If there is one passage in the entire New Testament that stands as the clearest, most concentrated explanation of how God saves sinners through the cross of Jesus Christ, it is Romans 3:21–26. I believe these six verses are, without exaggeration, the theological summit of the entire Bible when it comes to explaining the inner workings of the atonement. Many scholars agree. David Allen calls this passage "the heart of the letter and the apex of Paul's teaching on the atonement."1 John Stott spent much of his magisterial treatment of the cross meditating on these verses. D. A. Carson devoted an important essay entirely to the theology packed into this paragraph.2 Leon Morris, one of the greatest evangelical atonement scholars of the twentieth century, regarded this text as absolutely central to understanding how the cross works.
Why do so many scholars give these particular verses such a place of honor? The reason is that here, more than anywhere else in Scripture, Paul explains how God can forgive sinners and still remain perfectly just. That is the question at the heart of the gospel. It is easy enough to say that God loves us and forgives us. But if God simply waved His hand and said, "Never mind about all that sin," He would not be just. He would be ignoring the very real problem of human rebellion. And a God who ignores evil is not a good God—He is an indifferent one. On the other hand, if God strictly punished every sin with the full penalty it deserved, no one could be saved. We would all be lost.
Romans 3:21–26 answers this dilemma. It tells us that at the cross, God found a way to be both just and the justifier of sinners. He did not compromise His justice. He did not ignore sin. And He did not abandon His love. Instead, He set forth His own Son as a hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον)—a propitiation, a sacrifice that deals with sin and satisfies the demands of divine justice—so that through faith in Jesus, guilty sinners can be declared righteous. This, I am convinced, is the very heart of penal substitutionary atonement, expressed in Paul's own inspired words.
In this chapter, we will walk through Romans 3:21–26 clause by clause. We will examine the key Greek terms, engage with major scholarly debates (including the famous propitiation-versus-expiation controversy), interact with the "new perspective on Paul," and show how this passage grounds the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement in the character and justice of God Himself. We will also engage with important objections raised by those who reject penal substitution, including William Hess's argument in Crushing the Great Serpent that wrath language should not be connected to the cross event. By the end, I hope to show that Romans 3:21–26 is not just one proof-text among many for PSA—it is the theological foundation on which the entire doctrine rests.
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.
These verses are a single paragraph in Paul's letter, and they form a tightly woven theological argument. Every word counts. Every clause builds on the one before it. To understand what Paul is saying, we need to slow down and look at each piece carefully. So let us take this text apart, examine each element, and then put it back together to see the magnificent picture Paul is painting.
Before we dig into the details of verses 21–26, we need to understand where this passage sits within the larger argument of Romans. Context is everything in Bible interpretation, and the context here is absolutely crucial for understanding what Paul means.
The letter to the Romans is Paul's most carefully structured theological letter. From 1:18 all the way through 3:20, Paul has been making one sustained argument: every single human being stands guilty before God. Gentiles are guilty because they suppressed the truth about God that was visible in creation and fell into idolatry and moral corruption (1:18–32). Jews are guilty because, even though they had the law of Moses, they failed to keep it and so stand condemned by the very law they boasted about (2:1–3:8). The conclusion is devastating: "None is righteous, no, not one" (3:10). "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (3:23).
Paul's language throughout this section is intensely judicial. He uses courtroom language. Humanity is on trial, and the verdict has come in: guilty. The "wrath of God" is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness (1:18). The day of God's righteous judgment is coming (2:5). God's "righteous decree" declares that those who practice sin "deserve death" (1:32). By the time we reach 3:20, the situation looks hopeless. Every mouth is stopped. The whole world is accountable to God. No one can be justified—declared righteous—by works of the law.
And then come two of the most important words in the entire Bible: "But now."
Key Point: The phrase "but now" (νυνὶ δέ, nyni de) in Romans 3:21 marks the great turning point in Paul's argument. Everything before this was about the problem—universal human sin and guilt under God's wrath. Everything from this point forward is about the solution—God's provision of righteousness through the atoning death of Christ. The phrase signals not just a chronological shift (something has now happened that had not happened before) but a dramatic reversal of the entire human situation before God.
As Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach observe, when we reach Romans 3:20, all humanity is under judgment, doomed to face God's wrath. But by the time we reach 3:27–31, Paul is talking about people being justified—declared righteous. So what happened in between? Whatever else Romans 3:21–26 teaches, it must explain how we got from condemnation to justification. Something has dealt with sin and wrath. And that "something" is the cross of Jesus Christ.3
This context matters enormously for the debates we will explore in this chapter. Those who want to read the cross purely as an act of "expiation" (the removal of sin's defilement) without any reference to "propitiation" (the satisfaction of God's justice and the turning away of His wrath) have to contend with the fact that Paul has spent two and a half chapters establishing that God's wrath is real, that it is directed against human sin, and that it constitutes a genuine problem that must be resolved. If wrath is the problem, then the solution must address wrath. As Leon Morris rightly observed, "Wrath has occupied such an important place in the argument leading up to this section that we are justified in looking for some expression indicative of its cancellation in the process which brings about salvation."4
Let us begin with the first clause: "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it" (v. 21).
The key phrase here is "the righteousness of God"—in Greek, dikaiosynē theou (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ). This is one of the most debated phrases in all of Pauline scholarship. What exactly does it mean? Scholars have proposed at least three major interpretations, and the debate has intensified considerably with the rise of the "new perspective on Paul" associated with scholars like N. T. Wright and James D. G. Dunn.
Interpretation 1: God's own attribute of justice. On this reading, "the righteousness of God" refers to God's own moral character—His perfect justice, His rightness, His faithfulness to His own standards. When Paul says God's righteousness has been "manifested," he means that the cross reveals and displays who God really is: a just God who does not ignore sin.
Interpretation 2: God's saving activity. Some scholars, particularly those influenced by the new perspective, argue that "the righteousness of God" is not primarily an attribute but an action. It refers to God's covenant faithfulness—His saving initiative to set things right, to rescue His people and fulfill His promises. N. T. Wright, for instance, emphasizes that dikaiosynē theou should be understood within the framework of God's covenant with Israel and His larger purpose to rescue the entire creation.
Interpretation 3: A righteous status given to believers. The traditional Protestant reading, associated with the Reformation, sees "the righteousness of God" as a righteousness from God—a right standing that God confers on believers. When you put your faith in Christ, God credits to you a righteous status that is not your own. This is the heart of the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone.
