2:14–15, ESV)

The victory language here is unmistakable. The devil holds "the power of death." Humanity is in "lifelong bondage" through fear of this death. Christ entered into flesh and blood—the full reality of human existence—so that through his death he might "destroy" (katargeō, καταργέω—to render powerless, to make of no effect) the devil himself.

But notice the mechanism: Christ destroys the devil through death. Not through a display of raw power. Not by descending with armies of angels. But by dying. This is the paradox at the heart of the Christus Victor theme: the victory is won through apparent defeat. The triumph comes through the cross. And as Hebrews goes on to make clear in chapters 9 and 10 (as we examined in detail in Chapter 10), that death is a sacrificial, substitutionary death—the once-for-all offering of himself as a sacrifice for sin. As Rutledge helpfully notes, Hebrews "combines the image of Christ as the victor over Death with that of the priestly sacrifice."²³ The victory and the sacrifice are not separate acts. They are two faces of the same reality.

1 John 3:8 — Destroying the Works of the Devil

The apostle John provides a concise and powerful statement of Christ's purpose in the incarnation:

"The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." (1 John 3:8b, ESV)

The word "appeared" (phaneroō, φανερόω) points to the incarnation—the Son of God becoming visible in human flesh. And the purpose of that appearing is destruction: not the destruction of the devil's being (as Philippe de la Trinité notes, the devil is incorruptible in his substantial nature), but the breaking of his hold, the dismantling of his works.²⁴ What are the "works of the devil"? Sin, death, deception, bondage, corruption, accusation—everything that separates God's creatures from their Creator. Christ came to tear it all down.

1 Corinthians 15:54–57 — Death Swallowed Up in Victory

Paul's great resurrection chapter reaches its climax with a shout of triumph that echoes the Christus Victor theme:

"When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' 'O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:54–57, ESV)

This passage is pure victory language. Death is mocked. Its sting has been removed. Its power has been broken. God "gives us the victory" through Christ. But even here, notice Paul's logic. "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law." Death's power operates through sin, and sin's power operates through the law. The law condemns; sin enslaves; death claims its prey. Christ's victory over death, therefore, necessarily involves dealing with sin and its legal consequences. You cannot defeat death without dealing with the "sting" that gives death its power. And dealing with that sting—with sin and its penalty—is precisely what substitutionary atonement addresses.

Revelation 12:10–11 — The Blood of the Lamb and the Word of Testimony

In the dramatic visions of Revelation, the triumph of Christ over the dragon (the devil) reaches its fullest expression:

"And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, 'Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.'" (Revelation 12:10–11, ESV)

Here the Christus Victor theme reaches its most explicit and dramatic formulation. The dragon—"that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan" (Revelation 12:9)—is thrown down from heaven. His role as "the accuser" is ended. And the means of victory is strikingly described: "the blood of the Lamb." The sacrificial, atoning death of Christ is the weapon by which the devil is defeated. Once again, victory and sacrifice, triumph and substitution, are inseparably joined.

Genesis 3:15 Fulfilled: The Crushing of the Serpent's Head

When we step back and look at the full sweep of these texts, a magnificent picture emerges. The promise of Genesis 3:15—that the offspring of the woman would crush the serpent's head—finds its fulfillment in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Hess rightly emphasizes, the entire Bible points toward this moment: "In His perfection, He overthrew Sin; in His conquest, He crushed the head of the great serpent."²⁵

But the means of this crushing is stunning. The serpent is not defeated by overwhelming force. He is defeated by the self-sacrificial love of the Son of God, who willingly lays down his life as a substitute for sinners, bears the penalty of their sin, and in doing so removes the legal ground on which the devil held humanity captive. The heel of the woman's offspring is bruised—the suffering of the cross is real and agonizing—but the serpent's head is crushed. The death that appeared to be defeat was actually the instrument of the greatest victory in cosmic history.

Fleming Rutledge and the Apocalyptic Christus Victor

One of the most powerful contemporary presentations of the Christus Victor theme comes from Fleming Rutledge in her magisterial work The Crucifixion. In her chapter "The Apocalyptic War: Christus Victor," Rutledge argues that the cross must be understood within an "apocalyptic" framework—meaning a worldview in which the truly significant battle is "the ongoing one between the Lord God of Sabaoth (Hebrew, meaning armies) and the Enemy, who deploys the principalities and Powers."²⁶

Rutledge's contribution is especially valuable because she places the Christus Victor theme within the broader context of God's decisive action from outside the human sphere. In her reading, "apocalyptic" does not mean "end-of-the-world speculation" but rather the biblical conviction that the human situation is so dire—so thoroughly under the dominion of sin, death, and the powers of evil—that no solution from within history can suffice. What is needed is an invasion. God must break into enemy-occupied territory and reclaim what belongs to him.

