‘The righteousness of God has been revealed … through the pistis of Jesus Christ, for all who trust’

Abstract This chapter develops a model of atonement out of Paul’s language of trust and mediation. It argues that such a model should ideally show how it offers human beings release from the power of both sin and the suffering caused by sin. For Paul, both suffering and sin are linked with the failure of trust, and are addressed by the trust and trustworthiness of Christ to God and to humanity, which enables him to mediate between them. To recognize that Christ’s trust in God is vindicated, however, human beings also need the revelation of the resurrection. This model of atonement does not, so far, explain why Christ had to die, but it is argued that Christ had to allow himself to be arrested because to have evaded arrest would have been to fail to trust God and deny the person he was. Furthermore, from a post-resurrection perspective, Christ allows himself to die so that human beings can die ‘with’ him to the power of sin and suffering, and in his exalted life he travels ‘with’ them on this journey. Christ’s death and resurrection also change human beings’ sense of what is possible for them through trust. Contemporary psychology and accounts of the rehabilitation of ex-offenders through trust help to show how this model might work to release people from the power of suffering and sin. Finally, this chapter considers how other people, Christlike, can act as mediators between suffering humanity and Christ.