Understanding the Atonement: A Comparative Analysis of Margaret Turek and Fleming Rutledge’s Theological Perspectives

When we think about the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, one of the most important questions Christians have asked throughout history is: How exactly does Christ’s death save us? This question touches the very heart of the Christian faith. Different theologians have offered various answers to this profound question, and today we will explore two contemporary approaches that offer alternatives to the traditional Protestant view known as penal substitutionary atonement.

Margaret Turek, in her book Atonement: Soundings in Biblical, Trinitarian, and Spiritual Theology, presents a deeply Catholic and Trinitarian understanding of the atonement. Fleming Rutledge, in her comprehensive work The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, offers what she calls a “modified Catholic view” that incorporates multiple biblical themes. Both authors agree that Jesus is indeed a sacrifice and substitute for our sins, but they strongly disagree with the idea that this was a penal sacrifice—that is, a punishment inflicted by an angry Father on an innocent Son.

This report will carefully examine both perspectives, showing where they agree and where they differ, and then compare them with the penal substitutionary atonement view that has dominated Protestant theology since the Reformation. We will see that while both authors reject certain aspects of penal substitution, they do so for different reasons and offer distinct alternatives that are both biblically grounded and theologically rich.

Part I: Margaret Turek’s Trinitarian Approach to Atonement

The Foundation: God as Trinity

Margaret Turek builds her entire understanding of the atonement on the foundation of the Trinity—God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in eternal relationship. This is not just a starting point but the key to everything she says about how Christ saves us. For Turek, we cannot understand what happened on the cross without first understanding who God is as Trinity.

At the heart of Turek’s theology is the concept of what she calls “patrogenetic” love—the Father’s eternal act of generating or begetting the Son. This is not something that happened once upon a time, but something that is always happening in the eternal life of God. The Father is always giving himself completely to the Son, and the Son is always receiving the Father’s love and returning it. This eternal exchange of love between Father and Son (with the Holy Spirit as the bond of that love) is what God is.

Turek explains that the Father’s love involves what she calls “divine self-emptying.” The Father holds nothing back from the Son but gives everything he is to the Son. As she notes in Chapter 2 of her book: “Inherent in the Father’s love is an absolute renunciation: he will not be God for himself alone. He lets go of his divinity in favor of the Son” (TD4, 323-24). This doesn’t mean the Father stops being God, but rather that the Father’s very nature is to give himself away in love.

Sin as Breaking Filial Relationship

With this Trinitarian foundation in place, Turek offers a unique understanding of sin. Sin is not primarily breaking a law or incurring a legal debt. Instead, sin is the refusal to be a child of God. Since humans are created to share in the Son’s relationship with the Father, sin is essentially saying “no” to this relationship. It’s rejecting our identity as beloved children of God.

Turek emphasizes that sin creates a threefold problem:

1. It damages our relationship with God the Father
2. It corrupts our human nature
3. It puts us under the power of evil forces

This understanding of sin shapes how Turek sees the solution. If sin is primarily about broken relationship rather than broken law, then salvation must be about restored relationship rather than legal satisfaction. This is where her view begins to diverge significantly from penal substitution.

Atonement as Bearing Sin in Filial Love

According to Turek, atonement happens through what she calls “the bearing of sin in filial love-suffering.” This is a complex idea that needs careful unpacking. When Jesus goes to the cross, he doesn’t go as a criminal being punished by an angry judge. Instead, he goes as the loving Son who takes upon himself everything that separates humanity from the Father.

Turek identifies three essential factors in the process of atonement, which she traces through both Old and New Testaments:

First Factor: Atonement is accomplished through vicarious suffering—one person bearing the burden of another’s sin. But this is not punishment inflicted from outside; it’s love taking on the weight of what destroys love.

Second Factor: This suffering must be undertaken in a spirit of filial love—the love of a child for a parent. Jesus doesn’t suffer as a slave under a master’s wrath, but as a Son sharing in the Father’s own grief over sin.

Third Factor: The entire process is initiated and empowered by God. The Father doesn’t demand satisfaction from someone else; rather, the Father himself provides the means of atonement through his Son.

This understanding transforms how we see the cross. The Father is not punishing the Son. Instead, Father and Son together are bearing the weight of human sin and all its consequences. The Father suffers in seeing his beloved Son suffer, and the Son suffers in experiencing the full depth of human alienation from God. Yet both do this out of love for humanity.

The Father’s Role: Not Wrath but Wounded Love

One of Turek’s most important contributions is her careful treatment of divine wrath. She doesn’t deny that Scripture speaks of God’s wrath against sin, but she insists we must understand this correctly. God’s wrath is not like human anger—an emotional outburst or desire for revenge. Instead, God’s wrath is his settled opposition to everything that destroys his beloved children.

Drawing on Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem, Turek speaks of the Father experiencing “fatherly pain” in the face of sin. This is not the rage of an offended monarch but the grief of a loving parent whose children have turned away. She writes: “The suffering of love that John Paul II highlights is much more a divine quality that we find imperfectly and distantly echoed in the heart of man than a human quality projected onto God.”

This means that when Jesus cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), this is not because the Father has turned away in anger. Rather, the Father is allowing the Son to experience the full depth of humanity’s separation from God. The Father suffers in this too—not because he needs anything from us, but because he loves us.

Christ’s Work as Representation, Not Punishment

Turek emphasizes that Christ acts as our representative, not as our penal substitute. The difference is crucial. A penal substitute takes the punishment someone else deserves, like a person going to jail in place of the real criminal. A representative acts on behalf of others, opening a way for them to follow.

Jesus represents humanity before the Father by living the perfect human life of filial love. He shows what it means to be truly human—to live as a child of God in perfect trust and obedience. When he goes to the cross, he’s not being punished for our sins but is entering into the depths of human experience, including the experience of feeling abandoned by God, in order to transform it from within.

At the same time, Jesus represents the Father to humanity. In his compassion for sinners, his healing of the sick, and especially in his willingness to die for others, Jesus shows us what the Father is really like. The Father is not the angry judge demanding blood, but the loving parent who will stop at nothing to bring his children home.

The Holy Spirit’s Role in Atonement

Turek gives significant attention to the Holy Spirit’s role, which is often overlooked in discussions of atonement. The Spirit is not passive but actively involved in the entire process. During Jesus’ life, the Spirit empowers him for his mission. At the cross, the Spirit is the bond of love between Father and Son even in the midst of apparent separation. After the resurrection, the Spirit applies the benefits of Christ’s work to believers.

The Spirit enables us to share in Christ’s own relationship with the Father. As Paul writes, “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!'” (Galatians 4:6). Through the Spirit, we don’t just receive the benefits of Christ’s work; we actually participate in his filial relationship with the Father.

Our Participation in Christ’s Atoning Work

This leads to another distinctive aspect of Turek’s theology: the idea that Christians actually participate in Christ’s ongoing work of atonement. This doesn’t mean we add anything to what Christ accomplished on the cross, but rather that we are called to share in his mission of bearing others’ burdens in love.

Turek points to Paul’s striking statement: “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24). This doesn’t mean Christ’s work was insufficient, but that Christ has chosen to continue his work through his body, the church.

This participation takes many forms:

Intercessory prayer, where we bear others before God
Acts of mercy and compassion
Patient endurance of suffering for the sake of others
Forgiveness of those who have wronged us
Almsgiving and acts of charity

In all these ways, Christians share in Christ’s work of reconciling the world to God. We become, in Paul’s words, “ambassadors for Christ” through whom God makes his appeal to the world (2 Corinthians 5:20).

Part II: Fleming Rutledge’s Biblical Motifs Approach

The Crucifixion as Cosmic Event

Fleming Rutledge approaches the atonement from a different angle than Turek, though they share many fundamental convictions. Where Turek begins with the Trinity, Rutledge begins with the biblical text itself and its rich variety of images and motifs for understanding Christ’s death. Her massive book The Crucifixion is an attempt to hold all these biblical themes together without reducing them to a single theory.

For Rutledge, the crucifixion is not just about individual salvation but is a cosmic event that affects all of creation. She emphasizes that the New Testament presents Christ’s death as a victory over powers that hold humanity and creation in bondage. These powers include:

• Sin as a enslaving power
• Death as the last enemy
• Satan and demonic forces
• The curse of the law
• The present evil age

Rutledge insists we must take seriously the New Testament’s apocalyptic worldview, which sees history as a battlefield between God and anti-God powers. The cross is the decisive battle in this cosmic war, though the final victory awaits Christ’s return.

Eight Biblical Motifs Interwoven

The heart of Rutledge’s approach is her identification of eight major biblical motifs for understanding the crucifixion. She argues that we need all of them, not just one or two, to grasp the full meaning of Christ’s death. These motifs are:

1. The Passover and Exodus: Christ’s death as liberation from bondage, echoing Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. Just as the Passover lamb’s blood protected Israel from death, Christ’s blood delivers us from the power of sin and death.

2. The Blood Sacrifice: Drawing on Leviticus and Hebrews, Christ’s death as the perfect sacrifice that ends all sacrifices. But Rutledge emphasizes this is not about appeasing an angry deity but about God providing the means of reconciliation.

3. Ransom and Redemption: Christ’s death as the price paid to free slaves. Rutledge notes that the New Testament never specifies to whom the ransom is paid—the point is that we are freed from bondage, not that God needs to be paid off.

4. The Great Assize (Judgment): Christ’s death as God’s judgment on sin. But remarkably, God takes this judgment upon himself rather than inflicting it on humanity.

5. Christus Victor: Christ’s death as victory over evil powers. This ancient theme, prominent in the early church, sees the cross as God’s triumph over all forces that oppose his purposes.

6. The Descent into Hell: Christ entering the realm of death to destroy it from within. This often-neglected theme emphasizes that Christ goes where we cannot go to rescue us.

7. Substitution: Christ dying in our place. Rutledge maintains this biblical theme while rejecting the idea that God punishes the innocent instead of the guilty.

8. Recapitulation: Christ as the new Adam who succeeds where the first Adam failed, summing up and redirecting human history.

Substitution Without Punishment

Rutledge’s treatment of substitution is particularly important because she maintains this biblical concept while rejecting its penal interpretation. She argues that the New Testament clearly teaches that Christ died “for us” and “in our place,” but this doesn’t mean God was punishing Jesus instead of us.

Instead, Rutledge sees substitution working within what she calls an “apocalyptic” framework. Christ enters into our condition under the power of sin and death, not to be punished by God but to break these powers from within. As she puts it in her book: “In the crucifixion and its vindication in the resurrection, we see how every Power that wars against God has been and will be overcome and ultimately annihilated.”

This is substitution in the sense that Christ does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He enters the realm of sin and death where we are trapped and breaks their power. He takes our place under the dominion of these powers in order to free us from them.

The Problem of Sin’s Gravity

One of Rutledge’s major concerns is that modern Christianity has lost sight of the seriousness of sin. She argues that we tend to think of sins (plural) as individual mistakes or moral failures, but the Bible speaks of Sin (singular) as a power that enslaves humanity. She writes extensively about what she calls “the gravity of sin”—its weight and seriousness that requires nothing less than the death of God’s Son to overcome.

This emphasis on sin’s gravity doesn’t lead Rutledge to embrace penal substitution, however. Instead, she argues that the cross reveals sin’s seriousness precisely by showing what God is willing to do to overcome it. The cross doesn’t satisfy God’s need for punishment but demonstrates the lengths to which divine love will go to rescue humanity.

Rutledge draws heavily on Paul’s letter to the Romans, particularly his statement that “God made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). This doesn’t mean God punished Jesus as if he were a sinner, but that Christ entered so fully into the human condition that he experienced the ultimate consequence of sin—separation from God—in order to overcome it.

