Lifting of the Curse

The purpose of this article is to identify how Athanasius in On the Incarnation (c. 337) understands the relationship of God to the elements of judgment and redemption often indicated in the biblical story by the terms “wrath” and “propitiation”. Five other treatments are referred to by way of comparison and extension of Athanasius' approach: Anselm, Why God Became Man (c. 1090); John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.12-17 (1559); John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (1647); John McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement (1856); and T. F. Torrance, Atonement: the person and work of Christ (2009). James Torrance’s ministry of reconciliation, and scholarly comment on Athanasius, Calvin, and Campbell also elucidates Athanasius. In that way, we may identify biblically and conceptually robust resolutions of some, if not all, of the problems that continue to trouble Christian doctrinal construction and proclamation of the atonement.