I mean like:
1 Classic or Dramatic: Jesus womps the devil and death.
2 Exemplary: Jesus overcomes our separation from God by Showing who God is and what He wants and how we can give it to Him.
3 Propitiatory: Man owes God a debt he cannot pay, an obedient life. Jesus by His life pays that debt and by his death pays our debt.
4 Expiatory: The Blood of Christ shed on the Cross supplies our deficiency ("... for the blood is the life ...") and makes divine life (in all its fullness - moral as well as 'vital') available to us. (okay, that's more than 25 words. Guess which line of thought intrigues me the most.)
5 Ransom (maybe related to 3 or 4): By sinning Man sold himself to the devil -- we owe the devil a life (this is the White Witch's argument in "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" -- then Aslan pays the debt and then womps the White witch -- see (1) above.) (does whomp have an 'h'?) and Jesus pays our debt.
I'm afraid I have a classics comix mind and tidy (glib?) summaries help me understand, or at least approach, the complexities which underlie them.
And for those who are keeping score, I think all of these are true, none is true enough.
Even the much despised exemplary has merit. I kinda thought strength involved, you know, guns and muscles and money. I thought happiness involved, well, babes and bourbon. Come to learn strength is like a baby in a barn or a man pinned back like a frog in a dissecting pan, and divine bliss is a voice crying, "Why have you forsaken me?" I learn I don't know diddley, which helps me turn to God with an urgent request for assistance in radical metanoia -- Clean up! Demented sinner in aisle 4!
Exemplary won't get me there, but it might get me off my behind.
You're talking to a Reformer. Have you known any of us to say anything in 25-words that we didn't take 250-words to explain? :O)
But I'll try: