It’s performed by Andrei Krylov. I know this because one evening I was listening to a playlist of Medieval and Renaissance lute music, and all of the sudden the intro to Just and Sinner started playing after the previous track ended. I figured Spotify had glitched, but I like Just and Sinner so wanted to hear what the episode would be about (I hadn’t looked at my phone yet). Then the track kept playing beyond what we hear at the beginning of Just and Sinner. I was in uncharted waters, adrift, lost, and confused. I checked my phone, and lo, it had not glitched; I had discovered the source of Dr. Cooper’s intro. (I’m aware I’m a strange person, as is evident from my response.)
Oh, I always thought it was "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her", hadn't heard "A Mighty Fortress" before, they have almost exactly the same instrumental. Edit, melody*
That bit about Grudem et al inadvertently contributing to the divine child abuse narrative made me literally pause the video and take a walk. So good. Thanks for doing these!
The distinction that you made of traditional language such as "propitiation", in terms of its use by unorthodox trinitarian proponents versus orthodox ones has been greatly helpful! Thank you!
Geerhardus Vos gave a pretty solid treatment of that concept of covenant as being something like a last will and testimony. Although he rejects it as the normative understanding of the greek word for testament/covenant in scripture
In regards to Ransom Theology and the Devil having a "right over us", what do you make of Biblical language that calls Satan the "god of this world", or the "prince of this world", or where it says that the "whole world lies in the power of the wicked one", and that he is "the one who has the power of death"? Or where Satan says to Jesus, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will..."? Doesn't this kind of language imply that Satan does, somehow, to some degree, possess some kind of "right" or "control" or "power" over the godless?
It's important to distinguish here between rightful authority, which belongs totally and only to God, delegated authority, as when God sets up righteous rulers, and usurped authority, as the Devil exercises. The Devil does have power in the world, but it does not belong to him, and he uses it to wrongful ends (he is a liar from the beginning). Nevertheless, by God's supreme providence, everything comes to pass as He sees fit, and the Devil has as much power as he is suffered. The idea of God appeasing the Devil one whit is absurd at best. Whatever power we do grant to Satan, he has no say whatsoever in the final state of our souls and the judgement God will pronounce on them. Every soul belong to God, and all will stand before Him to be judged. We all stand condemned because our iniquities deserve the wrath of God, yet His sheep are pardoned because His Son has laid down His life for them out of his ever abounding love. Indeed, the Devil and his demons will be tried as everyone else and thrown into hellfire to suffer with the rest of the wicked (not rule as a king per Dante).
Something to get into sometime is a more detailed differentiation between Anselmian Vicarious Satisfaction and Reformed Penal Substitution. The question is how the cross is understood (pointing up or down). Is it Christ receiving our punishment (wrath coming down; as in the "scapegoat")... or is it Him giving himself and his perfect life, (upward and entirely) as an "unblemished lamb" for the Father to lay claim upon as the only perfect thing humanity could ever offer, so as to pay our debt of death and satisfy His honor. To use a metaphor. If you incur legal justice, you can either pay the fine or do the time. If someone pays your fine for you (as it is too expensive for you) they are paying your debt in your place -- so that you don't have to go to jail... but they aren't going to jail in your place. The same with Jesus in the Anselmian view. Rev. Matthew Fenn has some interesting thoughts on this topic.
@@chrisj123165 You'd have to reach out to him directly (he's currently writing his PhD but it isn't finished yet -- hence there being nothing to google). I connect with him on FB
”whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be JUST and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.“ Romans 3:25-26 ESV ”For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.“ Romans 8:3-4 ESV How is God just? He punished sin in the flesh through His Son who was in the likeness of sinful flesh and who died for our sins. How is God the justifier? He counted us righteous who believe in the sacrifice that His Son became on the cross. ”Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.“ Isaiah 53:10-11 ESV ”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.“ Colossians 2:13-14 ESV Penal substitutionary atonement is at least one aspect of the atonement. The various explanations of the atonement are not all mutually exclusive.
