Words matter. When we talk about what happened at the cross of Jesus Christ, the words we choose carry enormous weight. They shape how we think about God, about sin, about salvation, and about the very heart of the Christian faith. Fortunately, we do not need to invent our own vocabulary for the atonement. The Bible itself provides a remarkably rich collection of terms, images, and metaphors — drawn from the temple, the marketplace, the law court, the battlefield, and the family — that together paint a vivid and multi-layered picture of what Christ accomplished through His death and resurrection.
In this chapter, I want to walk through the most important biblical words related to the atonement, beginning with the Hebrew terms of the Old Testament and then moving to the Greek vocabulary of the New Testament. For each term, we will examine its original-language meaning, its biblical context, and its significance for understanding the cross. My goal is not merely to compile a glossary, though this chapter can certainly serve as a reference tool. Rather, I want to show that careful attention to the Bible's own vocabulary reveals something crucial: substitutionary, sacrificial, and judicial categories are woven into the very fabric of the biblical witness. They are not later theological inventions imposed on the text. They arise naturally from the text itself.
At the same time, the biblical vocabulary is broader than any single category. The language of redemption, reconciliation, victory, and cleansing all appear alongside the language of substitution and sacrifice. A faithful account of the atonement must honor this breadth. But as we will see, when we trace these various word-families to their roots, they converge on a common center: the self-giving love of God, who in Christ bore the consequences of human sin so that we might be forgiven, reconciled, and made whole.
Chapter Thesis: The Bible uses a rich array of terms, images, and metaphors to describe what Christ accomplished on the cross, and careful attention to this vocabulary — in both Hebrew and Greek — reveals that substitutionary, penal, and judicial categories are woven into the very fabric of the biblical witness, alongside sacrificial, redemptive, reconciliatory, and victory language.
The Old Testament lays the groundwork for everything the New Testament says about the cross. The Hebrew language of sacrifice, covering, bearing, redeeming, and sending away provides the conceptual foundation on which the apostles built their theology of Christ's death. As David Allen rightly notes, in the Old Testament God is presented as the only Savior of Israel and of the world, and the cross of Christ is foreshadowed in the sacrificial system, the prophetic writings, and the very vocabulary that Israel used to talk about sin and its remedy.1
If there is a single Hebrew word that stands at the heart of Old Testament atonement theology, it is kipper (כָּפַר). This is the verb translated "to make atonement" throughout the Levitical sacrificial texts, and it is the root from which we get Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement, the most solemn day in Israel's liturgical calendar. But what does this word actually mean?
Scholars have proposed several possible meanings for kipper. First, it may carry the basic sense of "to cover" — that is, to cover over sin so that it is hidden from God's sight. Second, it can connote "to cleanse" or "to purify," as in Leviticus 16:30, where the Day of Atonement ritual is said to "cleanse" the people from all their sins. Third, kipper can mean "to ransom," as does its cognate noun kopher (כֹּפֶר), which refers to a ransom payment (see Exodus 30:12). In the Day of Atonement ritual, the life of the sacrificial animal is substituted for human lives — the animal dies so that the people might live. Fourth, and significantly for our purposes, the word can refer to the averting of God's wrath.2
What is especially important is that kipper encompasses multiple dimensions of atonement within a single term. As Allen explains, the sacrificial offering propitiates the wrath of God, expiates the guilt of sin, and effects reconciliation. The word kipper includes the notions of propitiation, expiation, purification, and reconciliation all together.3 This is a crucial point for our study, because it means that at the very foundation of biblical atonement language, we find a term that resists being reduced to a single dimension. Kipper is inherently multi-faceted — but its various dimensions all point toward the reality that sin creates a problem between God and humanity that requires a costly remedy.
The noun form kapporet (כַּפֹּרֶת) refers to the "mercy seat" — the golden lid of the Ark of the Covenant where the high priest sprinkled sacrificial blood on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:14–15). The Greek translation of this word in the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) is hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον) — the very same word Paul uses in Romans 3:25 to describe what God accomplished through Christ's death. We will return to this connection shortly, but for now, notice how the Old Testament vocabulary already points forward to the cross. The mercy seat was the place where God's justice and mercy met. As we will argue in Chapter 8, Paul's use of hilastērion in Romans 3:25 likely evokes this very image: Christ Himself is the mercy seat, the place where God's righteous judgment and self-giving love converge.4
Key Point: The Hebrew word kipper (כָּפַר, "to atone") encompasses covering, cleansing, ransoming, and averting wrath — all within a single term. From the very beginning of biblical atonement language, we find a vocabulary that is inherently multi-faceted, resisting reduction to any single dimension while pointing to the costly nature of dealing with sin.
The asham (אָשָׁם) is the guilt offering or trespass offering described in Leviticus 5:14–6:7. Unlike the more general sin offering, the guilt offering was specifically tied to reparation for particular offenses — acts of unfaithfulness against the Lord's holy things or wrongs committed against a neighbor. The asham addressed not only the guilt of the offense but also required restitution, including a penalty of an additional fifth of the value (Leviticus 5:16).
This term takes on extraordinary significance in Isaiah 53:10, where the prophet declares that the Suffering Servant's life would be made "an offering for guilt" — an asham. This is explicit sacrificial language. The Servant does not merely suffer as a tragic victim; his suffering functions as a guilt offering, a reparation sacrifice that deals with the guilt of others and restores what sin has broken. As we will explore in depth in Chapter 6, the use of asham in Isaiah 53 is one of the clearest Old Testament indicators that the Servant's death is understood in substitutionary and sacrificial terms.5 The Servant bears the guilt that belongs to others, and his death is the offering that makes things right.
The Hebrew word chattath (חַטָּאת) is remarkable because it carries a double meaning. It can refer to "sin" itself, and it can also refer to the "sin offering" — the sacrifice prescribed to deal with sin. This dual meaning is itself theologically suggestive: the remedy for sin is found in a sacrifice that is so closely identified with sin that the same word covers both the disease and the cure.