Which reading is correct? I believe the answer is: all three capture genuine aspects of what Paul means, and we do not need to choose only one. Allen helpfully summarizes: "This righteousness combines God's righteous character, His saving initiative, and the resultant right standing before Him when a person believes."5 Arland Hultgren defines it as "God's [saving] activity by which he justifies, or sets relationships right, between humanity and himself."6 Thomas Schreiner captures the dual dimension well: "God's righteousness has two dimensions. On the one hand, it refers to God's work in history that was manifested in the atoning work of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, the righteousness of God is also subjectively appropriated in the present by faith."7
The important thing for our purposes is this: the context of Romans 3:21–26, especially verses 25–26, makes clear that God's own justice is centrally in view. Paul says that the cross was designed "to show God's righteousness" (v. 25) and again "to show his righteousness at the present time" (v. 26). The cross displays something about God's character—it demonstrates that He is just. This is not merely about God giving us a new status (though it includes that). It is about God vindicating His own name and character. He has not been unjust in "passing over" the sins of earlier generations. The cross proves it.
Notice also that this righteousness comes "apart from the law." The Jewish Torah is not the means by which sinners are made right with God. Yet the law and the prophets "bear witness" to this righteousness—they pointed forward to it. The entire Old Testament sacrificial system, the Day of Atonement, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 (as discussed in Chapter 6)—all of these were anticipations of what God would finally and definitively accomplish in Christ. The cross is both new and ancient. It is something that has "now" happened, but it is rooted in God's eternal purpose.
"The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (vv. 22–23).
Paul now tells us three critical things. First, this righteousness from God is received "through faith in Jesus Christ." Faith is the instrument—the means by which we lay hold of what God has done. The atonement is an objective, historical reality. It was accomplished at the cross whether anyone believes it or not. But its benefits are applied to individuals through faith. As we will discuss more fully in Chapter 29 on the appropriation of the atonement, the cross provides the basis for salvation; faith is the means by which that salvation becomes personally effective.
Second, this righteousness is "for all who believe." There is "no distinction." Paul is hammering home the universality of the gospel offer. Jews and Gentiles stand on equal ground. The atonement is not for one ethnic group or social class. It is for everyone. As Allen rightly stresses, this "no distinction" language supports the universal scope of the atonement—the truth that Christ died for all people without exception (a point we will develop fully in Chapter 30).8
Third, Paul explains why the offer must be universal: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (v. 23). This is Paul's summary verdict on the human race. Every person, without exception, has sinned. The word "sinned" here is hēmarton (ἥμαρτον), an aorist tense verb that points to the decisive, accomplished fact of human sinfulness. And we have "fallen short" of God's glory—the Greek verb hysterountai (ὑστεροῦνται) is in the present tense, suggesting an ongoing condition. We are not merely people who have sinned once in the past; we are people who continue to fall short of what God made us to be.
What does "the glory of God" mean here? William Hess makes an interesting point that this phrase should be connected to humanity's vocation as image-bearers of God, drawing on Psalm 8.9 There is some merit to this observation—sin has certainly marred our capacity to reflect God's image. However, I think the context of Romans 1–3 requires a broader meaning. To fall short of God's glory is to fail to live up to God's righteous standard in every dimension—morally, relationally, vocationally. It is a comprehensive indictment. We were made for God's glory, and we have missed the mark entirely.
The implication is clear: because all have sinned, all need the atonement. There is no one who can claim exemption. And because the need is universal, the offer must be universal too. God does not play favorites. His grace is available to anyone and everyone who believes.
"And are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (v. 24).
This verse introduces two key atonement terms: "justified" and "redemption." Let us look at each in turn.
"Justified" translates the Greek participle dikaioumenoi (δικαιούμενοι), from the verb dikaioō (δικαιόω), meaning "to declare righteous" or "to acquit." This is courtroom language. Imagine a defendant standing before a judge. The judge examines the case and then pronounces the verdict: "Not guilty. You are righteous in the eyes of the law." That is justification. It is a legal declaration—a change in status, not necessarily an immediate change in character (though the transformation of character follows, as Paul will argue later in Romans 6–8).
What makes this declaration so astonishing is that the people being justified are guilty. They really have sinned. They really do fall short of God's glory. And yet God declares them righteous. How? Paul gives two answers. The first is the basis of justification: it is "by his grace as a gift." The Greek word translated "as a gift" is dōrean (δωρεάν), which means "freely" or "without cost" to the recipient. Justification is not earned. It is not merited. It is sheer grace—God's undeserved favor poured out on people who have done nothing to deserve it.
But grace does not mean there was no cost at all. It simply means that we did not pay the cost. Someone else did. And this brings us to the second term: "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." The word "redemption" is apolytrōsis (ἀπολύτρωσις), a term drawn from the world of slavery and the marketplace. It means "release through payment of a price" or "deliverance through ransom." In the ancient world, a slave could be set free if someone paid the redemption price to the owner. The term carried powerful resonance for Jewish listeners who remembered how God "redeemed" Israel from Egyptian bondage—He set them free at great cost.
Key Term — Apolytrōsis (ἀπολύτρωσις): "Redemption." A term from the slave market meaning "release through payment of a price." While some scholars argue that in certain New Testament uses the "price" element fades into the background and the word simply means "deliverance," Allen notes that "invariably the notion of 'cost' is present" in Paul's use of the term, and "the main focus is on deliverance through payment of a price." In Romans 3:24, the "price" is specified in the next verse: it is the blood of Christ—His sacrificial death on the cross.
Allen explains the significance: "This redemption is 'in Christ Jesus.' Paul is using the instrumental case in Greek—the phrase addresses the means whereby God has accomplished redemption, irrespective of its application."10 In other words, Paul is speaking here about an objective accomplishment—what Christ actually did at the cross—not yet about its subjective application to individuals. The redemption has been achieved. It is real. It is finished. The question of how it becomes personally effective (through faith) is addressed elsewhere in the passage.
As Allen summarizes, "Justification is by the death of Christ, in so far as its basis is concerned; it is by the grace of God, in so far as its cause is concerned; it is by faith, in so far as its application is concerned."11 This threefold framework is enormously helpful. It tells us that when we talk about what the cross accomplished, we are not just talking about how we feel or what we experience. We are talking about an objective reality—a redemption that was accomplished in history by the blood of Jesus Christ.
John Stott makes the further point that in Romans 3:24, Paul is not just stringing together random theological words. Each term builds on the last in a carefully structured argument. "Justified" tells us about our new legal status. "Freely by His grace" tells us about the unearned, unmerited source of that status. "Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" tells us about the historical ground on which it all rests. Take away any one of these three elements and the gospel falls apart. Without justification, we have no new standing before God. Without grace, we are trapped in a hopeless attempt to earn what can only be received as a gift. And without redemption—without the actual, costly, blood-bought liberation accomplished at the cross—grace becomes just a nice sentiment with no foundation in reality.41
We should also observe that Paul says this redemption is "in Christ Jesus"—not merely "by" Christ Jesus or "from" Christ Jesus, but "in" Him. This language of being "in Christ" is one of Paul's most characteristic phrases, appearing over 160 times in his letters. It points to the union between the believer and Christ that is the basis for the transfer of benefits. Christ's death counts as our death. Christ's righteousness counts as our righteousness. This "in Christ" language anticipates the fuller treatment of union with Christ that Paul will develop in Romans 6 (we died with Christ and were raised with Him) and that we will explore more fully in Chapter 28 on representation, federal headship, and corporate solidarity.
"Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith" (v. 25a).
We have now arrived at what I believe is the single most important clause in the New Testament for understanding the mechanics of the atonement. Every word here is loaded with theological significance. Let us unpack it carefully.
"Whom God put forward." The subject of this action is God the Father. He is the one who "put forward" (proetheto, προέθετο) Jesus. The verb can mean "to set forth publicly" or "to purpose beforehand." Both meanings are relevant. God planned the atonement in advance (it was not an afterthought or a reaction to an unexpected crisis), and He publicly displayed it in the crucifixion of Christ. This detail is critical for our understanding of the Trinity at the cross: God the Father is the one who initiated the atonement. This was His idea. His plan. His love in action. The cross is not something that happened to God against His will; it is something God did out of His own initiative and love. As John 3:16 says, "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." As Stott powerfully argued, the cross is an act of divine self-substitution—God Himself, in the person of His Son, bearing the cost of human sin.12
"As a propitiation." Here is the word that has generated more debate than perhaps any other single word in atonement theology: hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον). The interpretation of this one word has enormous consequences for how we understand the cross. There are three major options.
On this reading, hilastērion means "a propitiatory sacrifice"—an offering that turns away the wrath of God by satisfying the demands of His justice. The idea is that human sin has aroused God's holy and just opposition (His "wrath"), and the death of Christ as a sacrifice deals with that wrath. It satisfies God's justice so that sinners can be forgiven without God compromising His righteousness. This is the view defended by Leon Morris, J. I. Packer, Thomas Schreiner, D. A. Carson, John Stott, and the vast majority of evangelical scholars.13
On this reading, hilastērion means something more like "a means of expiation" or "a sacrifice that removes sin." The focus shifts from what happens to God's wrath to what happens to human sin: sin is cleansed, purified, taken away. The most influential proponent of this view was the British scholar C. H. Dodd, who argued in the 1930s that in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament used by the early church), the hilaskomai word group had shed its classical Greek meaning of "to propitiate" and had come to mean simply "to expiate" or "to cleanse."14 Dodd was so influential that the New English Bible, which he directed, translated Romans 3:25 as "God designed him to be the means of expiating sin by his sacrificial death."
A third group of scholars notes that hilastērion is the word used in the Septuagint for the kapporet (כַּפֹּרֶת)—the "mercy seat" or golden lid atop the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies (see Exodus 25:17–22; Hebrews 9:5). On the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the high priest sprinkled blood on the mercy seat to make atonement for the sins of the people (as discussed in Chapter 5). If Paul is using hilastērion in this sense, he is saying that Jesus Himself is the new mercy seat—the place where God and sinful humanity meet, the place where atonement happens.
The Hilastērion Debate Summarized: (1) Propitiation: Christ's death satisfies God's just opposition to sin, turning away His wrath. (2) Expiation: Christ's death removes sin and its defilement. (3) Mercy Seat: Christ is the place where God meets sinful humanity and atonement is accomplished, fulfilling the Day of Atonement typology. The author's position: these three meanings are not mutually exclusive. All three are genuine dimensions of what Paul means. However, the context of Romans 1–3 demands that the propitiatory dimension—the satisfaction of God's justice—is primary, because Paul's whole argument has been building toward the problem of divine wrath against human sin.
Let me be clear about what I am not saying. I am not saying we must choose between propitiation, expiation, and mercy seat as if they were competing, mutually exclusive options. As Allen rightly argues, "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."15 N. T. Wright, not always a friend of traditional PSA formulations, has also acknowledged that propitiation and expiation need not be opposed—the same sacrifice can simultaneously deal with sin and deal with God's wrath at sin.16
What I am saying is that in the specific context of Romans 3:21–26, the propitiatory dimension is primary. And the reason is simple: Paul has spent the previous two and a half chapters establishing that God's wrath against human sin is real and that it constitutes the fundamental problem that must be solved. If the problem is wrath, then the solution must address wrath. A sacrifice that merely cleanses sin (expiation) without addressing God's just opposition to sin would not solve the problem Paul has set up.
This brings us to the famous debate between C. H. Dodd and Leon Morris, which is one of the most important exegetical debates of the twentieth century for atonement theology. Dodd argued that in the Septuagint, the hilaskomai word group lost its classical meaning of "to propitiate" and came to mean simply "to expiate" or "to purify." Since Paul was writing against this Jewish-Greek background rather than the pagan Greek background, Dodd concluded, we should understand hilastērion as "expiation," not "propitiation."17
Leon Morris, in a devastating critique that has largely carried the day in evangelical scholarship, showed that Dodd's argument was built on incomplete evidence and questionable deductions. Morris and Roger Nicole demonstrated several critical weaknesses in Dodd's case.18
First, Dodd ignored key Jewish Greek literature. The books of the Maccabees, which belong to the Septuagint, contain several passages that speak of "the wrath of the Almighty" being averted through sacrifice (e.g., 4 Maccabees 17:22). The Jewish writers Josephus and Philo, whom Dodd also ignored, use hilaskomai with the clear meaning "to propitiate."19
Second, even within the Septuagint itself, Morris and Nicole cited numerous examples where hilaskomai and its cognates are used in contexts where the averting of God's wrath is plainly implied—for instance, Numbers 16:46–47, where Aaron stands between the living and the dead to avert God's wrath; Numbers 25:11–13, where Phinehas turns away God's anger; and Psalm 78:38, where God in mercy restrained His wrath. In these places, "expiate" would be an inadequate translation. The meaning must include "propitiate."20
Third, the earliest post-apostolic Christian writers—1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas—use hilaskomai with the plain meaning of "to propitiate God." For Dodd's theory to work, the Septuagint and the New Testament would have to constitute a kind of "linguistic island" where the word meant something different from its meaning in all the surrounding literature—classical Greek before, Josephus and Philo alongside, and the Apostolic Fathers immediately after. As Morris wryly observed, this is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, and Dodd did not provide it.21
Stott summarized the scholarly consensus well: even if we grant that the hilaskomai word group does not always and exclusively mean "propitiation," the context of Romans 3 is determinative. Whether we translate hilastērion as "the place of propitiation" (the mercy seat) or "the means of propitiation" (a propitiatory sacrifice), Jesus as described here is set forth by God as the remedy for universal human guilt under His wrath—a wrath Paul has taken two and a half chapters to establish.22
Jeffery, Ovey, and Sach drive the point home with characteristic precision: "Here is a case where the context settles the issue beyond doubt. God's wrath at human sin is prominent in Romans generally, central in the section that immediately precedes Romans 3:21–26, and absent from God's justified people in the section that immediately follows. It is by setting forth his Son as a hilastērion that God has turned his wrath aside, leaving his people justified before him. That hilastērion here means 'propitiation' could hardly be clearer."23
William Hess, in Crushing the Great Serpent, argues that the propitiatory reading of hilastērion imports a pagan Roman meaning into a passage that should be read through Hebraic lenses. Hess contends that "hilasmos" can also describe "wiping away, expiation, the cover of the ark of the covenant, the Mercy Seat, or the place of atonement," and suggests that "this latter understanding would be more fitting to a first century Jewish audience, rather than importing one Roman definition of a word with far more definitional range."24 He also argues that "atonement means simply to 'make right a wrong,' or to 'repair a relationship'" and "does not, by necessity, carry the idea of appeasing wrath or justice."25
Hess also objects to William Lane Craig's argument that the Greco-Roman background of hilastēria supports a propitiatory reading, responding that it is inappropriate to use the pagan sacrificial system to interpret Christ rather than the Levitical system. He further argues that the Greek word in Romans 3:25 is a noun, which should indicate "the Mercy Seat or an object. Not propitiation or appeasement, which ought to be a verb."26
I appreciate Hess's concern to read the New Testament against its proper Jewish background, and he raises a legitimate point about the mercy seat reading. But I think his argument ultimately falls short for several reasons.