Doesn't it make sense that God chose to change or evolve the covenant with the Jews? And, because the covenant was permanent -- it was symbolized by circumcision -- then God had to pay a price to change His covenant. As a God of justice, He paid that price through the incarnation and crucifixion, and opened up the gates of Hell for all of us who accept his new covenant. He loves us. It seems that this makes a lot more sense than saying that We have to pay a price, but the incarnation pays it for us.
Thank you for the video. Just one question. I understand and appreciate your critique of the child abuse theory, but i find it difficult to understand your critique against Jesus' subordinaton in light of 1. Cor 11,3. Does that verse not imply that Jesus is subordinated God just like the woman is subordinated man?
I've been watching some Eastern Orthodox and they reject the idea of the Father damning the Son because that is anti-trinitarian and causes a faulty christology. It also contradicts perichoresis. What do you think about that?
After a quick search, John of Damascus, Chrysostom, and Augustine all taught, in agreement with the Athanasian Creed, that the Son of God was not forsaken in the sense that God the Son was no longer Son of God the Father. Rather, God the Son made man, took sinful man unto himself to bear it. In the same way, when we pray, "Do not forsake me" with the Psalmist, it is not that God is ceasing to be our Heavenly Father, Savior, Counselor, but that we are experiencing the agony of sin which turns us away from God.
@@Mygoalwogel dude that just sounds Nestorianism you realize there one divine person who is god and man. You literary distinct man and son that Christ isn’t that man
@@romeostojka7232 Athanasian Creed 33. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood. 34. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ. 35. One, *not by conversion* of the Godhead into flesh, *but by taking* of that manhood into God. Catholic Answers God the Father did not abandon his Son in his Son’s suffering but allowed him in his humanity to experience the sense of divine abandonment that humans often feel during times of need, and especially when in sin. The Oriental Orthodox Church hates Nestorianism more than anyone, and has even been wrongly accused of Monophysitism: Coptic Orthodox Answers Since the natural consequence and penalty is death, which is separation from God. Christ being unlimited, on behalf of all of us, suffers the abandonment on the cross but without being abandoned. What does that mean? Christ, who is the Source of Life, takes the death upon Him and swallows it without being abandoned. In other words, the abandonment is applied to Him but in vain since He is the Source of Life itself. Billy Graham Ministries Since Jesus was dying for our sin as our substitute, He was experiencing the agony of separation from His Father. It was the agony of hell. There is an unfathomable mystery here. Jesus was both God and man united in one divine Person. He could not suffer and die with respect to His deity, but He could suffer the agony of separation from the Father and actually die physically with respect to His humanity.
23:46 why is it a mistaken notion? Is Devil not an Angel of God? Why can't devil be the left hand of God, acting as a balancing force to life, as death.
EVALUATION OF ATONEMENT THEORIES Every view about the atonement stresses something true about the cross. Of all the atonement views, only penal substitution best captures the God-centered nature of the cross, including all of the multi-faceted aspects, without subtracting parts or minimizing. Firstly, atonement views - the Recapitulation, Ransom, Moral influence, and Governmental theories - will be evaluated, and it will be shown how the named alternative views either minimize or deny that God’s holy justice is essential to him, and how these views also deny why our sin is first against God (Psalm 51: 4), and why Christ as our penal substitute is central to the cross. Lastly, the Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory will be explained to show how all of the atonement aspects must be equally and fully present within the Biblical context of Christ's atonement, but without subtraction or minimization.