The Rectification of the Ungodly

A central theme in Rutledge’s work is what she calls “the rectification of the ungodly,” based on Romans 4:5, which speaks of God “who justifies the ungodly.” The Greek word dikaiosyne, usually translated “justification” or “righteousness,” is better understood, she argues, as “rectification”—God’s action to make right what is wrong.

This rectification is not simply forgiveness, as if God merely overlooked sin. Nor is it punishment, as if God needed to vent his anger. Instead, it’s God’s powerful action to defeat sin and death and to recreate humanity. The cross is where God’s rectifying power is most fully displayed.

Rutledge emphasizes that this rectification is for the “ungodly”—not for those who have earned it or deserve it, but precisely for those who don’t. This undermines any notion that the cross is about God rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked. Instead, it’s about God acting to save those who cannot save themselves.

The Role of Jesus’ Humanity

Rutledge places great emphasis on Jesus’ full humanity in understanding the atonement. Jesus doesn’t suffer as God (for God cannot suffer in his divine nature) but as a human being who fully enters into the human condition. This includes experiencing:

Temptation (yet without sin)
Physical suffering and pain
Betrayal and abandonment by friends
Injustice from religious and political authorities
The experience of God-forsakenness
Death itself

By experiencing all of this as a human being, Jesus transforms the human condition from within. He doesn’t stand outside our situation and fix it from above, but enters into it completely and breaks its power over us.

The Resurrection as Vindication

For Rutledge, the resurrection is not an add-on to the atonement but essential to it. The resurrection is God’s vindication of Jesus and his way of self-giving love. It demonstrates that the powers that killed Jesus—sin, death, and the devil—have been defeated.

Without the resurrection, the cross would be just another tragic death. But the resurrection reveals that what looked like defeat was actually victory. What looked like God abandoning Jesus was actually God working through Jesus to defeat the powers that hold humanity in bondage.

The resurrection also begins the new creation. It’s not just that Jesus returns to life, but that he is raised to a new kind of life—resurrection life that is beyond the reach of death. This is the life that believers will share through their union with Christ.

Part III: Comparing and Contrasting Turek and Rutledge

Shared Foundations

Before examining their differences, it’s important to recognize how much Turek and Rutledge share in common. Both authors:

1. Reject penal substitutionary atonement as commonly taught in Protestant theology. Neither believes that God the Father punished Jesus instead of punishing us.

2. Emphasize God’s love as the primary motivation for the atonement. The cross is not about satisfying God’s anger but about expressing God’s love.

3. Take sin seriously as a power that enslaves humanity, not merely as individual moral failures.

4. Maintain the necessity of Christ’s death for human salvation. Neither suggests that the cross was merely an example or that God could have saved us some other way.

5. Affirm substitution in some form—that Christ died “for us” and “in our place”—while rejecting its penal interpretation.

6. Emphasize the cosmic dimensions of Christ’s work, not reducing it to individual salvation alone.

7. Ground their theology in Scripture while also drawing on the church’s tradition.

Different Starting Points

The most obvious difference between Turek and Rutledge is where they begin their theological reflection:

Turek begins with the Trinity. Her entire understanding of atonement flows from her understanding of the eternal relationships within God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This gives her theology a distinctive focus on relationships, particularly the father-child relationship. For Turek, everything about salvation is understood in terms of our being brought into the Son’s own relationship with the Father.

Rutledge begins with the biblical text and its multiple images. Rather than starting with a theological framework, she works inductively from the various ways Scripture describes Christ’s death. This leads her to emphasize the diversity and richness of biblical language about the cross, resisting any single theological system.

These different starting points lead to different emphases throughout their work, though they often arrive at similar conclusions.

Different Central Metaphors

Each author has a preferred way of describing what happens in the atonement:

Turek’s central metaphor is filial love-suffering. The Son bears the weight of sin not as punishment but as an expression of filial love—the love of a child for a parent. This suffering is not inflicted by the Father but undertaken willingly by the Son in union with the Father’s own grief over sin. The image is deeply personal and relational.

Rutledge’s central metaphor is cosmic victory. While she incorporates many biblical motifs, the one that seems to govern her interpretation is Christus Victor—Christ’s victory over the powers that hold humanity in bondage. The image is of warfare and liberation, with the cross as the decisive battle in God’s war against evil.

These different metaphors shape how each author discusses various aspects of the atonement.

Different Understandings of Wrath

Both authors address the biblical language about God’s wrath, but they handle it differently:

Turek transforms wrath into “fatherly pain.” Drawing on John Paul II, she sees divine wrath not as anger in the human sense but as God’s grief over sin and its consequences. The Father’s “wrath” is really his settled opposition to everything that harms his children. It’s the dark side of love—love’s opposition to all that threatens the beloved.

Rutledge maintains the language of wrath but reinterprets it apocalyptically. God’s wrath is his judgment on the powers that oppress humanity. Remarkably, God takes this judgment upon himself in Christ rather than inflicting it on humanity. The cross is where God’s wrath against sin and God’s love for sinners meet.

Different Emphases on Participation

Both authors believe Christians participate in Christ’s work, but they emphasize different aspects:

Turek emphasizes mystical participation. Through the Holy Spirit, believers actually share in Christ’s own relationship with the Father. We participate in Christ’s ongoing work of bearing others’ burdens in love. This participation is real, not merely metaphorical—we become “sons in the Son,” sharing in Christ’s own filial relationship with the Father.

Rutledge emphasizes ethical participation. Christians join Christ’s ongoing battle against evil in the world. We take up our cross and follow Jesus in the way of self-giving love. This participation is primarily about discipleship—following Jesus in the way of the cross.

Different Treatments of the Father’s Role

One of the most significant differences concerns how each author describes the Father’s involvement in the crucifixion:

Turek presents the Father as co-suffering with the Son. The Father doesn’t send the Son to suffer while remaining unaffected. Instead, the Father suffers in seeing his beloved Son suffer. The atonement is a Trinitarian act in which Father, Son, and Spirit all participate, each in their distinctive way. The Father’s “forsaking” of the Son is really his allowing the Son to experience humanity’s separation from God in order to heal it.

