Chapter 9
The Broader Pauline Witness — 2 Corinthians 5, Galatians 3, Colossians 2, and Beyond

Introduction: Paul's Atonement Theology Beyond Romans

In the previous chapter, we examined what many scholars consider the single most important atonement passage in the New Testament: Romans 3:21–26, with its dense language of propitiation, righteousness, and divine justice. But if we stopped there, we would have only a partial picture of Paul's understanding of the cross. The truth is that Paul's letters are absolutely saturated with atonement theology from beginning to end. In nearly every letter he wrote, Paul circled back to the cross of Jesus Christ as the foundation of everything he believed and taught. And when we lay these passages side by side, a remarkable pattern emerges: Paul consistently describes what happened at the cross using multiple images and categories — substitution, exchange, curse-bearing, reconciliation, triumph over evil powers, ransom, and redemption — and yet running through all of these images like a golden thread is the stubborn reality of substitution. Christ died for us. Christ took our place. Christ bore what we deserved.

The thesis of this chapter is straightforward: beyond Romans 3, Paul's letters are saturated with atonement theology that spans multiple motifs — substitution, exchange, curse-bearing, triumph over powers, and reconciliation — and a careful reading reveals that substitutionary and penal categories are pervasive in Pauline thought, not limited to a few proof-texts. We are not dealing with an occasional metaphor that pops up here and there. We are dealing with a deep, consistent, multi-layered theology of the cross that Paul returns to again and again, viewing it from different angles each time but always coming back to the same central reality: Jesus Christ, the sinless one, stood in our place and bore the consequences of our sin so that we might be made right with God.

In this chapter, we will work through eight major Pauline passages, giving each one careful attention. Some of these passages are among the most beloved and familiar verses in all of Scripture. Others are less well known but equally important. Together, they form an overwhelming cumulative case for the centrality of substitutionary atonement in Paul's thought. Along the way, we will engage with scholars who challenge the substitutionary reading of these texts, and I will argue that while their concerns sometimes have merit, their alternative readings ultimately fall short of doing justice to what Paul actually wrote.

One more thing is worth noting before we dive in. Some scholars have suggested that the specifically substitutionary and penal elements of Paul's theology are confined to a few isolated "proof-texts" — Romans 3:25, perhaps, or 2 Corinthians 5:21 — and that these texts have been given disproportionate weight by defenders of penal substitutionary atonement. The implication is that if we look at the full range of Paul's writings, substitution fades into the background while other themes — participation, liberation, cosmic victory — come to the fore. I believe this chapter will demonstrate that the exact opposite is the case. When we survey the full range of Paul's atonement texts, substitutionary language is not confined to a few isolated verses. It is everywhere. It permeates his letters from beginning to end. It appears in different forms and with different vocabulary, but the underlying reality is always the same: Christ took our place and bore what we deserved.

Let me be clear about something at the outset. I am not arguing that substitution is the only thing Paul says about the cross. That would be a serious oversimplification. Paul also speaks powerfully about Christ's victory over the powers of evil, about reconciliation between God and humanity, about the creation of a new community in Christ, and about the moral transformation that flows from the cross. All of these are genuine dimensions of the atonement, and we will encounter all of them in the passages we study below. What I am arguing is that substitution stands at the center of Paul's atonement theology, and that these other dimensions orbit around it, depend on it, and find their deepest meaning in relation to it. Christ's victory over the powers is accomplished through His substitutionary death. Reconciliation is possible because Christ bore our sin in our place. New creation flows from the great exchange at the cross. Remove substitution, and the other motifs lose their anchor.

I. The Great Exchange: 2 Corinthians 5:14–21

We begin with what may be the single most comprehensive atonement passage Paul ever wrote. In just eight verses, Paul manages to weave together the love of Christ, the universal scope of His death, the reality of new creation, the ministry of reconciliation, and the stunning exchange by which the sinless one was "made sin" so that sinners might "become the righteousness of God." It is a breathtaking paragraph, and it deserves our very careful attention.

Here is the full text:

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:14–21, ESV)

A. "One Has Died for All": The Substitutionary Foundation

Paul's argument begins with a sweeping claim: "One has died for all, therefore all have died" (v. 14). The little Greek preposition hyper (ὑπέρ) — "for" — is doing enormous theological work here. This is the same word Paul uses repeatedly throughout his letters when he speaks of Christ's death, and its meaning in this context is critical. Does hyper mean simply "for the benefit of" (Christ died for our good), or does it carry the stronger sense of "in the place of" (Christ died as our substitute)? Scholars have debated this question for generations, and I believe the answer is: it means both, but the substitutionary dimension is primary here.