First, as Morris and Nicole demonstrated, the propitiatory meaning is not merely a pagan import. It is present within the Jewish Greek tradition itself—in the Maccabees, in Josephus, in Philo, and in contexts within the Septuagint where God's wrath is explicitly in view. The claim that "propitiation" is a purely Greco-Roman concept with no Hebraic roots is simply mistaken.
Second, even if we accept the "mercy seat" reading (which has real merit), it does not eliminate the propitiatory dimension. As we discussed in Chapter 5, the Day of Atonement ritual itself had propitiatory significance. Blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat precisely to deal with the problem of God's holiness confronting human sin. The mercy seat was the place where God's wrath was averted. So even if hilastērion means "mercy seat" here, the theological content still includes propitiation.27
Third, Hess's grammatical argument—that because hilastērion is a noun it must mean "the mercy seat" rather than "propitiation"—is not convincing. Nouns can and do express abstract concepts. The English word "atonement" is a noun, yet it describes an action. The Greek noun hilasmos in 1 John 2:2 ("He is the propitiation for our sins") is also a noun, and virtually all scholars recognize it as meaning either "propitiation" or "atoning sacrifice"—not "the mercy seat." The fact that a word is a noun tells us nothing definitive about whether it refers to an object or an action.
Fourth and most importantly, Hess's reading does not adequately account for the context of Romans 1–3. Paul's argument requires a solution that addresses wrath. If hilastērion means only "mercy seat" or "expiation" without any reference to the satisfaction of divine justice, then Paul's argument has a gaping hole in it. He has spent two and a half chapters establishing the problem of wrath, and then the solution he offers does not address it. This makes no sense as a piece of sustained theological argument.
"By his blood." The means by which the hilastērion works is "by his blood" (en tō autou haimati, ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι). "Blood" in the New Testament, when used in connection with atonement, refers to violent, sacrificial death. As Paul makes clear in Romans 5:8–9, "blood" and "death" are parallel terms: "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood..." The reference here is to the cross—to the actual, historical death of Jesus Christ on a Roman instrument of execution.
This is important because it grounds the atonement in history. The cross was not a symbol. It was not a metaphor. It was an event—a real death, with real blood, in a real place, at a real time. And it was in this death that redemption was accomplished and propitiation was made.
As Jeffery, Ovey, and Sach note, the mere fact that Jesus died, within the thought-world of Romans, constitutes an argument for penal substitution. In Romans, death is understood as the penalty for sin, imposed deliberately by God (1:32; 5:12; 6:23). The reference to blood therefore functions as a reference to this penalty, borne by Christ in the place of those who deserved it.28
"To be received by faith." Finally, Paul adds that this propitiation is "to be received by faith" (dia pisteōs, διὰ πίστεως). The atonement was accomplished objectively at the cross, but it is received subjectively through faith. This is a crucial distinction. The cross provides the basis for salvation; faith provides the means of its application. Without faith, the benefits of the atonement—justification, reconciliation, redemption—remain unapplied to the individual. As Allen points out, "The atonement is not ipso facto applied to anyone. There is a condition of faith which must be met, a condition annexed by God Himself."29
"This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins" (v. 25b).
Paul now explains why the cross was necessary. And his answer reveals a problem that most of us have never even thought about.
Here is the problem: for centuries before Christ, God had been "passing over" sin. He had been patient with human wickedness. He judged it at times (the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the exile of Israel), but He never dealt with it fully and finally. The Old Testament sacrificial system provided a temporary covering for sin, but as the book of Hebrews makes clear, "it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4). Animal sacrifices pointed forward to a greater sacrifice, but they did not actually solve the problem.
So what was God doing all those centuries? Was He simply ignoring sin? Was He looking the other way? If so, that would be unjust. A judge who ignores crime is a corrupt judge. A God who ignores sin is not righteous.
Paul's answer is stunning in its simplicity: God was not ignoring sin. He was exercising "forbearance" (anochē, ἀνοχή)—a deliberate, temporary delay of judgment. He was holding back His full and final response to sin until the right moment. And that moment was the cross.
The word anochē appears only one other time in the New Testament, in Romans 2:4, where it refers to God's patience in delaying "the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed" (2:5). Paul's argument, then, is that God's forbearance was not indifference. It was a stay of execution. He was withholding judgment until the time when sin could be dealt with fully and finally—at the cross of Christ.30
Allen captures this beautifully: "Until the time of Christ's atonement, God had initiated a stay of execution, so to speak. He temporarily withheld His full and final judgment against sin. Until the cross, sins committed from Adam and Eve onward 'were neither punished as they deserved nor atoned for as they were going to be.'"31
This is an extraordinary insight. It means that the cross looks backward as well as forward. It retroactively covers the sins of those who lived before Christ (the Old Testament saints who trusted in God's promises), and it proactively covers the sins of those who would come to faith after Christ. The cross is the hinge of history—the event that makes sense of everything that came before and everything that comes after.
And here is the key point for penal substitutionary atonement: the reason the cross was necessary is that God's justice demanded a response to sin. God could not simply "pass over" sin forever without compromising His righteousness. The cross is the moment when He dealt with sin once and for all, demonstrating that He had not been unjust in His previous forbearance. He had always intended to address the problem of sin at the cross. As Schreiner puts it, the question Paul is answering is not "How can God justly punish people for their sins?" but rather "How can God justly forgive anyone?"32 The cross provides the answer.
