Chapter 2
Atonement Terminology — The Biblical Vocabulary for the Work of Christ

Introduction: Why Words Matter

Have you ever tried to describe something huge — like the Grand Canyon or a spectacular sunset — and felt like your words just were not big enough? No single word quite captures the whole picture. You need a whole basket of words, each one revealing a different angle or color of the thing you are describing.

That is exactly what we find when we open the Bible and read about what Jesus accomplished on the cross. The biblical writers did not use just one word or one image to explain it. They used dozens. They reached for language about courtrooms, slave markets, battlefields, family reunions, temple altars, and the shedding of blood. They borrowed words from Hebrew and Greek that carried centuries of rich meaning. Each word is like a different facet of a diamond, catching a different ray of light and showing us something real and important about the cross.

In this chapter, I want to walk us through the most important of these words — first from the Old Testament in Hebrew, and then from the New Testament in Greek. My goal is not just to give us a vocabulary list (though this chapter will serve as a reference we can come back to throughout the book). My goal is to show that when we pay careful attention to the Bible's own language, we discover that substitutionary, penal, and judicial categories are woven right into the fabric of the biblical witness. At the same time, the Bible also uses rich sacrificial, redemptive, reconciliatory, and victory language. All of these streams feed into the great river of the atonement. And, as I will argue throughout this book, the penal substitutionary stream runs right through the center of that river.

We will also tackle one of the most important debates in atonement theology: the question of whether the key Greek word hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον) means "propitiation" (turning away God's wrath) or "expiation" (cleansing sin). Does the cross deal with God's righteous response to sin, or only with sin itself? As we will see, the answer has enormous implications.

Finally, we will examine two small but mighty Greek prepositions — anti (ἀντί, "in the place of") and hyper (ὑπέρ, "on behalf of") — and see how they reveal the substitutionary heart of the atonement.

Let us begin where the Bible begins: with the Old Testament.

Part One: Old Testament Terminology

The Old Testament was written almost entirely in Hebrew, and the Hebrew language gives us some of the most foundational terms for understanding what atonement means. These are the words that shaped how the Jewish people — and later the first Christians — thought about sin, sacrifice, and the restoration of relationship with God. When the New Testament writers described what Jesus accomplished on the cross, they were building on this vocabulary. So we need to understand these terms first.

1. Kipper (כָּפַר) — To Cover, To Atone, To Make Atonement

If there is one Old Testament word that towers over all others when it comes to atonement, it is kipper — the Hebrew verb that means "to make atonement." This word (the piel stem of kaphar) occurs more than one hundred times in the Old Testament, including an astonishing sixteen times in Leviticus 16 alone — the chapter that describes the Day of Atonement, Israel's most sacred annual ceremony.¹

But what does kipper actually mean? This is a question scholars have debated for a long time. The word seems to carry a cluster of meanings, and none of them necessarily rules out the others. David Allen helpfully summarizes four possible meanings. First, when God is the subject, kipper can mean "forgive." However, in some Old Testament texts, atonement is distinct from forgiveness and actually comes before forgiveness — it is a prerequisite to it (Leviticus 4:20, 26, 31; 19:22; Numbers 15:25). The atonement must happen first, and then forgiveness follows.²

Second, kipper can mean "cleanse" or "purify," as in Leviticus 16:30, where we read that the Day of Atonement rituals are performed so that the people will be "clean before the LORD." Third, the word can mean "ransom." Its close relative, the noun kopher (כֹּפֶר), clearly refers to a ransom payment — a price paid to deliver someone from a penalty they deserve (Exodus 30:12; Numbers 35:31–33). In the Day of Atonement ritual, the life of the animal is substituted for the lives of the people — the animal dies so that the people do not have to. Fourth — and this is very important for our purposes — kipper can refer to the averting of God's wrath.³

An important related word is kapporet (כַּפֹּרֶת), the noun that refers to the golden lid on top of the Ark of the Covenant. English Bibles usually translate this as "mercy seat." It was made of gold, with the upper part carved into the form of two cherubim with wings stretching over the Ark (Exodus 25:17–22). On the Day of Atonement each year, the high priest sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on the kapporet, and it was there — on the mercy seat — that forgiveness was accomplished for the nation of Israel. As we will see in Chapter 8, this word becomes enormously significant in the New Testament, because Paul uses the Greek equivalent (hilastērion) to describe what God did through Christ in Romans 3:25. The mercy seat was where God's justice and God's mercy met. And that, Paul tells us, is exactly what Christ became for us on the cross.

The concept of atonement is also powerfully expressed in Leviticus 17:11, one of the most foundational verses in the entire Old Testament for understanding sacrifice: "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, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life" (ESV). This verse tells us three critical things: the blood represents life given up in death, God Himself is the one who provides the means of atonement ("I have given it"), and the shedding of blood is the God-ordained means by which atonement is accomplished.