The Recapitulation view, of the atonement, is often associated with Irenaeus and Athanasius. This view interprets Christ’s work primarily in terms of his identification with us, when Christ became human through the incarnation. The Divine Son, who reversed what Adam did, lived our life and died our death. Stephen Wellum, a professor of Christian theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville Kentucky, in his article entitled "Atonement Views In Historical Theology," helps to articulate the recapitulation view, that Adam's disobedience to Godlikeness resulted in the corruption of our nature and our spiritual separation from God. The recapitulation view conveys that because of Christ's incarnation, His entire work on the cross, and especially His resurrection, He restored to us immortality and reconciliation with God. The recapitulation view covers Biblical truth, in part, but it's central focus is not on our sin before God (God-centered), and the need for God's wrath to be taken away from us so we can obtain grace, but the said view, instead, captures how sin affects us (Man-centered), which only includes Christ's representation of us, and His substitutionary restorative work for us. The Ransom theory (Christus Victor), of the atonement, views that the powers of sin, death, and Satan, which Christ liberates us (Man-centered) from, is the primary focus, at His death. The ransom view does not include that God is the primary object of the cross. Likewise, the Moral Influence view, of the atonement, which had it's roots in the theology of Peter Abelard (1079-1142), also teaches that God is not the primary object of the cross, but that Christ's death only reveals God's love and sets an example for us. There is also the Governmental view, of the atonement, which arose in the post-reformation period, and associated with the Arminian tradition of Hugo Grotius and John Miley. This theology views God as the moral Governor, meaning Christ's cross upholds the moral governance of the world allowing God to forgive us (Man-centered) without a full payment for our sin. The Penal Substitutionary Atonement captures fully what the Bible teaches about the atonement of Christ. The doctrine of union with Christ affirms that by taking the punishment upon himself Jesus fulfils the demands of justice not for an unrelated third party but for those identified with him. Martin Luther explained the full context of the atonement clearly (Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 2, p. 344). In Luther's Second Sermon on Luke 24:36-47, he wrote: But now, if God’s wrath is to be taken away from me and I am to obtain grace and forgiveness, some one must merit this; for God cannot be a friend of sin nor gracious to it, nor can he remit the punishment and wrath, unless payment and satisfaction be made. Now, no one, not even an angel of heaven, could make restitution for the infinite and irreparable injury and appease the eternal wrath of God which we had merited by our sins; except that eternal person, the Son of God himself, and he could do it only by taking our place, assuming our sins, and answering for them as though he himself were guilty of them. This our dear Lord and only Saviour and Mediator before God, Jesus Christ, did for us by his blood and death, in which he became a sacrifice for us; and with his purity, innocence, and righteousness, which was divine and eternal, he outweighed all sin and wrath he was compelled to bear on our account; yea, he entirely engulfed and swallowed it up, and his merit is so great that God is now satisfied and says, "If he wills thereby to save, then there will be a salvation." Even though the penal satisfaction of Jesus’ atonement is the beginning (and foundation) of Christ’s salvation, it isn’t the only thing Christ accomplished. Luther goes on to say, in his sermon, that the term "Satisfaction" is nevertheless too weak and says too little concerning the grace of Christ and does not do honor enough to his sufferings, to which one should give higher honor, confessing that he not only has made satisfaction for sin but has also redeemed us from the power of death, the devil, and hell, and established an everlasting kingdom of grace and of daily forgiveness of the sin that remains in us. Thus Christ is become for us, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1: 30, an eternal redemption and sanctification (Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 2, p. 351). In a sermon on Easter Sunday, Luther pointed to Christ’s sacrifice in terms of ransom, satisfaction, propitiation, and implied substitution (Martin Luther, Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, 4.1: 190, 191). Luther's hearers needed to consider the greatness and terror of the wrath of God against sin in that it could be appeased and a ransom effected in no other way than through the one sacrifice of the Son of God. Only his death and the shedding of his blood could make satisfaction. And we must consider also that we by our sinfulness had incurred that wrath of God and therefore were responsible for the offering of the Son of God upon the cross and the shedding of his blood. He emphasized its substitutionary aspect when he reminded the congregation to be aware why God spared not his own Son but offered him a sacrifice upon the cross, delivered him to death; namely, that his wrath might be lifted from us once more. All men are naturally under the law as in the prescribing of the terms of their acceptance with God; and further, no obedience which sinners can render is sufficient to satisfy the demands of that law. Therefore, it follows, then, that unless we are freed from the law, not as a rule of duty, but as prescribing the conditions of acceptance with God, justification is for us impossible. So we are delivered from the law as a rule of justification and are at liberty to embrace a different method of obtaining acceptance with God (Romans 7: 1-6). Paul says of himself, that he had died to the law; that is, become free from it (Galatians 2: 19). And the same is said of all believers (Romans 7: 6). He insists upon this freedom as essential not only to justification, but to sanctification. For while under the law, the motions of sins, which were by the law, brought forth fruit unto death; but now we are delivered from the law, that we may serve God in newness of spirit (Romans 7: 5-6). Before faith came we were kept under the law, which he compares to a schoolmaster, but now we are no longer under a schoolmaster (Galatians 3: 24, 25). The Scriptures teach us that the Son of God, the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of his person, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, became flesh, and subjected himself to the very law to which we were bound; that he perfectly obeyed that law, and suffered its penalty, and thus, by satisfying its demands, delivered us from its bondage, and introduced us into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
In regards to Ransom theory. Any one who sins is a slave to sin. You appeal to mystery because you have not heard a coherent soteriology however I can articulate the mechanism that Randsom theory uses and back up every concept with chapter and verse.
I love the "A Mighty Fortress" guitar intro.
It’s performed by Andrei Krylov. I know this because one evening I was listening to a playlist of Medieval and Renaissance lute music, and all of the sudden the intro to Just and Sinner started playing after the previous track ended. I figured Spotify had glitched, but I like Just and Sinner so wanted to hear what the episode would be about (I hadn’t looked at my phone yet). Then the track kept playing beyond what we hear at the beginning of Just and Sinner. I was in uncharted waters, adrift, lost, and confused. I checked my phone, and lo, it had not glitched; I had discovered the source of Dr. Cooper’s intro.
(I’m aware I’m a strange person, as is evident from my response.)
@@augustinian2018 , thank you very much!
Oh, I always thought it was "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her", hadn't heard "A Mighty Fortress" before, they have almost exactly the same instrumental.
Edit, melody*
That bit about Grudem et al inadvertently contributing to the divine child abuse narrative made me literally pause the video and take a walk. So good. Thanks for doing these!
Thank you for this! Would love another video on this.
The distinction that you made of traditional language such as "propitiation", in terms of its use by unorthodox trinitarian proponents versus orthodox ones has been greatly helpful! Thank you!
Geerhardus Vos gave a pretty solid treatment of that concept of covenant as being something like a last will and testimony. Although he rejects it as the normative understanding of the greek word for testament/covenant in scripture
Have you considered Rene Girard on the atonement?
I'm not sure if you have, but can you address Roman Catholicism & Trent Horn's apologetics?
In regards to Ransom Theology and the Devil having a "right over us", what do you make of Biblical language that calls Satan the "god of this world", or the "prince of this world", or where it says that the "whole world lies in the power of the wicked one", and that he is "the one who has the power of death"? Or where Satan says to Jesus, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will..."?
Doesn't this kind of language imply that Satan does, somehow, to some degree, possess some kind of "right" or "control" or "power" over the godless?
Good point!
It's important to distinguish here between rightful authority, which belongs totally and only to God, delegated authority, as when God sets up righteous rulers, and usurped authority, as the Devil exercises. The Devil does have power in the world, but it does not belong to him, and he uses it to wrongful ends (he is a liar from the beginning). Nevertheless, by God's supreme providence, everything comes to pass as He sees fit, and the Devil has as much power as he is suffered. The idea of God appeasing the Devil one whit is absurd at best.