Key Insight: Paul's argument in Romans 3:25b reveals a problem that most people have never considered: God's forgiveness needs to be justified, not just His punishment. If God simply forgave sin without dealing with it, He would not be righteous. The cross is God's answer to this problem. By dealing with sin fully and finally at the cross—through the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ—God demonstrates that He was never unjust in temporarily "passing over" earlier sins. His forbearance was not indifference; it was patience that looked forward to the cross.
"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" (v. 26).
We have arrived at what I consider the most important single verse in the New Testament for the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. This is the theological climax of Paul's argument—the summit of the summit. Everything in Romans has been building toward this.
Paul says the purpose of the cross—the reason God set forth Christ as a hilastērion—was to demonstrate something about God's own character. Specifically, it was to show that God is "just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." These two words, set side by side, capture the entire logic of penal substitution.
"Just" (dikaios, δίκαιος). God is righteous. His justice is intact. He has not compromised His moral character by forgiving sinners. The cross is the proof. At the cross, sin was dealt with fully. The penalty was paid. Justice was satisfied. God did not sweep sin under the rug.
"The justifier" (dikaiōn, δικαιῶν). At the same time, God is the one who declares sinners righteous. He acquits the guilty. He pronounces the verdict "not guilty" over people who are, in themselves, profoundly guilty.
How can both of these be true simultaneously? How can God be both just and the justifier? Only if the penalty for sin has been borne by someone else on behalf of the sinner. Only if there is a substitute. Only if Jesus, at the cross, bore the judicial consequences that were due to us, so that we could receive the righteous status that belongs to Him. This is penal substitutionary atonement—not as an abstract theory imposed on the text, but as the very logic of Paul's own inspired argument.
As J. T. Pendleton expressed it so well, and Allen quotes approvingly: "In short, the atonement of Christ exerts so important an influence on the throne of God, as to make its occupant 'just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.' Without the atonement we should have heard of God as just and the condemner—with it we hear of him as 'just and the justifier.'"33
This is why Romans 3:26 is so devastating to all non-penal models of the atonement when they are treated as standalone, complete explanations of the cross. If the cross is only Christus Victor—a victory over evil powers—then how does it demonstrate God's justice? If the cross is only moral influence—an inspiring example of self-giving love—then how does it make God the justifier? If the cross is only expiation—the removal of sin's stain—then how does it address the problem of God's wrath that Paul has been building since Romans 1:18? Only the penal substitutionary model explains how God can be simultaneously just (His justice has been satisfied) and the justifier (sinners are acquitted). As I argued in Chapter 1, this does not mean the other atonement models are false. They capture real and important dimensions of the cross. But without the penal substitutionary dimension at the center, the logic of Romans 3:21–26 collapses.
Let me press this point further, because I think it is the strongest single argument for the centrality of penal substitution in the New Testament. Imagine you are trying to explain the cross using only Christus Victor categories. Christ has defeated the powers of sin, death, and the devil. That is a glorious truth, and Paul himself teaches it elsewhere (Colossians 2:15; as we will discuss in Chapter 9). But how does a military victory over evil powers demonstrate that God is just? Defeating evil demonstrates God's power, not His justice. The language of verse 26 simply does not fit a pure Christus Victor model.
Or imagine trying to explain the cross using only moral influence categories. The cross reveals the depths of God's love and inspires us to live differently. Again, this is a genuine dimension of the cross (see 2 Corinthians 5:14, "the love of Christ controls us"). But how does a display of love make God "the justifier"? An inspiring example does not change anyone's legal standing before God. The moral influence model, standing alone, has no mechanism for justification.
Only when we include the penal substitutionary dimension—Christ bore the penalty of sin so that God's justice would be satisfied and sinners could be declared righteous—does the full logic of Romans 3:26 make sense. This does not mean penal substitution exhausts the meaning of the cross. It means penal substitution is the load-bearing center without which the other models lose their foundation.
The Heart of the Gospel: Romans 3:26 reveals that at the cross, God solved the deepest dilemma in the universe: how to be perfectly just while also forgiving the guilty. The answer is penal substitution. Christ bore the penalty that our sins deserved—not because an angry Father was punishing an unwilling victim, but because the Triune God, in unified love, chose to bear the cost of our redemption Himself. God's justice is satisfied. God's love is displayed. And sinners who trust in Jesus are declared righteous—not because they deserve it, but because Christ has already borne the consequences of their sin.
No treatment of Romans 3:21–26 in the twenty-first century would be complete without addressing the "new perspective on Paul" (NPP), a movement associated primarily with E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn, and N. T. Wright. The NPP has significant implications for how we read this passage, and while I find some of its insights helpful, I ultimately think it falls short of accounting for the full theological weight of Paul's argument here.
The new perspective, in broad terms, argues that traditional Reformation readings of Paul have misunderstood both first-century Judaism and Paul's response to it. The Reformers, the argument goes, read Paul through the lens of their own struggle against medieval Catholic works-righteousness and assumed that Paul was fighting the same battle—that "works of the law" means "trying to earn salvation by moral effort." The NPP argues instead that "works of the law" refers specifically to Jewish identity markers (circumcision, food laws, Sabbath-keeping) that functioned as ethnic boundary markers separating Jews from Gentiles. Paul's concern, on this reading, is not primarily about how individuals get saved (by grace, not works) but about who belongs to the people of God (Gentiles too, not just Jews).
N. T. Wright, in particular, argues that "the righteousness of God" in Romans 3:21 refers primarily to God's covenant faithfulness—His commitment to fulfill His promises to Israel and, through Israel, to the world. The "justification" of believers is not primarily about individual sinners being declared righteous before a cosmic judge, but about God declaring who belongs to His covenant people.
There are genuine insights here. Paul is concerned about the inclusion of Gentiles. The phrase "there is no distinction" (3:22) does address the Jew-Gentile divide. And God's covenant faithfulness is certainly part of what "the righteousness of God" means.
However, I believe the NPP seriously underreads Romans 3:21–26 when it downplays the forensic, judicial, penalty-and-pardon dimensions of the text. Here are several reasons.
First, Paul's argument in Romans 1:18–3:20 is not primarily about ethnic boundary markers. It is about universal human sin and guilt before a holy God. The problem Paul identifies is not merely that Jews and Gentiles are divided; it is that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (3:23). The solution must address the sin problem, not merely the ethnic division.
Second, the language of Romans 3:24–26 is intensely forensic. "Justified" is a courtroom term. "Redemption" is a marketplace term. "Propitiation" is a sacrificial and juridical term. "Just and the justifier" is a declaration about God's judicial integrity. Paul is thinking in legal, judicial categories—not merely in covenantal or sociological ones.
