If you had to choose just one passage in all of Scripture that captures the theological heart of what God accomplished on the cross, Romans 3:21–26 would be the passage. These six dense, extraordinary verses have been called "the acropolis of the Christian faith," "possibly the most important single paragraph ever written," and the theological summit of Paul's letter to the Romans.1 For centuries, pastors, scholars, and ordinary believers have returned to these words again and again, finding in them a depth of meaning that seems inexhaustible. I believe that if we understand this passage rightly, we hold in our hands the very logic of God's saving work — the explanation of how a perfectly just God can forgive sinners without compromising His own righteousness.
My thesis in this chapter is straightforward: Romans 3:21–26 is the single most important New Testament passage for understanding the theological mechanics of the atonement. It reveals that God set forth Christ as a hilastērion — a propitiation, a place and means of atonement — to demonstrate His righteousness, so that He might be both just and the justifier of everyone who has faith in Jesus. This passage stands as the theological summit of penal substitutionary atonement. If the penal dimension of Christ's death is removed, the internal logic of Paul's argument collapses.
To see why, we need to walk through these verses carefully, phrase by phrase, word by word. But first, we need to understand where this passage falls in Paul's argument, because context is everything.
Romans 3:21–26 does not drop out of the sky. It arrives as the dramatic answer to a crisis that Paul has spent nearly three full chapters building. From Romans 1:18 through 3:20, Paul has been constructing a devastating case — a legal argument, really — demonstrating that every single human being stands guilty before God. No one is exempt.
Paul starts with the Gentile world in Romans 1:18–32. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Rom. 1:18, ESV). Despite knowing God through creation, humanity has suppressed the truth, traded the glory of the Creator for idols, and been given over to every kind of moral degradation. Then, in a brilliant rhetorical move, Paul turns to the moralist — and, by extension, the Jewish person who takes pride in possessing God's law — in Romans 2. Having the law, Paul argues, does you no good if you do not keep it. "For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified" (Rom. 2:13). And who, exactly, has perfectly kept the law? No one.
The climax of this section arrives in Romans 3:9–20, where Paul draws his devastating conclusion: "None is righteous, no, not one" (Rom. 3:10). "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20). The entire human race — Jew and Gentile alike — stands condemned before the bar of God's justice. The courtroom is silent. The verdict is in. Guilty.2
And then come the two most glorious words in all of Paul's letters: "But now."
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Now let us walk through these verses clause by clause, attending carefully to the Greek terms and the theological realities they express.
The phrase "But now" (nuni de, νυνὶ δέ) marks one of the great turning points in the history of redemption. The contrast is primarily temporal — not merely logical — as the rest of the passage will make clear.3 Something has happened in history. God has broken into the darkness of human condemnation with something radically new. After two and a half chapters of unrelenting bad news — universal sin, universal guilt, universal condemnation — Paul signals a total reversal. The wrath of God described in Romans 1:18 is now counterbalanced by something greater: the righteousness of God.4
But what exactly is "the righteousness of God" (dikaiosynē theou, δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ)? This phrase — which occurs seven times in various forms across this short paragraph5 — is one of the most debated expressions in Pauline scholarship. There are three major interpretive options, and getting this right matters enormously for how we understand the atonement.
The first option — the classic Protestant reading, especially in the Lutheran tradition — takes "the righteousness of God" to mean the righteous status that God gives to believers. On this view, Paul is saying that God has now revealed a way for sinners to be declared righteous, to receive a new standing before God. This understanding focuses on the gift dimension: righteousness is something God confers on those who believe.6
The second option understands "the righteousness of God" more broadly as God's saving power in action. On this reading, which draws heavily on the Old Testament background (where God's "righteousness" is often parallel to His "salvation" — see Psalm 98:2; Isaiah 51:5–8), Paul is declaring that God has now acted decisively to set things right in the world. God's righteousness is not just a status He gives but a power He exercises.7
The third option takes dikaiosynē theou as referring to God's own inherent attribute — His justice, His moral rightness, His fidelity to His own character. This reading emphasizes that what is "manifested" in the cross is something about God Himself — His just character, now publicly demonstrated.
Key Point: The expression dikaiosynē theou ("the righteousness of God") is multivalent — it carries more than one meaning simultaneously. In verse 22, "the righteousness of God through faith" clearly refers to a righteous status that believers receive, since God's own attribute is not "through faith." But in verses 25–26, where Paul speaks of God demonstrating "his righteousness," the reference is clearly to God's own inherent justice. Paul holds both meanings together: the cross reveals God's own justice and becomes the ground on which He confers a righteous status upon believers.
I believe the evidence strongly supports a multivalent reading. As William Lane Craig has argued, at least three times in Paul's letters dikaiosynē theou refers to God's inherent righteousness (Rom. 3:5, 25–26), while the remaining uses refer to the righteous status humans receive through justification.8 This is not an either/or choice. The cross simultaneously reveals who God is and transforms who we are.
In recent decades, a significant challenge to the traditional reading has emerged from the so-called "New Perspective on Paul," associated with scholars such as N. T. Wright and James D. G. Dunn. Proponents of this perspective have argued that "the righteousness of God" should be understood primarily as God's covenant faithfulness — His fidelity to the promises He made to Israel. On this view, justification is not fundamentally about how guilty sinners are declared righteous before God's bar of justice, but about how God demonstrates His faithfulness to His covenant by including Gentiles as well as Jews in His people.9
I find this interpretation unpersuasive for several reasons. First, as Craig points out, if we reduce God's righteousness to covenant faithfulness, it becomes very difficult to make sense of God's relationship to Gentiles, who stand outside the covenant with Israel. Yet Paul has just spent two and a half chapters arguing that Gentiles too are guilty before God — not unfaithful to a covenant they never entered, but unrighteous in a moral sense, guilty of "ungodliness and unrighteousness" (Rom. 1:18).10
Second, the opposite of "righteousness" in Paul's usage is not "unfaithfulness" but "wickedness" and "ungodliness" (Rom. 1:18) or "lawlessness" (2 Cor. 6:14). This points to a moral and judicial concept, not merely a relational one.11 Third — and this is perhaps the strongest argument — when Paul actually does talk about God's covenant faithfulness elsewhere, he does not use dikaiosynē language but rather words like pistis (faith/faithfulness) and alētheia (truth). In Romans 11, which directly addresses the question of God's faithfulness to Israel, Paul never once uses dikaiosynē theou.12
Charles Irons has provided what I believe is the definitive treatment of this question. After an exhaustive study of righteousness language across the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, and extrabiblical Jewish literature, Irons concludes that the term is primarily used in either an ethical or a judicial sense — and that the judicial sense is closely tied to God's role as Judge and Ruler. Faithfulness is one manifestation of righteousness, but righteousness cannot be reduced to faithfulness.13 Mark Seifrid makes the same point succinctly: "All 'covenant-keeping' is righteous behavior, but not all righteous behavior is 'covenant-keeping.' It is misleading, therefore, to speak of 'God's righteousness' as his 'covenant-faithfulness.'"14
To be fair, even Dunn himself has in later writings acknowledged that Hebrew righteousness language involves a punitive dimension and cannot be reduced to covenant faithfulness alone — a significant concession.15 So while the New Perspective has rightly reminded us that Paul's argument has a social dimension (the inclusion of the Gentiles), it has not succeeded in displacing the traditional understanding that dikaiosynē theou refers, at least in part, to God's own moral justice — the very justice that the cross was designed to vindicate.
