NEW RELEASE · 400-PAGE ATONEMENT STUDY

Christus Victor: Revisited

Reclaiming the Forgotten Story of Victory

By Glenn L. Earls

What changes when we read the story of redemption through Christ’s victory rather than humanity’s defeat?

This comprehensive, biblically grounded study makes the case that Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the powers is the frame Scripture gives the whole story of redemption.

Across 400 pages, Glenn L. Earls follows that story from creation and humanity’s captivity to the cross, resurrection, ascension, and life of the Spirit. The Bible’s many images of salvation—sacrifice, ransom, Passover, priesthood, reconciliation, justification, adoption, and new creation—come together in one unfolding account of God’s action in Christ.

Explore the atonement views this book examines

Christus Victor: Revisited — The Victory Established by Glenn L. Earls

THE ATONEMENT VIEWS IN CONVERSATION

Three historic ways of explaining the cross

Gustaf Aulén described three broad families of atonement thought. Christus Victor: Revisited introduces them fairly, then asks which account best explains the whole biblical story—not only the cross, but creation, Israel, Jesus’ ministry, the resurrection, and the renewal of all things.

The Latin or satisfaction view

Associated with Anselm, this account understands sin as an offense against God that requires satisfaction. The book examines satisfaction and later penal forms of the judicial account, asking whether they can hold together God’s action in Christ and the full scope of the human condition.

The subjective or moral-influence view

Associated with Abelard, this view emphasizes how the cross reveals divine love and moves the human heart toward repentance and love. The book recognizes that the cross changes us, while asking whether a change in human perception alone can explain Scripture’s language of captivity, death, ransom, and the defeat of hostile powers.

The classic or dramatic view: Christus Victor

Here God acts in Christ to enter the human condition, confront sin, death, and the devil, and break their dominion. This is the book’s central claim: victory is not one image beside several competing explanations. It is the biblical story that gives the images their place.

Sacrifice, ransom, Passover, priesthood, kingship, justification, adoption, reconciliation, resurrection, and new creation are not discarded. They are brought together as episodes in God’s continuous work of reclaiming and restoring creation in Christ.

What you will discover

Why the human problem is larger than guilt alone: Scripture also speaks of bondage, death’s dominion, a defaced image, a forfeited vocation, hostile powers, and a creation subjected to futility.
How Jesus reveals the Father, and why the risen Christ teaches us to read the earlier Scriptures in the light of their fulfillment.
How the cross, resurrection, ascension, and gift of the Spirit belong to one saving movement.
Why the book concludes that humanity has been reconciled to God in Christ, while faith is the way a person enters conscious, living relationship with Him.

The argument is built primarily from Scripture and the earliest Christian writers. No knowledge of Greek or Hebrew is assumed. Contested readings are identified, and the case unfolds cumulatively, so the book is best read slowly and in order.

Christus Victor: Revisited is the theological foundation for the Christ the Victor Trilogy. The trilogy tells the story through descent, ascension, and indwelling; this book develops the biblical argument beneath it.

Inside the book

Three convictions that shape the journey

Jesus reveals the Father

Begin with the character of God made known in Christ, and consider how that revelation shapes our reading of Scripture and redemption.

The victory is accomplished

Explore the defeat of sin, death, and hostile powers as the foundation of freedom—not a victory we must earn or complete.

Redemption leads to restoration

Consider a salvation whose horizon includes the healing of creation and whose life is expressed through reconciliation, hope, and love.

Who this book is for

This book welcomes readers who are reconsidering inherited explanations of the cross, exploring Christus Victor theology, or seeking a more coherent connection between God’s goodness and Christ’s saving work. It also offers a theological foundation for readers of the Christ the Victor Trilogy who want to examine the convictions beneath the narrative.

The invitation is to thoughtful engagement with Scripture, with room to ask difficult questions and consider how the victory of Jesus reshapes our understanding of God, humanity, and the future.

The foundation and the story

One vision. Two ways to explore it.

Christus Victor: Revisited develops the theology. The Christ the Victor Trilogy tells the story through descent, ascension, and indwelling. This is a companion to the trilogy, not a fourth installment in its sequence. You can begin with the theological foundation or enter through the narrative movement that most draws your attention.