Show Summary Details

Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 28 February 2021

Abstract and Keywords

Reformed theologians make sense of what Jesus did to redeem sinners by situating his life, death, and work in the broader context of God’s covenantal relationship with Israel and, in particular, with the three offices that structured the life of God’s holy nation: prophet, priest, and king. Reformed theologians agree that scripture narrates the history of redemption in terms of an overarching covenant of grace, though some criticize a perceived overemphasis on Christ’s obedience to the law as a ‘work’ that must be performed in order to merit grace. In order to preserve the best insights from federal theology and its critics, this essay sets forth a thesis that emphasizes federal satisfaction through filial obedience: Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God made man, accomplished redemption by exchanging his status as covenant Lord for that of covenant servant to fulfil the covenant stipulation through his active obedience and to suffer the covenant sanction through his passive obedience to procure the covenant blessing (filial adoption) for God’s covenant people. It then goes on to explain the intent, content, event, and extent of Christ’s atoning work, and concludes that redemption is not simply accomplished by Christ but is found in him.

Keywords: atonement, covenant, federal theology, hypothetical universalism, penal substitution, propitiation, satisfaction, vicarious humanity.

Kevin J. Vanhoozer

Kevin J. Vanhoozer is Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has also held posts at Wheaton College Graduate School and at New College, the Faculty of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. He is the author or editor of twenty books, including The Drama of Doctrine and Pictures at a Theological Exhibition: Scenes of the Church’s Worship, Witness, and Wisdom.

Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.