2. Asham (אָשָׁם) — Guilt Offering, Trespass Offering

The asham is one of the most important sacrificial terms in the Old Testament. It refers to the guilt offering or trespass offering described in Leviticus 5:14–6:7. This offering was required when someone had committed a specific offense that created a debt — either a violation against the holy things of God or a wrong done against a neighbor. What makes the asham unique is that it combines the idea of sacrifice with the idea of reparation: the wrongdoer had to both offer a sacrifice and make restitution for the wrong committed, plus an additional twenty percent (Leviticus 6:5).

Why does this word matter for the atonement? Because Isaiah 53:10 uses this very term to describe what the Suffering Servant — the one who is "pierced for our transgressions" and "crushed for our iniquities" — does for us: "Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt [asham]..." (ESV). The Servant's death is presented as a guilt offering — an asham — on behalf of the people. This is remarkable. It means the prophet is saying that the Servant's suffering has a judicial, reparative dimension: it pays the debt that the people's sin has incurred. As we will explore in depth in Chapter 6, this is some of the strongest Old Testament evidence for penal substitutionary atonement.⁵

3. Chattath (חַטָּאת) — Sin, Sin Offering

Here is a fascinating feature of the Hebrew language: the word chattath means both "sin" itself and "sin offering." The same word covers the disease and the cure! The sin offering is described in Leviticus 4–5:13, and it was the sacrifice offered when someone had sinned unintentionally and needed purification. The blood of the sin offering was handled with special care — it was applied to the horns of the altar and poured at its base — because the sin offering dealt directly with the contaminating effects of sin before a holy God.

This double meaning of chattath becomes crucial in the New Testament. When Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that God "made him who knew no sin to be sin for us" (ESV), many scholars believe Paul is drawing directly on this Old Testament word and its sacrificial connotations. God made Christ to be a sin offering on our behalf — the one who knew no sin took on the burden and consequences of our sin. The sin offering language reinforces that the cross deals with sin as both a defilement that needs to be cleansed and a debt that needs to be paid (cross-reference Chapter 9 for the full exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5:21).

4. Padah (פָּדָה) — To Ransom, To Redeem

Padah means "to ransom" or "to redeem" in the sense of releasing someone from bondage, captivity, or death by paying a price. It is used throughout the Old Testament to describe God's deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt (Deuteronomy 7:8; 9:26; 13:5; 2 Samuel 7:23; Nehemiah 1:10). The word paints a vivid commercial picture: someone is trapped, bound, or enslaved, and another person pays the price required to set them free.

This is the language that feeds directly into the New Testament concept of redemption. When the New Testament writers describe Jesus giving His life as a "ransom" (lytron), they are drawing on the deep Old Testament tradition of God as the one who pays the price to set His people free. The metaphor is not abstract. It is personal, costly, and liberating.

5. Ga'al (גָּאַל) — To Redeem, To Act as Kinsman-Redeemer

This beautiful Hebrew word carries a meaning that is both legal and deeply personal. A go'el (the noun form) was a kinsman-redeemer — a close family member who had the legal right and moral obligation to step in and rescue a relative who had fallen into debt, slavery, or loss. We see this vividly in the book of Ruth, where Boaz acts as the go'el for Ruth and Naomi, purchasing back their family's land and marrying Ruth to preserve the family line (Ruth 4:1–12).

The Old Testament boldly applies this family-rescue language to God Himself. God is Israel's go'el — their kinsman-redeemer (Isaiah 41:14; 43:14; 44:6, 24; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7, 26; 54:5, 8; 59:20; 63:16). He is not a distant judge who coldly surveys the human situation. He is a family member who steps in, pays the price, and brings His people home. The doctrine of the incarnation — God becoming a human being in Jesus Christ — is the ultimate expression of this reality. God became our kinsman so that He could become our redeemer. He took on our nature so that He could stand in our place.

6. Nasa (נָשָׂא) — To Bear, To Carry (Sin)

This is one of the most important words in the entire discussion of substitutionary atonement, and it appears in one of the Bible's most critical passages. Nasa means "to bear," "to carry," or "to lift up." When the object of the verb is sin, it means to bear the burden and consequences of sin.

Isaiah 53:4 uses this word: "Surely he has borne [nasa] our griefs and carried our sorrows" (ESV). And again in 53:12: "He bore [nasa] the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors" (ESV). The Suffering Servant carries what belongs to others. He picks up the burden that rests on their shoulders and takes it upon Himself. This is substitutionary language — unmistakably so. The Servant does not merely sympathize with the people's suffering from a distance. He takes their sin upon Himself and bears the weight of it in their place.⁶

A closely related word, sabal (סָבַל), also appears in Isaiah 53:4 ("carried our sorrows") and means "to carry as a heavy burden." Together, nasa and sabal create a powerful double image of the Servant staggering under the enormous weight of human sin and sorrow. As we will see in Chapter 6's detailed exegesis of Isaiah 53, this language points clearly to a real transfer — the sin of the many is placed on the one, and the one bears it away.