Rutledge develops this idea with particular reference to the prophets of the exile, especially Isaiah 40–55, where God announces, "Behold, I am doing a new thing." She sees this as the transition to apocalyptic theology in Israel: the recognition that redemption cannot come from human effort or religious reform but only from God's own dramatic intervention. The Christ event, in this framework, is "the invasion of the kingdom of Sin from outside."²⁷

Rutledge also makes the important observation that the principalities and powers should not be understood merely as individual demons or supernatural beings. Drawing on the work of Miroslav Volf and twentieth-century theology more broadly, she recognizes that the New Testament concept of the "principalities and powers" encompasses institutions—governments, systems, structures—that were created for good but have fallen into the grip of Sin and Death. As she writes, these powers include "institutions and systems (the principalities and Powers)" that have become occupied territory.²⁸ The defeat of the powers at the cross has implications not only for individual salvation but for the renewal of the entire created order.

Rutledge's treatment of Luther's role in recovering the Christus Victor theme is also worth noting. She affirms Aulén's central insight that Luther, at the very heart of his theology, mounted a powerful reaffirmation of the biblical and patristic victory motif. She cites Luther's shorter commentary on Galatians, where the reformer writes that "Christ, who is God's power, righteousness, blessing, grace and life, overcomes and carries away these monsters, sin, death and the curse." Luther goes on to argue that the victory over such cosmic powers "must actually in His nature be God," because no created being could defeat them.⁴⁵ For Luther, the victory of Christ was not an abstract theological concept. It was a lived reality—the joyful center of the gospel that animated his preaching, his hymns, and his pastoral care.

Rutledge also highlights that Aulén himself, in a later article written about twenty years after the book's publication, clarified that the Christus Victor motif is "not a complete doctrine in itself over against others" but is "above all, a drama, where the love of God in Christ fights and conquers the hostile Powers."⁴⁶ This later clarification is important, because it suggests that even Aulén, late in his career, recognized that the dramatic view should not be pressed into service as a standalone theory that excludes everything else. It is a theme, a motif, a perspective—one that illuminates a genuine dimension of the cross without exhausting its full meaning.

What I find most valuable about Rutledge's treatment, however, is that she does not pit the Christus Victor theme against substitution. She explicitly moves toward a synthesis. In one striking passage, she describes Jesus in Gethsemane as preparing to enter the lists "not only as the utterly undefended commander of the Lord's hosts but also as the one who will stand alone on the front line in our place, absorbing the full onslaught of Sin, Death, and the devil."²⁹ Note her language: "in our place." The Victor is also the Substitute. The cosmic warrior is also the suffering servant. These identities are not in tension; they are perfectly united in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Rutledge further strengthens this synthesis by pointing to Colossians 2:13–15 and Hebrews 2:14–17 as passages that naturally blend the forensic and victory motifs. In Colossians, she observes, Paul "blends the forensic motif ('legal demands') with the metaphor of the conquering Christ disarming the Powers and leading them captive." In Hebrews, he "combines the image of Christ as the victor over Death with that of the priestly sacrifice."⁴⁷ The New Testament writers saw no contradiction between these themes. They held them together naturally, and so should we.

Engaging with William Hess: Where He Is Right and Where He Goes Too Far

William Hess's Crushing the Great Serpent: Did God Punish Jesus? offers a passionate defense of a Christus Victor framework as the primary—indeed, virtually exclusive—lens for understanding the cross. Hess's book deserves careful engagement because he gets some things genuinely right, but also because he presses his case too far in ways that ultimately weaken his own argument.