The sin offering is described in detail in Leviticus 4–5:13. It was prescribed for unintentional sins and for various forms of ritual impurity. The blood of the sin offering was applied to specific locations — the horns of the altar, the veil of the sanctuary, or the mercy seat itself — depending on the status of the person who had sinned. The purpose was purification: the sin offering dealt with the contamination and defilement that sin brought into the community and the sanctuary.6
Paul may well have this dual meaning of chattath in mind when he writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (ESV). The language of being "made sin" echoes the identification of the sacrifice with the sin it addresses. Christ, who had no sin of His own, was made a sin offering on our behalf — so closely identified with our sin that He bore its full weight and consequences. This remarkable exchange, which we will explore further in Chapter 9, is rooted in Old Testament sacrificial categories that the chattath concept makes available.
Padah (פָּדָה) means "to ransom" or "to redeem" by paying a price. It is one of the primary Hebrew words for redemption and carries the concrete image of buying someone's freedom. In the Old Testament, this word is used for the redemption of a firstborn child or animal through a substitute payment (Exodus 13:13, 15), for the release of a slave (Deuteronomy 15:15), and — most importantly — for God's mighty act of delivering Israel from slavery in Egypt.
When God redeemed Israel from Egypt, He paid a price. The Passover lamb, whose blood marked the doorposts of Israelite homes so that the destroying angel would "pass over" them (Exodus 12:13), was both the cost of deliverance and a powerful image of substitution: the lamb died so that the firstborn might live. The redemption language of the Old Testament consistently implies that freedom from bondage comes at a cost, and that cost is typically borne by another. This is not an abstract metaphor; it reflects the concrete reality of ancient Near Eastern commerce and law, where ransoms were real payments made for real people.
While padah emphasizes the payment of a ransom price, ga'al (גָּאַל) adds an intensely personal dimension to the concept of redemption. The go'el (גֹּאֵל) — the "kinsman-redeemer" — was a close family member who had the right and responsibility to redeem a relative from debt-slavery, to buy back family property that had been sold, and even to avenge the blood of a murdered relative (Leviticus 25:25, 47–49; Ruth 3–4; Numbers 35:19).
The kinsman-redeemer had to meet three qualifications: he had to be a close relative (he could not be a stranger), he had to have the resources to pay the price of redemption, and he had to be willing to act. The theological resonance is profound. God Himself is called Israel's Go'el — their Kinsman-Redeemer (Isaiah 41:14; 43:14; 44:6, 24; 49:26). And in the New Testament, Jesus meets all three qualifications: through the incarnation He became our "close relative" — fully human, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh; He alone had the resources to pay the price of our redemption (His sinless life and sacrificial death); and He acted willingly, out of love, to buy us back from the slavery of sin and death. The ga'al concept adds warmth and intimacy to the doctrine of redemption. Our Redeemer is not a distant stranger conducting a cold business transaction. He is family.
The Hebrew verb nasa (נָשָׂא) means "to bear," "to carry," or "to lift up." When used in connection with sin, it takes on the specific meaning of bearing sin's guilt and consequences. This is one of the most important substitutionary terms in the Old Testament, because the concept of "bearing sin" consistently implies enduring the consequences that sin deserves.
In the Levitical system, the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement would "bear" (nasa) the iniquities of the people and carry them away into the wilderness (Leviticus 16:22). The sins were transferred to the animal through the laying on of hands, and the goat carried them away — a vivid picture of removal and substitution. Allen notes that the use of nasa in the context of the Day of Atonement is "reminiscent of sacrificial language found in Leviticus," where the scapegoat would carry away the sins of the people.7
Isaiah 53 uses this same verb in a passage that is unmistakably substitutionary: "Surely he has borne (nasa) our griefs and carried our sorrows" (Isaiah 53:4), and "he bore (nasa) the sin of many" (Isaiah 53:12). The Servant does not merely sympathize with human suffering or suffer as an unfortunate bystander. He bears what belongs to others. Their sin, their grief, their punishment — all are placed upon Him and carried by Him. As we will see in Chapter 6, the consistent Old Testament usage of "bearing sin" (nasa + avon/chet) refers to bearing the consequences and punishment of sin, not merely suffering as a byproduct of others' wrongdoing.8
Key Point: The Hebrew verb nasa (נָשָׂא, "to bear, carry") is one of the Old Testament's most important substitutionary terms. When applied to sin, it consistently means bearing sin's guilt and consequences on behalf of others. Isaiah 53 uses this verb to describe the Suffering Servant's work — He "bore our griefs" and "bore the sin of many" — providing a clear Old Testament foundation for the New Testament's understanding of Christ's substitutionary death.
Shalach (שָׁלַח) means "to send" or "to send away." Its atonement significance appears most vividly in the Day of Atonement ritual, where the scapegoat — upon whose head the sins of the people have been confessed — is "sent away" into the wilderness (Leviticus 16:10, 21–22). The image is powerful in its simplicity: sin is removed, taken away, sent to a place of no return. The sins of the people are no longer upon them; they have been carried away by the substitute.
This language of removal and sending away complements the language of covering (kipper) and bearing (nasa). Together, these terms describe a comprehensive process: sin is covered before God's eyes, its guilt and consequences are borne by a substitute, and the sin itself is removed — sent away so that it no longer stands between God and His people. The full Yom Kippur ritual and its significance will be treated in depth in Chapter 5, but for now we can observe that the very verb "to send away" contributes to the Bible's cumulative case that atonement involves real removal of sin through substitution.
Tsedaqah (צְדָקָה) is the Hebrew word for "righteousness" or "justice." It describes the character of God as One who is perfectly righteous in all His ways, and it also describes the standard by which human conduct is measured. In the Old Testament, God's righteousness is not merely an abstract attribute; it is an active, saving reality. God acts righteously by delivering His people, keeping His covenant promises, and setting things right in a broken world.
This matters for atonement theology because the cross is where God's righteousness and His mercy come together in a single act. The atonement is not a story of mercy overriding justice or justice suppressing mercy. It is a story of both being fully expressed simultaneously. As we will explore in Chapter 3, God's character — His love, justice, and holiness — is the foundation upon which the entire doctrine of the atonement rests. The Hebrew concept of tsedaqah reminds us that God's saving acts are always righteous acts. He does not save by cutting corners on justice. He saves by satisfying justice through His own self-giving love.
