Chapter 11
1 Peter, the Cry of Dereliction, and the Petrine Witness to the Atonement

Introduction

If you wanted to find some of the clearest, most direct language about what Jesus accomplished on the cross, you could hardly do better than to open the first letter of Peter. In just a few verses, Peter packs in more atonement theology than most entire books of the New Testament. He tells us that Jesus "bore our sins in his body on the tree." He describes Christ as "the righteous for the unrighteous." He says we were "ransomed ... with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." These are not vague, abstract ideas. They are some of the most vivid, concrete statements anywhere in Scripture about why Jesus died and what his death means for us.

But Peter's witness does not stand alone. Alongside his letters, we must also consider one of the most mysterious and debated moments in all of the Gospels: the cry of dereliction. When Jesus hung on the cross and shouted, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46), he opened a window into the deepest reality of the atonement — a reality so profound that it has puzzled and moved believers for two thousand years. What did that cry mean? Was Jesus actually abandoned by the Father? Was he simply quoting a psalm? Or was something else happening — something that takes us to the very heart of what it means for Christ to bear the consequences of human sin?

I believe the Petrine witness and the cry of dereliction together provide some of the strongest evidence in the entire New Testament for penal substitutionary atonement. In this chapter, we will examine them carefully. We will work through the Greek words, trace the Old Testament background, listen to what scholars on different sides of the debate have said, and engage with those who read these texts differently. My thesis is straightforward: the Petrine witness, especially 1 Peter 2:24 and 3:18, provides some of the most explicitly substitutionary language in the New Testament, while Jesus' cry of dereliction from the cross opens a window into the deepest mystery of the atonement — the Son's voluntary experience of bearing the consequences of human sin.

Let us begin with the apostle Peter himself.

The Petrine Witness: Setting the Stage

Before we dig into the specific texts, it is helpful to know something about 1 Peter as a whole. Peter wrote this letter to Christians scattered across Asia Minor — modern-day Turkey — who were facing serious persecution and suffering for their faith. They were being insulted, marginalized, and treated unfairly. These were not people sitting comfortably in padded church pews having an academic debate about atonement theories. They were ordinary believers — many of them slaves, many of them converts from paganism — who were paying a real cost for following Jesus. In this setting, Peter's message about the cross was not just abstract theology. It was deeply practical. He was telling suffering believers: Look at what Jesus endured for you. His suffering had a purpose. And because of what he accomplished, your suffering has meaning too.

This is important because it tells us something about how the earliest Christians understood the atonement. They did not learn about Jesus' death as a doctrinal system first and then apply it to their lives. They learned about it in the middle of their suffering. The theology of the cross was born in the furnace of real-world pain. When Peter wrote about Jesus bearing our sins on the tree, he was not writing a textbook. He was pastoring a hurting church. And the fact that he instinctively turned to substitutionary, sacrificial, penalty-bearing language — not as one theory among many, but as the bedrock truth that gives meaning to Christian suffering — tells us a great deal about how deeply embedded these ideas were in the earliest Christian understanding of what happened at Calvary.

What makes Peter's atonement theology so special is the way he weaves together two ideas. On the one hand, Jesus is an example for suffering believers — he shows us how to endure unjust treatment with patience and trust. On the other hand, Jesus' suffering is far more than an example. It is unique, unrepeatable, and saving. He did something on the cross that no one else could do: he bore our sins and reconciled us to God. Peter never lets his readers settle for just one of these ideas. The example makes sense only because of the saving work, and the saving work becomes personal when we see Jesus' example of trust in the midst of suffering.

With that background in mind, let us turn to our first major text.

1 Peter 1:18–19 — Ransomed by the Blood of the Lamb

We begin with 1 Peter 1:18–19, which sets the stage for everything Peter will say later about the atonement. Here is the passage in the ESV:

"knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot."

Several things stand out here right away. First, Peter uses the word "ransomed." The Greek word is elytrōthēte (ἐλυτρώθητε), from the verb lytroō (λυτρόω), which means "to set free by paying a price" or "to redeem." In the ancient world, this word was often used to describe the purchase of a slave's freedom or the release of a prisoner of war. Someone would pay a price — typically money — and the captive would go free.¹ Peter's readers would have immediately understood this image. They were captives — not to a human master, but to the "futile ways" they had inherited, a life of empty, meaningless existence apart from God.

But Peter quickly tells them that the ransom price was not silver or gold. It was something far more costly: "the precious blood of Christ." When Peter says "not with perishable things such as silver or gold," he is distancing the ransom idea from a mere financial transaction and connecting it instead to the Old Testament world of sacrifice.² The phrase also echoes Isaiah 52:3, where God tells Israel, "You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed." This passage sits immediately before the great Suffering Servant song of Isaiah 52:13–53:12, which — as we saw in Chapter 6 — is the most explicit Old Testament passage about substitutionary atonement. Peter is already, in these early verses, pointing his readers back to Isaiah 53.

Then comes the phrase "like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." This language draws on multiple Old Testament backgrounds at once. The "lamb" imagery recalls the Passover lamb of Exodus 12, whose blood protected the Israelite firstborn from the angel of death. "Without blemish or spot" echoes the requirement that sacrificial animals in the Levitical system be perfect and without defect (see Leviticus 22:19–21). And the lamb imagery also evokes Isaiah 53:7, where the Suffering Servant is described as "a lamb that is led to the slaughter." Peter is layering sacrifice upon sacrifice — Passover, Levitical offering, and the Suffering Servant — all pointing to one person: Jesus Christ.³

This verse establishes a pattern that we will see throughout 1 Peter. Peter does not invent new categories for understanding the cross. Instead, he reaches back into the rich soil of the Old Testament — its sacrificial system, its prophecies, its redemption language — and shows that all of it finds its fulfillment in Jesus. With this foundation in place, we are ready for Peter's most detailed atonement passage.

1 Peter 2:24 — "He Himself Bore Our Sins in His Body on the Tree"

This is one of the most important verses in the entire New Testament for understanding penal substitutionary atonement. Let us read it carefully in its context, starting from verse 21:

"For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." (1 Peter 2:21–25, ESV)

Let us work through this passage piece by piece.

Christ as Example (2:21–23)

Peter begins by holding up Jesus as an example for Christians who are suffering unjustly. The context, going back to verse 18, is about slaves who are being mistreated by harsh masters. Peter tells them that Christ "suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps." The Greek word for "example" is hypogrammos (ὑπογραμμός), which originally referred to the letters a writing teacher would trace out for students to copy underneath. It is the only time this word appears in the New Testament. Jesus is the pattern we trace our lives over.⁴

Peter then describes how Jesus handled unjust suffering. He "committed no sin" — a claim of sinlessness. "Neither was deceit found in his mouth" — a direct quotation from Isaiah 53:9 in the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint, or LXX). When people insulted him, he did not insult them back. When he suffered, he did not threaten revenge. Instead, "he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly." Even in the worst moment of his life, Jesus trusted the Father's righteous judgment.

This exemplary dimension of Jesus' suffering is real and important. The moral influence of the cross — its power to inspire us to patient endurance, to trust God in the midst of pain — is a genuine facet of what the atonement means. But as we are about to see, Peter does not stop there. If Jesus were only an example, something crucial would be missing. Examples inspire us, but they do not save us. Peter is about to explain why Jesus' suffering does something that our suffering can never do.

"He Himself Bore Our Sins" — The Sacrificial Language

Verse 24 takes a dramatic turn. Peter shifts from Jesus as example to Jesus as savior, using language that is dense with Old Testament meaning. "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree."

The verb "bore" is anēnegken (ἀνήνεγκεν), from the verb anapherō (ἀναφέρω). This word is enormously important. In the Greek Old Testament, anapherō is the standard word for offering a sacrifice on the altar. When a priest brought an animal to the altar and offered it up to God, the word used was anapherō.⁵ So when Peter says Jesus "bore our sins," he is not using a casual or generic word. He is choosing a word that any Jew steeped in the Scriptures would immediately associate with the act of sacrificial offering. Jesus did not merely carry our sins the way someone carries a heavy suitcase. He bore them as a sacrifice bears the offering — he presented himself, with our sins upon him, as an offering to God.

But there is more. The phrase "bore our sins" (tas hamartias hēmōn anēnegken, τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν ἀνήνεγκεν) echoes two key Old Testament passages. First, it recalls Isaiah 53:12, where the Suffering Servant "bore the sin of many" (Hebrew: nāśā' ḥēṭ', נָשָׂא חֵטְא). As we discussed in Chapter 6, the Hebrew phrase nāśā' ḥēṭ' ("to bear sin") in the Old Testament means not merely to carry sin in some abstract sense, but to suffer the consequences and punishment that sin brings. When this phrase is used of ordinary Israelites (see, for example, Leviticus 5:1, 17; Numbers 14:34), it means "to suffer the penalty for sin."⁶ Peter takes this language — language that in the Old Testament always included the idea of bearing sin's punishment — and applies it directly to Jesus on the cross.

Second, the phrase echoes Isaiah 53:4: "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." The Suffering Servant does not just sympathize with our pain from a distance. He takes it upon himself. He bears it so that we do not have to.

"In His Body on the Tree" — The Physical and Covenantal Reality

Peter says Jesus bore our sins "in his body on the tree." Both phrases matter. "In his body" emphasizes the physical, bodily nature of Jesus' suffering. The atonement is not merely a spiritual idea or a legal fiction. It happened in real flesh and blood, on a real cross, on a real day in history. Jesus' body was the place where our sins were dealt with.⁷

The word "tree" (Greek: xylon, ξύλον) is especially significant. Peter could have simply said "cross" (stauros, σταυρός), but instead he chose the word xylon. Why? Because this word appears in the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) in Deuteronomy 21:22–23: "If a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree (xylon), his body shall not remain all night on the tree. You shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God." The phrase "cursed by God" is the key. By calling the cross a "tree," Peter is deliberately linking Jesus' death to the curse pronounced in Deuteronomy. Jesus died on the tree — and in doing so, he bore the curse of God that was meant for us.⁸

Paul makes this same connection explicitly in Galatians 3:13: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us — for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'" (see Chapter 9 for the full exegesis of this passage). Peter and Paul, independently of each other, reach the same conclusion: Jesus on the cross bore the divine curse that human sin deserves.

"That We Might Die to Sin and Live to Righteousness"

The next phrase tells us the purpose of Jesus' sin-bearing: "that we might die to sin and live to righteousness." This is a purpose clause introduced by the Greek word hina (ἵνα), meaning "in order that" or "so that." Jesus bore our sins on the cross so that something would happen in us: we would die to sin and begin living for what is right.

