Recapitulation theory of atonement

The recapitulation theory of the atonement is a doctrine in Christian theology related to the meaning and effect of the death of Jesus Christ.

While it is sometimes absent from summaries of atonement theories, overviews of the history of the doctrine of the atonement typically include a section about the “recapitulation” view of the atonement, which was first clearly formulated by Irenaeus.

One of the main New Testament scriptures upon which this view is based states: "[God's purpose is, in] the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth..." (Ephesians 1:10, RV). The Greek word for 'sum up' were literally rendered 'to recapitulate' in Latin.

In the recapitulation view of the atonement, Christ is seen as the new Adam who succeeds where Adam failed. Christ undoes the wrong that Adam did and, because of his union with humanity, leads humankind on to eternal life (including moral perfection).

Through man’s disobedience the process of the evolution of the human race went wrong, and the course of its wrongness could neither be halted nor reversed by any human means. But in Jesus Christ the whole course of human evolution was perfectly carried out and realised in obedience to the purpose of God.

As highlighted above, Irenaeus is considered to be the first to clearly express a recapitulation view of the atonement, although he is anticipated by Justin Martyr, whom Irenaeus quotes in Against Heresies 4.6.2:

In his book against Marcion, Justin does well say: "I would not have believed the Lord Himself, if He had announced any other than He who is our framer, maker, and nourisher. But because the only-begotten Son came to us from the one God, who both made this world and formed us, and contains and administers all things, summing up His own handiwork in Himself, my faith towards Him is steadfast, and my love to the Father immoveable, God bestowing both upon us." [Emphasis added]

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