Paul stresses God's saving initiative throughout this paragraph. It is God who manifests His righteousness. It is God who provides the means of justification. It is God who puts forward Christ. The atonement is not a human achievement, nor even primarily a divine-human cooperation. It is God's work from start to finish. As Green observes, Paul's logic introduces Christ's dual role in His death — "his substitution for humanity before God and in the face of God's justice, but also his substitution for God in the face of human sin."16 Christ stands in for us before God, bearing the consequences of our sin. And Christ stands in for God before us, demonstrating the depth and seriousness of divine love. The cross faces two directions simultaneously.
The fact that this righteousness is "apart from the law" (chōris nomou) does not mean it is opposed to the law or that it overturns the law. Paul is careful to add that "the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it." The entire Old Testament, rightly read, points toward what God has now done in Christ. The law, by revealing God's standard and exposing our failure to meet it, prepared the way for the gospel. The prophets, especially Isaiah's vision of the Suffering Servant (as we explored in Chapter 6), explicitly foretold a vicarious, substitutionary atonement. What Moses and the prophets anticipated has now arrived. Continuity and discontinuity coexist: the method is new (faith, not works of the law), but the plan is ancient, rooted in God's eternal purpose.
Paul now specifies the means by which this righteousness is received: "through faith in Jesus Christ" (dia pisteōs Iēsou Christou, διὰ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ). The atonement accomplished by Christ is objective — it happened in history, on a real cross, at a definite place and time. But the benefits of the atonement are appropriated subjectively through faith. The cross is the ground; faith is the instrument.
There is a grammatical debate here about whether pisteōs Iēsou Christou should be read as an objective genitive ("faith in Jesus Christ") or a subjective genitive ("the faithfulness of Jesus Christ"). While some scholars have pressed the subjective reading, the majority view — which I find more convincing — takes it as an objective genitive. Paul almost always uses pistis to mean "faith" (trust, belief), and the added phrase "for all who believe" in the same verse would be redundant if Paul had already spoken of Christ's faithfulness rather than our faith in Him.17
The phrase "for all who believe" is enormously important for another reason: it underscores the universal availability of the atonement. This righteousness from God is not limited to one ethnic group, one social class, or one elect subset of humanity. It is "for all" — Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female (cf. Gal. 3:28). "For there is no distinction" (v. 22b). The scope of the offer matches the scope of the problem: all have sinned (v. 23), and all may be saved (v. 22).18
This verse is one of the most well-known in all of Scripture, and for good reason. It states with devastating simplicity the universal human predicament. "All have sinned" (pantes hēmarton, πάντες ἥμαρτον) — the aorist tense likely pointing to the collective history of human sinfulness, the corporate reality that every person has fallen.19
"And fall short of the glory of God" (hysterountai tēs doxēs tou theou, ὑστεροῦνται τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ). The present tense "fall short" suggests an ongoing condition. Humanity was created to reflect and share in God's glory — His radiant, beautiful, luminous character — but sin has left us in a state of deficit, a condition of chronic failure to be what we were made to be. We are not what we should be. Every single one of us.
The phrase "glory of God" (doxēs tou theou, δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ) is rich with meaning. Some scholars connect it to the rabbinic idea that Adam and Eve, before the fall, were clothed in divine glory — a luminous radiance that reflected God's own character — and that sin stripped this glory away. Whether or not Paul has this specific tradition in mind, the theological point is clear: human beings were created for something magnificent, something glorious, and we have all fallen short of it. Sin is not merely a list of bad behaviors; it is a catastrophic loss of the glory for which we were made.
Why does Paul insert this universal indictment here? Because the universality of sin establishes the universality of the need for atonement. If only some people were sinners, perhaps only some would need a Savior. But since the condition is universal, the remedy must be universal in scope — available to all without exception. The very magnitude of the problem demands a solution of corresponding magnitude. This is why any theory that limits the scope of the atonement to a predetermined subset of humanity sits uneasily with the logic of Romans 3. The "all" who have sinned must be matched by an atonement that is available to "all who believe" (v. 22). As we will argue more fully in Chapter 30, the atonement has universal scope — Christ died for all people without exception.20
Now Paul begins to unfold the solution, and every word is packed with meaning. "And are justified" (dikaioumenoi, δικαιούμενοι) — declared righteous, given a right standing before God. This is courtroom language, forensic language. The Judge pronounces a verdict: "Not guilty." But it is more than a legal fiction, as some critics have charged. It is a real change of status that carries real consequences — restored relationship with God, freedom from condemnation, new life.21
"By his grace as a gift" (dōrean tē autou chariti, δωρεὰν τῇ αὐτοῦ χάριτι). Two words for free! Dōrean means "freely, without cost, as a gift." Chariti means "by grace — unmerited, unearned favor." Paul piles up the language of gratuity to make absolutely sure no one thinks this is something we have earned or deserved. Justification is a gift. It is sheer, undeserved generosity from a God who owes us nothing but gives us everything. There is a breathtaking paradox here that we must not miss: the justification that is free to us was infinitely costly to God. It is given "as a gift," but the gift was purchased at the price of the cross.
When Paul speaks of justification, he means something specific and profound. As Allen helpfully explains, justification is pardon for sin in the sense that sin is forgiven because the penalty for sin has been met. But that is not all. Justification is also the bestowal of a righteous status in a legal sense — the Judge not only drops the charges but declares the defendant righteous. And even that is not all. Justification includes a sinner's reinstatement into fellowship with God. It is not just a matter of the Judge saying, "You are free. Your debt is paid." It is the Judge saying, "You are now in a new relationship with Me through My love — a relationship I have made possible by paying your penalty."21 Justification, then, is a legal act with profoundly relational consequences. The courtroom verdict opens the door to the family home.
"Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (dia tēs apolytrōseōs tēs en Christō Iēsou, διὰ τῆς ἀπολυτρώσεως τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ). Here Paul introduces the first of his key atonement terms: apolytrōsis (ἀπολύτρωσις), which means "redemption" or "release through the payment of a ransom." This is marketplace language, drawn from the world of slavery and captivity. In the ancient world, a slave could be set free if someone paid the required price. Paul is saying that our justification was not free for God; it cost Him everything. Justification is free to us, but it was accomplished "through the redemption" — the costly, ransom-paying work — "that is in Christ Jesus."22
As David Allen observes, while apolytrōsis can sometimes mean simply "deliverance" or "release," the notion of cost is almost always present — and here in Romans 3, where Paul immediately goes on to mention "blood" in the next verse, the sacrificial cost is unmistakable.23 Grace is free, but it is not cheap. Redemption has a price, and that price is the life of God's own Son.
Three Dimensions of Salvation in One Verse: Notice how Romans 3:24 combines three distinct dimensions of salvation in a single sentence: (1) Justification — a legal verdict of acquittal; (2) Grace — unmerited divine favor; (3) Redemption — liberation through the payment of a costly ransom. All three converge in the person and work of Christ. As Stott helpfully summarizes: "the source of our justification is God and His grace; the ground for our justification is Christ and His cross; and the means of our justification is our faith in Christ."24
We now arrive at the single most debated and theologically loaded clause in this entire passage — indeed, one of the most debated clauses in the entire New Testament. Everything turns on the meaning of one Greek word: hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον).
"Whom God put forward" (hon proetheto ho theos, ὃν προέθετο ὁ θεός). The first thing to notice is the subject: God. God is the one who acts. God is the one who "put forward" — or "set forth publicly," "displayed" — Christ. This is not a story about a reluctant deity being talked into forgiveness by a compassionate Son. This is not a narrative in which the Son appeases an angry Father against the Father's will. From the very start of the sentence, Paul makes clear that God the Father is the initiating agent of the atonement. The cross is God's idea. It is God's initiative. As Stott so memorably puts it: "God Himself gave Himself to save us from Himself."25
The verb proetheto (from protithēmi) can mean either "purposed beforehand" (indicating divine foreordination) or "displayed publicly" (indicating a public demonstration). Both meanings are likely in play. God planned the cross from eternity and displayed it publicly in history.26
Now we come to the crucial word: hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον). How should it be translated? This single word has generated one of the longest-running debates in New Testament scholarship, and the stakes are enormous. There are three major options.
Option A: "Propitiation" — the satisfaction or turning away of God's just opposition to sin. In extrabiblical Greek, the hilaskomai word group consistently carries the meaning of appeasing or propitiating an offended party, especially a deity. The related noun form refers to a propitiatory gift or offering — something given to turn away anger and restore favor. If Paul is using hilastērion in this sense, then he is saying that God put forward Christ as a propitiatory offering whose death satisfies divine justice and turns away divine wrath from sinners.27
Option B: "Expiation" — the removal or cleansing of sin. In the mid-twentieth century, the influential British scholar C. H. Dodd argued that in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), the hilaskomai word group had shed its propitiatory meaning and come to mean simply the removal or cleansing of sin — that is, expiation rather than propitiation. On Dodd's view, God does not need to be propitiated (since this implies an unworthy concept of divine anger); rather, sin needs to be expiated, cleansed, dealt with. Dodd's reading was enormously influential and was reflected in several modern English translations, including the RSV ("expiation") and the NEB ("the means of expiating sin").28
Option C: "Mercy seat" — a reference to the kapporet (כַּפֹּרֶת), the golden lid of the ark of the covenant. In the Septuagint, hilastērion is used twenty-one out of twenty-seven times to translate kapporet, the "mercy seat" — the golden cover on top of the ark of the covenant, where the blood of the Day of Atonement sacrifice was sprinkled (Lev. 16:14–15). On this reading, Paul is making a typological claim: Jesus is the true mercy seat, the real place where atonement happens, the ultimate fulfillment of what the Day of Atonement ritual foreshadowed.29
The Hilastērion Debate at a Glance: Three major translation options for hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον) in Romans 3:25:
(1) "Propitiation" — Christ's death satisfies God's justice and turns away His wrath (Morris, Packer, Schreiner, Stott).
(2) "Expiation" — Christ's death removes and cleanses sin (Dodd, RSV, NEB).
(3) "Mercy seat" — Christ is the true kapporet, the place where atonement is made (Carson, Moo, some Day of Atonement typologists).
These options are not entirely mutually exclusive. As we will see, the context of Romans 3 demands that the propitiatory dimension be included, but the mercy seat allusion and the expiatory dimension may also be present.
Let us work through each option carefully.
Against Dodd's "expiation only" reading: Dodd's argument was subjected to a rigorous and, in my judgment, devastating critique by Leon Morris and Roger Nicole.30 Both scholars demonstrated that Dodd's conclusions rested on incomplete evidence. Dodd did not account for the books of the Maccabees (which are part of the Septuagint and contain several passages explicitly about averting God's wrath — see 2 Maccabees 7:38; 4 Maccabees 17:22), nor did he adequately address the writings of Josephus and Philo, in which the propitiatory meaning clearly prevails.31 Stott adds that even in Old Testament passages where the natural translation of kipper (the Hebrew verb for "atone") is "make atonement for sin," the surrounding context frequently contains explicit reference to God's wrath — which implies that the atonement is needed precisely because the divine anger must be turned away.32
Moreover — and this is the argument I find most compelling — the context of Romans 3:25 itself demands a propitiatory meaning. Paul has just spent two and a half chapters establishing that all humanity stands under the wrath of God (Rom. 1:18; 2:5; 3:5–6). As Morris justly observed, "Wrath has occupied such an important place in the argument leading up to this section that we are justified in looking for its cancellation in the passage which describes God's remedy for the human predicament."33 If Paul is answering the problem of universal condemnation under divine wrath, then his answer must address that wrath. Mere expiation — the cleansing of sin — does not go far enough. The wrath must be dealt with. And that is what propitiation means.
The mercy seat reading: The mercy seat interpretation has considerable merit. The only other occurrence of hilastērion in the New Testament (Hebrews 9:5) clearly refers to the mercy seat, and the Septuagintal usage strongly favors this meaning. D. A. Carson, while not fully endorsing the propitiatory-offering interpretation, argues that Paul is presenting Jesus as "the ultimate mercy seat, the ultimate place of atonement, and so derivatively as the ultimate sacrifice."34 If this is correct, the allusion to the Day of Atonement is powerful: just as the high priest sprinkled sacrificial blood on the kapporet to make atonement for Israel's sins (as discussed in Chapter 5), so God has presented Christ as the true mercy seat, sprinkled with His own blood, where the real atonement happens.
