Traditional views of the atonement tend to be reductive, focusing solely on Jesus's death on the cross. In his 2011 groundbreaking book Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews, David Moffitt challenged that paradigm, showing how the atonement is a fuller process. It involves not only Jesus's death but also his resurrection, ascension, offering, and exaltation. In the succeeding years, Moffitt has continued to expand and clarify his thinking on this issue. This book offers a more fulsome articulation of his work on the atonement that reflects his recent thinking on the topic. Moffitt continues to challenge reductive views of the atonement, primarily from the book of Hebrews, but he engages other New Testament passages as well. He offers fresh insights on sacrifice and atonement, the importance of resurrection and ascension, Jesus's role as priest, and a new perspective on Hebrews. This important book brings Moffitt's award-winning and influential scholarship to a broader audience. The book includes a foreword by N. T. Wright.

Scholars often explain Hebrews’ relative silence regarding Jesus’ resurrection by emphasizing the author’s appeal to Yom Kippur’s two key moments—the sacrificial slaughter and the high priest’s presentation of blood in the holy of holies—in his distinctive portrayal of Jesus’ death and heavenly exaltation. The writer’s depiction of Jesus as the high priest whose blood effected ultimate atonement appears to be modeled upon these two moments. Such a typology discourages discrete reflection on Jesus’ resurrection. Drawing on contemporary studies of Jewish sacrifice (which note that blood represents life, not death), parallels in Jewish apocalyptic literature, and fresh exegetical insights, this volume demonstrates that Jesus’ embodied, resurrected life is crucial for the high-priestly Christology and sacrificial soteriology developed in Hebrews.

Theologian Oliver Crisp explores the meaning of the cross and the various ways that the death of Jesus has been interpreted in the church's history—from ransom theory in the early church to penal substitutionary theory to more recent feminist critiques. What emerges is a more complex, expansive, and fruitful understanding of the atonement and its significance for the Christian faith today.

Most evangelical Christians believe that those people who are not saved before they die will be punished in hell forever. But is this what the Bible truly teaches? Do Christians need to rethink their understanding of hell? In the late twentieth century, a growing number of evangelical theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers began to reject the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell in favor of a minority theological perspective called conditional immortality. This view contends that the unsaved are resurrected to face divine judgment, just as Christians have always believed, but due to the fact that immortality is only given to those who are in Christ, the unsaved do not exist forever in hell. Instead, they face the punishment of the "second death"--an end to their conscious existence. This volume brings together excerpts from a variety of well-respected evangelical thinkers, including John Stott, John Wenham, and E. Earl Ellis, as they articulate the biblical, theological, and philosophical arguments for conditionalism. These readings will give thoughtful Christians strong evidence that there are indeed compelling reasons for rethinking hell.

In this book, readers will enjoy a fascinating and cordial discussion between N. T. Wright and Simon Gathercole on the meaning and nature of the doctrine of atonement. These two highly respected scholars discuss in clear and understandable language the meanings of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Their discussion explores various theories of atonement and looks closely at the Old Testament to discover Paul's meaning of his words that "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures." Wright presents his case first, then Gathercole responds with a contrary point of view. Their discussion confronts questions including: What exactly is this “scandal of the cross”? What role does the notion of sacrifice, as understood in its ancient context, play in the atonement of Christ? Is the atonement a “victory”? How so? Was Christ a “substitute,” taking humankind’s place on the cross and suffering the death and judgment that sinners deserve? How does the death of Christ on the cross rescue or liberate sinners from death? Does the cross achieve benefits for only humans, or do those benefits extend to the entirety of creation? This book is a succinct conversation in which all these questions receive attention, with nuanced differences between the two interlocutors. This conversation along with Robert Stewart’s introductory framework make this book an excellent primer to the study of the atonement, and readers will come away with a deeper understanding of the meanings of the cross.

James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy edit a collection of essays on four views of atonement: the healing view, the Christus victor view, the kaleidoscopic view and the penal substitutionary view. This is a book that will help Christians understand the issues, grasp the differences and proceed toward a clearer articulation of their understanding of the atonement.

Gustaf Aulen's classic work, 'Christus Victor', has long been a standard text on the atonement. Aulen applies history of ideas' methodology to historical theology in tracing the development of three views of the atonement. Aulen asserts that in traditional histories of the doctrine of the atonement only two views have usually been presented, the objective/Anselmian and the subjective/Aberlardian views. According to Aulen, however, there is another type of atonement doctrine in which Christ overcomes the hostile powers that hold humanity in subjection, at the same time that God in Christ reconciles the world to Himself. This view he calls the "classic" idea of the atonement. Because of its predominance in the New Testament, in patristic writings, and in the theology of Luther, Aulen holds that the classic type may be called the distinctively Christian idea of the atonement.