Third, the logic of verse 26—"that he might be just and the justifier"—only makes sense if there is a genuine tension in God between His justice (which demands a response to sin) and His desire to forgive (which leads Him to justify sinners). If "righteousness of God" means only "covenant faithfulness," then there is no tension to resolve and the cross becomes an answer to a question no one is asking.
Fourth, as William Lane Craig has argued in his philosophical analysis of divine justice, the concept of retributive justice—the principle that sin deserves punishment—is not a Western imposition on the text but a deeply biblical and philosophically grounded reality. God's justice is not merely His faithfulness to covenant; it includes His moral perfection that necessarily opposes evil and demands a just response to it.34
This does not mean we should ignore the new perspective entirely. Wright and Dunn have helpfully reminded us that Paul's gospel is bigger than individual salvation—it encompasses the renewal of all creation and the fulfillment of God's covenant promises. But the individual dimension—the reality that guilty sinners need to be justified before a holy God—is central to Paul's argument in Romans 3, and no amount of covenantal reframing can eliminate it. The cross is where God's covenant faithfulness and His retributive justice meet. We need both dimensions to do justice to the text.
Before we leave this passage, I want to draw attention to an often-overlooked feature of Romans 3:25: the Trinitarian structure of the atonement. Paul says "God put forward" Christ as a propitiation. The Father is the one who initiates. The Son is the one who is put forward—who becomes the hilastērion. And while the Spirit is not explicitly mentioned here, the broader Pauline theology of the atonement (see Romans 8:3–4; Hebrews 9:14) makes clear that the Spirit also played an active role.
This matters enormously because one of the most common objections to penal substitutionary atonement is the accusation, originally made by Steve Chalke, that PSA depicts God as a "cosmic child abuser"—a wrathful Father punishing an innocent, unwilling Son.35 As we will argue more fully in Chapter 20, this caricature fundamentally misunderstands the Trinitarian nature of the atonement.
In Romans 3:25, God the Father is not punishing an unwilling victim. He is "putting forward" His Son—offering Him as the means of redemption. And the Son goes willingly. As Jesus Himself said, "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:18). The cross is an act of unified Trinitarian love, not of divine conflict.
Stott captured this magnificently in his concept of "the self-substitution of God." The cross, Stott argued, is not the Father punishing the Son. It is God Himself—Father, Son, and Spirit—bearing the cost of human sin. "Thus God himself gave himself to save us from himself," Stott wrote.36 The one who demands justice and the one who satisfies justice are the same God. The judge steps down from the bench and takes the penalty upon Himself. This is not cosmic child abuse. This is cosmic love beyond anything we could have imagined.
As we explored in Chapter 3, love and justice are not in tension in God. They are complementary perfections of His being. The cross is not the place where one divine attribute defeats another. It is where they meet in perfect harmony—where "steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other" (Psalm 85:10). Romans 3:26 captures this perfectly: God is both just (His justice is fully satisfied) and the justifier (His love reaches out to save guilty sinners). The cross holds both together.
Throughout Crushing the Great Serpent, Hess argues that biblical wrath language should not be connected directly to the cross event. His chapter 10, "No Wrath for the Weary," develops the case that God's wrath is real but should be understood as the consequence of human rebellion and the handing-over of sinners to the destructive consequences of their own choices (as in Romans 1:24, 26, 28—"God gave them up"), rather than as a punishment actively directed at Christ on the cross.37
There is a grain of truth in Hess's observation. Romans 1:18–32 does depict God's wrath partly in terms of "giving people over" to the consequences of their sin. And I agree with Hess (and with many PSA defenders) that divine wrath should not be pictured as irrational rage or vindictive anger. As we argued in Chapter 3, God's wrath is His settled, holy, just opposition to evil—the necessary response of a perfectly good God to everything that destroys His creation.
However, Hess goes too far when he disconnects wrath from the cross entirely. Romans 3:25–26 itself grounds the cross in God's need to demonstrate His righteousness—a righteousness that, as Paul has established, includes His just opposition to sin (i.e., His wrath). The entire logic of the passage depends on the fact that God's response to sin creates a problem that the cross must solve. If wrath is merely the natural consequences of sin and has nothing to do with what happened at Calvary, then Paul's argument in 3:25–26 makes no sense. Why would God need to "demonstrate His righteousness" by setting forth Christ as a hilastērion if there were no divine justice to satisfy?
Furthermore, Romans 5:9 explicitly connects the cross to deliverance from wrath: "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God." The blood of Christ (a reference to His death) is the reason we are saved from wrath. The connection between the cross and wrath is not an inference drawn from a few scattered proof-texts. It is woven into the fabric of Paul's sustained argument across multiple chapters of Romans.
We should also note that saying "God directed His wrath at Christ on the cross" and saying "the Father was enraged at Jesus" are two very different claims. The first is a theological description of what happened at the cross in judicial terms—Christ bore the consequences that our sin deserved. The second is a caricature that pits the Father against the Son. I affirm the first and reject the second. The Father loved the Son throughout the entire crucifixion. The Son went willingly. The Triune God acted in unified, self-giving love to absorb the judicial consequences of human sin. But that absorbing was real. The penalty was real. The bearing of consequences was real. And that is what Romans 3:25–26 is telling us.
Before we close our exegesis, I want to highlight one more important dimension of this passage that bears directly on the debates about the extent of the atonement (which we will address fully in Chapters 30 and 31).
Paul's language in Romans 3:21–26 is emphatically universal. The righteousness of God is "for all who believe" (v. 22). "There is no distinction" (v. 22). "All have sinned" (v. 23). The "all" who have sinned is the same "all" to whom the offer of justification is made. As Allen stresses, the universal scope of the atonement is essential to Paul's argument here. His whole point is that God shows no partiality between Jews and Gentiles. The atonement is for all because all have sinned. If Christ died only for some, Paul's argument collapses—there would be a distinction, contrary to what Paul insists.38
Allen helpfully distinguishes between two types of justification statements in Paul. The first type does not explicitly mention faith but expresses or implies the universal availability and offer of grace (as in Romans 3:24 and 5:6–9). The second type explicitly mentions faith as the means by which justification is received (as in Romans 3:22, 26). Both types are present in our passage. Paul moves from the universal principle of justification, which is available to all who have sinned, to the specific individual who is declared righteous because he or she has expressed faith in Jesus.39
This distinction between the accomplishment of atonement (universal in scope—Christ died for all) and the application of atonement (particular in effect—only those who believe are justified) is crucial. The cross provides redemption for all. But redemption is applied through faith. Both truths are held together in Romans 3:21–26, and both must be maintained.
Let us step back and summarize the extraordinary theological riches of this paragraph. In just six verses, Paul has told us the following:
The problem: All human beings have sinned and stand guilty before God. God's wrath—His settled, just opposition to sin—is a reality that must be dealt with. For centuries, God had been exercising forbearance, temporarily passing over sins, but this could not continue indefinitely without compromising His justice.