Craig raises an interesting counterpoint: it would be "extraordinary to say that God has publicly displayed the mercy seat hidden in the Holy of Holies" — since the whole point of the kapporet was that it was hidden, accessible only to the high priest on one day per year.35 And yet, perhaps that is precisely Paul's point: what was once hidden is now revealed. What was once accessible only through the mediation of a human priest on a single day is now publicly displayed for all to see and receive by faith. The veil has been torn. The mercy seat is out in the open. The Day of Atonement — that most solemn and restricted day of Israel's liturgical calendar, when only one man could enter the most holy place — has been blown wide open by the death of Christ. Now the way into God's presence is available to all, through faith, at all times. The exclusivity of the old covenant is shattered by the inclusivity of the new.
This reading, if correct, also carries rich typological implications that connect back to our discussion of the Day of Atonement in Chapter 5. On Yom Kippur, the high priest entered the holy of holies with the blood of a sacrificial animal and sprinkled it on the kapporet — the place where God's holy presence dwelt above the ark, between the cherubim. This act symbolized the covering of Israel's sins in the very presence of God. If Paul is saying that Jesus is the true hilastērion, he is claiming that Jesus Himself is the place where God's holy presence meets human sinfulness — and that Christ's own blood is the blood that truly cleanses. The entire Levitical apparatus — the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrificial system, the Day of Atonement — finds its ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of Christ. Every temple pointed to Him. Every sacrifice foreshadowed His.
Douglas Moo has offered a helpful way through this debate by distinguishing between meaning and reference. He suggests that Paul's use of hilastērion refers to the mercy seat (that is, Paul has the kapporet in mind as a typological background) but means "sacrifice of atonement" — so that both the Day of Atonement allusion and the propitiatory significance are captured in a single word.36
I believe the best reading of hilastērion in Romans 3:25 holds all three dimensions together, while recognizing that the propitiatory dimension — the satisfaction of God's justice — is primary in this context. Here is why: Paul's argument in verses 25b–26 is explicitly about God demonstrating His righteousness. God needed to show that He was not unjust in having "passed over former sins." The problem Paul is addressing is not merely that sin needed to be cleaned up but that God's own justice needed to be publicly vindicated. And it is propitiation — the satisfaction of divine justice through sacrificial death — that accomplishes this vindication. The mercy seat allusion enriches the imagery (connecting Christ's work to the Day of Atonement), and the expiatory dimension is real (sin is genuinely removed and cleansed). But the heart of what Paul is saying is that God put Christ forward as the means by which His just opposition to sin is satisfied.37
Allen reaches a similar conclusion: "No doubt all three meanings inhere in Paul's usage (we do not need to succumb to the false dichotomy of whether Paul intends 'propitiation' or 'expiation'), but 'propitiation' is the best translation for the Greek word."38
"By his blood" (en tō autou haimati, ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι). This phrase specifies the means by which the propitiation is accomplished: the sacrificial death of Christ. "Blood" in this context does not refer merely to a liquid substance but to a life violently laid down — a death. As we explored in Chapter 4 on the Levitical sacrificial system, "blood" in the sacrificial context represents the life of the victim given up in death (see Lev. 17:11: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls"). The connection between hilastērion and "blood" unmistakably places Christ's death in the framework of the Old Testament sacrificial system. This is sacrifice language. Christ's death is a sacrifice offered to God.39
"To be received by faith" (dia pisteōs, διὰ πίστεως). Paul adds this qualifier to make clear that the benefits of Christ's propitiatory death are not automatic — they must be received, appropriated, embraced through the instrument of faith. The atonement is objectively accomplished in history; it is subjectively received through trust in Jesus. As discussed in Chapter 2, this is the consistent New Testament pattern: the objective work of Christ on the cross becomes effective for individuals through the subjective response of faith.
Now Paul explains why the cross was necessary, and his answer takes us to the very heart of what makes penal substitutionary atonement indispensable. The cross was "to show God's righteousness" (eis endeixin tēs dikaiosynēs autou, εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ). Notice: God's own righteousness — His justice, His moral integrity — needed to be publicly demonstrated.
Why? "Because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins" (dia tēn paresin tōn progegonotōn hamartēmatōn en tē anochē tou theou). The word "passed over" (paresin, πάρεσιν) is not the same as "forgiven." It carries the sense of "letting go" or "leaving unpunished" — temporarily overlooking an offense without finally dealing with it.40 Paul is identifying a profound theological problem: throughout the entire Old Testament period, God had been — in His forbearance, His patience, His restraint — letting sins go without fully and finally dealing with them. The Old Testament sacrifices, as the author of Hebrews makes clear, could not actually take away sins (Heb. 10:4); they could only cover them temporarily, pointing forward to the definitive sacrifice that was still to come (as we discussed in Chapter 5 on the Day of Atonement).
But here is the problem this creates: a God who simply passes over sin — who lets wrongdoing slide without consequence — does not look like a just God. He looks like an indifferent God, or a God who does not take sin seriously, or even a God who is complicit in evil by failing to address it. As Stott puts it, the question Paul is answering is this: How can the unrighteous of all sinners before the death of Christ on the cross be declared righteous by God without compromising His own righteous character or condoning unrighteousness?41
The Theological Problem Paul Is Solving: If God simply forgives sins without any reckoning — if He just waves away wrongdoing by divine fiat — then His justice is called into question. A judge who releases guilty criminals without any accounting is not a good judge but a corrupt one. God's forbearance in "passing over" Old Testament sins created what we might call a "divine justice deficit." The cross is God's answer to this deficit. At the cross, God publicly demonstrates that He has not been indifferent to sin. He has been patient, yes — but He has always intended to deal with sin fully, finally, and justly. And He does so in the death of His Son.
This is the logic that makes the penal dimension of the atonement not merely an option among others but a theological necessity. If the problem is a deficit of demonstrated justice, then the solution must include a demonstration of justice — a real reckoning with sin, a genuine dealing with the moral weight of human wrongdoing. That reckoning happens at the cross, where the judicial consequences of our sin fall upon Christ our substitute.42
"It was to show his righteousness at the present time" (pros tēn endeixin tēs dikaiosynēs autou en tō nyn kairō). Paul repeats the purpose clause from verse 25b — the cross was to demonstrate God's righteousness — but now he brings it into the present: "at the present time." What was hidden in the Old Testament period is now made visible. The cross, happening at a specific moment in history, is God's public, once-for-all demonstration that He is just.