This is important because it shows that penal substitution is not just a cold legal transaction. It has a transforming purpose. Jesus did not bear our sins merely so that a legal balance sheet could be corrected somewhere in heaven. He bore them so that we could be changed — freed from sin's grip, liberated to live the way God always intended for us to live. The objective work of Christ on the cross (bearing our sins, satisfying divine justice) produces a subjective result in believers (a new life of righteousness).⁹

"By His Wounds You Have Been Healed"

The verse closes with another direct quotation from Isaiah 53, this time from verse 5: "By his wounds you have been healed." The word "wounds" (Greek: mōlōps, μώλωψ) literally refers to the marks left by a severe beating — bruises, welts, lash marks. It is vivid, physical language. And the healing is ours, not his. His wounds — our healing. His suffering — our restoration. The substitutionary logic could not be clearer. He suffered so that we would not have to. He was wounded so that we could be made whole.¹⁰

"You Were Straying Like Sheep" (2:25)

Verse 25 completes the Isaiah 53 mosaic: "For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." This echoes Isaiah 53:6: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way." But notice the beautiful reversal. In Isaiah 53, the sheep go astray. In 1 Peter 2, the sheep have "returned to the Shepherd." The Suffering Servant's sin-bearing has accomplished its purpose: the wandering sheep have come home. And notice that Jesus is not just a sacrifice here — he is also the Shepherd. He is both the lamb who dies and the shepherd who leads. He is both the offering on the altar and the priest who brings the lost sheep back to God.¹¹

As Jeffery, Ovey, and Sach observe, 1 Peter 2:21–25 begins by presenting Christ's suffering as an example for persecuted Christians but then moves beyond example to the atoning significance of his death. Christ bore our sin, guilt, and punishment, suffering in our place under the curse of God, so that we might be saved. The exemplary and the substitutionary dimensions are woven together, but the substitutionary is the foundation.¹²

Engaging the Objection: Hess on "Bearing" as "Enduring"

Not everyone agrees with the reading I have just given. In his book Crushing the Great Serpent, William Hess argues that "to bear" in 1 Peter 2:24 does not necessarily mean that sins were transferred to Jesus or imputed to him. Hess writes from a Christus Victor perspective and suggests that "bearing" should be understood more like "enduring." He draws on a quote from Polycarp, the early church father and disciple of the apostle John, who wrote that Christ "bore our sins in His own body on the tree" and "endured all things for us." For Hess, this means Jesus "endured" the effects of human sin — the pain, suffering, and death inflicted by evil hands — not that sins were forensically transferred to him. He carried the burden of our sin in the sense that he experienced what sin does — violence, cruelty, death — without any imputation of guilt being involved.¹³

I appreciate Hess's desire to take the patristic evidence seriously, and his citation of Polycarp is entirely legitimate. Polycarp does indeed emphasize the endurance of Christ. But I think Hess's reading, while containing an element of truth, ultimately falls short of what the text actually says, for several reasons.

First, the verb anapherō (ἀναφέρω) is sacrificial language, not merely the language of endurance. In the Greek Old Testament, this verb is used specifically for the act of placing a sacrifice on the altar. Peter is not simply saying Jesus "put up with" our sins. He is saying Jesus offered them up sacrificially in his body. The sacrificial framework demands more than mere endurance — it requires a substitutionary transaction between the offerer and God.¹⁴

Second, the Old Testament background of "bearing sin" (nāśā' ḥēṭ') consistently includes the idea of suffering sin's penalty, not just experiencing sin's effects. When Numbers 14:34 tells the Israelites they will "bear your iniquity" for forty years in the wilderness, it means they will suffer the punishment for their rebellion, not merely that they will endure hardship. Peter is drawing on this established pattern.

Third, the word xylon ("tree") deliberately evokes the curse of Deuteronomy 21:23. If Peter merely wanted to say that Jesus endured suffering at the hands of evil men, why invoke the specific language of divine curse? The reference to the tree shows that something more than human cruelty is at work. Something judicial is happening. Jesus is bearing a curse — God's curse on sin — in his body.

Fourth, the structure of the verse itself is substitutionary: "He himself bore our sins ... that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed." The logic is: he took what was ours (sins) so that we could receive what was his (righteousness and healing). This is the logic of exchange, not merely the logic of solidarity or endurance.

So while Hess rightly notes that Christ endured terrible suffering at the hands of evil men — that is certainly true — the full weight of Peter's language points to something deeper. Jesus did not merely suffer because of our sins. He bore our sins sacrificially, taking upon himself the curse and penalty they deserve, so that we could go free.

1 Peter 3:18 — "The Righteous for the Unrighteous"

If 1 Peter 2:24 is one of the clearest substitutionary atonement texts in the New Testament, then 1 Peter 3:18 is its companion and in some ways an even more concise summary. Here is the verse:

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit." (1 Peter 3:18, ESV)

This single verse is like a diamond — compact, brilliant, and full of light no matter which angle you examine it from. Let us look at each facet.