Rutledge focuses more on God’s unified action without distinguishing as clearly between the persons of the Trinity. She emphasizes that God (without always specifying which person) acts in Christ to defeat the powers. While she affirms the Trinity, her exposition doesn’t depend as heavily on distinguishing the roles of each person.

Different Audiences and Purposes

The two books seem written for different audiences and purposes:

Turek writes primarily for Catholics (and Orthodox) who want to understand atonement in explicitly Trinitarian terms. Her work is deeply rooted in patristic theology and papal teaching. She aims to show how atonement theology and spirituality belong together—how understanding Christ’s work should shape Christian living.

Rutledge writes for a broader audience, including Protestants struggling with traditional Reformed theology. Her work engages extensively with biblical scholarship and addresses contemporary cultural issues. She aims to recover the power and scandal of the cross for modern Christians who may have become too comfortable with it.

Part IV: How Both Differ from Penal Substitutionary Atonement

Understanding Penal Substitutionary Atonement

To understand how Turek and Rutledge differ from penal substitutionary atonement (PSA), we must first understand what this doctrine teaches. PSA, as developed in Protestant theology particularly since the Reformation, maintains that:

1. Human sin deserves God’s punishment (death and hell)
2. God’s justice requires that sin be punished
3. God’s holiness prevents him from simply overlooking sin
4. Christ voluntarily took our place and received our punishment
5. God the Father poured out his wrath on Christ instead of on us
6. Because Christ has borne our punishment, we are forgiven

This view was systematized by Reformed theologians like John Calvin and later Charles Hodge, who used terms like “forensic penal satisfaction” to describe Christ’s work. The model is essentially legal or judicial: God is the judge, humans are guilty defendants, and Christ steps in to receive the sentence we deserve.

Turek’s Critique of PSA

Turek offers several criticisms of penal substitutionary atonement:

1. It divides the Trinity. PSA often presents the Father and Son as having different attitudes toward humanity—the Father is angry and demands punishment, while the Son is loving and takes the punishment. This contradicts the fundamental unity of the Trinity. As Turek emphasizes, Father and Son always act together in perfect unity of love.

2. It misunderstands divine wrath. PSA treats God’s wrath as if it were like human anger—emotional, vindictive, and needing to be satisfied through punishment. Turek argues that divine wrath is actually God’s loving opposition to sin, not a desire for revenge.

3. It makes God appear violent. The image of a father demanding the torture and death of his son is morally problematic. Turek quotes critics who ask, “Can one imagine a more obsessional phantasm than that of a God who demands the torturing of his own son to death as satisfaction for his anger?”

4. It’s too individualistic. PSA tends to focus on individual salvation—my sins, my punishment, my forgiveness. Turek’s Trinitarian approach emphasizes that salvation is about being brought into relationship, into the communion of the Trinity.

5. It’s too juridical. By using primarily legal metaphors, PSA can make salvation seem like a courtroom transaction rather than a transformation of relationship. Turek prefers familial metaphors—father and child—over legal ones.

Rutledge’s Critique of PSA

Rutledge’s criticisms overlap with Turek’s but have their own emphasis:

1. It’s too narrow. PSA reduces the rich biblical testimony about the cross to a single theory. Rutledge argues we need all the biblical motifs—not just substitution—to understand Christ’s death.

2. It ignores the cosmic dimension. PSA focuses on individual sin and punishment while ignoring the New Testament’s emphasis on Christ’s victory over cosmic powers—sin, death, and the devil.

3. It can encourage passivity. If Christ has paid our penalty, what’s left for us to do? Rutledge emphasizes that Christians are called to participate actively in Christ’s ongoing work in the world.

4. It misunderstands biblical justice. PSA assumes retributive justice—wrongdoing must be punished. But Rutledge argues that biblical justice (dikaiosyne) is about setting things right, not about punishment.

5. It can minimize the resurrection. In PSA, once the penalty is paid on Good Friday, the work is essentially done. Rutledge insists the resurrection is not an afterthought but essential to Christ’s victory.

Alternative Interpretations of Key Biblical Texts

Both Turek and Rutledge must deal with biblical texts that seem to support PSA. Here’s how they reinterpret some key passages:

Isaiah 53:5 – “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him.”

Turek: This describes the Servant bearing the consequences of sin in love, not receiving punishment from God. The “punishment” is what sin itself inflicts, not what God inflicts.

Rutledge: The Servant enters into the condition of those under judgment to transform it from within. This is substitution but not penal substitution.

Romans 3:25 – “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood.”

Turek: The Greek word hilasterion means “place of atonement,” not propitiation of an angry deity. God provides the means of atonement, not demanding it from someone else.

Rutledge: This shows God taking the initiative in dealing with sin. God doesn’t need to be appeased but provides the solution to humanity’s problem.

2 Corinthians 5:21 – “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.”

Turek: Christ fully entered into the human condition of alienation from God to heal it from within. He became what we are so we could become what he is.

Rutledge: Christ entered the realm of Sin’s power to break that power. This is about victory over Sin, not punishment for sins.

Galatians 3:13 – “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.”

Turek: Christ took on himself the consequences of living under the law’s curse to free us from it. This is liberation, not punishment.

Rutledge: The curse is the condition of humanity under the power of Sin and Death. Christ enters this condition to break its power.