And then comes the theological climax of the entire passage — arguably the theological climax of the entire letter to the Romans, and one of the most breathtaking statements in all of Scripture:
"So that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (eis to einai auton dikaion kai dikaiounta ton ek pisteōs Iēsou, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον καὶ δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἐκ πίστεως Ἰησοῦ).
The Theological Summit: At the cross, God accomplishes what would otherwise be impossible: He is simultaneously just (dikaion, δίκαιον — His justice is fully satisfied, His righteousness publicly demonstrated) and the justifier (dikaiounta, δικαιοῦντα — He declares guilty sinners righteous, acquitting them freely). Without the cross, these two realities stand in irreconcilable tension. A just God cannot simply acquit the guilty without accounting for their guilt. But a God who only punishes sin offers no hope for sinners. The cross resolves this tension by providing a way for God's justice to be fully satisfied and for sinners to be fully forgiven — at the same time, in the same act.
Notice the wordplay Paul employs — a wordplay that is fully visible in Greek but can be obscured in English. Dikaion (just) and dikaiounta (justifier/the one who justifies) come from the same root. God is both dikaios and the one who dikaioō — both the upholder of justice and the bestower of a righteous status upon the unrighteous. The cross is where these two activities meet perfectly.43
This is why I believe the penal dimension of the atonement is not optional. Without it, how can God be "just" in forgiving sin? If the cross is merely a demonstration of love (the moral influence view), or merely a victory over dark powers (Christus Victor), or merely the removal of sin's defilement (expiation only) — then Paul's argument falls apart. His whole point in verses 25b–26 is that God's justice needed to be publicly vindicated. And justice requires a reckoning with the guilt of sin — not just its power, not just its pollution, but its guilt. The penal dimension — the reality that the judicial consequences of our sin were borne by Christ — is what makes sense of Paul's claim that God is both just and the justifier. Remove it, and you are left with a God who forgives by fiat, without His justice being demonstrated.44
As Craig powerfully argues, any adequate interpretation of this passage must find in it Paul's solution to the problem of humanity's condemnation before a just Judge — and the attendant need for the dissolution of divine wrath. An interpretation that does not account for how God's justice is satisfied in the cross fails to reckon with the passage's own logic.45
Not all scholars agree that Romans 3:21–26 teaches penal substitutionary atonement, of course. Vee Chandler, in her Victorious Substitution, devotes an entire appendix to this passage and argues that "a careful analysis of the context and terminology of these verses... does not support the penal substitution interpretation."46 Her alternative reading deserves a fair hearing and a careful response.
Chandler makes several arguments. First, she contends that the broader context of Romans 1–3 is about God's impartiality in judging Jews and Gentiles, not about a divine need for penal satisfaction. On her reading, the primary issue Paul is addressing is whether God is fair in His dealings with both Jews and Gentiles — and the cross demonstrates that He is.47
Second, Chandler emphasizes that "the righteousness of God" should be understood as God's saving activity or covenant faithfulness rather than as His retributive justice. She argues, drawing on Old Testament parallels, that God's righteousness in this passage is better understood as His faithful commitment to put things right — a positive, saving concept — rather than as His punitive demand for satisfaction.48
Third, Chandler resists the propitiatory reading of hilastērion, preferring a broader "sacrifice of atonement" translation that she believes avoids importing the concept of divine wrath needing to be satisfied.49
I find each of these arguments insufficient, for the following reasons.
Regarding the context: Chandler is right that Romans 1–3 addresses God's impartiality, but she understates the equally prominent theme of God's wrath. Romans 1:18 opens with "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven," and the theme of divine judgment runs through Romans 2:2–5, 2:8, 3:5–6. Paul's question is not merely "Is God fair?" but "How can guilty sinners be saved from the wrath of a just God?" The impartiality theme and the wrath theme work together: God judges all impartially under the same standard of justice, and therefore all stand condemned — which is what creates the need for the saving intervention of Romans 3:21–26.
Regarding "the righteousness of God": as I argued above, while there is a saving dimension to God's righteousness, the attempt to reduce it to covenant faithfulness or saving activity alone does not do justice to the passage's own language. In verse 26, Paul's statement that God is dikaios ("just") is clearly a reference to God's own attribute — His moral rightness — not merely to His saving activity. The very structure of the sentence — "just and the justifier" — requires the first term to refer to God's own character and the second to His saving action. Both dimensions are necessary.50
Regarding hilastērion: as I have already shown, the context of Romans 1:18–3:20, with its sustained treatment of God's wrath against sin, demands that the atonement described in 3:25 address that wrath. A "sacrifice of atonement" that does not include a propitiatory dimension fails to answer the question Paul's argument has raised. If God's wrath is the problem, then the solution must include the turning away of that wrath — which is precisely what propitiation means.
I want to be clear about what I am not saying. I am not saying that Chandler is wrong to emphasize God's saving activity, or the theme of divine faithfulness, or the importance of the Christus Victor dimension. She is right that these are real and important aspects of what happens at the cross. Where I part company with her is in the claim that these dimensions are sufficient by themselves and that the penal dimension can be removed. The logic of Romans 3:25–26 will not allow it. If the cross does not satisfy divine justice — if there is no penal reckoning with the guilt of sin — then Paul's claim that God is "just and the justifier" is left without a coherent foundation.51
Before we conclude, it is essential to address a common misunderstanding that arises whenever penal substitutionary atonement is discussed. Critics like Steve Chalke have accused PSA of depicting God as a "cosmic child abuser" — a wrathful Father who takes out His anger on His innocent Son.52 I addressed this objection more fully in Chapter 3, but it is worth repeating here why this caricature fundamentally misrepresents what Romans 3:25 actually says.
Notice again who the agent is in Romans 3:25: "God put forward" Christ as a propitiation. The Father is not a passive bystander who watches approvingly while His Son suffers. Nor is the Father an angry deity who needs to be talked out of His rage. The Father is the one who initiates the atonement — out of love (cf. John 3:16; Rom. 5:8; 1 John 4:10). The Son, for His part, goes willingly. "No one takes my life from me," Jesus says in John 10:18, "but I lay it down of my own accord." The cross is not a case of the Father punishing an unwilling victim; it is the Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — acting in unified, self-giving love to absorb the consequences of human sin. As Stott famously argued, this is "the self-substitution of God" — God Himself, in the person of His Son, bearing the cost of our salvation.53 We will explore this Trinitarian dimension in much greater depth in Chapter 20.
