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The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views is unavailable, but you can change that!

A long history of biblical exegesis and theological reflection has shaped our understanding of the atonement today. The more prominent highlights of this history have acquired familiar names for the household of faith: Christus Victor, penal substitutionary, subjective, and governmental. Recently the penal substitutionary view, and particularly its misappropriations, has been critiqued, and a...

2:10, 15), along with “dominions” (Eph 1:21; Col 1:16), “cosmic powers” (Eph 6:12), “thrones” (Col 1:16), “spiritual forces” (Eph 6:12), “elemental spirits” (Col 2:8, 20; Gal 4:3, 8–9) and other spiritual entities.13 For the sake of brevity I will follow the precedent set by Walter Wink and simply refer to this vast array of cosmic powers as “the powers.” There has been a good deal of discussion surrounding what precisely Paul and others were referring to with these various titles, and while certain
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