Amongst some of my friends, we enjoy talking about all sorts of things pertaining to philosophy, faithful daily living, relationships, social and cultural realities etc. Of course, we work from a view that theology, or metaphysics, or the very of who we call God is at the root of all of these discussions. 
Christ is the center and foundation of speaking. And yet we end up short-handing this very core as “the gospel”. So examples might be: “When I’m with x, the Gospel really proves y and z…”, “I have to remember the Gospel when x…”, “I’m glad the Gospel reveals x, y, z…”.
Now, I’m perfectly fine with this language. However, sometimes I want to pause and ask “what exactly do you mean by gospel?” Not in the sense that they don’t understand what they’re talking about, but in terms of clarification. Maybe I’m not sure completely what it is when I want to use that word.
Another inspiration for this was when I briefly skimmed a modern evangelical book, devoted solely to this question. While the book is somewhat useful as a tool, it promoted what I think is a rather restrictive definition. The Gospel, primarily, was defined in terms of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, and everything else, outside of this core consideration, was a helpful, even biblical, appendage.
Now I have no problem with Penal Substitution as a facet of the Gospel, but, despite the efforts of some, it is a novel articulation that puts itself in the very center of what was happened when the Christ hung on the cross, and three days later, rose from the dead. It truly only began to take on such prominence in Calvin’s theologizing, and further systematized by the Reformed, his readers, and others in the wake of his influence.
What this articulates is that, given that the Lord is Judge, and we are lawbreakers, there needs to be a reckoning. But, in Jesus Christ, we secure a pardon by being united to the Just One. He accepts the condemnation, so we might be go free. Again, I think Calvin has many good insights, and that his understanding of the legal dynamics are not to be flippantly disregarded.
However, this particular interpretation was not promoted until the Reformation. The closest came in Anselm’s writings. I’ve not read Anselm, and there is further debate on all he was talking about, but, as I understand it, the atonement completes a debt of honor. Humanity dishonored their Lord, and satisfaction was to be made. This has the distinct tinge, in such form, of seeing things through the lens of Feudal Europe. However, lest it’s merely hand-waved as barbaric, it is God, incarnated, who both is rightfully wrathful and who atones.
Yet, the other wrong direction to run is, like Gustaf Aulen, to deny that this approach has any merit at all. The early Church, he rightfully points out, conceived of the atonement in a much different fashion. Some stated it in ransom terms, based on a verse in Mark’s gospel, that Jesus was ransomed to the Devil so that humanity could break free, but the Devil couldn’t hold the Son of God and lost all. Others put it in the assumption of the sickness and infirmity of human-kind, our slavery to death, and that Jesus, in His incarnation, took it all to Himself. In His death, and resurrection, He paved the way out of the Pit, and into eternal life.
What remains the same, and what Aulen promoted, was that both involved the defeat of a particular enemy, and when collided together, Jesus stands as the Victor over the power of Satan, Sin, and the Devil. It was this cosmic victory mode of thinking about the atonement that was taught until Calvin. Then it became merely forensic, and the scope of universal victory became a matter of relieving guilt before a Just Judge and reductionized the biblical account. Christus Victor was the Gospel.
While there are those who adhere to the strawman, that was not what any fleshed out or thoughtful Penal Substitutionary Atonement advocated. Yet, I’m not satisfied with the either-or approach. Nor am I quite satisfied with how Scott McKnight, in one of his books, attempted to reckon this. Aulen is right in constructing the historiography of the teaching. But, like myself, McKnight doesn’t believe in the either-or attack either. Instead, the centrality is the atonement itself.
McKnight would point out that the central event (death, burial resurrection) had many descriptions throughout the Scripture. Some were in terms of law, others were cultic (i.e. sacrifice), others were cosmic-war, still more were in terms of restoring humanity. The metaphor he put it as was that the atonement was a golf-bag, and each theory was a club. Each had a place and a time for use. None ought to monopolize the bag, otherwise there’d be distortion.