The New Testament authors did not invent a new theological vocabulary out of thin air. They inherited the rich language of the Old Testament — mediated through the Greek translation known as the Septuagint (LXX) — and filled it with new, deeper meaning in light of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Greek words they used to describe the atonement draw on the worlds of the temple (sacrifice, blood, priesthood), the law court (justification, verdict, penalty), the marketplace (redemption, ransom, purchase), and the battlefield (victory, liberation, triumph). Each of these word-families captures a genuine dimension of what Christ accomplished, and together they form a remarkably comprehensive picture.
John Stott helpfully observes that although these images of salvation are drawn from different spheres of life — and may even seem incompatible at first glance — they all converge on the same underlying truth: God in Christ has borne our sin and died our death to set us free.9 The diversity of the New Testament's atonement vocabulary is not a sign of confusion. It is a sign of richness. No single image is sufficient to capture the full reality of what happened at Calvary. But when we hold all these images together, a coherent and breathtaking picture emerges.
No New Testament word related to the atonement has generated more scholarly debate than hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον) and its cognate hilasmos (ἱλασμός). These words belong to the hilaskomai word-group, and the central question is this: Do they mean "propitiation" (the turning away of God's wrath by satisfying His justice) or "expiation" (the removal or cleansing of sin)? The answer to this question has enormous theological consequences, because it touches directly on whether the atonement deals with God's righteous response to sin or only with sin's effects on the sinner.
The key New Testament texts are Romans 3:25 ("whom God put forward as a hilastērion by his blood, to be received by faith"), Hebrews 2:17 ("to make hilaskomai for the sins of the people"), 1 John 2:2 ("He is the hilasmos for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world"), and 1 John 4:10 ("He loved us and sent his Son to be the hilasmos for our sins"). Allen notes that hilasmos, as used in the New Testament, connotes both propitiation and expiation of sin by the work of Christ on the cross, and indicates an objective reconciliation with all humanity in the sense that the removal of all legal barriers between sinful humanity and God renders humanity "savable."10
The debate over whether hilastērion means "propitiation" or "expiation" has been one of the most consequential arguments in twentieth-century biblical scholarship. Because this debate is so important, it deserves a dedicated section — which we will provide below. For now, I will simply state the conclusion that I believe the evidence supports: both dimensions are present. The hilaskomai word-group encompasses both the expiation of sin (its removal and cleansing) and the propitiation of God's justice (the satisfaction of His righteous response to sin). Reducing it to one at the expense of the other impoverishes the biblical testimony.
Katallagē (καταλλαγή) is the Greek word for "reconciliation," and it is one of the warmest and most relational terms in the New Testament's atonement vocabulary. Reconciliation implies that a relationship has been broken and needs to be restored. It carries the image of two estranged parties being brought back together — the hostility between them resolved, peace established, friendship renewed.
The key texts are Romans 5:10–11 ("while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son"), 2 Corinthians 5:18–20 ("God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them"), Ephesians 2:16 ("that he might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross"), and Colossians 1:20 ("through him to reconcile to himself all things... making peace by the blood of his cross").
Several things about the New Testament's reconciliation language deserve careful attention. First, reconciliation is always described as God's initiative. Paul never says that humanity reconciled itself to God, or that Christ reconciled God to humanity. Rather, it is God who reconciles us to Himself through Christ. As Stott notes, it is "God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ" — the initiative, the action, and the accomplishment all belong to God.11
Second, reconciliation presupposes a real problem in the relationship. If there were no genuine breach — no real enmity, no actual barrier — reconciliation would be unnecessary. The New Testament is clear that the barrier is twofold: there is human hostility toward God (we are "enemies" in our minds because of our evil behavior, Colossians 1:21), and there is a divine response to human sin that must be addressed (God's righteous judgment, which is the very thing propitiation deals with). Reconciliation is not merely a subjective change of attitude on our part; it is an objective reality accomplished at the cross.
Third, the scope of reconciliation is breathtakingly wide. Paul speaks of God reconciling "the world" to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19) and of reconciling "all things" through the blood of the cross (Colossians 1:20). This language supports the universal scope of the atonement — Christ's death is not merely for a select few but for the entire world (a theme we will develop in Chapter 30).
Apolytrōsis (ἀπολύτρωσις) is the Greek word for "redemption" and carries the vivid image of liberation through the payment of a price. In the ancient world, this word was used for the release of slaves and prisoners of war through the payment of a ransom. It picks up and intensifies the Old Testament themes of padah and ga'al — God's costly act of buying His people out of bondage.
Paul uses this word in Romans 3:24 ("justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus"), Ephesians 1:7 ("In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses"), and Colossians 1:14 ("in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins"). In each case, redemption is connected to the blood of Christ — His sacrificial death is the price that secures our freedom.
The concept of redemption underscores an important truth about the human condition: apart from Christ, we are not merely sick, confused, or mistaken. We are enslaved — held captive by sin, death, and the powers of evil. We cannot free ourselves. We need someone to pay the price of our release. And that is precisely what Christ has done. The New Testament's redemption language points both to the seriousness of our bondage and to the costliness of our rescue. Allen observes that atonement is the ground of redemption, and that redemption is what is bestowed on individuals on the basis of Christ's atoning work.12
Closely related to apolytrōsis is the word lytron (λύτρον), which means "ransom" — a specific price paid to secure someone's release. Jesus Himself uses this word in one of His most important self-descriptions: "The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom (lytron) for many" (Mark 10:45; cf. Matthew 20:28). The cognate antilytron (ἀντίλυτρον), meaning "a ransom given in exchange," appears in 1 Timothy 2:6, where Paul writes that Christ Jesus "gave himself as a ransom (antilytron) for all."
The word lytron and especially antilytron have strong substitutionary overtones. A ransom is, by definition, something given in exchange for another — it is paid in someone's place. When Jesus says He gives His life as a lytron "for many," the meaning is clear: His life is the price paid in exchange for ours. We were held in bondage, and He paid the cost of our release with His own blood. Stott rightly insists that redemption always involves the payment of a price, and that even when God is the Redeemer, the concept of cost is never eliminated.13
The ransom metaphor raises an ancient question that generated much creative speculation in the early church: To whom was the ransom paid? Some patristic writers (notably Origen and Gregory of Nyssa) suggested the ransom was paid to the devil, who held humanity captive. Others objected that this gave too much dignity to Satan. The best answer, I believe, is that the ransom metaphor highlights the costliness of our deliverance without necessarily requiring us to identify a "recipient" of the payment. The point is that our freedom cost God something — it cost Him the life of His Son. As we will see in Chapter 22's fuller treatment of the ransom theory, the metaphor is powerful precisely because it captures the costliness of divine love without reducing the atonement to a commercial transaction.
