Atonement theology

The frequent representation met with today, as though a mere rehearsal of the bloody scene, a mere holding up of the martyred figure of the Savior, could have had the tremendous effects caused by the Gospel of the Cross, savors far more of modern sentimentality than it does of sound historical knowledge of the mentality of those to whom the evangel of the cross was first presented. Some theory must be put behind and into it (the cross), if its religious efficacy is to be made at all understandable. True history, worthy of the name, does not live without philosophy. Nor does Sacred History live without a fundamental theology incarnate to it.

- Geerhardus Vos, The Self-Disclosure of Jesus, pg. 274