Whatever power we do grant to Satan, he has no say whatsoever in the final state of our souls and the judgement God will pronounce on them. Every soul belong to God, and all will stand before Him to be judged. We all stand condemned because our iniquities deserve the wrath of God, yet His sheep are pardoned because His Son has laid down His life for them out of his ever abounding love. Indeed, the Devil and his demons will be tried as everyone else and thrown into hellfire to suffer with the rest of the wicked (not rule as a king per Dante).
Something to get into sometime is a more detailed differentiation between Anselmian Vicarious Satisfaction and Reformed Penal Substitution.
The question is how the cross is understood (pointing up or down). Is it Christ receiving our punishment (wrath coming down; as in the "scapegoat")... or is it Him giving himself and his perfect life, (upward and entirely) as an "unblemished lamb" for the Father to lay claim upon as the only perfect thing humanity could ever offer, so as to pay our debt of death and satisfy His honor.
To use a metaphor. If you incur legal justice, you can either pay the fine or do the time. If someone pays your fine for you (as it is too expensive for you) they are paying your debt in your place -- so that you don't have to go to jail... but they aren't going to jail in your place. The same with Jesus in the Anselmian view.
Rev. Matthew Fenn has some interesting thoughts on this topic.
Could you link what Rev Matthew Fenn has to say on the subject? I googled it but couldn't seem to find anything. Thank you!
@@chrisj123165 You'd have to reach out to him directly (he's currently writing his PhD but it isn't finished yet -- hence there being nothing to google). I connect with him on FB
”whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be JUST and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.“
Romans 3:25-26 ESV
”For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.“
Romans 8:3-4 ESV
How is God just? He punished sin in the flesh through His Son who was in the likeness of sinful flesh and who died for our sins. How is God the justifier? He counted us righteous who believe in the sacrifice that His Son became on the cross.
”Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.“
Isaiah 53:10-11 ESV
”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.“
Colossians 2:13-14 ESV
Penal substitutionary atonement is at least one aspect of the atonement. The various explanations of the atonement are not all mutually exclusive.
Which aspects of Substitutionary Atonement are considered dogmatic in the Lutheran confession, and which are considered metaphorical?
I think you have my recent searches bugged since you always post videos I'm currently interested in...
Who was the orthodox theologian you were referring to?
Can you post a link to purchase the atonement book spoken about at the start of the video.
www.amazon.com/dp/1952295211/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_J8Z918Q6GP2D8HXFCZ3K
Did not see the video yet, but what do you think about the ransom theory of the atonement and the satisfaction theory? Why not them?
Watch the video
Doesn't it make sense that God chose to change or evolve the covenant with the Jews? And, because the covenant was permanent -- it was symbolized by circumcision -- then God had to pay a price to change His covenant. As a God of justice, He paid that price through the incarnation and crucifixion, and opened up the gates of Hell for all of us who accept his new covenant. He loves us.
It seems that this makes a lot more sense than saying that We have to pay a price, but the incarnation pays it for us.
Thank you for the video. Just one question. I understand and appreciate your critique of the child abuse theory, but i find it difficult to understand your critique against Jesus' subordinaton in light of 1. Cor 11,3. Does that verse not imply that Jesus is subordinated God just like the woman is subordinated man?
That's the key text for that view. Perhaps I'll delve into that text in a podcast.
I've been watching some Eastern Orthodox and they reject the idea of the Father damning the Son because that is anti-trinitarian and causes a faulty christology. It also contradicts perichoresis. What do you think about that?
After a quick search, John of Damascus, Chrysostom, and Augustine all taught, in agreement with the Athanasian Creed, that the Son of God was not forsaken in the sense that God the Son was no longer Son of God the Father. Rather, God the Son made man, took sinful man unto himself to bear it. In the same way, when we pray, "Do not forsake me" with the Psalmist, it is not that God is ceasing to be our Heavenly Father, Savior, Counselor, but that we are experiencing the agony of sin which turns us away from God.
@@Mygoalwogel dude that just sounds
Nestorianism you realize there one divine person who is god and man.
You literary distinct man and son that Christ isn’t that man
@@romeostojka7232
Athanasian Creed
33. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.
34. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.
35. One, *not by conversion* of the Godhead into flesh, *but by taking* of that manhood into God.
Catholic Answers
God the Father did not abandon his Son in his Son’s suffering but allowed him in his humanity to experience the sense of divine abandonment that humans often feel during times of need, and especially when in sin.
The Oriental Orthodox Church hates Nestorianism more than anyone, and has even been wrongly accused of Monophysitism:
Coptic Orthodox Answers
Since the natural consequence and penalty is death, which is separation from God. Christ being unlimited, on behalf of all of us, suffers the abandonment on the cross but without being abandoned. What does that mean? Christ, who is the Source of Life, takes the death upon Him and swallows it without being abandoned. In other words, the abandonment is applied to Him but in vain since He is the Source of Life itself.
Billy Graham Ministries
Since Jesus was dying for our sin as our substitute, He was experiencing the agony of separation from His Father. It was the agony of hell.
There is an unfathomable mystery here. Jesus was both God and man united in one divine Person. He could not suffer and die with respect to His deity, but He could suffer the agony of separation from the Father and actually die physically with respect to His humanity.
what was the name of the book written by the eastern theologian
Deification Through the Cross by Khaled Anatolios.
@@DrJordanBCooper thanks brother
23:46 why is it a mistaken notion? Is Devil not an Angel of God? Why can't devil be the left hand of God, acting as a balancing force to life, as death.
EVALUATION OF ATONEMENT THEORIES
Every view about the atonement stresses something true about the cross. Of all the atonement views, only penal substitution best captures the God-centered nature of the cross, including all of the multi-faceted aspects, without subtracting parts or minimizing. Firstly, atonement views - the Recapitulation, Ransom, Moral influence, and Governmental theories - will be evaluated, and it will be shown how the named alternative views either minimize or deny that God’s holy justice is essential to him, and how these views also deny why our sin is first against God (Psalm 51: 4), and why Christ as our penal substitute is central to the cross. Lastly, the Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory will be explained to show how all of the atonement aspects must be equally and fully present within the Biblical context of Christ's atonement, but without subtraction or minimization.
The Recapitulation view, of the atonement, is often associated with Irenaeus and Athanasius. This view interprets Christ’s work primarily in terms of his identification with us, when Christ became human through the incarnation. The Divine Son, who reversed what Adam did, lived our life and died our death. Stephen Wellum, a professor of Christian theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville Kentucky, in his article entitled "Atonement Views In Historical Theology," helps to articulate the recapitulation view, that Adam's disobedience to Godlikeness resulted in the corruption of our nature and our spiritual separation from God. The recapitulation view conveys that because of Christ's incarnation, His entire work on the cross, and especially His resurrection, He restored to us immortality and reconciliation with God. The recapitulation view covers Biblical truth, in part, but it's central focus is not on our sin before God (God-centered), and the need for God's wrath to be taken away from us so we can obtain grace, but the said view, instead, captures how sin affects us (Man-centered), which only includes Christ's representation of us, and His substitutionary restorative work for us.
The Ransom theory (Christus Victor), of the atonement, views that the powers of sin, death, and Satan, which Christ liberates us
(Man-centered) from, is the primary focus, at His death. The ransom view does not include that God is the primary object of the cross. Likewise, the Moral Influence view, of the atonement, which had it's roots in the theology of Peter Abelard (1079-1142), also teaches that God is not the primary object of the cross, but that Christ's death only reveals God's love and sets an example for us. There is also the Governmental view, of the atonement, which arose in the post-reformation period, and associated with the Arminian tradition of Hugo Grotius and John Miley. This theology views God as the moral Governor, meaning Christ's cross upholds the moral governance of the world allowing God to forgive us (Man-centered) without a full payment for our sin.