Key Point: The New Testament's redemption and ransom language (apolytrōsis, lytron, antilytron) draws on the imagery of slave markets and prisoner exchanges. It emphasizes that our liberation from sin cost God something — the life and blood of His Son. This language carries inherently substitutionary overtones: a ransom, by definition, is something given in exchange for another.
Two small Greek prepositions play an outsized role in the New Testament's atonement theology: anti (ἀντί) and hyper (ὑπέρ). Understanding these prepositions is essential for grasping the substitutionary character of Christ's death, and scholars have devoted considerable attention to them.
Anti (ἀντί) means "in the place of," "instead of," or "in exchange for." It is an unmistakably substitutionary preposition. When Jesus says in Mark 10:45 that He came to give His life as "a ransom for (anti) many," the force of anti is that His life is given in the place of the many. He takes their place. He dies instead of them. The substitutionary meaning of anti is well established in Greek usage — it describes an exchange or replacement of one thing for another.
Hyper (ὑπέρ) has a broader range of meaning. It can mean "on behalf of," "for the benefit of," or "for the sake of." In some contexts, it carries a clearly substitutionary sense ("in the place of"), while in others it may simply indicate beneficiary ("for the advantage of"). However, as Allen notes, even when hyper carries the sense of "on behalf of," the substitutionary dimension is often close at hand — because Christ died for our benefit precisely because He died in our stead. We are benefited by His death because it was substituted for our death.14
The New Testament uses hyper extensively in atonement contexts. Paul writes that "Christ died for (hyper) our sins" (1 Corinthians 15:3), "one has died for (hyper) all" (2 Corinthians 5:14), and Christ "gave himself for (hyper) me" (Galatians 2:20). Luke records Jesus' words at the Last Supper: "This is my body, which is given for (hyper) you" (Luke 22:19). The phrase "for you" (hyper hymōn) clearly indicates substitutionary intent, as Allen rightly observes.15
Simon Gathercole has provided one of the most careful recent treatments of this language. He argues persuasively that Christ's death "for our sins, in our place, instead of us" is a vital ingredient in the Pauline understanding of the atonement. Gathercole insists that the substitutionary reading of these texts is not a later theological imposition but arises naturally from the grammar and context of Paul's own words.16
Some scholars have tried to drive a wedge between anti ("substitution") and hyper ("representation"), arguing that Paul prefers hyper precisely because he wants to avoid substitutionary language. But this argument does not hold up under scrutiny. In many contexts, hyper carries a clearly substitutionary sense — as when Paul says, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21), or "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for (hyper) us" (Galatians 3:13). In these passages, Christ does not merely act for our benefit in some vague sense. He takes our place. He bears what we should have borne. He becomes what we are so that we might become what He is. The prepositions anti and hyper, taken together, provide a strong linguistic foundation for the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.
The dikē word-group in Greek encompasses justice, righteousness, and the judicial processes by which wrongs are set right. Dikaiosynē (δικαιοσύνη), "righteousness," is one of Paul's most important theological terms. In Romans 3:21–26, he argues that God has manifested His righteousness through the cross — a righteousness that is both a saving gift for believers and a demonstration of God's own just character. God is both "just and the justifier" of those who have faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26).
This judicial language places the atonement squarely in the context of a law court. God is the righteous Judge. Humanity stands guilty before Him. The penalty for sin is death. And yet, through the cross, God provides a way for the guilty to be declared righteous — not by ignoring sin or pretending it does not exist, but by dealing with it decisively through the sacrifice of His Son. The full exegesis of Romans 3:21–26 will be undertaken in Chapter 8, but for now, the point is that the New Testament's dikē vocabulary firmly anchors atonement theology in judicial and forensic categories. Sin has legal consequences. Those consequences must be addressed. And Christ's death is the means by which they are addressed.
Dikaiōsis (δικαίωσις) means "justification" — the act of being declared righteous. This is the legal verdict that God pronounces over the person who trusts in Christ. Paul uses this word in Romans 4:25, where he writes that Jesus "was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification," and in Romans 5:18, where he speaks of "one act of righteousness" that "leads to justification and life for all." Justification is a forensic term — it describes a courtroom verdict, not a moral transformation. To be "justified" is to be declared "not guilty" — acquitted — on the basis of what Christ has done, not on the basis of our own moral performance.
Allen carefully distinguishes three stages of salvation that include justification as a past, completed act, sanctification as an ongoing process, and glorification as a future hope.17 Justification belongs to the moment of faith: when a person trusts in Christ, the righteousness of Christ is credited to their account (imputed), and the guilt of their sin is no longer held against them. This is possible only because Christ bore the judicial consequences of sin on the cross. Justification, in other words, is the legal fruit of substitutionary atonement.
Thusia (θυσία) is the general Greek word for "sacrifice," and it is used throughout the New Testament (especially in Hebrews) to describe Christ's death. Ephesians 5:2 declares that "Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice (thusia) to God." The author of Hebrews writes that Christ "has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice (thusia) of himself" (Hebrews 9:26).
The sacrificial language of the New Testament presupposes and builds upon the entire Old Testament sacrificial system. When the New Testament calls Christ's death a thusia, it is placing His death in continuity with the burnt offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings, and Day of Atonement rituals that we surveyed in the Old Testament section above. All of those sacrifices pointed forward to the one, final, sufficient sacrifice that Christ would offer on the cross. As the author of Hebrews insists, the Old Testament sacrifices could never fully deal with sin — they were shadows and copies of the heavenly reality that would be accomplished in Christ (Hebrews 10:1–4). The detailed treatment of Hebrews' sacrificial theology will come in Chapter 10.