What the "cosmic child abuse" objection gets wrong is the Trinity. It assumes a division between the Father and the Son — as if they are two separate agents with conflicting agendas. But orthodox Trinitarian theology insists that the Father, Son, and Spirit share one divine will, one divine love, one divine purpose. The cross is the act of one God in three Persons, each playing a distinct role but united in purpose and love throughout. The Father sends the Son in love. The Son goes willingly in obedience. The Spirit empowers the sacrifice (Heb. 9:14). There is no division, no conflict, no abuse. There is only love — holy, costly, self-giving love that absorbs the consequences of sin to set sinners free.
Furthermore, notice that the language of Romans 3:25 itself rules out the "child abuse" reading. Paul does not say, "God punished Christ." He says, "God put forward Christ as a propitiation." The word proetheto — "put forward" or "displayed" — is a word of offering and presentation, not of violence or punishment. And when Paul says "by his blood," he is using sacrificial language — the language of a gift freely offered, not of an execution imposed against the victim's will. The entire framework is one of divine self-giving. God gives Christ; Christ gives Himself; and the result is a sacrifice that is at once God's gift to humanity (providing the means of atonement) and humanity's gift to God (the offering that satisfies divine justice). This is the profound truth that Stott captures in his famous phrase "the self-substitution of God": at the cross, it is not God punishing an innocent third party, but God Himself — in the person of the Son — bearing the consequences of our sin.53
I want to stress this point because it matters deeply, both theologically and pastorally. When we speak of penal substitutionary atonement, we are not telling a story of divine violence. We are telling a story of divine love — love so profound that it willingly enters into the darkest consequences of human sin in order to rescue those who could never rescue themselves. The Father did not vent His anger on a helpless victim. The Father and the Son, together, undertook the most costly act of love in the history of the universe. The cross is not the breakdown of the Trinity; it is the Trinity's greatest act of unified, self-giving love. We will explore this theme in much greater depth in Chapter 20.
Let me now step back and summarize the logical structure of Paul's argument in Romans 3:21–26, because seeing the whole helps us appreciate the parts.
Step 1 (Rom. 1:18–3:20): The problem. All humanity — Jew and Gentile alike — stands under the wrath and judgment of God because of sin. No one is righteous. The whole world is accountable to God.
Step 2 (Rom. 3:21–22): The solution announced. "But now" — a new era has dawned. God has manifested His righteousness apart from the law, available through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe.
Step 3 (Rom. 3:23): The universal need restated. All have sinned and fall short of God's glory.
Step 4 (Rom. 3:24): The means of salvation. Sinners are justified freely by God's grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Step 5 (Rom. 3:25a): The mechanism explained. God put Christ forward as a hilastērion — a propitiatory sacrifice — by His blood, to be received by faith.
Step 6 (Rom. 3:25b–26a): The rationale. This was to demonstrate God's righteousness, because in His forbearance He had previously passed over sins without finally dealing with them.
Step 7 (Rom. 3:26b): The climax. The cross enables God to be both just (His justice satisfied) and the justifier (He declares sinners righteous) — simultaneously, in the same act, without compromise.
When we see the logic laid out this way, the penal substitutionary structure of Paul's argument is difficult to avoid. The problem is judicial (condemnation under wrath). The solution is judicial (justification by grace). The mechanism is sacrificial and propitiatory (Christ's blood satisfying divine justice). The result is the vindication of God's own righteousness alongside the acquittal of believing sinners. Remove the penal dimension, and the argument from verse 25b to verse 26 — the part about why God needed to demonstrate His righteousness — loses its coherence.54
This is perhaps the most common objection to the propitiatory reading of hilastērion. The answer, however, is straightforward. Biblical propitiation differs from pagan propitiation in at least three crucial ways. First, in paganism, it is humans who initiate the propitiation — they offer gifts to appease an angry god. In the Bible, it is God who initiates the propitiation — He provides the sacrifice (Rom. 3:25: "God put forward"). Second, in paganism, the gods are capricious and their anger is unpredictable. In the Bible, God's wrath is His settled, holy, just opposition to evil — not irrational rage but moral perfection responding to moral corruption. Third, in paganism, the goal is to manipulate the deity. In the Bible, the goal is to uphold justice while extending mercy. Biblical propitiation is self-propitiation — God providing the means by which His own justice is satisfied.55
I have addressed this objection at length above in discussing the New Perspective. The short answer is that the text itself distinguishes between God being dikaios (just — a character attribute) and dikaiounta (the one who justifies — a saving action). Both dimensions are present, and the first cannot be collapsed into the second. Moreover, the language of "passing over former sins" and "demonstrating God's righteousness" only makes sense if there was a genuine justice problem that needed to be resolved — not merely a covenant relationship that needed to be extended to Gentiles.
As shown above, the context of Romans 1:18–3:20 — with its extended treatment of God's wrath — makes a purely expiatory reading untenable. The problem Paul has established is not merely that sin is messy and needs to be cleaned up. The problem is that sinful humanity stands under the wrath of a just God. The solution must address the wrath. As Rutledge observes, even those who resist the language of propitiation must grapple with the fact that Paul's argument moves from wrath to remedy, and a remedy that does not address the wrath is no remedy at all.56
To be clear, I am not denying the reality of expiation. Sin is removed. Guilt is cleansed. The defilement of human transgression is dealt with. Expiation is real and important. But expiation alone does not explain why Paul frames his argument the way he does — moving from divine wrath and condemnation to the public demonstration of God's justice. The expiatory dimension tells us what happens to sin (it is removed). The propitiatory dimension tells us what happens to the wrath of God (it is satisfied). Both are necessary. Both are present. But in this passage, it is the propitiatory dimension that carries the weight of Paul's argument, because it is God's justice — not merely sin's pollution — that needs to be publicly vindicated.
Rutledge herself, despite exercising care with the language of propitiation, acknowledges the powerful role that wrath and judgment play in Paul's gospel. She writes that the move away from propitiation language was a "process that needed to happen" to purge crude and unworthy concepts of divine anger, but she is also clear that the reality behind the language — the serious, just, holy opposition of God to evil — cannot simply be discarded.56 I agree. The language of propitiation, rightly understood, does not depict a petty or capricious deity who needs to be bribed into forgiveness. It depicts a perfectly just God who takes sin with absolute seriousness and who, in His love, provides the means by which His own justice is satisfied so that sinners can go free.
While Paul's argument does address the Jew-Gentile question (especially in Rom. 3:29–30), the passage is about far more than ethnic inclusion. The universal scope of the indictment (all have sinned, v. 23) and the universal scope of the offer (for all who believe, v. 22) demonstrate that Paul is addressing the fundamental human problem of guilt before God, not merely the sociological question of who belongs to God's people. The Jew-Gentile issue is a secondary application of the primary argument about justification through faith on the basis of Christ's atoning death.