"Christ Also Suffered Once for Sins"

The word "once" (Greek: hapax, ἅπαξ) is the same word used in Hebrews to describe the once-for-all, unrepeatable nature of Christ's sacrifice (see Hebrews 7:27; 9:28; 10:10, discussed in Chapter 10). Peter and the author of Hebrews share this conviction: Jesus' death was not something that needs to be repeated. It was a single, definitive, all-sufficient act. Every animal sacrifice in the Old Testament had to be offered again and again — the blood of bulls and goats could never permanently solve the problem. But Christ suffered "once" because his sacrifice accomplished everything that needed to be done.¹⁵

The phrase "for sins" (Greek: peri hamartiōn, περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν) is also loaded with significance. In the Greek Old Testament, this exact phrase — peri hamartiōn — is used as a technical term for the sin offering (see, for example, its use in Hebrews 10:6, 8, 18, 26; 13:11). It also appears in the LXX of Isaiah 53:10, where the Servant's life is made "an offering for sin." Given all the Isaiah 53 allusions we have already seen in 1 Peter, this echo is almost certainly intentional. Peter is placing Jesus' death squarely within the framework of the Old Testament sacrificial system and of the Suffering Servant prophecy.¹⁶

Importantly, Peter signals here that Christ's suffering for sins goes far beyond the exemplary dimension he discussed in earlier verses. In the context of chapter 3, Peter has been encouraging his readers that if they suffer for doing good, they are blessed (3:14, 17). But Peter's readers are explicitly told not to suffer for sin. Christ, however, suffered for sins — and he did it "once for all." This is something his followers cannot imitate. It is unique to him. The suffering of Christ for sins is categorically different from the suffering of believers for righteousness.¹⁷

"The Righteous for the Unrighteous"

Here is the heart of the verse: dikaios hyper adikōn (δίκαιος ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων) — "the righteous for the unrighteous." This is substitution stated in the plainest possible terms. A righteous person dies in the place of unrighteous people. The innocent one takes the place of the guilty. It is almost impossible to read these words in any other way.

The preposition "for" is hyper (ὑπέρ), which can mean "on behalf of" or "in the place of." While some scholars argue that hyper means only "on behalf of" (beneficiary) and not "in the place of" (substitution), the context here strongly favors a substitutionary meaning. The juxtaposition of "the righteous" with "the unrighteous" creates a contrast that only makes sense if the righteous one is standing in for the unrighteous ones. He dies so they do not have to. His righteousness covers their unrighteousness. The very structure of the phrase demands substitution.¹⁸

William Lane Craig, in his detailed analysis of the New Testament atonement texts, notes that Peter's description of Christ as the sin-bearing Servant of Isaiah 53 who "bore our sins in his body on the tree" constitutes an affirmation of Christ's substitutionary punishment on our behalf. The result is that we are liberated from sin and able to live righteously. When we read 1 Peter 3:18 alongside 2:24, the cumulative force is overwhelming: Christ suffered for our sins, the righteous in place of the unrighteous, bearing our sins as a sacrifice, enduring God's curse, so that we might be brought to God.¹⁹

"That He Might Bring Us to God"

The purpose of Christ's substitutionary death is stated in simple, beautiful terms: "that he might bring us to God." The Greek verb here is prosagō (προσάγω), which means "to lead forward," "to bring near," or "to present before." In the Old Testament world, this word could be used for bringing a sacrifice into the presence of God. It was also used for the privilege of access — being introduced into the presence of a king.²⁰

This purpose clause reveals the goal of the entire atonement: reconciliation and access. We were far from God because of our sin. The chasm between a holy God and sinful humanity was real and impassable — from our side. But Christ, the righteous one, crossed that chasm by bearing our sins and dying in our place, so that we could be brought near. This is the language of reconciliation. This is what the atonement is for. Not merely forgiveness in the abstract, but restored relationship — being brought into the very presence of God.

Engaging the Objection: Hess on 1 Peter 3:18

Hess, in Crushing the Great Serpent, argues that 1 Peter 3:18 teaches exactly what the Classical (Christus Victor) view has always affirmed: Christ died "for" us as a representative, not as a vicarious punishment. He suffered to reconcile us to God, not to transfer our sins to himself or to satisfy God's wrath. Hess urges readers to see that "for" (hyper) means "on behalf of" rather than "in the place of," and that the verse says nothing about God punishing Jesus.²¹

I want to engage this objection fairly, because Hess raises a real interpretive question. Can hyper mean simply "on behalf of" without the idea of substitution? In some Greek sentences, yes, it can. But context determines meaning, and the context here is decisive. When you have a righteous person dying "for" unrighteous people, with the result that those unrighteous people are brought to God, and when this verse sits alongside 1 Peter 2:24 where the same author uses explicit sin-bearing, sacrifice, and curse language, the "on behalf of" meaning naturally includes "in the place of." To die on behalf of the guilty when you yourself are innocent is, by definition, substitutionary. The entire logic of the sentence falls apart if we strip out the substitutionary dimension. Why would the righteous one need to die for sins if he were not standing in for the unrighteous?²²

Further, Hess's framing sets up a false choice between the Christus Victor model and penal substitution, as if the two are mutually exclusive. But Peter himself does not see them that way. In the verses immediately following 3:18, there is a possible allusion to Christ's proclamation of victory to imprisoned spirits (3:19–20) — a passage that may carry Christus Victor overtones. Yet this note of victory sits right alongside the penal substitutionary teaching of verse 18 (and, for that matter, alongside 2:21–25). It does not replace it. Christ's victory over evil powers flows from and depends upon his substitutionary death. He conquered precisely by bearing our sins and dying in our place. Victory and substitution are partners, not rivals.²³

The Cry of Dereliction: "My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?"

We turn now from Peter's letters to one of the most haunting moments in all of Scripture — the cry of Jesus from the cross.

"And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?' which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" (Mark 15:34, ESV; cf. Matthew 27:46)

These are among the most mysterious words ever spoken. The eternal Son of God, hanging on a Roman cross, crying out to his Father in anguish. The Greek speakers who heard him thought he was calling for Elijah. The crowd misunderstood. And honestly, many people today still struggle to understand. What did this cry mean? Was Jesus really forsaken by the Father? And what does this moment tell us about the nature of the atonement?