Haima (αἷμα), "blood," is one of the most pervasive atonement terms in the New Testament. Christ's blood is connected to virtually every dimension of His saving work: redemption ("we have redemption through his blood," Ephesians 1:7), justification ("justified by his blood," Romans 5:9), cleansing ("the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin," 1 John 1:7), the new covenant ("This cup is the new covenant in my blood," Luke 22:20), and victory ("they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb," Revelation 12:11).
What does "blood" signify in the New Testament's atonement theology? The foundational Old Testament text is Leviticus 17:11: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life" (ESV). Blood represents life — specifically, life poured out in death. When the New Testament speaks of Christ's blood, it is speaking of His violent, sacrificial death. The blood of Christ is not a metaphor for His teaching, His moral example, or His general goodness. It is a reference to His death — a death that was sacrificial (offered to God), substitutionary (in our place), and atoning (dealing decisively with sin).
Fleming Rutledge devotes careful attention to the blood sacrifice motif in her treatment of the crucifixion, noting that this language pervades the New Testament's understanding of what Christ accomplished.18 Some modern readers find blood language uncomfortable, even offensive. But the New Testament writers do not shy away from it. They insist on it. The reason is not that they were bloodthirsty or primitive. The reason is that they understood something profound: sin is deadly serious, and dealing with sin costs something. It costs blood. It costs life. The blood of Christ is the price of our redemption and the ground of our peace with God.
Stauros (σταυρός) is the Greek word for "cross" — the instrument of Roman execution on which Jesus died. In the first century, the cross was a symbol of shame, horror, and imperial power. It was the most degrading form of execution in the Roman world, reserved for slaves, rebels, and the worst criminals. To be crucified was to be humiliated, tortured, and publicly displayed as a warning to others.
And yet Paul declares, "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14). The transformation of the cross from a symbol of shame into the central symbol of the Christian faith is one of the most remarkable developments in all of human history. Rutledge has written powerfully about the primacy of the cross in Christian faith, emphasizing that the crucifixion was not merely a sad prelude to the resurrection but was itself a saving event of unsurpassable significance.19 The cross is where all the atonement terms we have been surveying — sacrifice, propitiation, redemption, reconciliation, substitution, justice — converge in a single, concrete, historical event. It is the axis of history, the point where heaven and earth meet, the place where God's judgment and God's mercy kiss.
The Greek verb pherō (φέρω), "to bear" or "to carry," is the New Testament counterpart of the Hebrew nasa. It appears in the critical atonement text of 1 Peter 2:24: "He himself bore (anapherō, a compound of pherō) our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness." Hebrews 9:28 likewise says that "Christ, having been offered once to bear (anapherō) the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him."
This "sin-bearing" language is deeply rooted in Isaiah 53, which both Peter and the author of Hebrews clearly have in mind. The Servant who "bore our griefs" and "bore the sin of many" in Isaiah 53 is now identified as Jesus Christ, who bore our sins in His body on the cross. The language is substitutionary through and through: Christ carries what belonged to us. Our sins were placed on Him, and He bore their full weight — their guilt, their shame, and their consequences — so that we might be set free.
Key Point: The New Testament's atonement vocabulary draws on at least four distinct spheres of human experience: the temple (sacrifice, blood, priesthood), the law court (justification, verdict, penalty), the marketplace (redemption, ransom, purchase), and the battlefield (victory, liberation, triumph). Each sphere contributes a genuine dimension of the cross, and together they reveal the full scope of what Christ accomplished. No single image is sufficient on its own — but when held together, with substitution at the center, a rich and coherent picture emerges.
We need to return now to the most contested term in the New Testament's atonement vocabulary: hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον). I mentioned earlier that this word has generated more scholarly debate than perhaps any other atonement term. The debate is not merely academic; it goes to the heart of what the cross accomplishes. If hilastērion means "propitiation," then the cross deals with God's righteous response to sin — it satisfies divine justice. If it means merely "expiation," then the cross deals only with sin itself — cleansing it, removing it — without reference to God's wrath or justice. The theological stakes are enormous.
The British scholar who led the charge for translating hilastērion as "expiation" rather than "propitiation" was C. H. Dodd. In his influential commentary on Romans, Dodd argued that the meaning conveyed by Paul in Romans 3:25 was that of expiation — the removal or cleansing of sin — not propitiation — the appeasing of divine anger.20 Dodd reached this conclusion through an examination of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), where the hilaskomai word-group translates the Hebrew kipper. He argued that in the Septuagint, the concept had been detached from its pagan associations with appeasing angry gods and had taken on the meaning of removing or cleansing sin.
Dodd's influence was substantial. As Stott notes, Dodd was the director of the panels that produced the New English Bible, and his preference for "expiation" over "propitiation" shaped the translation choices of that version and others that followed.21 The Revised Standard Version (RSV) similarly adopted "expiation" in Romans 3:25, and many subsequent translations reflected Dodd's influence. For a generation of scholars and pastors, the idea that God needed to be "propitiated" seemed primitive and unworthy of the Christian God.
The most significant response to Dodd came from the Australian scholar Leon Morris, whose magisterial studies on the atonement and the hilaskomai word-group remain landmarks in biblical scholarship. Morris argued that Dodd's analysis was flawed on several counts.22
First, Morris demonstrated that Dodd's treatment of the Septuagint evidence was selective and incomplete. When the full range of Septuagint usage is examined, the concept of turning away God's wrath is clearly present. The Old Testament does speak of God's anger against sin, and the sacrificial system is described as dealing with that anger. You cannot eliminate the "Godward" dimension of atonement simply by appealing to the Septuagint.
Second, Morris pointed to the broader context of Paul's argument in Romans. In Romans 1:18–3:20, Paul has laid out a devastating case for the reality of God's wrath against human sin. "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men" (Romans 1:18). When Paul then introduces hilastērion in Romans 3:25, he is answering a problem he has already identified: How can guilty sinners be saved from the wrath of a holy God? The answer is the hilastērion — a sacrifice that deals with God's wrath by satisfying His justice. To read hilastērion as merely "expiation" in this context is to ignore the argument Paul has been building for nearly three chapters.