Where Hess Is Right

Hess is right that the Christus Victor theme is genuinely and deeply biblical. His emphasis on Genesis 3:15 as the foundational framework for understanding Christ's work is well taken. He is right that the New Testament presents Jesus' death and resurrection as a victory over the powers of evil. He is right that the incarnation is essential to the atonement—that "God met man" in the person of Jesus Christ, and that the purpose of the incarnation includes the conquest of evil.³⁰

Hess is also right to push back against distorted versions of penal substitutionary atonement that pit the Father against the Son, that portray the cross as God venting his rage on an innocent victim, or that minimize the resurrection. His observation that in some PSA formulations, "Jesus lived in order to die" and that "in theory, Jesus could have come in the flesh and been killed the exact same day and fulfilled His atoning purpose" is a legitimate critique of reductionistic versions of PSA that have lost sight of the incarnation's broader significance.³¹

He is further right that the resurrection is an essential component of the atonement, not merely an afterthought. If Christ is not risen, as Paul says, our faith is futile (1 Corinthians 15:17). Any theology of the cross that treats the resurrection as merely a confirmation of something already fully accomplished at Calvary has not grasped the full biblical picture. The resurrection is itself the moment of victory, the breaking through of new creation, the defeat of death made visible.

Where Hess Goes Too Far

The problem with Hess's argument is not what he affirms but what he denies. By rejecting the substitutionary dimension of the atonement, Hess creates a Christus Victor model that cannot fully account for the biblical data.

Hess argues that in the "Classical View, Jesus primarily became incarnate to become one with His creation and to free mankind by conquering evil," and that this stands against the PSA view where "Jesus primarily became incarnate to die in man's place."³² But this is a false dichotomy. The New Testament does not force us to choose between "becoming one with creation to conquer evil" and "dying in our place." Jesus did both. He entered into the full reality of human existence (recapitulation and incarnation) and died as our substitute, bearing the consequences of our sin. The conquest of evil was accomplished through the substitutionary death, not as an alternative to it.

Hess asks a pointed question about the PSA model: "If Christ died to satisfy divine wrath, then it's not really a victory, as there was no turmoil to overcome besides that which was created by God in the first place."³³ But this misunderstands the relationship between God's justice and the powers of evil. The "turmoil" Christ overcame was not created by God—it was created by sin, by the devil's rebellion, by humanity's fall. God's just response to sin (the penalty of death and separation) is not arbitrary cruelty; it is the natural and necessary consequence of violating the moral order that sustains creation. The powers of evil exploit this situation—they hold humanity captive precisely through the legitimate legal claim of sin's penalty. Christ's bearing of that penalty removes the legal basis of their captivity. That is how substitution produces victory. They are not in competition; they are cause and effect.

Moreover, as we explored in detail in Chapters 6, 8, and 9, the substitutionary language of Scripture is too explicit and too pervasive to be set aside. Isaiah 53 declares that "he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace" (Isaiah 53:5). Paul writes that God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Peter declares that Christ "bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). These are not optional extras that can be discarded without cost. They are central to the New Testament's presentation of the cross.

Simon Gathercole has demonstrated convincingly that the earliest Christian confession—"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3)—is rooted in the substitutionary language of Isaiah 53 and represents a foundational category of apostolic preaching, not a later theological development.⁴⁸ This means that the substitutionary understanding of Christ's death is not a medieval invention or a Reformation novelty. It goes back to the earliest stratum of Christian proclamation. To reject it is not to recover a purer, more "classical" understanding of the cross; it is to reject something that the apostles themselves taught from the very beginning.

Finally, Hess's framing of the choice between Christus Victor and PSA as an either/or obscures something that Stott, Rutledge, Allen, and many other careful scholars have observed: the best theology does not choose between these themes but integrates them. As the nineteenth-century Scottish commentator John Eadie put it in a passage Stott quotes approvingly: "Our redemption is a work at once of price and of power—of expiation and of conquest. On the cross was the purchase made, and on the cross was the victory gained. The blood which wipes out the sentence against us was there shed, and the death which was the death-blow of Satan's kingdom was there endured."⁴⁹ Price and power. Expiation and conquest. Substitution and victory. These are not rivals. They are partners.

The Principalities and Powers: What Are They?

Any discussion of Christus Victor must wrestle with a question that modern readers often find puzzling: What exactly are the "principalities and powers" that Christ defeated? The New Testament uses a range of terms—"rulers," "authorities," "powers," "thrones," "dominions," "cosmic powers over this present darkness," "spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12)—that can seem alien to a modern worldview.

Rutledge provides helpful guidance here. She notes that "most biblical interpretation in the modern age has been done as though there were only two dramatis personae, God and humanity—thereby demystifying the New Testament, which presents three."³⁴ The third category—the powers—is essential to the New Testament's understanding of the human predicament. We are not merely sinners who have made bad choices. We are captives, held in bondage by forces that are stronger than we are.