Before we examine the main interpretations, it is worth noting the setting. Mark tells us that darkness covered the whole land from the sixth hour (noon) to the ninth hour (3:00 p.m.) — three hours of supernatural darkness in the middle of the day. It was out of this darkness that Jesus cried with a loud voice. The cry was not a whimper or a whisper. It was a shout — the Greek word megalē (μεγάλη, "great, loud") emphasizes the force and intensity of the cry. Whatever Jesus was experiencing in those hours of darkness, it found expression in a shout of enormous spiritual anguish.

We should also notice the connection to Gethsemane, which we explored in Chapter 7. In the Garden, Jesus prayed with such intensity that his sweat became "like great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44). He told his disciples, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death" (Mark 14:34). He begged the Father, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me" (Matthew 26:39). What was in that cup? The prophetic tradition used the image of a "cup" to describe God's judgment (see Psalm 75:8; Isaiah 51:17, 22; Jeremiah 25:15). In Gethsemane, Jesus was facing the full reality of what bearing human sin would cost him — and the prospect was so terrible that it produced anguish beyond anything we can fully grasp. The cry of dereliction on the cross is, in a sense, the fulfillment of what began in Gethsemane. What Jesus anticipated with dread in the Garden, he actually experienced on the cross.

Four main interpretations have been offered over the centuries, and we need to consider each of them before stating which one I believe best fits the evidence.

Interpretation 1: A Cry of Despair or Unbelief

Some have suggested that Jesus' faith failed him in his final moments. He had hoped the Father would rescue him, and when rescue did not come, he cried out in dismay or even anger: "Why have you abandoned me?" On this reading, Jesus was genuinely surprised and shattered by God's absence.

I believe this interpretation must be rejected. As Stott forcefully argues, this explanation charges Jesus with unbelief at the very moment of his greatest self-sacrifice. It accuses him of moral failure on the cross — a failure of faith, a collapse of trust. But the entire witness of the Gospels presents Jesus as going to the cross voluntarily, with full awareness of what it would cost. In Gethsemane, he prayed, "Not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). He told his disciples, "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:18). A Jesus who collapses into unbelief on the cross is not the Jesus the Gospels present to us.²⁴

Interpretation 2: A Cry of Loneliness — He Felt Forsaken but Was Not

A second and more nuanced interpretation says that Jesus was not actually abandoned by God. He experienced what the Christian mystics have called "the dark night of the soul" — a felt sense of God's absence, even though God was still present with him. On this reading, Jesus' why? is not a complaint that God actually abandoned him, but an expression of the terrible experience of feeling utterly alone. T. R. Glover wrote, "I have sometimes thought there never was an utterance that reveals more amazingly the distance between feeling and fact."²⁵

This interpretation is more respectful of Jesus' character than the first, and it captures something real — the experience of feeling God-forsaken is indeed part of what the saints have known throughout history. But as Stott observes, there seems to be a serious difficulty with this view. The words of Psalm 22:1, which Jesus is quoting, express an experience of being, not merely feeling, forsaken by God. Jesus was quoting Scripture, and he always quoted Scripture because he believed he was fulfilling it. If the words do not describe his actual experience, why would he speak them?²⁶

Interpretation 3: A Cry of Victory — Quoting the Whole Psalm

A third and quite popular interpretation suggests that Jesus was quoting only the first verse of Psalm 22 but intending to invoke the whole psalm, which moves from lament and suffering to confident trust and even triumph. By the end of Psalm 22, the psalmist is praising God, declaring, "He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help" (Psalm 22:24). On this reading, Jesus was actually expressing confidence and hope, not desolation.

I find this interpretation creative but, in the end, unconvincing. As Stott asks: Why would Jesus quote the psalm's beginning if he really meant to point to its end? That seems like a perverse way to communicate, especially at a moment of extreme agony. Would anyone hearing his words have understood that he was actually expressing triumph? The natural reading is that Jesus quoted the first verse because the first verse described what he was experiencing: forsakenness.²⁷

That said, there may be a partial truth here. Jesus, who knew the Scriptures perfectly, surely knew how Psalm 22 ends. It is possible — even likely — that the whole psalm was in his mind, and that even in the depths of dereliction, he held on to the hope of vindication that the psalm ultimately expresses. But this does not change the fact that he quoted verse 1 because verse 1 was true of him in that moment.

Interpretation 4: A Cry of Real Dereliction

The fourth interpretation — and the one I believe is most faithful to the text — is the simplest: take the words at face value. Jesus genuinely experienced forsakenness. Something real happened in the relationship between the Father and the Son during those hours of darkness on the cross.

Stott puts the matter plainly. He agrees with the nineteenth-century theologian R. W. Dale, who wrote: "I decline to accept any explanation of these words which implies that they do not represent the actual truth of our Lord's position." Up to this point in his life, though forsaken by every human friend, Jesus could always say, "Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me" (John 16:32). But in the darkness on the cross, something changed. He was now God-forsaken as well. Calvin captured the depth of this when he wrote that if Christ had died only a bodily death, it would have been insufficient: "Unless his soul shared in the punishment, he would have been the Redeemer of bodies alone." Therefore, Calvin said, Christ "paid a greater and more excellent price in suffering in his soul the terrible torments of a condemned and forsaken man."²⁸

The Theological Significance of the Cry

What, then, does the cry of dereliction tell us about the atonement? I believe it opens a window into the deepest dimension of what happened on the cross — a dimension that goes beyond the physical agony of crucifixion, beyond the mockery and shame, beyond even the emotional anguish of betrayal by friends.

