It isn’t I think so much as making a choice between Jesus Life or His death, (and of course the other problem is that it is often discussed apart from the Resurrection when it is vitally connected) but rather I would see it has the whole act of His Life from Incarnation, through His ministry, to His death and Resurrection. The whole thing is the kenotic self-emptying and self-giving of Jesus, revealing the true heart and nature of God. He take on and shares our humanity completely, joining Himself to humanity completely, and through us all creation, including taking on the curse and result of our turn from HIs call of grace to humanity to become and share the likeness of God and becoming fully human, to share His immortal Life and bring that life and love fully into creation, completing, transfiguring and beautifying it, but instead turning aside become subject, enslaved and indebted to death and mortality, and it’s decaying and corrupting effects at all levels of human existence and interaction pulling us in a movement from being and existence, towards non-being, the response to love and beauty towards inward decay and dissolution, were ordinary biological passions are transformed in us into something in our pride into something far darker and evil.
But in Christ the ongoing project of humanity began in Genesis, where God no longer says ‘let it be’, but ‘let Us make humankind in Our image and likeness’, and the figure of Adam is looking forward, towards the true Adam finds it’s completion in Him, and the Gospel of John reminds us that is comes about through the One through whom all things came into existence in the first place, and towards the end Pilate presents Jesus before the crowd declaring prophetically (and John doesn’t want us to miss the point) ‘behold the man’, there in the very act of what is seen by the crowd as His humiliation, there in the fullness of His self-giving, serving, self-sacrifice, the full completion of HIs kenotic and painful self-emptying love is the glory of God revealed in the human one, the first fully human One, in Him the project is complete, and we see a true and full human being, one who is the Image of the Invisible God. And that one, in sharing our life, there in the same love that joins Himself to sharing and taking on our full life, takes on our curse and death, and bears it to it’s full, and all the forms of darkness, evil and injustice that is the infection of death at all levels that are unleashed and gather around Him, and which He draws upon Himself, the structural injustice and cruelty of the priests, the tyranny of Herod and the full viciousness and show trial justice of the full brutality that fallen human regimes are capable of in the pagan empire of Rome, all it’s horror exposed, of the human instinct to bring creativity and order turned into the monsters of Daniel’s vision, of humiliation both by invaders and His own people alike, torture and terrible death, exposed in terrible pain before all, betrayed and jeered by His own people, who utter the terrible oath of having ‘no King but Ceasar’, but betrayed by HIs own close friend, abandoned by HIs followers and denied and cursed by Peter Himself, all the forms of death that afflict and twist humanity, including at last the final end itself comes, as He shares our pain and hurt, and the affliction of death in all forms to it fullest, and ransoms us from it’s hold, annulling and cancelling the debt against us completely, the very action and ultimate power of death and of all tyranny seeing His humiliation, is instead meet by a greater power, that of God’s self-giving love, defeating and overcoming it. There Jesus becomes King, and there He cries ‘it is finished!’ as the work of humanity is completed, Hades itself broken and unable to hold Life Himself, as He triumphs over death itself and breaks it’s bounds, allowing us in Him by the Holy Spirit to be freed, restored and recreated, to respond and grow in Him to the calling of humanity to become fully human and in corporately and individually find our full being personhood in in the union with God in Christ by the Holy Spirit, becoming as He is the image and likeness of God, and sharing the nature and immortal Life of God, of sharing in HIs love, and expressing it, and through us all creation is also transfigured.
Jesus takes on our humanity, including it’s fallen and death inflicted aspects, sharing it and giving Himself in full Kenotic love, so we care share His Own Life, the very LIfe and nature of God, and so become full human beings, and the whole aspect, Incarnation, HIs acts and teaching, His death, Resurrection, Ascension and current rule of the world, what He is doing right now, and our raising with Him in His appearing, is part of our salvation and rescue, and that of the whole world.
(The portion regarding atonement and the cross is early in the book.)
Perhaps the most interesting thing for me is that this theory (in various forms) was THE dominant theory starting in the second century and continuing until Augustine. Even then, for Augustine,(surprisingly) the “moral” theory was dominant and PSA a minor point until the reformation when PSA took over in Protestant Christianity. [tag]JasonPratt[/tag] may have something to add to this with his extensive knowledge and perhaps Professor Ramelli may have mentioned something of this in her work. My understanding is that the “moral influence” theory of atonement has remained the dominant theory in the Eastern Orthodox Church but perhaps [tag]akimel[/tag] can correct me or expand on this.
The theology on the other hand is far closer to what I’ve come to believe and has real merit to one skeptical of liturgical matters. I apologize if I’m being insensitive, but I’ve thought deeply about whether to join an Orthodox church and I think there are too many (perhaps) psychological barriers.