What are these forces? The New Testament identifies them in several overlapping ways. First, there are personal spiritual beings—Satan and his demons—who actively oppose God's purposes and seek to destroy his people. Jesus' ministry of exorcism, his encounter with Satan in the wilderness, and Paul's references to Satan by name all point to the reality of personal spiritual evil. Second, there are the impersonal "tyrants" that Paul personifies as though they were cosmic rulers: Sin (as a power, not just individual acts), Death (as an enslaving force), and the Law (which, though good in itself, becomes an instrument of condemnation when used by Sin). In Romans 5–8, these three powers reign like kings over fallen humanity, and Christ's death and resurrection break their reign. Third, as twentieth-century theologians have emphasized, the "principalities and powers" also include institutional and systemic realities—governments, economic systems, cultural structures—that were created for good but have been co-opted by evil.³⁵

Christ's victory at the cross addresses all of these dimensions. He defeats the personal devil (Hebrews 2:14). He breaks the reign of Sin, Death, and the Law (Romans 6–8; 1 Corinthians 15:54–57). And he "disarms the rulers and authorities" (Colossians 2:15), stripping the institutional and systemic powers of their ultimate claim over human beings. The scope of Christ's victory is nothing less than cosmic.

Kevin Vanhoozer has helpfully observed that the Christus Victor theme, when properly understood, encompasses far more than the defeat of individual demons. It envisions the renewal of the entire created order—a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). The powers that have corrupted and enslaved God's good creation are being dethroned. The structures that have oppressed and dehumanized God's image-bearers are being exposed and dismantled. The cosmic victory of Christ is thus not merely a spiritual reality hidden from view. It has concrete implications for how Christians engage with injustice, oppression, and systemic evil in the present age—not through worldly violence, but through the power of the gospel, the witness of the church, and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit who applies Christ's victory to ever-widening circles of human life and culture.

Philippe de la Trinité, writing from a Catholic perspective, captures the breadth of Christ's redemptive victory beautifully. He writes that "the Redeemer has freed us from sin, the punishment due to sin, and the power of the prince of this world in so far as we place our confident trust in his infinite mercy."⁵⁰ Notice how Philippe de la Trinité brings together three dimensions in a single sentence: freedom from sin (the moral problem), freedom from punishment (the legal problem), and freedom from the devil's power (the cosmic problem). All three are aspects of the one great redemption accomplished at the cross. And all three are grounded in "mercy"—the self-giving love of God that is the ultimate source and motivation of everything Christ accomplished.

Six Stages of Christ's Victory

Stott provides a helpful framework for understanding the unfolding of Christ's victory in six stages, and I find this framework both biblically grounded and theologically illuminating.³⁶

First, the victory was predicted. Beginning with Genesis 3:15 and continuing through the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament—every text that declares God's coming reign over evil—the triumph of Christ was announced in advance.

Second, the victory was begun during Jesus' earthly ministry. His exorcisms, healings, and authoritative teaching were visible evidence that God's kingdom had arrived and Satan's kingdom was crumbling. When the seventy-two returned from their mission and reported that demons had submitted to them in Jesus' name, he responded, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (Luke 10:18). Jesus described his ministry as the binding of the "strong man" (Satan) by "someone stronger" (himself), so that his captives could be set free (Luke 11:21–22).³⁷

Third, the victory was achieved at the cross. This is the decisive stage. Jesus himself anticipated it: "Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out" (John 12:31). "The ruler of this world is judged" (John 16:11). It was "through death" that he destroyed "the one who has the power of death" (Hebrews 2:14). And at the cross, God disarmed the principalities and powers, triumphing over them (Colossians 2:15).

Fourth, the victory was confirmed and announced through the resurrection. We should not think of the cross as defeat and the resurrection as victory. Rather, the cross was the victory won, and the resurrection was the victory vindicated and proclaimed. "It was impossible for death to keep its hold on him" (Acts 2:24)—precisely because death had already been defeated. The resurrection is the public declaration that the battle is over and Christ has won.³⁸

Fifth, the victory is extended through the church's mission. As the gospel is preached and people turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18), the victory of the cross reaches further and further into enemy-occupied territory.

Sixth, the victory will be completed at Christ's return. The powers are defeated but not yet destroyed. As Paul puts it, Christ "must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:25–26). We live in the "already but not yet"—the decisive battle has been won, but the final mopping-up operations are still underway. The full consummation of Christ's victory awaits his glorious return.