Third, Morris argued that the distinction between propitiation (dealing with God's wrath) and expiation (dealing with sin) is ultimately a false dichotomy. A proper understanding recognizes that both are involved. The cross deals with sin (expiation) precisely by satisfying God's just response to sin (propitiation). You cannot have one without the other. Allen summarizes the current state of the question well: the term hilasmos means "to turn away wrath by means of sacrifice," and Leon Morris's study provides clear and compelling evidence that the verb hilaskomai, while complex, includes the concept of the averting of God's wrath from sinners alongside the expiation of sin.23
Where does the debate stand today? The scholarly consensus has shifted significantly since Dodd's time. Stott notes that Dodd's reconstruction, though accepted by many contemporaries, was subjected to rigorous critique by Morris and others, and the case for propitiation has been substantially vindicated.24 Rutledge, writing from a broadly catholic perspective, also engages the debate at length and affirms that the propitiatory dimension cannot be eliminated from the biblical text.25
I believe the evidence strongly supports a position that holds propitiation and expiation together. The cross is a propitiatory sacrifice in the sense that it satisfies God's righteous justice — it addresses the real problem of God's holy response to sin. And it is an expiatory sacrifice in the sense that it cleanses, removes, and deals with sin itself. Both dimensions are present. Neither should be collapsed into the other.
But — and this is crucial — the biblical doctrine of propitiation must be carefully distinguished from pagan ideas of appeasement. Stott identifies three critical differences between Christian and pagan propitiation.26 First, in pagan religion, propitiation is necessary because the gods are capricious and arbitrary in their anger; in Christianity, propitiation is necessary because God is consistently and righteously opposed to sin. God's wrath is not irrational fury; it is His holy, settled, personal opposition to everything that destroys His good creation. Second, in pagan religion, humans must appease the gods; in Christianity, God Himself provides the propitiation. It is not we who propitiate God — it is God who propitiates Himself. As 1 John 4:10 says, "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." The initiative belongs entirely to God's love. Third, in pagan religion, the means of propitiation are arbitrary offerings and rituals; in Christianity, the means is God's own Son, given freely out of love. The cross is not a bribe offered to buy off an angry deity. It is the costly expression of divine love, by which God Himself bears the consequences of the sin He justly opposes.
Key Point: The propitiation vs. expiation debate, sparked by C. H. Dodd and answered most powerfully by Leon Morris, is one of the most important terminological discussions in atonement theology. The evidence supports holding both dimensions together: the cross is both propitiatory (satisfying God's righteous justice) and expiatory (removing and cleansing sin). But biblical propitiation must be sharply distinguished from pagan appeasement: it is initiated by God's love, provided by God Himself, and directed against sin — not driven by an arbitrary, capricious deity demanding to be placated.
We have already introduced the Greek prepositions anti and hyper in our survey of terms, but their significance for the doctrine of substitutionary atonement deserves more sustained attention. The question is straightforward: When the New Testament says that Christ died "for" us, does it mean He died "in our place" (substitution) or merely "for our benefit" (representation without substitution)?
Allen provides a helpful summary of the biblical evidence. Substitutionary atonement, he notes, is exegetically based in key atonement texts that employ the Greek preposition anti (as in Mark 10:45) and hyper (as in 1 Corinthians 15:3). He then lists an impressive array of texts in which hyper is used in connection with Christ's death, including: Jesus' blood "shed for many" (Mark 14:24), "Christ died for our sins" (1 Corinthians 15:3), "one has died for all" (2 Corinthians 5:14), Christ "gave himself for our sins" (Galatians 1:4), "gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20), and many others.27
The sheer volume and consistency of this language is striking. The New Testament does not say merely that Christ's death benefits us in some general way. It says He died for us — in our place, bearing what we should have borne, enduring what we deserved. Allen quotes an earlier scholar who put the point with memorable clarity: "Christ died for our benefit because he died in our stead. We are benefited by his death because it was substituted for our death. There could be no saving benefit without this substitution."28
Gathercole's careful study Defending Substitution reinforces this conclusion from a more narrowly Pauline focus. He demonstrates that the formulation "Christ died for our sins" (1 Corinthians 15:3), which is one of the earliest and most foundational Christian confessions, is rooted in Isaiah 53 and is fundamentally substitutionary in character. The phrase does not merely say Christ died "because of" our sins (as if our sins caused His death in a general sense) or "with reference to" our sins (as if His death merely illustrates something about sin). It says He died "for" our sins — dealing with them, bearing them, taking them upon Himself.29
Some scholars have attempted to replace substitution with "representation" or "participation" as the central category for understanding Christ's death. On this view, Christ does not die instead of us but as us — He is our representative in whom we participate, so that His death is our death and His resurrection is our resurrection. Now, there is genuine biblical truth in the concepts of representation and participation. Paul does speak of our being "in Christ," of dying and rising with Him, of being united to Him in His death and resurrection (Romans 6:3–11; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:1–4). These are beautiful and important realities.
But representation and substitution are not mutually exclusive — and in fact, substitution is what makes representation effective. Christ can represent us precisely because He stands in our place. He can act on our behalf precisely because He takes upon Himself what belongs to us. As Allen observes, where the two concepts can be distinguished, there is little reason to prefer representation over substitution. The key distinguishing factor is the element of personal delegation: humanity did not delegate Christ as our representative; God appointed Him to make atonement for us.30 Substitution and representation work together, with substitution providing the foundation on which representation stands.
Before drawing this chapter to a close, we should note that the New Testament's atonement vocabulary also includes a significant cluster of terms related to victory, triumph, and the defeat of evil powers. While these terms do not fall under the primary heading of substitution, they form an essential part of the biblical picture and relate to the Christus Victor model that we will examine in Chapter 21.
Paul writes in Colossians 2:15 that God "disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him [the cross]." Hebrews 2:14 declares that through His death, Christ destroyed "the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil." And 1 John 3:8 states, "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." This victory language — the language of conquest, disarming, triumph, and destruction of evil — captures a genuine dimension of the cross that substitutionary language alone does not fully express.
