Goldingay on Atonement and Violence

"...The first temptation for them, as for anyone else, is to retaliate. The second temptation is by superhuman effort to absorb and neutralize the violence and thereby end the cycle of violence. It is a temptation, because the mere effort to imitate Jesus, at this point as at others, is ultimately bound to fail. There needs to be an intimate interrelation between this imitation and Jesus' own atoning death which enables us to pass on the violence and anger to Jesus on the basis of his actually having already absorbed it, rather than keeping it within ourselves where it can continue its negative work." - Old Testament Sacrifice and the Death of Christ