Yet this collage approach doesn’t do justice to the consistency in which Paul proclaims the gospel. There are multiple understandings throughout Scripture, but there is something more unifying than the very act itself. The Apostle would constantly go back to the theme that Jesus, who is the Christ, died, was buried, and, on the third day, rose. Yet there is one more consistent statement: for the forgiveness of sins.
In the Biblical witness, sin is a rather mysterious concept, and one that lacks any precise definition. Sometimes it’s pegged in terms of law-breaking, yet Paul will also talk about the presence of sin without the giving of Torah. In fact, the Torah would reveal such sinfulness, and would make it utterly sinful. Sin is at time personified, waiting to grab a hold of Cain, in his bitterness and envy. Sometimes sin is an action one commits, othertimes, it’s something woven into the human-being.
In semantics, sin merely means ‘missing the mark’, an archery terms. But don’t let such a commonness mislead. It is the same word that would describe the flaw that would destroy the Greek tragic figure. It is something insidious, yet lacking precise articulation. But this, is the very thing for which Christ brought about, it’s destruction. Sin was forgiven, wiped out, in the death and resurrection of the Son of God.
What is similar between Penal Substitution, Christus Victor, or any of the other approaches?
The key is Substitution.
Where we were lawbreakers, still under the penalty, Christ stood in as the Just, and took our lawbreaking to death, in order that we may rise. Where we were powerless under the rule of the devil, Christ the King took up among the slaves of darkness, and killed the dragon that none of us could. Where we were sick unto death, He plunged into the Abyss, and brought renewal and life. The key is that Christ stood in where we could not, so we might partake of what He truly is.
If this is understood, this abolishes such restrictiveness and sectarian understanding, and yet puts the Atonement into something more intelligible than a mere bag. It includes the objective and the subjective, it includes the individual and the corporate, but retains the form of the Apostolic Witness. It is able to unite the differences between Patristics and Moderns in one catholic Body. It doesn’t require a reductionist approach, or a bad historiographical accounting for the past.
Christ is Humanity’s Substitute, as the Second Adam, and paves a new way. Where we were lawless, in Him we have hearts inscribed with the law, that is the good-life, living humanly. Where we were sick and dying, in Him we have life and it abundantly. Where we were slaves to concupiscence and demonic powers, in Him we are free. Of course, this is all understood in terms of participation, which keeps the dialectic of already/not-yet in play. Here is Paul, who speaks thusly in terms of the blessing and curse of the law:
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”]), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3: 13-14)
If Gospel is understood thusly, and it truly is Good News, then maybe we’ll be able to discern better whether one really understands the Good News.
This can be applied elsewhere, it is this understanding that is Gospel. If Christ be not substitute, our advocate, our champion, our doctor, then something or someone else will. It’s the root of such a blasphemy that justification by works proclaims. Be it bloodline (as the Apostle dealt with) or charity, pain, family, whatever. If it is other than Christ that stands in for us, we’ve denied the Good News, and sunk back into the shadows. There is much to explore, this is only the first step.
To conclude, I’ll quote Melito of Sardis, a 2nd century bishop, who articulated the Good News thusly:
This one is the passover of our salvation. This is the one who patiently endured many things in many people: This is the one who was murdered in Abel, and bound as a sacrifice in Isaac, and exiled in Jacob, and sold in Joseph, and exposed in Moses, and sacrificed in the lamb, and hunted down in David, and dishonored in the prophets.
This is the one who became human in a virgin, who was hanged on the tree, who was buried in the earth, who was resurrected from among the dead, and who raised mankind up out of the grave below to the heights of heaven.
This is the lamb that was slain. This is the lamb that was silent. This is the one who was born of Mary, that beautiful ewe-lamb. This is the one who was taken from the flock, and was dragged to sacrifice, and was killed in the evening, and was buried at night; the one who was not broken while on the tree, who did not see dissolution while in the earth, who rose up from the dead, and who raised up mankind from the grave below.