The atonement is not only a sacrifice offered to God (the temple image), a penalty borne on our behalf (the law court image), or a price paid for our freedom (the marketplace image). It is also a battle won, a victory achieved, a triumph over all the dark powers that enslave and destroy God's good creation. Gustaf Aulén, in his influential study Christus Victor, argued that this victory motif was the dominant understanding of the atonement in the early church and that it represents the "classic" view of the atonement.31 While I believe Aulén overstated his case by minimizing the substitutionary themes present in the same patristic writers he claimed for the Christus Victor camp (a point we will develop in Chapters 14 and 15), his insistence on the reality and importance of the victory dimension is well taken.
The victory vocabulary reminds us that the atonement addresses not only the problem of human guilt before God but also the problem of human bondage to evil. Sin is not merely a legal problem to be resolved by a judicial verdict. It is also a power that enslaves, corrupts, and destroys. And at the cross, Christ conquered that power. The victory and the substitution are not competing explanations of the same event. They are complementary dimensions of a single, magnificent act of divine love. Christ bore our sins (substitution) and defeated our enemies (victory). He paid the penalty (judicial) and broke the chains (liberation). He satisfied divine justice (propitiation) and cleansed the stain of sin (expiation). The vocabulary of the New Testament invites us — indeed, compels us — to hold all of these dimensions together.
The Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar offered a helpful summary of five main features of the atonement in the New Testament, which Allen approvingly cites. Von Balthasar identified these five elements: (1) the Son gives Himself "for us"; (2) the Son gives Himself for us by exchanging places with us; (3) the Son suffers the consequences of sin in our stead; (4) the Father and the Son act together in this work; and (5) the purpose of the whole action is the reconciliation and restoration of humanity.32
What is striking about von Balthasar's summary is how naturally it arises from the biblical vocabulary we have been surveying. The "for us" language comes directly from the hyper texts. The "exchanging places" language reflects the anti and substitutionary vocabulary. The "consequences of sin" language echoes the nasa/pherō sin-bearing terms and the judicial dikē word-family. The Trinitarian unity of Father and Son reflects the consistent New Testament emphasis that God is the subject and initiator of the atonement. And the goal of reconciliation brings in the katallagē word-family. Von Balthasar, a Catholic theologian working from within a different tradition than Protestant evangelicalism, arrives at a summary that is remarkably consonant with the substitutionary, Trinitarian model that this book defends. This is not because he was secretly Protestant but because the biblical vocabulary itself points in this direction when read carefully and honestly.
Philippe de la Trinité, another Catholic theologian writing from a Thomistic perspective, arrives at a compatible conclusion through a different route. He describes Christ as the "victim of love" who acts in union with His Father — a description that resonates deeply with the biblical vocabulary of self-giving sacrifice (thusia), voluntary substitution (anti/hyper), and Trinitarian unity.33 Philippe de la Trinité's emphasis on "vicarious satisfaction" rooted in mercy rather than divine wrath captures an important nuance: the atonement is not the story of an angry Father punishing an unwilling Son. It is the story of the Triune God acting in unified love to bear the cost of human sin. The vocabulary of Scripture supports this Trinitarian reading far more than it supports any portrayal that pits Father against Son.
We have covered a great deal of ground in this chapter, walking through the major Hebrew and Greek terms that the Bible uses to describe the atonement. What does this survey reveal?
First, the biblical vocabulary is extraordinarily rich. The Bible does not offer a single, one-dimensional explanation of the cross. It offers a symphony of images, terms, and metaphors drawn from multiple spheres of human life — the temple, the law court, the marketplace, the battlefield, the family. Each contributes something essential. No single term or image captures the full reality of what Christ accomplished.
Second, and this is the point I want to press most firmly: substitutionary, sacrificial, and judicial categories are not later theological inventions. They are embedded in the very words the biblical authors chose to describe the cross. The Hebrew kipper, asham, and nasa all carry substitutionary overtones. The Greek hilastērion, anti, hyper, lytron, and pherō all point to a death that is undergone in the place of others, bearing what others deserved. The judicial vocabulary of dikaiosynē and dikaiōsis places the cross in a legal framework where guilt is real, a penalty is due, and a verdict of acquittal is rendered on the basis of Christ's substitutionary work. These are not ideas imported from medieval or Reformation theology. They are present in the text itself, in the very grammar and vocabulary of Scripture.
Third, the substitutionary and judicial dimensions of the vocabulary do not stand alone. They are interwoven with the language of redemption, reconciliation, victory, and cleansing. The atonement is a sacrifice and a ransom and a reconciliation and a victory and a justification. All of these are happening at the cross simultaneously. The question is not which one is "right" — they all are. The question is how they relate to each other. And the answer that the vocabulary itself suggests is this: substitution stands at the center, providing the mechanism by which all the other dimensions become effective. Redemption requires a price to be paid — substitution is the paying of that price. Reconciliation requires the removal of the barrier between God and humanity — substitution is the removal of that barrier. Victory requires the defeat of the powers of evil — and Christ defeats those powers precisely by bearing the sin they exploit and exhausting the death they wield. Propitiation requires the satisfaction of divine justice — and Christ satisfies that justice by bearing its consequences in our place.
Fourth, the vocabulary consistently points to divine initiative and divine love as the driving force behind the atonement. God provides the kipper. God sets forth the hilastērion. God reconciles the world to Himself. God redeems. God justifies. The atonement is not a human attempt to appease an unwilling deity. It is God's own costly, loving, self-initiated response to the problem of human sin. As Stott puts it with characteristic clarity, the cross reveals the self-substitution of God — the Triune God bearing the consequences of human sin in the person of His Son, out of love, in unified purpose.34
In the chapters that follow, we will build on this terminological foundation. We will examine how these terms function in their specific biblical contexts — in the Levitical sacrificial system (Chapter 4), on the Day of Atonement (Chapter 5), in Isaiah 53 (Chapter 6), in Jesus' own words about His death (Chapter 7), in the great Pauline atonement texts (Chapters 8–9), in Hebrews (Chapter 10), and throughout the rest of the New Testament (Chapters 11–12). We will trace how these terms were understood and developed through two thousand years of church history (Chapters 13–18). And we will defend the coherence and beauty of the substitutionary model against its many critics (Chapters 25–35).
But all of that begins here — with the Bible's own words. And those words, as we have seen, speak clearly. They speak of a God who loves, who judges, who redeems, who reconciles, who bears, who substitutes, who triumphs. They speak of a cross that is the center of everything. And they speak of a Savior who gave Himself — anti pollōn, in the place of many — so that many might live.