The deepest consequence of sin, according to Scripture, is not physical death, although that is certainly part of it. The deepest consequence is spiritual separation from God — alienation from the source of all life, all goodness, all love, all meaning. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were driven out of God's presence in the Garden (Genesis 3:23–24). When Israel rebelled, God's glory departed from the temple (Ezekiel 10:18–19). Sin separates us from God. That is its most terrible effect.

If Jesus on the cross was bearing the full consequences of human sin — and I believe the texts we have examined in this chapter and throughout this book show clearly that he was — then it makes sense that he would experience, in his human soul, the deepest consequence of sin: the horror of being cut off from the Father's presence. This is what the darkness symbolized. This is what the cry expressed. Not an ontological break in the Trinity, but a voluntary, experiential entering into the full reality of what sin does to the human relationship with God.

Fr. Joshua Schooping, the Orthodox priest and scholar whose work we have drawn on throughout this book, provides a remarkable treatment of this theme. Schooping draws on St. Philaret of Moscow, who described the cry of dereliction as Christ enduring according to the limits of his human nature "to be forsaken of God." Philaret understood sin as separation from God — "separation from God and a state of sin are one and the same thing," he wrote — and argued that in order to atone for this separation, Christ had to undergo a punishment proportioned to that spiritual alienation. The consequence of sin was experienced by Christ in his death. As Philaret put it: "Yea, O Lord! Thou hast forsaken Him, for a little while, that Thou shouldest not forsake us for eternity."²⁹

Schooping is careful to insist, as I do, that this does not mean any metaphysical division in the Trinity. Christ was not cut off from the Father in his divine nature. But in his human nature, as the one who bore the sins of the world, he experienced the full spiritual weight of what sin does — the agony of forsakenness, the horror of alienation from the God who is the source of all blessedness. Schooping argues that without confronting this aspect of the atonement, Christ's sufferings on the cross are reduced to being merely biological in nature, leaving humanity's real problem — spiritual death and separation from God — unatoned for.³⁰

This is a profound insight, and I find it deeply compelling. If the cross deals only with physical suffering and death, then it has not actually addressed the deepest problem that sin creates. But if, in those hours of darkness, the Son voluntarily entered into the full experience of sin's consequences — including the spiritual desolation of forsakenness — then the atonement truly reaches to the bottom of the human condition. There is no depth of human alienation, no abyss of spiritual darkness, that Christ has not already descended into and conquered.

Think of it this way. What is the worst thing that could happen to a human being? It is not physical pain, as terrible as that is. It is not even physical death. The worst thing is to be utterly and finally cut off from God — to be separated from the source of all love, all meaning, all hope, all life. That is what the Bible means by "the second death" (Revelation 20:14) and what theologians through the centuries have described as the essence of hell. On the cross, Jesus voluntarily entered into that experience — not permanently, not as one who deserved it, but as the sinless one who bore it on behalf of those who did deserve it. He tasted death "for everyone" (Hebrews 2:9) — and the death he tasted was not merely biological. It was the full spiritual weight of separation from God that sin produces.

This is why I believe the cry of dereliction is not just an interesting historical detail or a puzzling theological footnote. It is the window into the very heart of what happened on the cross. When we understand the cry, we understand why the atonement is truly sufficient. Jesus did not merely pay a partial penalty. He bore the full consequence of human sin — physical death, yes, but also the spiritual anguish of forsakenness. And because he bore it all, there is nothing left for us to bear. The debt is fully paid. The cup is fully drunk. The penalty is fully satisfied. "It is finished."

The Cry of Dereliction and the Trinity

I want to address one more important point about the cry of dereliction, because this is where some formulations of penal substitutionary atonement have gone wrong and have rightly drawn criticism.

Some popular presentations of PSA describe the cross as a scene of intra-Trinitarian conflict: the Father pouring out his rage on the Son, the Son crushed beneath the weight of an angry God's fury. This image makes the Father look like an abuser and the Son like a victim. It is the picture that Steve Chalke famously called "cosmic child abuse" (a charge we will engage fully in Chapter 20 and Chapter 35). And I want to say clearly: that picture is wrong. It is a distortion of what actually happened, and it must be rejected.

The cross was not the Father punishing the Son against his will. It was the Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — acting in unified, self-giving love to bear the consequences of human sin. The Son went willingly: "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:18). The Father sent the Son in love: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16). The Spirit was present in the offering: Christ "through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God" (Hebrews 9:14).

As Stott argues in what I consider one of the most important chapters ever written on the atonement (Chapter 6 of The Cross of Christ, "The Self-Substitution of God"), the cross is not the story of an angry Father punishing an unwilling Son. It is the story of God himself — the Triune God — bearing the cost of our salvation. The Father did not stand apart from the Son's suffering; he was present in it, sharing the pain of it, even as the Son bore the consequences of sin. This is self-substitution: God substituting himself for us, in the person of his Son, so that we might be forgiven.³¹

The cry of dereliction, then, is not evidence that the Father abandoned the Son in anger. It is evidence that the Son, in perfect unity with the Father's redemptive will, entered voluntarily into the experience of sin's deepest consequence — forsakenness — so that no human being would ever need to experience ultimate forsakenness. He was forsaken for a moment so that we would not be forsaken for eternity.

