Cross and Covenant: Interpreting the Atonement for 21st Century Mission

The cross lies at the heart of Christian faith and yet in a fast-changing cultural context many Christians are struggling to make sense of the atonement and how best to communicate its meaning. Larry Shelton grasps this bull by the horns and sets forth what he considers to be both a solidly biblical and missionaly relevant account of Christ's atoning work. At the core of Shelton's thesis is the claim that covenant relationship has to form the centre of our theological reflections on the cross. Moving through both Old and New Testaments, Shelton argues that all the diverse metaphors for atonement can be held together by the organizing notion of 'covenant relationship'. Then, tracing the history of theologies of the cross from the second century through to the contemporary world, he sets forth a Trinitarian, relational and contemporary model of the atonement that parts company with penal substitutionary accounts.