1 David L. Allen, The Atonement: A Biblical, Theological, and Historical Study of the Cross of Christ (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2019), 1. ↩
2 Allen, The Atonement, 35. Allen identifies four meanings: covering, cleansing, ransoming, and averting wrath. ↩
3 Allen, The Atonement, 35. ↩
4 For the connection between kapporet and hilastērion, see Allen, The Atonement, 207; also see the full exegesis of Romans 3:21–26 in Chapter 8 of the present work. ↩
5 Allen, The Atonement, 45. Allen notes that Isaiah 53 contains no fewer than twelve statements concerning the substitutionary nature of the Servant's work. See the full exegesis in Chapter 6. ↩
6 Allen, The Atonement, 23. ↩
7 Allen, The Atonement, 39. ↩
8 On the consistent meaning of "bearing sin" in the Old Testament, see Allen, The Atonement, 45–49; cf. Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 62, who traces the connection between Isaiah 53 and the earliest Pauline formula "Christ died for our sins." ↩
9 John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 166. ↩
10 Allen, The Atonement, 16. ↩
11 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 157. ↩
12 Allen, The Atonement, 19. ↩
13 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 175. Stott follows B. B. Warfield in insisting that the concept of price-paying is intrinsic to the biblical vocabulary of redemption. ↩
14 Allen, The Atonement, 199–200. ↩
15 Allen, The Atonement, 66. ↩
16 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 14. ↩
17 Allen, The Atonement, 21. ↩
18 Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 227. ↩
19 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 5. Rutledge emphasizes that the concept of Christ's atoning substitution has been under attack for decades and argues for its indispensability. ↩
20 C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935), 82–95; cf. Stott, The Cross of Christ, 168. ↩
21 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 168. ↩
22 Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 144–213. Morris's study remains the most thorough treatment of the hilaskomai word-group in its Old Testament and New Testament usage. See also Allen, The Atonement, 209, who describes Morris's study as providing "clear and irrefutable evidence" on this question. ↩
23 Allen, The Atonement, 206, 209. ↩
24 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 169. Stott cites Morris and Roger Nicole as the most significant critics of Dodd's reconstruction. ↩
25 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 278. Rutledge devotes a subsection to the hilastērion debate in her treatment of Romans 3:25. ↩
26 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 171–173. ↩
27 Allen, The Atonement, 199. ↩
28 Allen, The Atonement, 200. Allen here cites an earlier scholar to make the point that benefit and substitution are inseparable. ↩
29 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 62. Gathercole's Chapter 2 demonstrates the connection between 1 Corinthians 15:3 and Isaiah 53, arguing that the earliest Christian confession is rooted in the Suffering Servant's substitutionary death. ↩
30 Allen, The Atonement, 198. ↩
31 Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement, trans. A. G. Hebert (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2003), 1–15. ↩
32 Hans Urs von Balthasar, as summarized in Allen, The Atonement, 27. ↩
33 Philippe de la Trinité, What Is Redemption? How Christ's Suffering Saves Us (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road, 2021), 91. ↩
34 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 133, 159. Stott's Chapter 6, "The Self-Substitution of God," is one of the most important treatments of this theme in modern evangelical theology. ↩
35 Allen, The Atonement, 17–18. Allen carefully unpacks the relationship between propitiation, expiation, and forgiveness, showing how they function together in the biblical vocabulary of atonement. ↩
36 Allen, The Atonement, 188. Allen defines atonement as a "full and final provision for the sin problem" where covering, expiation, and propitiation are all in view. ↩
37 Allen, The Atonement, 22. ↩
38 Stott, The Cross of Christ, 172. Stott stresses that God does not love us because Christ died for us, but rather Christ died for us because God already loved us. ↩
39 William L. Hess, Crushing the Great Serpent: Did God Punish Jesus? (2024), chap. 8, "To Make an Offering." Hess questions whether the Old Testament sacrifices should be read through a penal lens. While I share some of Hess's concerns about overly wrathful portrayals of the cross, the sacrificial and substitutionary vocabulary of the Old Testament is too deeply embedded to be eliminated. ↩
40 Allen, The Atonement, 49–51. Allen concludes that the Old Testament presents atonement as substitutionary, using categories of both propitiation and expiation, and that attempts to deny this are "clearly unwarranted" in light of the evidence. ↩
41 Allen, The Atonement, 25. On reconciliation as a crucial NT atonement category, see also the full treatment in Chapter 36. ↩
42 Allen, The Atonement, 24. Allen notes the three key Greek words in the redemption word-family: agorazō (to buy in the marketplace), exagorazō (to purchase with a price that liberates), and lutroō (to release by payment of a ransom). ↩
43 Philippe de la Trinité, What Is Redemption?, 9. Philippe de la Trinité insists that Christ is a "propitiatory victim for our sins" but "in virtue of merciful love and not of retributive justice" — a nuance compatible with the position defended in this book. ↩
44 Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 28. Gathercole addresses the logical objection that if Christ died in the place of believers, why do they still die, and promises an exegetical answer. ↩
45 Allen, The Atonement, 117. Allen notes that John links Christ's propitiation with divine love, showing that propitiation and love are not opposites but inseparable dimensions of God's saving work. ↩
46 Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 337. Rutledge discusses the placement of the reconciliation motif within her treatment of the crucifixion, acknowledging it as one of the most important concepts in the New Testament. ↩
47 Allen, The Atonement, 204. Allen, following other scholars, notes that substitution draws together four biblical metaphors: ransom, sacrifice, redemption, and justification, making substitution "simply indispensable" for atonement. ↩
Allen, David L. The Atonement: A Biblical, Theological, and Historical Study of the Cross of Christ. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2019.
Aulén, Gustaf. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement. Translated by A. G. Hebert. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2003.
Dodd, C. H. The Bible and the Greeks. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935.
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.
Morris, Leon. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.
Philippe de la Trinité. What Is Redemption? How Christ's Suffering Saves Us. Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road, 2021.
Rutledge, Fleming. The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015.
Stott, John R. W. The Cross of Christ. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006.
Von Balthasar, Hans Urs. Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter. Translated by Aidan Nichols. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000.