This does not mean the social dimension is irrelevant — far from it. Paul's point in Romans 3:29–30 is that the one God who justifies both circumcised and uncircumcised by faith is the same God. The universality of the atonement and the impartiality of God are inextricably linked. But the social application flows from the theological reality, not the other way around. God can include Gentiles in His saving purposes because the atonement addresses the universal human condition of sinfulness and guilt — a condition shared by Jews and Gentiles alike. The basis for the inclusion of the Gentiles is not a sociological argument about group membership but a theological argument about how God justly forgives sinners.
This objection has real force, and I want to acknowledge it honestly. Paul does indeed use many metaphors for the atonement: sacrifice, ransom, reconciliation, redemption, victory, and more. No single metaphor exhausts the full reality of what Christ accomplished on the cross, and I have argued throughout this book (see especially Chapter 24) that the atonement is multi-faceted. However, there is a difference between saying that the forensic metaphor is one among many (which is true) and saying that it has no special prominence in Paul's theology (which I believe is false). In this particular passage — the passage that most scholars regard as the theological center of Romans — Paul foregrounds the forensic dimension above all others. The vocabulary is overwhelmingly judicial: righteousness, justification, justice, the demonstration of God's righteousness. The climax of the passage is a statement about God being "just and the justifier." The forensic dimension is not the only dimension of the atonement, but in this passage it is the governing framework within which the other dimensions (sacrifice, redemption) operate. To flatten all the metaphors into perfect equality and deny that Paul gives the judicial framework any special prominence here is to ignore the shape of his own argument.
Before we conclude, it is worth stepping back to notice the remarkable density of atonement terminology packed into these six verses. As Allen has observed, this single paragraph employs at least three major atonement categories: redemption (apolytrōsis, v. 24), propitiation (hilastērion, v. 25), and justification (dikaioō and dikaiosynē, vv. 24, 26).57 Each of these draws on a different conceptual world: redemption from the marketplace, propitiation from the temple, justification from the courtroom. And all three converge in the person and work of Christ.
This convergence is itself significant. The atonement is not captured by any single metaphor or model. It is a multi-dimensional reality that requires multiple images and categories to express. But notice which dimension Paul emphasizes in this particular passage. The word "righteousness" (dikaiosynē) and its cognates appear seven times. The theme of God's justice being demonstrated runs from verse 25 through verse 26. The climactic phrase — "just and the justifier" — is forensic, legal, judicial language. Whatever else the atonement accomplishes (and it accomplishes much — as we will see in Chapters 9 through 12 and in Part V of this book), this passage highlights the forensic, judicial, penal dimension as central to Paul's explanation of how the cross works.
This does not mean the other dimensions are unimportant. The redemption language (v. 24) evokes the Christus Victor theme of liberation from captivity, the ransom theme of freedom purchased at a price. The sacrificial language ("by his blood," v. 25) connects Christ's death to the entire Old Testament sacrificial system explored in Chapters 4 and 5. The reconciliation motif, while not explicit here, is implied by the restoration of the divine-human relationship that justification makes possible (Paul will develop this in Romans 5:1–11, discussed in Chapter 9). All these dimensions are real, and all are important. But in this passage, Paul foregrounds the penal-judicial dimension — and he does so for a reason: because it is the penal dimension that explains how God can be just and yet justify sinners. It is the penal dimension that resolves the tension between God's mercy and God's justice. And it is the penal dimension that vindicates God's own righteous character in the act of forgiving sin.
Romans 3:21–26 is a passage of extraordinary theological density and beauty. In just six verses, Paul accomplishes something remarkable. He takes the devastating problem of universal human guilt under divine wrath and provides a comprehensive solution that upholds — rather than undermines — the justice of God. The solution is this: God Himself, in an act of breathtaking initiative and love, put forward His own Son as a hilastērion — a propitiatory sacrifice whose blood satisfies divine justice, removes human guilt, and opens the door for sinners to be declared righteous by faith.
The key insight — the theological summit of the passage — is found in verse 26: through the cross, God is simultaneously "just and the justifier." His justice is not compromised in the act of forgiving sin, because the judicial consequences of sin have been fully borne by Christ. And His mercy is not mere sentimentalism or divine leniency, because it is grounded in a real, costly, historical act of atonement. Love and justice meet at the cross — not in tension but in perfect harmony.
I believe this passage, more than any other in the New Testament, demonstrates why the penal dimension of the atonement is not an optional add-on or a later theological development imposed onto the text. It is woven into the very fabric of Paul's argument. Remove the penal dimension, and Paul's claim that God is "just" in justifying sinners loses its foundation. The cross becomes an act of arbitrary grace rather than an act of costly justice. And the God of the cross becomes less than fully righteous — a God who overlooks sin rather than dealing with it.
But that is not the God Paul proclaims. The God of Romans 3:21–26 is a God who takes sin with utter seriousness — so seriously that He bears its consequences Himself, in the person of His Son. He is a God whose love does not cancel His justice but fulfills it. He is a God who finds a way to be both perfectly just and wonderfully merciful in the same act, at the same moment, on the same cross.
That is the beauty of penal substitutionary atonement. And that is why Romans 3:21–26 stands as the theological summit of the New Testament's witness to what God accomplished on the cross.
I want to close with a pastoral word. For the Christian who is burdened by guilt — who knows the weight of their own sin and wonders how a holy God could ever accept them — this passage is the most liberating paragraph in all of Scripture. God has already dealt with your sin. He dealt with it at the cross, in the blood of His Son. He is "just and the justifier" — His justice has been satisfied, and you can be freely, fully, undeservedly declared righteous simply by trusting in Jesus. You do not earn this. You cannot earn it. It is a gift, received by faith.
And for the theologian or the thoughtful reader who worries that forgiveness comes too easily — that a God who forgives without consequence is not truly just — this passage provides the answer. God does not forgive cheaply. He forgives at the highest possible cost: the life of His own Son. The cross is the place where mercy and justice embrace, where "steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other" (Ps. 85:10). Nothing about the cross is casual, easy, or sentimental. Everything about it is costly, serious, and breathtakingly beautiful.