7. Shalach (שָׁלַח) — To Send Away

Shalach means "to send" or "to send away," and it plays a key role in the scapegoat ritual of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16). After the high priest laid both hands on the head of the live goat and confessed over it all the sins of the people, the goat was "sent away" into the wilderness, carrying the people's sins far from the camp (Leviticus 16:21–22). This dramatic visual image — the goat walking away into the desert, never to return, bearing the sins of the entire nation — is one of the most vivid pictures of atonement in the whole Old Testament. Sin is not merely covered or forgiven in the abstract; it is removed, carried away, sent far from God's people. As we will discuss in Chapter 5, this scapegoat ritual powerfully foreshadows what Christ accomplished on the cross — the complete removal and bearing away of our sin.

8. Tsedaqah (צְדָקָה) — Righteousness, Justice

The Hebrew word tsedaqah (and the related tsedeq, צֶדֶק) means "righteousness" or "justice." In the Old Testament, this word describes both who God is and what God does. God is righteous — that is, He always does what is right, fair, and just. His character is the standard against which all moral reality is measured. When the psalmist declares, "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne" (Psalm 89:14, ESV), he is saying that everything God does rests on these bedrock attributes.

This matters deeply for the atonement because it tells us that God cannot simply overlook sin. If He did, He would not be righteous. If a judge in a human courtroom let every guilty criminal walk free with no consequences, we would not call that judge loving or merciful — we would call him unjust. In the same way, God's tsedaqah means that sin must be dealt with. The penalty must be addressed. And the atonement is God's way of dealing with sin fully and justly, while still extending mercy and forgiveness to sinners. As Paul will argue in Romans 3:25–26 — a passage we will examine closely in Chapter 8 — the cross is where God demonstrates both His justice and His mercy at the same time. He is "just and the justifier" of all who trust in Jesus.

Part Two: New Testament Terminology

When we turn from the Old Testament to the New Testament, we move from Hebrew to Greek. But we do not leave the Old Testament vocabulary behind. The New Testament writers were steeped in the Jewish Scriptures, and the Greek words they chose to describe what Jesus accomplished on the cross were often deliberate translations or echoes of the Hebrew terms we have just explored. At the same time, the Greek language brought its own precision and nuance. Let us survey the most important New Testament terms.

1. Hilastērion / Hilasmos (ἱλαστήριον / ἱλασμός) — Propitiation / Expiation

No single word in the New Testament has generated more scholarly debate in the field of atonement theology than hilastērion. This term (and its close relative hilasmos) lies at the very heart of the question: What did God accomplish through the death of Jesus? Did the cross deal with God's wrath against sin (propitiation), or did it deal only with sin itself (expiation), or both?

The word hilastērion appears in Romans 3:25, one of the most important atonement texts in the entire Bible: "whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith" (ESV). The noun hilasmos appears in 1 John 2:2 ("He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world," ESV) and 1 John 4:10 ("In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins," ESV). The related verb hilaskomai (ἱλάσκομαι) appears in Hebrews 2:17 and Luke 18:13.

So what does this word mean? The answer depends on whom you ask — and this brings us to one of the great atonement debates of the twentieth century.

The Propitiation vs. Expiation Debate: Dodd vs. Morris

In 1931, the distinguished British scholar C. H. Dodd argued that while the Greek verb hilaskomai and its cognates meant "propitiation" (the appeasing or satisfying of an offended deity) in classical and pagan Greek literature, this was not the meaning in the Jewish Greek literature that formed the background to the New Testament. Dodd claimed that in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament, often abbreviated LXX), the word carried a different meaning: "to purge," "to forgive," or "to expiate." The difference is enormous. If Dodd was right, then the New Testament hilasmos words refer only to the cleansing of sin — they say nothing about the turning away of God's wrath. If the cross only expiates sin, then we do not need to speak of God's wrath being satisfied at the cross at all.⁷

Enter Leon Morris. The Australian evangelical scholar published a devastating critique of Dodd's position, first in an article and then in his landmark 1955 book The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. Morris's rebuttal was thorough and, in my judgment, decisive. He demonstrated several things.

First, Dodd's claim that the meaning shifted from "propitiation" to "expiation" in Jewish Greek was simply incorrect. The propitiatory meaning is clearly present in the prominent Jewish writers Josephus and Philo — both of whom Dodd had ignored. The same meaning appears in the Jewish Apocrypha (4 Maccabees 17:22) and in early Christian texts like 1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas.⁸

Second, even in the Septuagint itself, there are numerous passages where hilaskomai is used and the context plainly involves the averting of God's wrath. Morris and the scholar Roger Nicole pointed to texts like Exodus 32:14 (where Moses intercedes and God relents from His anger), Numbers 16:46–47 (where Aaron's offering of incense stops a plague sent in divine wrath), and Numbers 25:11–13 (where Phinehas turns back God's wrath by his zeal). In these passages, translating the word as merely "expiate" or "forgive" simply does not work. The context demands the meaning "propitiate" — to turn away God's wrath.⁹