The solution: God Himself took the initiative. In love, the Father "put forward" His Son, Jesus Christ, as a hilastērion—a propitiatory sacrifice. Through the shedding of His blood (His death on the cross), Christ bore the judicial consequences of human sin, turning aside God's wrath and securing redemption for all who believe.
The result: God's righteousness is demonstrated. He is shown to be both "just" (His justice is fully satisfied; sin has been dealt with) and "the justifier" (He declares righteous those who put their faith in Jesus). Sinners are justified freely, by grace, as a gift—not because they have earned it, but because Christ has already paid the price.
The means of reception: The benefits of the atonement are received through faith. Faith is not a work that earns salvation; it is the open hand that receives God's gift. The atonement is objective (accomplished at the cross); faith is the subjective means by which its benefits are applied.
The scope: The offer of justification is universal. "There is no distinction." All have sinned; all may be justified through faith. Christ died for all, and the benefits of His death are available to every human being who trusts in Him.
Stott's Magnificent Summary: John Stott summarized what is happening in Romans 3:21–26 with characteristic clarity: "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." These three elements—grace, cross, and faith—are inseparable, and together they constitute the heart of the gospel message.
Before we move to our final reflections, there is one more scholarly debate that deserves brief attention. Many New Testament scholars believe that in Romans 3:25–26, Paul is quoting or adapting an earlier Christian confession or creedal formula—a brief statement of faith that circulated in the early church before Paul wrote his letter. Several features of the text have been cited in support of this view: the dense, compact theological language; the use of hilastērion, which appears nowhere else in Paul's letters; the somewhat unusual vocabulary and syntax; and the parallel to other passages where Paul appears to cite earlier traditions (such as 1 Corinthians 15:3–5, "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures").
If this is correct, the implications for our argument are significant—and entirely positive. It would mean that penal substitutionary atonement language is not merely a Pauline innovation but reflects the earliest Christian understanding of the cross. The confession that God set forth Christ as a hilastērion to demonstrate His righteousness would predate Paul's letter to the Romans and would reflect the theology of the first generation of Christians—those who were closest in time to the actual events of the crucifixion and resurrection.
However, as Simon Gathercole has cautioned, we should not press the pre-Pauline formula hypothesis too far. Scholars often "pronounce with unerring confidence that a particular phrase is a pre-Pauline formula, when often the matter is far from clear."42 And even if Paul is drawing on earlier tradition, he has incorporated it into his argument as his own. As Gathercole observes, there is a fallacy in some scholarship that treats inherited material as "unthinkingly pasted in rather than deliberately absorbed." Material that Paul chose to include is genuinely Pauline, regardless of its origin. The fact that these words appear in Paul's most carefully constructed theological argument means he fully endorsed their theology.43
Whether Romans 3:25–26 is an original Pauline composition or an adapted pre-Pauline confession, the theological content is the same: God set forth Christ as a propitiatory sacrifice, by His blood, to demonstrate divine justice and to make possible the justification of sinners who believe. This is the earliest Christian atonement theology we can access, and it is unmistakably penal and substitutionary in its logic.
Although Romans 3:21–26 is the most concentrated statement of Paul's atonement theology, it does not stand alone. It is supported, developed, and confirmed by a wide array of Pauline texts that we will examine in the next chapter. A brief preview will help us see how this passage connects to the larger picture.
In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul writes that God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." This is the great exchange—our sin placed on Christ, His righteousness credited to us—which is precisely the logic underlying the "just and the justifier" language of Romans 3:26.
In Galatians 3:13, Paul declares that "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us." This is unmistakably penal and substitutionary: Christ bore the law's curse in our place. The penalty that was ours fell on Him.
In Romans 5:9, Paul connects the cross directly to deliverance from wrath: "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God." Here the "blood" of Christ (His sacrificial death) and "the wrath of God" are linked in a single sentence. The cross saves us from wrath. This confirms the propitiatory reading of hilastērion in Romans 3:25.
In Romans 8:3, Paul writes that God, "by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." The phrase "for sin" (peri hamartias, περὶ ἁμαρτίας) echoes the Septuagint's language for the sin offering. And the verb "condemned" (katekrinen, κατέκρινεν) is judicial language—a courtroom verdict carried out against sin, not in the sinner's flesh but in Christ's.
All of these texts, which we will explore in greater depth in Chapter 9, confirm and extend the theology of Romans 3:21–26. Paul's atonement theology is consistent, pervasive, and deeply rooted in penal and substitutionary categories. Romans 3:21–26 is not an isolated proof-text; it is the center of a web that extends across Paul's entire letter-writing ministry.
Why have I devoted an entire chapter to six verses? Because I believe Romans 3:21–26, more than any other passage in Scripture, demonstrates that penal substitutionary atonement is not a theory imposed on the Bible from outside. It is the Bible's own explanation of how the cross works.
Consider what this passage gives us. It gives us substitution: Christ is "put forward" in our place. It gives us penalty: Christ's "blood" (His death) is the means by which redemption is accomplished, and death is the penalty for sin in Paul's theology (Romans 6:23). It gives us propitiation: the hilastērion turns away the wrath that human sin has provoked. It gives us divine justice: the cross is designed to "demonstrate God's righteousness." It gives us grace: justification is "by his grace as a gift." It gives us faith: the atonement is "to be received by faith." And it gives us the Trinitarian shape of salvation: God the Father puts forward God the Son.
All of the essential elements of penal substitutionary atonement are present in this single paragraph—not as isolated proof-texts yanked out of context, but as the integrated, coherent logic of Paul's most sustained theological argument. This is not something the Reformers invented. It is not a medieval distortion. It is not a Western imposition on an Eastern text. It is what Paul actually wrote, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in what most scholars regard as his greatest theological masterpiece.
Of course, Romans 3:21–26 is not the only biblical text that supports penal substitutionary atonement. As we have seen in Chapters 4–7 (the Old Testament sacrificial system, the Day of Atonement, Isaiah 53, and Jesus' self-understanding of His death), the penal and substitutionary dimensions of the atonement are woven throughout Scripture. And as we will see in Chapters 9–12, the broader Pauline witness, the epistle to the Hebrews, the Petrine writings, and the Johannine literature all contribute additional support. But Romans 3:21–26 is, in my judgment, the clearest and most concentrated expression of the doctrine in the entire Bible. If we understand this passage rightly, we understand the heart of the gospel.
I began this chapter by calling Romans 3:21–26 the theological summit of the New Testament on the atonement. Having walked through it clause by clause, I hope the reader can see why. In these six verses, Paul answers the deepest question the gospel raises: How can a holy and just God forgive guilty sinners without compromising His own righteousness?