The cross is where justice is done. The cross is where love is shown. The cross is where we are set free. And that, I believe, is the message of Romans 3:21–26 — the message that stands at the very center of the Christian faith.58
1 Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 173. Morris calls this paragraph "possibly the most important single paragraph ever written." See also David L. Allen, The Atonement: A Biblical, Theological, and Historical Study of the Cross of Christ (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2019), 75, who notes that "many scholars consider Rom 3:21–26 to be the heart of the letter and the apex of Paul's teaching on the atonement." ↩
2 For a careful treatment of the argument of Romans 1:18–3:20, see Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), 79–180. ↩
3 William Lane Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ: An Exegetical, Historical, and Philosophical Exploration (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2020), chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "NT Justice Motifs." Craig notes that the contrast is temporal, not logical, as the remainder of the passage makes clear. ↩
4 Allen, The Atonement, 76. Allen observes that the wrath of God is now "counterbalanced by the righteousness of God." ↩
5 Allen, The Atonement, 77. ↩
6 Vee Chandler, Victorious Substitution: Exploring the Nature of Salvation and Christ's Atoning Work (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2025), Appendix A, "Romans 3:21–26," under "Righteousness as Right Standing." Chandler provides a helpful summary of this position while arguing it is too narrow. ↩
7 Chandler, Victorious Substitution, Appendix A, "Romans 3:21–26," under "Righteousness as Divine Action." ↩
8 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "NT Justice Motifs." Craig's analysis of the multivalent character of dikaiosynē theou is particularly helpful. ↩
9 See N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 95–133; James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 340–46. The roots of this approach go back to Hermann Cremer in the late nineteenth century. ↩
10 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "NT Justice Motifs." ↩
11 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "NT Justice Motifs." Craig observes that "faithlessness is but one of the litany of sins listed by Paul that result in God's just condemnation." ↩
12 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "NT Justice Motifs," citing Charles Irons. ↩
13 Charles Lee Irons, The Righteousness of God: A Lexical Examination of the Covenant-Faithfulness Interpretation, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2/386 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 340–45. ↩
14 Mark A. Seifrid, "Righteousness Language in the Hebrew Scriptures and Early Judaism," in Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 1, ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O'Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 423. ↩
15 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "NT Justice Motifs," noting Dunn's acknowledgment that God's righteousness includes wrath and judgment. ↩
16 Allen, The Atonement, 79. ↩
17 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "NT Justice Motifs." Craig notes that Paul almost always uses pistis to mean "faith," and no contextual support exists for construing it as "faithfulness" here. ↩
18 Allen, The Atonement, 78–79. Allen emphasizes both the universality of the need and the universality of the offer. ↩
19 Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 226–27. ↩
20 Allen, The Atonement, 78. ↩
21 Allen, The Atonement, 80–81. Allen helpfully notes that justification includes not only the forensic verdict but also reinstatement into fellowship with God. ↩
22 Allen, The Atonement, 81. Allen observes that while apolytrōsis can mean simply "deliverance," the notion of cost is "invariably" present. ↩
23 Allen, The Atonement, 81–82. ↩
24 John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 177. See Allen, The Atonement, 81, who cites Stott's summary. ↩
25 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 159. This is one of the most important formulations in the entire atonement literature: the cross is God giving Himself to save us from Himself. ↩
26 Moo, Romans, 231–32. ↩
27 Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 144–213. Morris's landmark study of the hilaskomai word group remains the standard defense of the propitiatory meaning. See also J. I. Packer, "What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution," Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974): 3–45. ↩
28 C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935), 82–95. ↩
29 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "'Propitiation' (hilastērion) (Rom 3:25)." Craig notes that twenty-one of the twenty-seven occurrences of hilastērion in the LXX refer to the kappōret. ↩
30 Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 144–213; Roger Nicole, "C. H. Dodd and the Doctrine of Propitiation," Westminster Theological Journal 17 (1955): 117–57. ↩
31 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 169. Stott summarizes the critique of Dodd's thesis, noting the omission of the Maccabean literature and the writings of Josephus and Philo. ↩
32 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 169–70. ↩
33 Leon Morris, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 180. ↩
34 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "'Propitiation' (hilastērion) (Rom 3:25)," reporting Carson's view. ↩
35 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "'Propitiation' (hilastērion) (Rom 3:25)." ↩
36 Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 236–37. Craig discusses Moo's position and offers a philosophical correction regarding the meaning/reference distinction. ↩
37 Allen, The Atonement, 82. ↩
38 Allen, The Atonement, 82. ↩
39 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "'Through the redemption' (dia tēs apolytrōseōs) (Rom 3:24)." Craig notes the significance of the phrase "through his blood" in linking Christ's death to the Levitical sacrificial system. ↩
40 Allen, The Atonement, 80. Allen notes that paresin carries the sense of "letting go" rather than final forgiveness. See also Stott, The Cross of Christ, 175. ↩
41 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 175. ↩
42 Allen, The Atonement, 80. Allen observes that God "demonstrated" His righteousness by finally dealing with sin at the cross after having "passed over" prior sins. ↩
43 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "NT Justice Motifs." Craig notes the wordplay and observes that using justice terminology throughout would read: God is both "just and the justifier." ↩
44 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 176–77. Stott argues that without the penal-substitutionary dimension, God's justice in forgiving sin is left unaccounted for. ↩
45 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "NT Justice Motifs." ↩
46 Chandler, Victorious Substitution, Appendix A, "Romans 3:21–26." ↩
47 Chandler, Victorious Substitution, Appendix A, "Romans 3:21–26," under "Context." ↩
48 Chandler, Victorious Substitution, Appendix A, "Romans 3:21–26," under "Righteousness as Divine Action" and "Righteousness as an Attribute." ↩
49 Chandler, Victorious Substitution, chap. 3, "Exegetical Objections to the Penal Substitution Theory." ↩
50 Craig, Atonement and the Death of Christ, chap. 4, "Divine Justice," under "NT Justice Motifs." ↩
51 For a fuller engagement with Chandler's objections to PSA, see Chapters 32–33 of this book. ↩
52 Steve Chalke and Alan Mann, The Lost Message of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 182. For a thorough response, see Chapter 20 of this book. ↩
53 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 133–63. Stott's chapter "The Self-Substitution of God" is one of the most important treatments of this theme in the atonement literature. ↩
54 Schreiner, Romans, 191–98. ↩
55 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 170–74. Stott carefully distinguishes biblical propitiation from pagan propitiation on all three of these points. ↩
56 Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 473–76. Rutledge, while cautious about some formulations of propitiation, acknowledges the centrality of the wrath-and-remedy structure in Paul's argument. ↩
57 Allen, The Atonement, 81. ↩
58 For Paul's broader atonement theology beyond Romans 3:21–26, see Chapter 9 on 2 Corinthians 5, Galatians 3, Colossians 2, and the wider Pauline witness. For the philosophical defense of the coherence of penal substitution, see Chapter 25. ↩
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