Third, Morris demonstrated that even in pagan Greek, "propitiation" was not about bribing a capricious deity. The biblical concept of propitiation is fundamentally different from pagan notions. In the Bible, it is God Himself who provides the means of propitiation. God is not placated by human efforts; rather, God Himself acts in love to satisfy His own righteous requirements. As 1 John 4:10 makes abundantly clear: "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." The propitiation originates in God's love, not in human appeasement.¹⁰

There is one more dimension to consider. In Romans 3:25, hilastērion may carry a very specific Old Testament echo. In the Septuagint, hilastērion is the word used to translate the Hebrew kapporet — the mercy seat, the golden lid of the Ark of the Covenant. If Paul is using the word with this meaning in mind, then he is making a breathtaking claim: Jesus Christ Himself is the new mercy seat — the place where God's justice and God's mercy meet. Just as the high priest sprinkled blood on the kapporet on the Day of Atonement, God has set forth Christ as the place where atonement is accomplished, where the blood speaks of both the satisfaction of justice and the overflow of mercy. We will explore this further in Chapter 8's detailed exegesis of Romans 3:21–26.¹²

2. Katallagē (καταλλαγή) — Reconciliation

Katallagē is the Greek noun for "reconciliation" — the restoration of a broken relationship. The related verb forms are katallassō (καταλλάσσω) and the intensified apokatallassō (ἀποκαταλλάσσω). This is the word that actually lies behind the English word "atonement" itself. As Allen notes, William Tyndale coined the English word "atonement" in 1526 as a translation of katallagē in Romans 5:11 — literally, "at-one-ment," or the bringing together of two parties who were separated.¹³

Paul uses reconciliation language in some of his most powerful atonement passages. In Romans 5:10–11, he writes: "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life" (ESV). In 2 Corinthians 5:18–20, he declares: "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them" (ESV).

Several things stand out. First, God is the one who initiates reconciliation. He does not wait for sinners to come to Him; He acts first. Second, reconciliation has both an objective and a subjective dimension. Objectively, God reconciled the world to Himself through Christ's death on the cross — the barriers have been removed on God's side. Subjectively, individual people are reconciled to God when they respond in faith to the gospel ("Be reconciled to God," 2 Corinthians 5:20). Third, the ground of reconciliation is Christ's death — it is "by the death of his Son" and "through Christ" that reconciliation is accomplished.¹⁴

Reconciliation language reminds us that the ultimate goal of the atonement is not merely legal acquittal or even the cleansing of sin — it is the restoration of a personal relationship between God and the human beings He created and loves. The courtroom metaphors are real and important, but they serve a relational purpose. God wants us back.

3. Apolytrōsis (ἀπολύτρωσις) — Redemption

Apolytrōsis means "redemption" — the release of someone by the payment of a ransom price. It belongs to a family of Greek words that all carry the idea of liberation through purchase. Allen identifies four key Greek terms in this word group.¹⁵

First, agorazō (ἀγοράζω) is a commercial term that originally meant "to make a purchase in the marketplace." It appears in 1 Corinthians 6:20 ("you were bought with a price"), 1 Corinthians 7:23, 2 Peter 2:1, and Revelation 5:9 and 14:3–4. The image is vivid: we were slaves on the auction block, and Christ purchased our freedom.

Second, exagorazō (ἐξαγοράζω) adds the prefix "ex-" (out of), indicating a purchase that liberates — a buying out of bondage. Paul uses this word in Galatians 3:13 ("Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us") and Galatians 4:5 ("to redeem those who were under the law").

Third, lutroō (λυτρόω) means "to liberate by means of the payment of a ransom price." It occurs in Luke 24:21 ("we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel"), Titus 2:14, and 1 Peter 1:18. The noun form lytron (λύτρον) — "ransom" — occurs in two key Gospel texts: Matthew 20:28 and Mark 10:45 ("the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many").

Fourth, apolytrōsis itself (ἀπολύτρωσις), closely related to lutroō, means "release by payment of a ransom." It appears in Romans 3:24 ("justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus"), Romans 8:23, 1 Corinthians 1:30, Ephesians 1:7 ("In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses"), Ephesians 1:14, 4:30, Colossians 1:14, and Hebrews 9:15.¹⁶

What is striking about this entire word group is that it carries a very concrete metaphor: liberation from bondage through the payment of a costly price. We were enslaved — to sin, to death, to the law's condemnation — and Christ paid the price of His own blood to set us free. This raises the natural question: To whom was the ransom paid? Some early church fathers suggested that the ransom was paid to Satan, but this idea was rightly abandoned. Others suggest the ransom was paid to God. As Allen notes, the New Testament itself shows little interest in pressing the metaphor that far — the emphasis is on the fact that liberation was costly and that Christ's death was the price, not on specifying the recipient of payment.¹⁷

4. Lytron / Antilytron (λύτρον / ἀντίλυτρον) — Ransom

While we touched on lytron above as part of the redemption word group, this word deserves its own brief treatment because of its enormous importance. In Mark 10:45, Jesus declares: "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom [lytron] for many" (ESV). This is one of Jesus' most important self-interpretive statements about His own death. He says His life is a lytron — a ransom payment — given "for" (anti, ἀντί, "in the place of") many.