The answer is breathtaking in its beauty and its logic. God Himself provided the solution. He "put forward" His own Son as the hilastērion—the propitiation, the mercy seat, the place where divine justice and divine love meet. Christ bore our penalty. His blood was shed as the price of our redemption. God's wrath against sin was satisfied—not by an angry Father punishing an unwilling victim, but by the Triune God bearing the cost of our salvation Himself, in a unified act of self-giving love.
And now, because of the cross, God can be both just and the justifier. His justice is intact. His love has triumphed. And every sinner who puts their faith in Jesus—Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, male or female, from any nation, any background, any past—can be declared righteous before God. Freely. By grace. As a gift.
Paul, I think, would want us not only to understand this truth but to marvel at it. The cross is not merely a theological puzzle to be solved. It is the supreme revelation of the character of God—a God who is so just that He cannot ignore sin, and so loving that He bore its penalty Himself. I cannot think of a more beautiful truth in all of theology. And I cannot think of a more solid foundation for the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement than these six extraordinary verses.
As Stott wrote so powerfully: "Thus God himself gave himself to save us from himself."40 That is the gospel. That is the heart of the cross. And that is what Romans 3:21–26 teaches us, if we have ears to hear.
1 David L. Allen, The Atonement: A Biblical, Theological, and Historical Study of the Cross of Christ (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2019), 75. ↩
2 D. A. Carson, "Atonement in Romans 3:21–26: 'God Presented Him as a Propitiation,'" in The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Theological, and Practical Perspectives, ed. Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 119–39. ↩
3 Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 81. ↩
4 Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 184. Quoted in John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 170. ↩
5 Allen, The Atonement, 77. ↩
6 Arland J. Hultgren, Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), quoted in Allen, The Atonement, 76–77. ↩
7 Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), quoted in Allen, The Atonement, 78. ↩
8 Allen, The Atonement, 79. Allen stresses that the "no distinction" language underscores the universal availability of redemption and the equal standing of all humanity before God. ↩
9 William L. Hess, Crushing the Great Serpent: Did God Punish Jesus? (2024), chap. 10, "No Wrath for the Weary." Hess argues that "falling short of God's glory" refers to failing in the vocation of image-bearing rather than merely violating a legal standard. ↩
10 Allen, The Atonement, 81–82. ↩
11 Allen, The Atonement, 86. ↩
12 John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 133–34. Stott's concept of "the self-substitution of God" is developed throughout chapter 6 and is one of the most important contributions to atonement theology in the twentieth century. ↩
13 See Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965); J. I. Packer, "What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution," Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974): 3–45; Thomas R. Schreiner, "Penal Substitution View," in The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views, ed. James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 67–98. ↩
14 C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935), 82–95. ↩
15 Allen, The Atonement, 82. ↩
16 Jeffery, Ovey, and Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions, 84–85. The authors note that N. T. Wright himself has acknowledged that propitiation and expiation are not mutually exclusive. ↩
17 C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, Moffatt New Testament Commentary (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1932), 54–55. ↩
18 Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, chaps. 5–6; Roger R. Nicole, "C. H. Dodd and the Doctrine of Propitiation," Westminster Theological Journal 17, no. 2 (1955): 117–57. ↩
19 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 168–69. Stott summarizes the evidence from the Maccabees, Josephus, and Philo. See also Friedrich Büchsel, "ἱλάσκομαι," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76), 3:317–23. ↩
20 Jeffery, Ovey, and Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions, 83–84. They cite Morris and Nicole's extensive list of LXX passages where hilaskomai implies the averting of divine wrath. ↩
21 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 169. Stott quotes Morris's observation that Dodd's theory would require the LXX and NT to form "a sort of linguistic island" with no precedent, no contemporary support, and no subsequent following. ↩
22 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 170. ↩
23 Jeffery, Ovey, and Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions, 84. ↩
24 Hess, Crushing the Great Serpent, chap. 10, "No Wrath for the Weary." ↩
25 Hess, Crushing the Great Serpent, chap. 10, "No Wrath for the Weary." ↩
26 Hess, Crushing the Great Serpent, chap. 10, "No Wrath for the Weary." ↩
27 See the detailed discussion of the Day of Atonement and its propitiatory significance in Chapter 5 of this volume. Also Jeffery, Ovey, and Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions, 84–85. ↩
28 Jeffery, Ovey, and Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions, 81. ↩
29 Allen, The Atonement, 83. ↩
30 Jeffery, Ovey, and Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions, 81–82. They note the parallel use of anochē in Romans 2:4, where it refers to God's patience in delaying the day of judgment. ↩
31 Allen, The Atonement, 80. Allen is quoting from the broader scholarly discussion of divine forbearance and the OT's anticipation of the cross. ↩
32 Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998), quoted in Allen, The Atonement, 83. ↩
33 J. T. Pendleton, quoted in Allen, The Atonement, 83. ↩
34 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." Craig argues that God's justice includes a retributive dimension that demands a response to sin, and that this is central to understanding the logic of Romans 3:25–26. ↩
35 Steve Chalke and Alan Mann, The Lost Message of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 182. ↩
36 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 82. ↩
37 Hess, Crushing the Great Serpent, chap. 10, "No Wrath for the Weary." ↩
38 Allen, The Atonement, 84–86. Allen argues at length that the universal language of Romans 3:21–26 supports the doctrine of unlimited atonement. ↩
39 Allen, The Atonement, 84. Allen draws on Hultgren's distinction between universal justification statements and faith-specific justification statements in Paul. ↩
40 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 82. ↩
41 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 133–34. Stott develops the point that the cross reveals God acting in complete consistency with every dimension of His character simultaneously. ↩
42 Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 52. ↩
43 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 52. Gathercole rightly criticizes the scholarly tendency to treat Pauline citation of earlier tradition as evidence that the material is not authentically Pauline in theology. ↩
Allen, David L. The Atonement: A Biblical, Theological, and Historical Study of the Cross of Christ. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2019.
Carson, D. A. "Atonement in Romans 3:21–26: 'God Presented Him as a Propitiation.'" In The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Theological, and Practical Perspectives, edited by Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III, 119–39. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004.
Chalke, Steve, and Alan Mann. The Lost Message of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003.
Craig, William Lane. Atonement and the Death of Christ: An Exegetical, Historical, and Philosophical Exploration. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2020.
Dodd, C. H. The Bible and the Greeks. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1935.
———. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans. Moffatt New Testament Commentary. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1932.
Gathercole, Simon. Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015.
Hess, William L. Crushing the Great Serpent: Did God Punish Jesus? 2024.
Hultgren, Arland J. Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011.
Jeffery, Steve, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach. Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007.
Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.
Nicole, Roger R. "C. H. Dodd and the Doctrine of Propitiation." Westminster Theological Journal 17, no. 2 (1955): 117–57.
Packer, J. I. "What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution." Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974): 3–45.
Schreiner, Thomas R. Romans. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998.
Stott, John R. W. The Cross of Christ. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006.