The Christian Century recently published a posthumous article by the late Presbyterian theologian William Placher: “How Does Jesus Save?” In it, Placher wrestles, as he had in the past (including in his wonderful book Jesus the Savior), with various theories of the atonement and their shortcomings. He sees “liberals” and “conservatives” increasingly at loggerheads over “moral influence” and “substitutionary” theories of the atonement. He also criticizes the recent vogue for atonement theories based on the work of Rene Girard as insufficient for acheiving the kind of salvation we need.

Toward the end of the piece, Placher proposes a return to–or at least a re-examination of–the theories of church fathers like Irenaeus and Athanasius, which he refers to as “mystical” or “physical” theories of salvation (Irenaeus’ version is also sometimes referred to as the “recapitulation” theory). The basic idea is that Jesus saves us by identifying himself with human life in all its glory and misery, even unto death on a cross. The Son of God identifies himself with outcasts, the sick, and the sinful and, in the “whole course of his obedience” (borrowing a phrase from Calvin), restores human nature and offers it back to God the Father:

Only when God incarnate has welcomed sinners into his table fellowship, cured those who suffered, died the death assigned the blaspheming and seditious, even gone into the realm of those who have rejected God and exist in a hell of utter isolation (I pick up at the end a theme most eloquently presented in our time by Hans Urs von Balthasar)–only when this God incarnate has been raised can we glimpse the expansiveness of God’s work of salvation. It is only the crucified One who can save us all.

I think one possible (and salutary) implication of this view, not mentioned here by Placher, is that it places the atonement in the context of creation. Rather than simply a forensic balancing of accounts, the incarnation is the means by which God restores humanity to the path God intended for us, within God’s good creation.