The Three Hours of Darkness

We should not miss the significance of the darkness that covered the land from noon until three o'clock (Mark 15:33; Matthew 27:45; Luke 23:44). In the Old Testament, darkness is a symbol of divine judgment. The plague of darkness in Egypt (Exodus 10:21–23) was a judgment on Egypt's gods. The prophets describe the Day of the Lord — God's coming in judgment — as a day of "darkness, and not light" (Amos 5:18, 20). Joel prophesied, "The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes" (Joel 2:31).

When supernatural darkness fell over the land as Jesus hung on the cross, it was a sign that something of cosmic, judicial significance was happening. This was not merely a man dying. This was the moment when, as Paul would later write, God was "making him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21; see Chapter 9). The darkness was the visible sign of the invisible reality: the Son was bearing the judicial consequences of human sin.³²

What Followed the Cry

It is worth noting what happened immediately after the cry of dereliction. According to the Gospels, Jesus spoke three more times in quick succession. He said, "I thirst" (John 19:28) — his spiritual agony had taken a physical toll. He cried out in a loud voice, "It is finished!" (John 19:30) — the single Greek word tetelestai (τετέλεσται), a perfect tense verb meaning "it has been completed and remains completed forever." And finally, he said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46) — a calm, confident, voluntary surrender of his life.

Notice the progression. From the depths of dereliction — "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" — Jesus moves to the triumphant declaration "It is finished!" and then to the peaceful trust of "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." He came through the darkness and out the other side. The forsakenness was real, but it was not the end. The end was victory, completion, and restored communion with the Father. And notice that in his final words, Jesus addresses God once again as "Father" — the intimate word that he had, during the cry of dereliction, replaced with the more formal "my God." The relationship has been restored. The darkness has passed. The work is done.³³

Engaging Hess on the Cry: "At the Hands of Evil"

In Chapter 11 of Crushing the Great Serpent, titled "At the Hands of Evil," Hess provides an extended alternative reading of Christ's sufferings on the cross. His central argument is that the suffering Jesus endured came from evil men, not from the Father. Hess contends that PSA uniquely teaches that the Father satisfied his wrath by punishing Jesus, but that the text of Scripture presents Jesus as one who "suffered at the hands of evil men so that He might redeem them." For Hess, the cost of the cross was real — Jesus endured pain, suffering, and death — but the penalty was inflicted by sinful humanity and evil powers, not directed by the Father against the Son.³⁴

Hess raises a question that deserves a careful answer. Did the Father punish Jesus, or did evil men kill him? My answer is: both, though in different senses. The human agents of the crucifixion — Pilate, the religious leaders, the Roman soldiers — were morally responsible for their wicked actions. They acted freely and sinfully. At the same time, Scripture is clear that their actions occurred within God's sovereign, redemptive plan. Acts 2:23 states that Jesus was "delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God" — and was then "crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men." Both clauses are true simultaneously. Acts 4:27–28 makes the point even more explicitly:

"for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place."

The human actors did what they did freely and sinfully. But God's hand and God's plan were operative in and through their actions. The cross was not a tragic accident that God turned to good after the fact. It was "the definite plan" of God, carried out through the willing (though sinful) actions of human beings.³⁵

So when we say that God "laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6) or that "it was the will of the LORD to crush him" (Isaiah 53:10), we are not saying the Father was a sadistic torturer who gleefully hurt his Son. We are saying that the Father, in unity with the Son and the Spirit, ordained that the Son would voluntarily bear the judicial consequences of human sin through the cross — an event carried out by human hands but planned by divine love. The "at the hands of evil" reading and the "according to God's plan" reading are not two competing theories. They are two aspects of one event, and Scripture affirms both without contradiction.

The Petrine Witness and the Multi-Faceted Atonement

Before we conclude, it is worth stepping back and noticing how Peter's atonement theology fits within the multi-faceted model we have been developing throughout this book.

In the space of just a few chapters, Peter gives us:

Ransom/redemption language: "You were ransomed ... with the precious blood of Christ" (1:18–19).

Sacrificial lamb imagery: "like that of a lamb without blemish or spot" (1:19).

Moral example: "Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example" (2:21).

Substitutionary sin-bearing: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" (2:24).

Penal/curse language: "on the tree" (xylon), evoking Deuteronomy 21:23 (2:24).

Healing through wounds: "By his wounds you have been healed" (2:24, quoting Isaiah 53:5).

The righteous-for-unrighteous exchange: "the righteous for the unrighteous" (3:18).

Reconciliation: "that he might bring us to God" (3:18).

Possible victory over evil powers: Christ's proclamation to imprisoned spirits (3:19–20).

Peter does not force us to choose between these dimensions. He holds them all together. The atonement is a ransom, a sacrifice, an example, a substitution, a healing, a reconciliation, and possibly a victory over spiritual powers — all at once. But the substitutionary and penal dimensions are not peripheral. They are the load-bearing wall on which the rest of the structure depends. Without them, the ransom has no price, the sacrifice has no logic, the example has no power, and the reconciliation has no basis.³⁶

Consider how this works. Why is the ransom effective? Because Christ paid it with his own blood, bearing the penalty that held us captive. Why is the sacrifice accepted? Because the sinless one offered himself in the place of sinners, satisfying divine justice. Why does the example have power to inspire? Because it is not just any act of courage — it is the act of one who bore our sins and purchased our freedom. Why can we be reconciled to God? Because the barrier between us and God — the judicial consequence of our rebellion — has been removed by Christ who bore it in our place. Strip away the substitutionary center, and the other dimensions lose their coherence. But with substitution at the heart, every dimension of the atonement finds its proper place and shines with full brilliance.

