1. Moral View: This view states that Jesus died as a martyr. It states that He died for a good cause. This concept believes that He thought enough of the message to be killed for it. In the Moral view people say, “If Jesus thought enough of the message to die for it, shouldn’t you?” This view is incorrect because there were others who died as martyrs, but their death could not change us. The bible says that He died for the sinner.
2. Pattern View: This view focuses on the fact that Jesus learned obedience through that which He suffered. That is a true statement. However, in saying that He is our pattern they say that He was our pattern all the way from His earthly life and even when He was on the cross. So what He suffered in the cross we also have to suffer. Jesus was our pattern in His earth walk. He was tempted in all points, yet without sin. He was our pattern there in that suspect of His life. But to say that we have to suffer what He suffered on the cross would make His death as us for naught. One cannot really grow up with that view. The world suffers a lot of things, because the word declares that the way of a transgressor is hard; yet we do not see the world growing up in Christ. Those of this persuasion believe that we must crucify the flesh and die to self daily, rather than seeing that we already were crucified and died. This view also believes that God brings sickness on us in order to buffet us into the realm of glory. In this view there is duality. It is Jesus dying instead of us rather than as us.
3. Ransom View: There are two sides to this view. This view says that there was a payment being made. One view is that this payment was made to; the devil. It states that it was barter for our soul. In essence it conveys the idea that Jesus said, “Here is the price Mr. Devil now let those people go.” First of all, can you imagine God bartering with the devil? So the devil answers God back and says, “If you send your own son and let Him die, and become sin, and go to hell, that will be sufficient for me; I’ll let the people go free.” And the reason the “ransom people” think that is because what Jesus did certainly did free us from the power of darkness. So, even though Jesus did destroy the works of the devil it was not to barter with the enemy. Jesus did not come to barter with the devil, He came to destroy him.
4. Ransom View #2: This view says that the ransom was paid to God in which God said, “In order to free mankind I’m going to have to have some kind of a suffering to pay for the wages of sin that has come upon them.” So God sent His son to die to pay the wages of sin to God Himself. That view still leaves us unchanged on the inside. For example, let’s say we have a man that is on death row, and he is ready to be executed. Someone steps up and offers to go in his place. The problem with that is that we still have a murderer or a rapist on our hands. The man is still what he was before. This view still has Jesus in one place and us in another. There can be no nature change if Jesus died instead of us. Jesus did something about our condition.
5. Substitution by Identification View: Substitution means, one who takes the place of another. We must be careful how we look at substitution though. Romans 5:8 says, “But, God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” That sounds like Jesus died instead of us. But, Galatians 2:20 says, we were crucified with Him and were buried with Him. Colossians 2:13 says that we were made alive with Him. Ephesians 2:6 says that we were raised with and seated with Him. In dying for us as Romans 5:8 says, It means that He died according to the Law of Identification (Philemon verse 6-Amplified Bible). Identification means, to consider or treat as the same. Therefore, when Jesus hung on the cross and became sin, there was a substitution that took place. He became who we were in Adam. It is a paradoxal truth, because it was Him dying, yet when He became sin there was a substitution, He became us. He was crucified as us, died as us, was buried as us, then quickened as us, raised as us, seated as us (as who we are now in our new creation).
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