The compound form antilytron (ἀντίλυτρον) appears in 1 Timothy 2:6: "who gave himself as a ransom [antilytron] for all" (ESV). The prefix anti- ("in place of") is built right into the noun itself, reinforcing the substitutionary meaning. Christ gave Himself as a ransom in the place of all. Stott notes that this composite word, occurring in the context of Paul's statement about "the man Christ Jesus" who is the "one mediator between God and men," makes the substitutionary character of the ransom unmistakably clear.¹⁸

5. The Anti / Hyper Distinction and Its Significance

We need to spend some time on these two prepositions because they are central to the scholarly debate about whether the New Testament teaches substitutionary atonement.

The preposition anti (ἀντί) clearly means "in the place of" or "instead of." Wherever it appears in connection with Christ's death — as in Mark 10:45 and (within the compound noun antilytron) 1 Timothy 2:6 — it points unambiguously to substitution. Christ takes the place of those for whom He dies. He stands where they should have stood. He receives what they should have received.¹⁹

The preposition hyper (ὑπέρ) is used far more frequently in the New Testament in connection with Christ's death: "Christ died for [hyper] us" (Romans 5:8), "one died for [hyper] all" (2 Corinthians 5:14), and many other passages. In its most basic sense, hyper means "on behalf of" — it tells us who benefits from the action. But does it also carry the meaning of substitution?

Stott argues persuasively that the answer is yes — frequently so. While the dictionary definitions of anti and hyper are different, they do not always maintain a strict boundary in actual usage. Even the broader word hyper is often shown by its context to carry the sense of anti — that is, "in the place of," not merely "for the benefit of." Stott points to several clear examples. In 2 Corinthians 5:20, Paul calls himself an "ambassador for [hyper] Christ" — meaning he speaks in Christ's place, as Christ's representative. In Philemon 13, Paul says he wanted to keep Onesimus to serve him "on behalf of [hyper]" Philemon — that is, in Philemon's place.²⁰

The same substitutionary force of hyper is unmistakable in the two most dramatic statements about Christ's death in Paul's letters. In 2 Corinthians 5:21: "For our sake [hyper] he made him to be sin who knew no sin" — the sinless one was made sin in our place. And in Galatians 3:13: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for [hyper] us" — the curse that rested on us was transferred to Him, and He bore it instead of us. As Stott rightly observes, in both verses what happened to Christ on the cross is said to have been intended hyper hēmōn — "for us" — but the content of what happened (being "made sin," "becoming a curse") makes clear that this is substitution: He took what was ours so that we could receive what was His.²¹

Simon Gathercole helpfully defines substitutionary atonement as "Christ's death in our place, instead of us." He emphasizes that "instead of us" is the key clarifying phrase: "In a substitutionary theory of the death of Jesus, he did something, underwent something, so that we did not and would never have to do so." As Gathercole notes, this means that substitution involves a real exchange — a transfer of burden from us to Him, such that what He bore, we no longer bear.²²

The upshot of all this is significant. When we read that Christ died hyper us (on behalf of us, for our sake), the overall context of the New Testament — the sin-bearing language, the curse-bearing language, the ransom language, the sacrificial language — fills that little preposition with substitutionary content. Christ died not merely for our benefit in some general sense but specifically in our place, bearing what we should have borne, so that we never have to bear it ourselves.

6. Dikē / Dikaiosynē (δίκη / δικαιοσύνη) — Justice / Righteousness

The Greek word dikaiosynē means "righteousness" or "justice" — corresponding to the Hebrew tsedaqah that we examined earlier. In the New Testament, this word group is absolutely central to Paul's theology, especially in Romans. Paul speaks of "the righteousness of God" (dikaiosynē theou) as something that has been revealed in the gospel (Romans 1:17; 3:21–22). This phrase is rich and multidimensional. It refers both to God's own righteous character (He is just) and to the righteous status that He gives to those who believe in Jesus (they are justified — declared righteous).

The closely related word dikē (δίκη) refers specifically to justice or the penalty that justice requires. In Romans 3:25–26, Paul makes the remarkable claim that God put forward Christ as a propitiation "to show his righteousness [dikaiosynē]... so that he might be just [dikaion] and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." The cross is where God demonstrates that He is both perfectly just (He does not simply wave away sin) and perfectly merciful (He freely justifies those who trust in His Son). The justice language of the New Testament thus reinforces the penal dimension of the atonement: there is a real penalty for sin, and it must be dealt with justly. Christ's death is the way God deals with it — both satisfying the demands of justice and opening the door to forgiveness.