How Did Christ Win? The Integration of Victory and Substitution

We have now seen both the power and the limitations of the Christus Victor model. It captures a genuine and essential biblical dimension of the cross. But it raises a question it cannot answer on its own: How did Christ actually defeat the powers? What was the mechanism of his victory?

I want to suggest that the answer lies in the integration of Christus Victor with substitutionary atonement. This is not a case of forcing two incompatible ideas together. It is a case of recognizing what the New Testament itself already does: it presents the substitutionary death of Christ as the means by which the cosmic victory is won.

We can state the argument in three steps.

Step One: Sin Is Both a Legal Problem and a Cosmic Problem

The human predicament, as the Bible describes it, has two interrelated dimensions. First, there is a legal or relational problem: human beings are guilty before God. We have sinned against his holy law. We stand under the just penalty of death and separation from God. This is the problem that substitutionary atonement addresses—Christ bears the penalty in our place, and our guilt is dealt with.

Second, there is a cosmic problem: human beings are enslaved by hostile powers. Sin is not merely a collection of individual bad choices; it is a tyrannical force that holds us in bondage. Death is not merely the cessation of biological life; it is a ruling power that keeps humanity in fear. The devil is not merely a symbol of evil; he is a personal, intelligent adversary who has usurped dominion over God's good creation. This is the problem that Christus Victor addresses—Christ defeats the powers and sets the captives free.

Here is the critical insight: these two problems are not separate. They are deeply connected. The powers hold humanity captive through the legal claim of sin and guilt. As Paul puts it, "the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law" (1 Corinthians 15:56). The law condemns the sinner. Sin exploits this condemnation. Death claims its victim. The devil holds the "record of debt" over our heads, so to speak, using our guilt as the legal basis of our bondage. This is why Colossians 2:13–15 brings the two themes together so seamlessly: the cancellation of the debt (forensic) and the disarming of the powers (cosmic) happen in the same act because they are two dimensions of the same reality.

Step Two: Christ's Bearing of the Penalty Removes the Legal Basis of the Powers' Claim

When Christ bears the penalty of our sin on the cross—when the "record of debt" is canceled and nailed to the cross (Colossians 2:14)—the legal foundation of the powers' authority is destroyed. The devil can no longer point to our guilt as the basis for his claim over us. The accuser has nothing left to accuse. "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies" (Romans 8:33). The penalty has been paid. The debt has been canceled. And with the debt gone, the powers are disarmed.

This is why verse 14 leads directly and logically into verse 15. Paul is not randomly juxtaposing two unrelated ideas. He is showing that the legal victory produces the cosmic victory. The substitution is the mechanism of the triumph.

Philippe de la Trinité, writing from a Catholic Thomistic perspective, captures this integration beautifully when he discusses Christ's victory over sin and the devil. Quoting Hebrews 2:14, he writes that Christ came to "depose the prince of death, that is, the devil"—not by destroying the devil's nature, but by "breaking his hold over death." And this breaking of the devil's hold is accomplished through the redemptive work of the cross, in which Christ offers himself as a victim of love, united with the Father, to deal with sin and its consequences.³⁹

Step Three: Victory Without Substitution Is Incomplete; Substitution Without Victory Is Truncated

This analysis helps us see why we need both themes—and why neither is sufficient alone.

A Christus Victor model without substitution cannot explain how the powers are actually defeated. If Christ's death is merely a demonstration of God's power or a dramatic enactment of divine love—without the actual bearing of sin's penalty—then the legal problem of human guilt remains unaddressed. And if the legal problem remains, the powers still have their claim. You cannot defeat the enslaving power of sin without dealing with its penalty. You cannot conquer death without removing its sting. Victory without substitution is like a general who claims to have liberated a city without ever engaging the enemy's actual forces.

Conversely, a substitutionary model without Christus Victor can become narrow and individualistic. If the cross is only about the forgiveness of individual sins—if it has no cosmic dimension, no triumph over the powers, no liberation from bondage—then we have lost something essential to the New Testament's presentation. The cross is not merely a transaction in a heavenly courtroom. It is a battlefield. It is the decisive moment in a cosmic war. It is the invasion of enemy-occupied territory by the King of kings. Substitution without victory is like a judge who pardons a prisoner but leaves the prison itself standing.

