Our representative and substitute

I've been listening to Oliver Crisp lecture on the atonement today as I go about my daily business. He identifies several theories of the atonement:

1. Penal substitution - Calvin, Evangelicalism
2. non-Penal substitution (vicarious repentance view) - John McLeod Campbell
3. Penal non-substitution (Governmental view) - Hugo Grotius, 19th Cent Methodists
4. Satisfaction - Anselm
5. Christus Victor (Ransom view)- Early fathers?, Gustaf Aulén
6. Moral-Influence - Peter Abelard, 19th Cent Liberals

I could say a lot about theories of the atonement but won't bore you with them at the moment. But as I was listening to all the complexities of the theories as Oliver Crisp described them I remembered this comment of TF Torrance that I heard some time ago but which I keep coming back to. I think it makes a very important point:

We have to bring together and sink into each other the concepts of representation and substitution in order to grasp the vicarious mission and role of Jesus in his humanity.

If we were to work with representation alone, where Christ represents us and therefore represents what we do, that would be a Pelagian or a semi-Pelagian understanding of the atonement. And by-and-large that is often put forward.

If we were to have a stress on substitution alone, in which Christ takes our place detached from us, then that would be something that he did over our head and that had no relevance to us.

But if we combine these two, as you should combine, and as they are certainly already combined for example in the Isaianic songs about the Servant, then we have an act of substitution which takes place in the depths of our humanity where our humanity is taken up and therefore the atonement is made to issue out of our humanity as humanity's offering toward God. And then of course it is fundamentally relevant to each and all of us in the depths of our own humanity.

(23:35-24:55 "Christ's Mediation/Human Response", Lecture 3 of The Mediation of Christ)

[BTW The Crisp lectures are some hard-core metaphysics that I've only read in the likes of Anselm and Augustine. I suppose it has been my first taste of modern philosophical theology. I am left with a lot of admiration for the brains of those involved but a feeling that it is of limited helpfulness. Also BTW my breakdown of what he said about the different theories may not be quite right as I did it from memory (Interestingly, Theopedia has a slightly different taxonomy of Atonement theories which is quite helpful).]