7. Dikaiōsis (δικαίωσις) — Justification

Dikaiōsis means "justification" — the act of declaring someone righteous. This is a courtroom word. Imagine standing before a judge, accused of a crime. Justification is the moment the judge declares: "Not guilty. You are free to go." In Paul's theology, this is what happens when a person trusts in Jesus Christ: God, the righteous judge, declares the believer righteous — not because the believer has earned it or deserves it, but on the basis of what Christ has done on the cross.

Romans 4:25 is a key text: Christ "was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification [dikaiōsis]" (ESV). And Romans 5:18: "one act of righteousness leads to justification [dikaiōsis] and life for all men" (ESV). Justification is one of the most important benefits that flows from the atonement. It belongs primarily to the application of the atonement rather than to the act of atonement itself — which is why we will address it more fully in Chapter 36. But the term matters here because it shows that the New Testament frames the atonement in explicitly judicial, courtroom categories. The cross is the ground on which the verdict of "not guilty" can be righteously pronounced.

8. Thusia (θυσία) — Sacrifice

Thusia is the standard Greek word for "sacrifice." It appears throughout the New Testament in connection with Christ's death, but nowhere more prominently than in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Hebrews 9:26 declares that Christ "has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice [thusia] of himself" (ESV). Hebrews 10:12 adds: "when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice [thusia] for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God" (ESV). Ephesians 5:2 says Christ "gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice [thusia] to God."

Sacrifice language directly connects the death of Jesus to the entire Old Testament sacrificial system. Every bull and goat offered on the altar, every sprinkling of blood on the mercy seat, every smoke that rose as "a pleasing aroma to the LORD" — all of it was a shadow pointing forward to the one true sacrifice. The New Testament writers make this connection explicit: Christ's death is the ultimate thusia, the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, the reality to which the shadows were pointing all along. We will explore this extensively in Chapters 4, 5, and 10.

9. Haima (αἷμα) — Blood

The word haima means "blood," and it is used with remarkable frequency in the New Testament to describe the atonement. "The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). "In him we have redemption through his blood" (Ephesians 1:7). "You were ransomed... with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot" (1 Peter 1:18–19). "How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works" (Hebrews 9:14).

What does "blood" signify? Leon Morris argued powerfully that in the Bible, blood primarily signifies life given up in death — that is, violent death. Blood is not merely a symbol of life but a symbol of life poured out — life sacrificially and violently surrendered. When the New Testament speaks of Christ's blood, it is pointing to His death — specifically, His sacrificial death on the cross. The blood language draws a direct line from the altar of the Old Testament to the cross of the New. Just as the blood of the sacrificial animal was poured out on the altar to make atonement, so the blood of Christ — His life poured out in death — accomplishes the final, once-for-all atonement for sin.²³

10. Stauros (σταυρός) — Cross

Stauros is the Greek word for "cross" — the instrument of Roman execution. In the first century, the cross was not a religious symbol. It was a symbol of shame, torture, and state-sponsored violence. To be crucified was the most humiliating and agonizing form of death the Roman Empire could inflict. It was reserved for slaves, criminals, and enemies of the state.

And yet Paul writes: "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18, ESV). And again: "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14, ESV). The early Christians took the most shameful symbol in their world and made it the center of their faith and hope. They did this because they believed that something happened on that cross — something so profound, so transformative, so world-altering, that even the ugliest instrument of death became the most beautiful expression of divine love.

When the New Testament uses the word stauros, it is pointing not merely to the physical instrument but to the entire event — all that Christ accomplished in His death. "The cross" becomes shorthand for the whole work of atonement: the substitution, the sacrifice, the bearing of sin, the victory over evil, the reconciliation of God and humanity.

11. Pherō (φέρω) — To Bear, To Carry

The Greek verb pherō (and its compound forms, especially anapherō, ἀναφέρω) is the New Testament equivalent of the Hebrew nasa — "to bear" or "to carry." This is critical sin-bearing language. In 1 Peter 2:24, we read: "He himself bore [anēnegken, from anapherō] our sins in his body on the tree" (ESV). And in Hebrews 9:28: "so Christ, having been offered once to bear [enenkai, from anapherō] the sins of many" (ESV).

The word anapherō is particularly rich because in the Septuagint it is the standard word for offering sacrifices on the altar. So when Peter says that Christ "bore our sins in his body on the tree," he is using language that simultaneously evokes two images: the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 who "bore the sin of many" (nasa) and the Old Testament priest who "offered up" the sacrifice on the altar. Christ is both the priest who offers and the sacrifice that is offered. He is both the one who carries our sin and the one who carries it up to the altar. Both the bearing and the offering are substitutionary — He does it in our place, so that we do not have to do it ourselves.²⁴

Part Three: The Vocabulary in Concert — What the Terminology Reveals

Now that we have walked through the individual terms, let us step back and see the forest rather than just the trees. What does this vocabulary, taken as a whole, tell us about the atonement?

Multiple Metaphors, One Reality

Some scholars have suggested that because the Bible uses so many different images for the atonement — courtroom, marketplace, battlefield, temple, family — we should not take any single image too seriously. They argue that the metaphors are "just metaphors," and that no one model should be given pride of place. The atonement is a mystery, they say, that resists systematic formulation.

I partly agree and partly disagree. Yes, the atonement is a multi-faceted reality that no single model fully captures. I have said this already, and I will say it again throughout this book. But notice what the vocabulary itself reveals when we pay careful attention. The terms are not random or disconnected. They form coherent clusters that point toward specific theological realities.

Consider what we find when we sort the terms by theological category:

Judicial / Legal Terms: dikē (justice), dikaiosynē (righteousness), dikaiōsis (justification), tsedaqah (righteousness/justice), asham (guilt offering), the bearing of penalty, the satisfaction of divine law. These terms tell us that the atonement operates within a framework of justice and law. Sin creates a legal problem — guilt before a holy God — and the atonement addresses that problem judicially.

Sacrificial / Priestly Terms: thusia (sacrifice), haima (blood), kipper (atonement/covering), chattath (sin offering), asham (guilt offering), kapporet/hilastērion (mercy seat), pherō/anapherō (to offer/bear up). These terms tell us that the atonement is fundamentally sacrificial. An innocent victim is offered up in the place of the guilty, and its blood accomplishes what the guilty could never accomplish on their own.

Commercial / Liberation Terms: padah (ransom), ga'al (kinsman-redeemer), lytron/antilytron (ransom), apolytrōsis (redemption), agorazō (to purchase), exagorazō (to buy out of bondage). These terms tell us that the atonement liberates — it sets us free from slavery to sin, death, and condemnation by paying a costly price.

Relational / Reconciliation Terms: katallagē (reconciliation), ga'al (kinsman-redeemer). These terms tell us that the ultimate goal of the atonement is not merely legal acquittal but the restoration of a broken relationship between God and humanity.

Substitutionary Terms: anti (in the place of), hyper (on behalf of / in the place of), nasa/pherō (to bear sin), antilytron (a ransom in the place of). These terms — cutting across all the other categories — tell us that the atonement is substitutionary: someone else stands in our place and bears what we should have borne.

Here is the point I want to press home. The substitutionary category does not sit alongside the others as one option among many. It runs through all of them. The sacrifice is substitutionary — an innocent victim in the place of the guilty. The ransom is substitutionary — Christ pays the price instead of us. The reconciliation is grounded in substitution — it is "by the death of his Son" that we are reconciled. Even the judicial language is substitutionary — the righteous one bears the penalty that the unrighteous deserve. Substitution is not one thread in the tapestry; it is the thread that holds the whole tapestry together.

And when we add the penal dimension — the consistent biblical testimony that sin incurs guilt, that guilt demands a penalty, that the penalty was borne by Christ, and that God's justice was thereby satisfied — we arrive at penal substitutionary atonement: Christ, in our place, bearing the judicial consequences of our sin, satisfying God's righteous requirements, and setting us free.

The Vocabulary Supports a Multi-Faceted Model with PSA at the Center

William Lane Craig helpfully describes the atonement as "a multifaceted jewel." He is right. Sacrifice, ransom, victory, reconciliation, moral influence, recapitulation — all of these are real facets of what Christ accomplished on the cross.²⁵ The biblical vocabulary we have surveyed confirms this richness. No single word captures everything.

But I believe the vocabulary also tells us something else: the facets are not all equal. Some facets are closer to the center than others. And when we examine the sheer weight, frequency, and theological depth of the substitutionary, sacrificial, and judicial terms — when we see how deeply they are woven into the most important atonement passages in both Testaments — I believe it becomes clear that penal substitution stands at the center of the diamond. The other facets are real and beautiful, and they contribute indispensable dimensions to our understanding of the cross. But they orbit around the center; they do not replace it.

This is the thesis of this entire book, and I believe the vocabulary we have examined in this chapter provides the first strong piece of evidence for it. The Bible's own language — its choice of words, its metaphors, its prepositions — points to a reality in which an innocent substitute bears the penalty of sin on behalf of the guilty, satisfying God's justice and restoring the broken relationship between God and humanity. That is penal substitutionary atonement. And the Bible speaks of it not in hushed tones or occasional whispers but in a full-throated chorus that runs from Genesis to Revelation.

Part Four: Responding to Challenges and Objections

Do the Metaphors Relativize PSA?

Some scholars argue that because the Bible uses multiple metaphors — courtroom, marketplace, temple, family — we should treat all atonement "models" as equally partial and avoid elevating any one above the others. Joel Green and Mark Baker, for example, argue that we should resist the temptation to privilege any single atonement image over the others. Similarly, William Hess frames the atonement primarily in terms of the Christus Victor model — Christ's victory over sin, death, and the powers of evil — and suggests that the penal and substitutionary metaphors have been overemphasized in Western theology.²⁶

I appreciate the concern behind this argument. We should indeed resist any approach that flattens the richness of the biblical witness into a single, one-dimensional formula. The atonement is genuinely multi-faceted. But I think this argument proves too much. If "multiple metaphors" means "no model is central," then we lose the ability to say anything definitive about the atonement at all. And the argument overlooks the fact that the biblical writers themselves seem to give certain categories more weight than others. The sheer volume of sacrificial, substitutionary, and judicial language in the Bible is striking. These are not minor notes in the symphony; they are the main melody.