Part V: Biblical Interpretation – A Comparative Table

The following table shows how Turek, Rutledge, and advocates of Penal Substitutionary Atonement interpret key biblical passages differently:

Biblical Passage	Penal Substitution View	Turek’s Interpretation	Rutledge’s Interpretation
Isaiah 53:4-6 “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering… he was pierced for our transgressions”	Christ received the punishment we deserved. God punished him instead of us.	The Servant bears sin through filial love-suffering, sharing in both divine grief over sin and human alienation from God.	The Servant enters into the consequences of sin to transform the situation from within through righteous suffering.
Matthew 27:46 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”	The Father turned away from the Son in anger because the Son bore our sins.	The Son experiences humanity’s sense of abandonment while the Father suffers in allowing this for our salvation.	Christ enters the ultimate human experience of godforsakenness to overcome it.
Romans 3:23-25 “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement”	Christ’s blood satisfies God’s just requirement for punishment of sin.	God provides the means of reconciliation through the Son’s self-offering in love.	God takes the initiative to deal with the problem of sin through Christ’s faithful death.
Romans 5:8-9 “We have now been justified by his blood”	Christ’s blood pays the legal penalty for sin, satisfying divine justice.	Christ’s blood represents his life poured out in love, establishing a new covenant relationship.	Christ’s blood defeats the powers that hold humanity captive and rectifies our relationship with God.
Romans 8:3 “He condemned sin in the flesh”	God punished sin in Christ’s flesh instead of in ours.	God defeated sin’s power by the Son entering our condition and transforming it through love.	God passed judgment on Sin as a power by entering its domain and breaking its hold.
2 Corinthians 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us”	God treated Christ as if he were a sinner, punishing him for our sins.	Christ so identified with humanity that he bore the full weight of our alienation to heal it.	Christ entered the realm of Sin’s power to defeat it from within.
Galatians 3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse”	Christ took the curse (punishment) we deserved under God’s law.	Christ freed us from the law’s condemnation by bearing its consequences in love.	Christ entered the cursed condition to break the power of the curse.
Colossians 2:13-14 “He forgave us all our sins… nailing it to the cross”	Our legal debt of sin was paid when Christ was punished on the cross.	The record of our sins was destroyed through Christ’s victory of love over sin.	The powers that held the record against us were defeated and disarmed at the cross.
Hebrews 2:17 “He had to be made like them… that he might make atonement”	Christ had to become human to receive the punishment humans deserved.	Christ became fully human to heal humanity from within through filial obedience.	Christ shared our condition to free us from bondage to death and the devil.
Hebrews 9:22 “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”	God requires blood/death as punishment for sin; Christ provided that blood.	Blood represents life offered to God; Christ offers his life in perfect filial love.	The old system required blood; Christ’s death ends that system and inaugurates the new.
1 Peter 2:24 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross”	Christ carried the punishment for our sins in his body when crucified.	Christ took the burden of sin upon himself to bear it away in love.	Christ took our sins into death with him to destroy their power.
1 Peter 3:18 “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous”	The innocent was punished instead of the guilty to satisfy justice.	The righteous one entered into solidarity with the unrighteous to restore relationship.	Christ’s righteous suffering defeats the power of sin over the unrighteous.
1 John 2:2 “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins”	Christ’s death propitiates (appeases) God’s wrath against our sins.	Christ’s self-offering in love removes the barrier sin creates between us and God.	Christ’s sacrifice defeats sin’s power and restores cosmic order.
1 John 4:10 “He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice”	God’s love led him to punish his Son instead of us.	The Father’s love is revealed in the Son’s self-giving love that overcomes sin.	God’s love takes the initiative to deal with sin through Christ’s faithful death.
Revelation 5:9 “With your blood you purchased for God”	Christ’s blood paid the price to buy us back from sin’s penalty.	Christ’s life-blood establishes a new covenant people through love.	Christ’s death defeats the powers that held humanity captive and creates a new people.

Part VI: Theological Implications and Practical Applications

Different Views of God

The different atonement theories lead to significantly different understandings of who God is:

In PSA, God appears as primarily a judge who must uphold justice by punishing sin. While advocates of PSA affirm God’s love, the dominant image is legal and judicial. God cannot simply forgive; his justice must be satisfied. This can lead to seeing God as bound by an abstract principle of justice higher than himself.

In Turek’s view, God is primarily a Father whose very nature is self-giving love. The Trinity reveals that God is an eternal communion of love—Father, Son, and Spirit in perfect relationship. God doesn’t need to be changed or satisfied; rather, God acts to heal and restore his beloved children. Justice is not abandoned but is understood as restorative rather than retributive.

In Rutledge’s view, God is primarily a liberator who fights against the powers that oppress humanity. God is not neutral but takes sides—with the oppressed against oppressors, with victims against victimizers, with humanity against the powers that enslave us. God’s justice means setting things right, not getting even.

Different Understandings of Salvation

These different views of God lead to different understandings of what salvation means:

In PSA, salvation is primarily forgiveness—having our sins forgiven and our penalty paid. We are saved from God’s wrath and hell. The emphasis is on our legal standing before God being changed from guilty to innocent.

In Turek’s view, salvation is primarily adoption—being brought into the family of God as beloved children. We are saved from alienation and brought into communion. The emphasis is on relationship and transformation through participation in divine life.

In Rutledge’s view, salvation is primarily liberation—being freed from the powers that enslave us. We are saved from bondage to sin, death, and the devil. The emphasis is on freedom and new creation through Christ’s victory.

Different Approaches to Christian Living

These theological differences have practical implications for how Christians live:

PSA can lead to a focus on personal morality and avoiding sin to maintain our forgiven status. The Christian life becomes primarily about gratitude for forgiveness and trying to live up to God’s standards. There can be a tendency toward individualism—my salvation, my relationship with God.

Turek’s approach leads to a focus on relationships and community. The Christian life is about learning to live as children of God and siblings to one another. Prayer becomes participation in the Son’s relationship with the Father. Service to others flows from sharing in God’s own love for the world. There’s a strong emphasis on the church as the body of Christ continuing his work.

Rutledge’s approach leads to a focus on discipleship and social justice. The Christian life is about joining Christ’s ongoing battle against evil in all its forms. This includes personal sin but also systemic injustice, oppression, and violence. There’s a strong emphasis on taking up one’s cross and following Jesus in costly discipleship.

