Jinskins Atonement Analysis
As Jinkins illustrates, there is no greater cause for the believer than to “discover the character of God through the sufferings of Jesus Christ.” (Jinkins, 129) It is through finding the hidden treasure, that we might begin to understand the love of the Creator God. (Mt 13:44-45) The most convincing theory of the revelation of Christ, from Jinkins list, is “what John McLeod Campbell calls the ‘prospective aspect’ of the atonement.” (Jinkins, 150 italics original) The matter that most compels me with this view Campbell’s inclusion of the “depths of the Trinity, in the very inner life of God.” (Jinkins, 150) My spirit is stirred with awe for Christ, by a view which defines the atonement using language of relationship, love and self-sacrifice.
Standing in opposition to this view is the penal substitution theory that only goes so far as to explain the sacrifice and suffering of Christ as a legal transaction. (Jinkins, 142) Perhaps the ideas of Anslem (c. 1033-1109) aid in right understanding God as a holy being, but to expand beyond that, some models, as Jinkins argues, seem to stress the “payment of penalty” which loses the value of depth in relationship and reflection of the Holy Trinity.
Standing in opposition to this view is the penal substitution theory that only goes so far as to explain the sacrifice and suffering of Christ as a legal transaction. (Jinkins, 142) Perhaps the ideas of Anslem (c. 1033-1109) aid in right understanding God as a holy being, but to expand beyond that, some models, as Jinkins argues, seem to stress the “payment of penalty” which loses the value of depth in relationship and reflection of the Holy Trinity.