Definition (house style)
Christus Victor is an atonement model describing redemption as Christ’s victory over the powers of sin, death, and the devil. The term was popularised by Swedish theologian Gustaf Aulén (Christus Victor, 1931) but the concept is broadly scriptural: “He disarmed the rulers and authorities” (Col. 2:15); “so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death” (Heb. 2:14); “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:54).
On apokatastasis.wiki this model is relevant as a complement to substitutionary atonement: in the corpus authors, Christus Victor is typically combined with the sacrifice motif. The distinctive feature of the model is that victory is achieved through weakness and surrender, not through power — a pattern Warnock identifies as God’s fundamental mode of operation.
Usage per author
Warnock
Warnock combines the Christus Victor motif with the sacrifice image: the crucifixion is simultaneously God’s deepest humiliation and his highest triumph. He cites 2 Cor. 13:4 as the core:
“For he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God.”
[Warnock, The Hyssop that Springeth Out of the Wall, hyssop1.html]
And on the sweet savour of the offering:
“What a stench it has been in the nostrils of men as they behold the Son of God dying the death of a criminal on Calvary’s brow! But God looked down that day and smelled a ‘sweet savour’ from this the only burnt offering that ever really delighted His heart.”
[Warnock, The Hyssop, hyssop1.html]
The victory in Warnock is present within the weakness itself: the most humiliated moment is the most triumphant. This makes the humiliatio and the Christus Victor two sides of the same reality.
Jones
Jones works out the Christus Victor motif through the sign of Jonah: the death and resurrection of Christ prove his victory over death, and his living work (second coming) will definitively manifest that victory over all things:
“As Jonah was three days in the belly of the great fish, so Jesus also spent three days in the heart of the earth. As Jonah was cast out of the belly of the fish as a picture of resurrection from the dead, so also Jesus was raised from the dead.”
[Jones, The Laws of the Second Coming, ch. 12]