Different Responses to Suffering

The three approaches also lead to different ways of understanding suffering in Christian life:

PSA can struggle to explain ongoing suffering if the penalty has been fully paid. Why do Christians still suffer if Christ has borne our punishment? This can lead either to seeing suffering as additional punishment for sins or as mysterious testing from God.

Turek sees suffering as potentially redemptive when united with Christ’s suffering. Christians can participate in Christ’s ongoing work of bearing others’ burdens in love. Our sufferings can become part of Christ’s work of reconciling the world to God. This doesn’t glorify suffering but gives it meaning within God’s purposes.

Rutledge sees suffering as part of the ongoing battle between God’s kingdom and the powers of evil. Christians suffer because they stand with Christ against the powers that still rage, though defeated. Suffering is the cost of discipleship in a world that crucified Jesus.

Different Views of the Church’s Mission

Finally, these different theologies lead to different understandings of the church’s mission:

PSA tends toward an evangelistic mission focused on getting people saved—helping them accept Christ’s payment for their sins. The emphasis is on proclamation of the gospel understood as the message of forgiveness through Christ’s substitutionary death.

Turek’s view leads toward a sacramental mission where the church mediates God’s grace through worship, sacraments, and community life. The church is the body of Christ, continuing his work of reconciliation through acts of love and mercy. The emphasis is on the church as a sign and instrument of communion with God and one another.

Rutledge’s view leads toward a prophetic mission where the church stands against the powers of evil in all their forms. This includes evangelism but also social action, justice work, and cultural engagement. The emphasis is on the church as God’s alternative community demonstrating kingdom values in a broken world.

Part VII: Engaging Contemporary Challenges

The Problem of Divine Violence

One of the most pressing contemporary criticisms of traditional atonement theology is that it legitimizes violence. Critics argue that if God uses violence (the cross) to solve problems, this justifies human violence. This criticism has been particularly sharp from feminist theologians who point out how the image of redemptive suffering has been used to keep victims in abusive situations.

Turek addresses this by completely reconceptualizing divine “wrath.” God’s opposition to sin is not violent rage but the necessary opposition of love to all that destroys love. The violence at the cross comes entirely from the human side—from the powers of evil that oppose God. God absorbs this violence without returning it, breaking the cycle of violence through suffering love.

Rutledge addresses this by distinguishing between the violence done to Jesus and God’s use of that violence. The crucifixion is the world’s violence against God, not God’s violence against Jesus or anyone else. God uses this evil for good, but doesn’t cause or require it. Moreover, the cross exposes and defeats violence rather than legitimizing it.

Both authors emphasize that the cross calls Christians to nonviolent love, not to redemptive violence. The way of the cross is the way of suffering love that refuses to retaliate.

The Challenge of Religious Pluralism

In our pluralistic world, many question whether Christ’s death is necessary for salvation. If God is love, why can’t God simply forgive? Why is Jesus the only way?

Turek’s Trinitarian approach offers a unique response. Salvation is not about meeting a requirement but about being brought into relationship with the Trinity. Since the Son is the eternal image of the Father, and humans are created in that image, our fulfillment comes through participation in the Son’s relationship with the Father. This is not arbitrary but flows from the very structure of reality as created through and for Christ.

Rutledge emphasizes the uniqueness of the human predicament that requires a unique solution. Humanity is enslaved to powers we cannot defeat ourselves. Only God incarnate can enter our situation and break these powers from within. The cross is necessary not because God demands it but because our condition requires it.

Both authors maintain the necessity and uniqueness of Christ while avoiding the implication that God is arbitrarily exclusive. The issue is not God’s willingness to save but the reality of what salvation requires.

The Question of Cosmic Evil

Contemporary awareness of massive systemic evils—genocide, slavery, ecological destruction—challenges individualistic understandings of sin and salvation. How does the cross address these cosmic evils?

Turek’s approach extends to cosmic dimensions through her emphasis on participation. When Christians participate in Christ’s work of bearing burdens in love, this includes bearing the weight of systemic and cosmic evils. The church is called to be a reconciling presence in a broken world, working to heal not just individuals but communities and creation itself.

Rutledge’s approach is particularly strong here, with her emphasis on the powers and principalities. The cross defeats not just personal sin but the systemic powers that perpetuate injustice. Christ’s victory is cosmic in scope, promising the ultimate defeat of all forces that oppose God’s good creation.

The Challenge of Suffering

The reality of massive, seemingly meaningless suffering challenges any theology of the cross. How does Christ’s death address the tsunami victim, the child with cancer, the Holocaust?

Turek offers the image of God suffering with us. The cross reveals that God is not distant from our suffering but enters into it. The Father suffers in the Son’s suffering, and through the Spirit, God continues to suffer with all who suffer. This doesn’t explain suffering but transforms it by bringing God’s presence into it.

Rutledge emphasizes that suffering is real evil that God opposes and will ultimately defeat. The cross doesn’t explain or justify suffering but promises its end. The resurrection is the first fruits of new creation where “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore” (Revelation 21:4).

Part VIII: Pastoral and Spiritual Implications

Preaching the Cross

How should pastors and teachers present the meaning of Christ’s death in ways that are both faithful to Scripture and meaningful to contemporary hearers?

Following Turek’s approach, preaching might emphasize:

God as loving Father who grieves over our alienation and acts to bring us home
Christ as the faithful Son who shows us what true humanity looks like
The Spirit as the one who brings us into the Son’s own relationship with the Father
The church as the family of God where we learn to live as brothers and sisters
Christian life as participation in God’s own life of self-giving love

Following Rutledge’s approach, preaching might emphasize:

The seriousness of sin as a power that enslaves humanity
Christ’s victory over all powers that oppose God’s purposes
The call to join Christ’s ongoing work in the world
Hope for ultimate victory despite present struggles
The church as God’s resistance movement against evil

Both approaches offer rich resources for preaching that avoids the problems of PSA while maintaining the centrality and necessity of the cross.