The Penal Substitutionary Atonement captures fully what the Bible teaches about the atonement of Christ. The doctrine of union with Christ affirms that by taking the punishment upon himself Jesus fulfils the demands of justice not for an unrelated third party but for those identified with him. Martin Luther explained the full context of the atonement clearly (Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 2, p. 344). In Luther's Second Sermon on Luke 24:36-47, he wrote: But now, if God’s wrath is to be taken away from me and I am to obtain grace and forgiveness, some one must merit this; for God cannot be a friend of sin nor gracious to it, nor can he remit the punishment and wrath, unless payment and satisfaction be made. Now, no one, not even an angel of heaven, could make restitution for the infinite and irreparable injury and appease the eternal wrath of God which we had merited by our sins; except that eternal person, the Son of God himself, and he could do it only by taking our place, assuming our sins, and answering for them as though he himself were guilty of them. This our dear Lord and only Saviour and Mediator before God, Jesus Christ, did for us by his blood and death, in which he became a sacrifice for us; and with his purity, innocence, and righteousness, which was divine and eternal, he outweighed all sin and wrath he was compelled to bear on our account; yea, he entirely engulfed and swallowed it up, and his merit is so great that God is now satisfied and says, "If he wills thereby to save, then there will be a salvation." Even though the penal satisfaction of Jesus’ atonement is the beginning (and foundation) of Christ’s salvation, it isn’t the only thing Christ accomplished. Luther goes on to say, in his sermon, that the term "Satisfaction" is nevertheless too weak and says too little concerning the grace of Christ and does not do honor enough to his sufferings, to which one should give higher honor, confessing that he not only has made satisfaction for sin but has also redeemed us from the power of death, the devil, and hell, and established an everlasting kingdom of grace and of daily forgiveness of the sin that remains in us. Thus Christ is become for us, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1: 30, an eternal redemption and sanctification
(Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 2, p. 351).
In a sermon on Easter Sunday, Luther pointed to Christ’s sacrifice in terms of ransom, satisfaction, propitiation, and implied substitution
(Martin Luther, Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, 4.1: 190, 191). Luther's hearers needed to consider the greatness and terror of the wrath of God against sin in that it could be appeased and a ransom effected in no other way than through the one sacrifice of the Son of God. Only his death and the shedding of his blood could make satisfaction. And we must consider also that we by our sinfulness had incurred that wrath of God and therefore were responsible for the offering of the Son of God upon the cross and the shedding of his blood. He emphasized its substitutionary aspect when he reminded the congregation to be aware why God spared not his own Son but offered him a sacrifice upon the cross, delivered him to death; namely, that his wrath might be lifted from us once more.
All men are naturally under the law as in the prescribing of the terms of their acceptance with God; and further, no obedience which sinners can render is sufficient to satisfy the demands of that law. Therefore, it follows, then, that unless we are freed from the law, not as a rule of duty, but as prescribing the conditions of acceptance with God, justification is for us impossible. So we are delivered from the law as a rule of justification and are at liberty to embrace a different method of obtaining acceptance with God (Romans 7: 1-6). Paul says of himself, that he had died to the law; that is, become free from it (Galatians 2: 19). And the same is said of all believers (Romans 7: 6). He insists upon this freedom as essential not only to justification, but to sanctification. For while under the law, the motions of sins, which were by the law, brought forth fruit unto death; but now we are delivered from the law, that we may serve God in newness of spirit (Romans 7: 5-6). Before faith came we were kept under the law, which he compares to a schoolmaster, but now we are no longer under a schoolmaster (Galatians 3: 24, 25). The Scriptures teach us that the Son of God, the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of his person, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, became flesh, and subjected himself to the very law to which we were bound; that he perfectly obeyed that law, and suffered its penalty, and thus, by satisfying its demands, delivered us from its bondage, and introduced us into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
In regards to Ransom theory. Any one who sins is a slave to sin. You appeal to mystery because you have not heard a coherent soteriology however I can articulate the mechanism that Randsom theory uses and back up every concept with chapter and verse.
Then do it. Don’t tease us!