The full biblical picture requires both. Christ bore our sins (substitution) and defeated the powers (victory). The bearing of sin is the defeat of the powers. Substitution is the mechanism; victory is the result. And both are accomplished in the same act—the once-for-all sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross.

The Victory of Christ's People

The Christus Victor theme does not end at the cross. Christ's victory becomes the basis for his people's victory. We who are "in Christ" share in his triumph over the powers of evil.

Paul makes this application repeatedly. "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:37–39). The "rulers" and "powers" that Paul lists here are the very principalities and powers that Christ defeated at the cross. They cannot separate us from God's love because they have been disarmed. Their claim has been removed. Christ's victory is our victory.

The book of Revelation depicts the church's participation in Christ's victory with striking language: believers "conquered him [the dragon] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" (Revelation 12:11). The weapon of their warfare is not military might but the gospel—the proclamation of what Christ accomplished on the cross. The "blood of the Lamb" is the foundation; the "word of their testimony" is the means by which the victory is extended into the world.

Paul also describes the Christian life as a continuation of the cosmic battle. "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:11–12). The decisive battle has been won at the cross, but the "mopping-up operations" continue. Believers are called to stand firm in the victory that Christ has already secured—not to win a new victory but to hold the ground that has already been taken.

This is an enormously encouraging truth. The Christian life is not a losing battle. It is participation in a victory already won. Yes, the struggle is real. The powers are still active, though defeated. But the outcome is certain. "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet" (Romans 16:20)—an echo of Genesis 3:15 that reminds us that the ancient promise is being fulfilled even now, and will be fully consummated at the end.

Stott provides a powerful summary of this reality when he describes the remaining stages of Christ's victory being worked out through the church's mission. As the gospel is preached, people are transferred "from the dominion of darkness" into "the kingdom of his beloved Son" (Colossians 1:13). In every genuine conversion, the victory of the cross reaches another captive and sets another prisoner free. The gates of hell do not prevail against the church, not because the church is strong, but because the Victor who stands behind it has already broken those gates from their hinges.⁵¹

And one day—glorious day—the last enemy will fall. "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:26). At Christ's return, the powers that have been defeated but not yet destroyed will be finally and permanently eliminated. Every tear will be wiped away. Death will be no more. The dragon will be cast into the lake of fire. And the triumphant cry of Revelation will ring out across the new creation: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever" (Revelation 11:15).

Christus Victor and the "Now and Not Yet"

One of the most important theological insights for understanding the Christus Victor theme is the "already but not yet" structure of the New Testament's eschatology. The decisive victory has been won at the cross and confirmed by the resurrection. The powers are defeated. Satan has been "cast out" (John 12:31). Death has been conquered (2 Timothy 1:10). Sin's reign has been broken (Romans 6:6–14).

But the effects of that victory have not yet been fully realized. Death still claims human bodies. Sin still tempts and sometimes triumphs in the lives of believers. The devil, though defeated, still prowls around "like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). The principalities and powers still exercise their corrupted influence over institutions and societies. Evil has not yet been eradicated from the world.

How do we hold these two realities together? The classic analogy—made famous by Oscar Cullmann—is D-Day and V-Day during World War II. D-Day (June 6, 1944) was the decisive battle. Once the Allied forces successfully landed at Normandy, the outcome of the war was determined. Germany's defeat was inevitable. But V-Day (May 8, 1945) did not come for another eleven months. Between D-Day and V-Day, there was still fierce fighting, real casualties, and genuine suffering. But the outcome was never in doubt.⁴⁰

In the same way, the cross is D-Day in the cosmic war against evil. The outcome has been determined. Christ has won. But V-Day—the final consummation, when every knee bows and every tongue confesses, when death is finally destroyed and God makes all things new—is still future. We live between D-Day and V-Day. The battle is real, but the victory is certain.

Aulén himself, as Rutledge notes, "did not make as much of the now/not-yet element in the drama as he might have, and the urgent looking-ahead to the parousia (second coming) is largely missing."⁴¹ This is a fair criticism. A fully robust Christus Victor theology must take seriously both the reality of present evil and the certainty of its ultimate defeat. We do not pretend that all is well. We proclaim that all will be well—because the decisive blow has already been struck.