Spiritual Formation

The different atonement theologies lead to different approaches to spiritual formation:

Turek’s approach suggests spiritual practices focused on relationship:

Contemplative prayer as sharing in the Son’s communion with the Father
Lectio divina and meditation on Scripture, especially the Gospels
Eucharistic spirituality centered on communion with Christ and his body
Practices of mercy and compassion as participation in God’s love
Spiritual direction to help discern how God is working in one’s life

Rutledge’s approach suggests spiritual practices focused on discipleship:

Bible study that connects Scripture with contemporary issues
Prayer that includes lament over evil and injustice
Fasting and simplicity as resistance to consumer culture
Community activism and social justice work
Worship that celebrates Christ’s victory and empowers for mission

Pastoral Care

Different understandings of the atonement also affect how we offer pastoral care:

For those struggling with guilt and shame:

Turek’s approach offers the image of God as loving Father who never gives up on his children. Shame is healed not through punishment but through being embraced in love. Guilt is addressed not merely through forgiveness but through restoration to relationship.

Rutledge’s approach emphasizes that Christ has defeated the powers that condemn us. The accuser has been cast down. We are freed not just from guilt but from the power of sin itself.

For those who have been victimized:

Turek’s approach offers the image of God suffering with victims, never minimizing their pain but entering into it with compassion. The cross shows God’s solidarity with all who suffer unjustly.

Rutledge’s approach promises that God is actively fighting against the powers that victimize people. God is not neutral but takes the side of victims against their oppressors. Justice will prevail.

For those facing death:

Turek’s approach offers hope of being drawn into the eternal life of the Trinity. Death is not the end but a transition into fuller participation in God’s life of love.

Rutledge’s approach proclaims Christ’s victory over death itself. Death is a defeated enemy that no longer has the last word. Resurrection life awaits.

Part IX: Ecumenical and Interfaith Considerations

Building Bridges Between Traditions

One of the most promising aspects of both Turek’s and Rutledge’s work is their potential for ecumenical dialogue:

Turek’s work bridges Catholic and Orthodox traditions with her deep grounding in patristic theology and Trinitarian thought. Her emphasis on participation and theosis (deification) resonates with Eastern Christianity while remaining thoroughly Catholic. Her work also offers points of contact with Protestants who are rediscovering the importance of the Trinity and spiritual formation.

Rutledge’s work bridges Protestant traditions by taking seriously both evangelical emphasis on the authority of Scripture and mainline Protestant concerns for social justice. Her recovery of neglected biblical themes offers common ground for diverse Protestant groups. Her engagement with contemporary scholarship makes her work credible in academic settings while remaining accessible to general readers.

Both authors, by rejecting crude forms of PSA while maintaining the necessity of the cross, offer ways forward for Christians who have been divided by atonement theology.

Engaging Other Religions

How do these approaches to the atonement affect interfaith dialogue?

Turek’s Trinitarian approach offers both challenges and opportunities. The emphasis on Trinity is distinctive to Christianity and can be a stumbling block. However, the emphasis on God as relational and loving resonates with many religious traditions. The idea of salvation as healing and restoration rather than legal transaction may be more comprehensible to Eastern religions.

Rutledge’s emphasis on liberation and justice connects with similar themes in Judaism and Islam. The prophetic tradition of standing against oppression is shared across Abrahamic faiths. The cosmic scope of Christ’s victory, while distinctively Christian, addresses universal human concerns about evil and suffering.

Both approaches, by moving away from PSA’s legal framework, may actually make dialogue easier by avoiding the impression that Christianity is primarily about escaping divine punishment.

Part X: Contemporary Scholarship and Future Directions

Engagement with Biblical Scholarship

Both Turek and Rutledge engage seriously with contemporary biblical scholarship, though in different ways:

Turek draws heavily on biblical theology that reads Scripture through a Trinitarian lens. She is influenced by scholars who see the entire biblical narrative as the story of God creating a family and restoring it when it goes astray. Her reading of Old Testament sacrifice emphasizes communion rather than propitiation, following scholars like Margaret Barker who argue for a more relational understanding of ancient Israelite worship.

Rutledge engages extensively with historical-critical scholarship while maintaining a theological reading of Scripture. She draws on apocalyptic interpretations of Paul (following J. Louis Martyn and others) that emphasize cosmic conflict over individual justification. Her treatment of Old Testament sacrifice follows scholars like Jacob Milgrom who emphasize purification over propitiation.

Both authors demonstrate that serious engagement with biblical scholarship can enrich rather than undermine theological reflection on the atonement.

Philosophical and Theological Questions

Several important questions remain for further exploration:

1. The relationship between divine sovereignty and human freedom. If God initiates and empowers the entire process of salvation (as both authors maintain), what role does human freedom play? How do we avoid both Pelagianism (salvation by human effort) and determinism (no real human freedom)?

2. The scope of salvation. Both authors maintain the necessity of Christ for salvation, but what about those who never hear of Christ? Turek’s emphasis on participation in the Trinity and Rutledge’s emphasis on cosmic victory both point toward a more inclusive understanding, but neither fully develops this.

3. The relationship between individual and corporate salvation. Both authors criticize the individualism of PSA, but how exactly do individual and communal salvation relate? Is the church necessary for salvation, or just helpful?

4. The nature of divine suffering. Turek speaks of the Father suffering with the Son, but classical theology maintains divine impassibility (God cannot suffer). How can these be reconciled? Rutledge is less explicit about divine suffering but seems to assume it.

Future Directions

Several areas call for further development:

1. Ecological implications. How does the atonement relate to creation care? Both authors hint at cosmic dimensions but don’t fully develop ecological implications of Christ’s work.

2. Global perspectives. Both authors write from Western contexts. How do Christians in Africa, Asia, and Latin America understand the atonement? What can Western theology learn from global perspectives?