It is also worth noting how well Peter's theology aligns with what we find elsewhere in the New Testament. Paul speaks of Christ being "made to be sin" for us (2 Corinthians 5:21; see Chapter 9) and "becoming a curse" for us (Galatians 3:13; see Chapter 9). The author of Hebrews describes Christ being "offered once to bear the sins of many" (Hebrews 9:28; see Chapter 10). John tells us that Christ is "the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2; see Chapter 12). Peter's contribution fits seamlessly into this broader New Testament witness. The earliest Christians, writing independently and to different audiences across the Roman world, consistently used substitutionary, sacrificial, and penalty-bearing language to explain the cross. This was not one theologian's pet theory. It was the shared conviction of the apostolic church.

This is precisely the model I have been arguing for throughout this book: a multi-faceted atonement with penal substitution at the center (see Chapter 24 for the full integration). Peter's theology confirms this model beautifully.

The Connection Between the Petrine Witness and the Cry of Dereliction

There is a deep theological connection between Peter's atonement theology and the cry of dereliction, and I want to draw it out before we close.

Peter tells us that Jesus "bore our sins in his body on the tree" (2:24) and suffered "the righteous for the unrighteous" (3:18). The cry of dereliction shows us what that sin-bearing looked like from the inside — from Jesus' own experience. When he cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he was giving voice to the reality that Peter describes theologically. Bearing our sins was not merely an external, legal transaction. It was an experience of devastating cost. The Son of God, who had known the Father's love from all eternity, entered into the experience of forsakenness — the ultimate consequence of sin — so that we would never have to know that forsakenness ourselves.

There is also a striking connection between Peter's language and the cry if we think about what "bearing sin" actually involves. In the Old Testament, when someone "bore their iniquity," they experienced the punishment — the tangible, painful consequences — of their wrongdoing. It was not abstract. It was real and terrible. The cry of dereliction shows us that Jesus' sin-bearing was equally real and equally terrible. He did not bear our sins the way we might carry a book under our arm — effortlessly and without feeling its weight. He bore them the way someone bears a crushing burden that drives them to the ground. The cry from the cross is the sound of that burden at its heaviest. It is the sound of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 "stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4).

Peter also tells us that after bearing our sins, the result is that "we might die to sin and live to righteousness" (2:24) and that Christ might "bring us to God" (3:18). In the same way, the cry of dereliction was not the final word. After the forsakenness came the cry of triumph ("It is finished!") and the return to intimacy with the Father ("Father, into your hands I commit my spirit"). The pattern of the atonement is: bearing sin leads to victory over sin; forsakenness leads to restored communion; the curse gives way to blessing; death opens the door to life.

And notice how deeply pastoral this is. Peter was writing to suffering believers. He wanted them to know that Jesus understood their suffering — but more than that, that his suffering had accomplished something that their suffering never could. When a first-century slave was beaten by a cruel master, they might feel abandoned by God. Peter's message was: Jesus knows what that feels like. He experienced the ultimate abandonment — forsakenness by God himself — so that you will never experience it ultimately. Your suffering is real, but it is not the last word. Because of what Jesus bore on the cross, you will one day be brought into the very presence of God (3:18), never to be separated from him again.

This is the gospel. This is what the cross accomplished. And Peter, together with the cry of dereliction, gives us one of the most vivid and compelling windows into this reality anywhere in the New Testament.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have examined some of the most powerful atonement texts in all of Scripture. We began with 1 Peter 1:18–19, where Peter establishes the ransom and sacrificial framework for understanding Christ's death. We then moved to the great text of 1 Peter 2:24, where Peter draws on sacrificial vocabulary (anapherō), Isaiah 53's sin-bearing language (nāśā' ḥēṭ'), the curse of the tree (xylon and Deuteronomy 21:23), and the healing-through-wounds quotation from Isaiah 53:5 to build one of the most comprehensive substitutionary atonement statements in the New Testament. We examined 1 Peter 3:18, with its concise and unmistakable summary of substitution: "the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God."

We then turned to the cry of dereliction in Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:46. After considering four different interpretations — a cry of despair, a cry of felt loneliness, a cry of victory, and a cry of real dereliction — I argued that the simplest and most faithful reading is that Jesus truly experienced forsakenness on the cross. This was not an ontological break in the Trinity, which is impossible. Rather, the incarnate Son, in his human nature and in perfect unity with the Father's redemptive will, voluntarily entered into the deepest consequence of human sin — spiritual alienation from God — so that we would never have to experience that separation ourselves.

We engaged seriously with the objections of William Hess, who argues from a Christus Victor perspective that Jesus' suffering was inflicted by evil men, not by the Father. We showed that these two perspectives are not mutually exclusive: the human and demonic agents of the crucifixion were real and morally responsible, but they acted within the sovereign, redemptive plan of God (Acts 2:23; 4:27–28). And we showed that Peter himself holds together multiple atonement dimensions — ransom, sacrifice, example, substitution, curse-bearing, healing, reconciliation, and victory — without forcing us to choose between them.

The Petrine witness, combined with the cry of dereliction, takes us to the very heart of the gospel. Jesus bore our sins. The righteous one died for the unrighteous. By his wounds we are healed. He was forsaken so that we would never be forsaken. And through it all, the Triune God was not divided but was acting in perfect, unified, self-giving love to bring us home to himself.

That is the message of the cross. And it is very good news indeed.