Objections and Responses

Objection 1: "Belief in Spiritual Powers Is Outdated"

Some modern readers struggle with the language of spiritual warfare. Rudolf Bultmann famously declared that "it is impossible to use electric light and the wireless, and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time believe in the New Testament world of demons and spirits."⁴²

Several responses are in order. First, the existence of personal spiritual evil is attested throughout the New Testament—not only in the Gospels' accounts of exorcism but in Paul's theology, in the book of Revelation, and in the epistles generally. If we claim the authority of Scripture, we cannot simply excise this element because it makes modern people uncomfortable. Second, the worldwide church—especially in Africa, Asia, and Latin America—finds the language of spiritual warfare immediately intelligible. It is primarily the Western, post-Enlightenment mind that struggles with it. Third, even in the modern West, the resurgence of interest in the occult and the pervasive sense of being enslaved by forces beyond individual control (addiction, systemic injustice, cultural decay) suggest that the New Testament's language about "powers" resonates at a deep level with human experience.

Objection 2: "Christus Victor Promotes Violence"

Some have objected that the language of cosmic warfare and triumph is inherently violent and that it has been used historically to justify Christian militarism and aggression. Rutledge acknowledges this concern frankly: "if the Christian community is being its true self, it will be deeply suspicious of battle imagery."⁴³

But the crucial distinction is that the "warfare" of Christus Victor is not fought with worldly weapons. The decisive battle was won not through military conquest but through self-sacrificial love. Christ defeated the powers "not by force but by suffering, not by inflicting death but by dying," as many theologians have observed. The "war of the Lamb" (John Howard Yoder's phrase) is waged through radical, self-giving love—the very opposite of worldly violence. The weapons of the Christian's warfare are truth, righteousness, the gospel, faith, salvation, the word of God, and prayer (Ephesians 6:14–18)—not swords, tanks, or bombs.

Objection 3: "Christus Victor Is Incompatible with Penal Substitution"

Some scholars, including Hess, argue that you must choose between Christus Victor and penal substitutionary atonement. But as we have shown throughout this chapter, this is a false dichotomy. The New Testament itself combines the two themes seamlessly—most notably in Colossians 2:13–15, where the cancellation of the legal debt (penal/substitutionary) and the triumph over the powers (Christus Victor) are presented as two dimensions of the same event. As Stott writes, "all three of the major explanations of the death of Christ contain biblical truth and can to some extent be harmonized."⁴⁴

Conclusion: The Victor and the Substitute

We have covered a great deal of ground in this chapter. Let me summarize the main findings.

First, the Christus Victor theme—Christ's victorious conflict with and triumph over sin, death, the devil, and the hostile spiritual powers—is genuinely and deeply biblical. It runs from Genesis 3:15 to Revelation 12:10–11 and pervades the New Testament. Any understanding of the cross that ignores this dimension is incomplete.

Second, Gustaf Aulén deserves credit for recovering this theme and bringing it back to the center of theological attention. His historical argument that it was the dominant view of the early church, while overstated in some respects, contains a significant core of truth. The Church Fathers did celebrate the triumph of Christ over the powers of evil, and this emphasis was indeed sometimes neglected in later Western theology.

Third, Aulén was wrong to treat Christus Victor as a standalone alternative to substitutionary atonement. The two belong together. The Church Fathers held both themes simultaneously, and the New Testament itself integrates them inseparably—above all in Colossians 2:13–15.

Fourth, the mechanism of Christ's victory is his substitutionary death. Christ defeated the powers by bearing the penalty of sin in our place, thereby removing the legal foundation of their authority over us. The cancellation of the "record of debt" is the means by which the powers are "disarmed." Victory and substitution are not competing explanations but complementary dimensions: substitution is the mechanism, and victory is the result.

Fifth, the Christus Victor theme reminds us that the cross has a cosmic scope. It is not merely about the forgiveness of individual sins (though it is certainly about that). It is about the liberation of the entire created order from the tyranny of evil. It is about the inauguration of a new age, a new creation, a new humanity. This cosmic dimension is essential for a fully biblical understanding of the atonement.

Sixth, the victory is "already but not yet." The decisive battle has been won, but the final consummation awaits Christ's return. We live as people who know the outcome of the war, even as we continue to fight the remaining battles.

In Chapter 24, we will draw these threads together into a fully integrated model of the atonement, showing how substitution, victory, recapitulation, moral influence, ransom, and satisfaction all function as complementary facets of the one glorious reality of the cross. But for now, let us close with the triumphant words of Paul that capture the heart of the Christus Victor theme: "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:57).