3. Science and theology. How do these understandings of atonement relate to contemporary scientific understandings of the universe, evolution, and human nature?

4. Practical theology. How do these theological insights translate into pastoral practice, liturgy, Christian education, and mission?

5. Spiritual theology. How do different understandings of atonement shape Christian spirituality and practices of prayer?

Conclusion: The Ongoing Significance of the Cross

As we conclude this extensive examination of Turek’s and Rutledge’s approaches to the atonement, several key insights emerge:

First, both authors demonstrate that we can maintain the centrality and necessity of the cross without accepting the problematic aspects of penal substitutionary atonement. The cross remains “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24) without being reduced to divine punishment of an innocent victim.

Second, both approaches show that taking Scripture seriously requires attending to its full witness, not forcing it into a single systematic theory. The Bible’s rich imagery for Christ’s death—sacrifice, victory, ransom, reconciliation, and more—cannot be reduced to a single model. We need what Rutledge calls “prismatic” reading that allows different facets to illuminate each other.

Third, both authors insist that theology matters for Christian life. How we understand the cross shapes how we understand God, ourselves, salvation, and the Christian life. Theology is not abstract speculation but has profound practical implications.

Fourth, both approaches reconnect the cross with the resurrection. Too often, atonement theology has focused exclusively on Good Friday, treating Easter as an afterthought. Both Turek and Rutledge insist that death and resurrection belong together as a single saving event.

Fifth, both authors challenge us to think more deeply about participation. Salvation is not just something done for us but something we’re invited into. Whether understood as participation in the Trinity (Turek) or in Christ’s ongoing mission (Rutledge), we are called to active engagement, not passive reception.

Sixth, both approaches take seriously the cosmic scope of Christ’s work. The cross is not just about individual salvation but about the restoration of all creation. This expanded vision is crucial for engaging contemporary concerns about justice, ecology, and global community.

Finally, both authors demonstrate that the cross remains a mystery that exceeds our full comprehension. While we must use human language and concepts to speak about it, the reality of God’s love revealed in Christ’s death and resurrection surpasses our understanding. As Paul writes, it is “the breadth and length and height and depth” of Christ’s love “that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:18-19).

Personal and Communal Appropriation

How then should we appropriate these insights in our own faith and practice? Several suggestions emerge:

1. Embrace complexity. Rather than seeking a simple formula for the atonement, we should embrace the biblical witness in all its richness. Different images speak to different aspects of our need and God’s provision.

2. Focus on relationship. Whether we follow Turek’s Trinitarian approach or Rutledge’s liberation emphasis, the goal is restored relationship—with God, one another, and creation.

3. Participate actively. Salvation is not a transaction completed in the past but an ongoing reality we’re invited to share. We are called to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

4. Practice hope. Both approaches ground Christian hope not in our efforts but in what God has done and is doing in Christ. Despite present struggles, victory is assured.

5. Pursue justice and mercy. The cross reveals God’s justice and mercy perfectly united. We are called to embody both in our lives and communities.

6. Celebrate the mystery. While seeking understanding, we should also celebrate the mystery of the cross with worship, wonder, and gratitude.

Final Reflections

The debate about the atonement is not merely academic but touches the heart of Christian faith and life. How we understand Christ’s death shapes everything else—our view of God, humanity, sin, salvation, church, and mission. The work of Margaret Turek and Fleming Rutledge offers valuable resources for moving beyond the impasse created by debates over penal substitution.

Turek’s Trinitarian approach grounds the atonement in the eternal relations of love within God. The cross becomes the historical expression of God’s eternal self-giving love, inviting us into the divine life of communion. This approach maintains the necessity of the cross while avoiding any suggestion of divine violence or division within the Trinity.

Rutledge’s biblical-theological approach maintains the full range of scriptural testimony about the cross. By holding together multiple biblical motifs, she presents a comprehensive vision of Christ’s victory over all powers that oppose God’s good purposes for creation. This approach takes seriously both the gravity of sin and the triumph of grace.

Both authors, while taking different paths, arrive at remarkably similar conclusions: The cross is the supreme revelation of God’s love, not his wrath. Christ suffers not as our penal substitute but as our representative and liberator. The Father and Son act together in perfect unity of love. The resurrection is essential to the atonement, not an addition to it. Christians are called to participate in Christ’s ongoing work in the world.

These insights offer hope for renewed understanding and proclamation of the gospel. They provide resources for addressing contemporary challenges while remaining faithful to Scripture and tradition. They offer bridges for ecumenical dialogue and points of contact for engaging our pluralistic world.

Most importantly, both approaches direct our attention to the love of God revealed in Christ. As John’s Gospel proclaims, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). This love—not wrath, not punishment, not transaction—stands at the center of the Christian message.

The cross reveals the depth of human sin and the power of evil, but even more, it reveals the greater power of divine love. In Christ’s death and resurrection, we see God’s determination to rescue and restore his beloved creation. We see love that will stop at nothing, not even death, to bring us home.

This is good news worth proclaiming. This is a mystery worth contemplating. This is a love worth sharing. Whether we follow Turek’s Trinitarian path or Rutledge’s biblical-theological way, we are invited into the same reality: God’s reconciling love revealed in Christ and extended to all creation through the Spirit.

May our theological reflection lead not to division but to deeper unity in Christ. May our understanding of the atonement inspire not debate but devotion. And may the cross of Christ continue to be for us and for all people the tree of life, the throne of glory, and the sign of God’s unending love.

In closing, we return to where we began: the question of how Christ’s death saves us. We have seen that there is no single, simple answer. The mystery is too deep, the reality too rich, the love too vast. But in the work of theologians like Margaret Turek and Fleming Rutledge, we find faithful guides who help us explore this mystery with reverence, rigor, and hope. Their insights do not exhaust the meaning of the cross but invite us deeper into its transforming power. For in the end, the atonement is not a problem to be solved but a gift to be received, a mystery to be entered, and a love to be shared with the world God so loves.