Furthermore, the models are not all independent of each other. Christus Victor, for example, tells us that Christ was victorious over the powers — but it does not tell us how. How did Christ defeat sin, death, and the devil? The answer the New Testament gives is: through His substitutionary, sacrificial death. It was "through death" that Christ destroyed "the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14). It was "the blood of the Lamb" by which the saints conquered the accuser (Revelation 12:11). Christus Victor and penal substitution are not alternatives; they are complementary — and the substitutionary death is the means by which the victory is won. We will explore this integration in much greater detail in Chapters 21 and 24.

Is "Propitiation" Too Pagan?

Another objection is that the language of "propitiation" imports pagan ideas into the Bible — the notion of an angry deity who must be appeased by human sacrifice. C. H. Dodd's preference for "expiation" was partly driven by this concern. And Hess raises similar worries, arguing that the idea of God punishing Jesus looks uncomfortably similar to pagan sacrificial practices.²⁷

This objection rests on a misunderstanding. Biblical propitiation is fundamentally different from pagan propitiation in at least three ways. First, in pagan religion, humans initiate the propitiation — they offer sacrifices to bribe or placate a capricious god. In the Bible, God Himself initiates propitiation: "He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). God is not being bribed; God is acting in love. Second, in pagan religion, the deity being propitiated is often arbitrary, petulant, or vindictive. In the Bible, God's wrath is holy, just, and righteous — it is the settled opposition of God's perfect nature to everything that is evil (Romans 1:18). Third, in pagan religion, the sacrifice is offered by someone other than the deity. In the Bible, God Himself provides the sacrifice — indeed, in the person of His Son, He becomes the sacrifice. As John Stott brilliantly puts it, the cross is the self-substitution of God.²⁸

Far from importing paganism into Christianity, the biblical doctrine of propitiation actually subverts and transcends all pagan conceptions of sacrifice. God does not demand that we appease Him. Instead, He Himself provides the means of dealing with His own just wrath against sin. That is not paganism; that is grace.

Does Hyper Really Mean "In the Place Of"?

A final challenge concerns the preposition hyper. Some scholars insist that hyper means only "on behalf of" or "for the benefit of" and should never be translated "in the place of." If this were correct, it would weaken the case for substitution, since hyper is the preposition most commonly used of Christ's death.

But as we saw above, this argument does not hold up. Stott has shown that hyper regularly carries a substitutionary meaning in the New Testament when the context makes this clear. And in the key atonement texts, the context is overwhelmingly clear: Christ did not merely die for our benefit in some vague sense. He was "made sin" hyper us (2 Corinthians 5:21), He "became a curse" hyper us (Galatians 3:13), He suffered "the righteous for [hyper] the unrighteous" (1 Peter 3:18). In each case, the context fills the preposition with substitutionary content. As Gathercole summarizes, substitution means that Christ "did something, underwent something, so that we did not and would never have to do so." The hyper of the New Testament, when set in its full context, points unmistakably to this reality.²⁹

Conclusion

Words matter. And the words the Bible uses to describe the death of Jesus Christ tell us something profoundly important about what happened on that cross.

In the Old Testament, we find the language of covering and atonement (kipper), guilt offering (asham), sin offering (chattath), ransom and redemption (padah, ga'al), the bearing and removal of sin (nasa, shalach), and the righteous justice of God (tsedaqah). In the New Testament, we find propitiation and expiation (hilastērion, hilasmos), reconciliation (katallagē), redemption (apolytrōsis), ransom (lytron, antilytron), justice and righteousness (dikaiosynē), justification (dikaiōsis), sacrifice (thusia), blood (haima), cross (stauros), and sin-bearing (pherō). Cutting across all of these categories, the prepositions anti ("in the place of") and hyper ("on behalf of") point to the substitutionary heart of the atonement.

When we listen carefully to this vocabulary — when we let the Bible speak in its own words — we hear a consistent testimony. The atonement is rich, multi-faceted, and deeper than any single model can capture. But at the center of this rich tapestry, we find a clear and unmistakable pattern: an innocent substitute stands in the place of the guilty, bears the consequences of their sin, satisfies the righteous demands of God's justice, and opens the way for sinners to be reconciled to the God who loves them.

That is the language of penal substitutionary atonement. And the Bible speaks it fluently, from beginning to end.

In the next chapter, we will turn from the Bible's vocabulary to the Bible's theology of God — exploring how God's love, justice, and holiness come together to make the cross both necessary and beautiful.