Why do I say that? Because of what Paul says next: "therefore all have died." Think about the logic of this sentence. If Christ merely died for our benefit — the way a firefighter might die while trying to save people from a burning building — it would not follow that "all have died." The firefighter's death benefits others, but it does not mean the rescued people have themselves died. Paul's logic only works if Christ's death counts as our death — if He died in our place, so that His death is reckoned as ours. As Simon Gathercole has argued, substitution involves Christ standing "in our place" and doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.¹ The "therefore" in Paul's sentence demands a substitutionary reading. Because the one died as our substitute, we who are represented by Him are counted as having died in Him.

David Allen makes the important observation that Paul's language here also affirms the universal scope of the atonement: "One died for all." This means Christ died for every person without exception, not merely for the elect.² The word "all" (pantōn, πάντων) is unqualified. Paul does not say "one died for many" or "one died for the chosen." He says "one died for all." This has enormous implications for the extent of the atonement, a topic we will address in detail in Chapters 30 and 31. For our purposes here, the key point is that Paul sees Christ's substitutionary death as having a universal reach.

B. Reconciliation: God's Initiative

In verses 18–20, Paul shifts to reconciliation language. "All this is from God," he writes, "who through Christ reconciled us to himself" (v. 18). The Greek word for reconciliation is katallagē (καταλλαγή), and it pictures the restoration of a broken relationship. What is striking here is that God is the one who takes the initiative. It is not that we reconciled ourselves to God, or that we made the first move. God Himself, through Christ, acted to bring about reconciliation.

Notice Paul's breathtaking statement in verse 19: "In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them." Allen draws out the implications of this verse with great care. He notes that the word "world" (kosmon, κόσμον) indicates the universal scope of the atonement — God was reconciling the world, not merely the elect. "Nowhere in Scripture," Allen observes, "is the 'world' used for the elect."³ Furthermore, the phrase "not counting their trespasses against them" is forensic language — it describes a judicial act of not holding charges against someone. This is legal, courtroom language. God, the righteous Judge, chooses not to count our offenses against us. And the ground for this judicial non-imputation is the cross of Christ.

But we must be careful here. Paul is not saying that all people are automatically forgiven or that everyone is already saved. There is a crucial distinction between what theologians call objective reconciliation and subjective reconciliation. Objective reconciliation is what God accomplished at the cross — He removed the barriers on His side, satisfying the demands of justice so that reconciliation is now available to all. Subjective reconciliation is what happens when an individual actually responds in faith and receives this reconciliation personally. That is why Paul immediately follows his declaration of objective reconciliation with an urgent appeal: "We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (v. 20). If reconciliation were already automatic and complete for everyone, this appeal would make no sense.⁴ Allen puts it well: the death of Christ "objectively reconciled the world to God in the sense that His justice is satisfied, and He stands ready to pardon. The subjective side of reconciliation does not occur until the atonement is applied when the individual repents and believes in Christ."⁵

John Stott makes an observation about this paragraph that I find deeply important. He notes the paradox of verses 19 and 21: on the one hand, "God was in Christ reconciling" — God was present in Christ at the cross. On the other hand, God "made him to be sin for us" — there was a sense in which Christ bore the full weight of our sin. "How God could have been in Christ when he made him to be sin," Stott writes, "is the ultimate mystery of the atonement. But we must hold both affirmations tenaciously and never expound either in such a way as to contradict the other."⁶ This is precisely the Trinitarian balance that I believe is essential to a right understanding of the cross. The Father was not absent, not pouring out rage on an unwilling victim. He was in Christ, present in love, even as Christ bore the terrible weight of human sin.

C. "Made Him to Be Sin": The Heart of the Exchange

And this brings us to the climactic verse of the passage — indeed, one of the most astonishing sentences in all of Scripture: "For our sake he made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (v. 21).

What does it mean that God "made him to be sin" (hamartian epoiēsen, ἁμαρτίαν ἐποίησεν)? This has been debated for centuries, and three main interpretations have been proposed. First, some scholars argue that "sin" (hamartia, ἁμαρτία) here means "sin offering," since the same Greek word is used to translate the Hebrew chattath (חַטָּאת, "sin offering") in the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament). On this reading, Paul is saying that God made Christ to be a sin offering for us — a sacrificial reading that connects Christ's death to the Levitical sacrificial system.⁷ Second, other scholars take a forensic or legal approach: God imputed or reckoned our sin to Christ — He was treated as if He were a sinner, even though He was not one. Third, some interpret this more broadly as Christ being identified with our sinful condition — entering fully into the human situation under the reign of sin.

Which of these readings is correct? I believe all three capture genuine aspects of what Paul is saying, but the forensic and sacrificial readings are primary. Allen argues persuasively that the sin offering interpretation has strong support from both the Septuagint usage and the wider Pauline context, since Paul frequently draws on sacrificial categories.⁸ At the same time, the passage clearly teaches a genuine exchange: our sin was placed on Christ, and His righteousness was given to us. This is not merely a sacrificial act in the abstract — it is personal, substitutionary, and involves a real transfer of status. Christ, who "knew no sin," was treated as a sinner so that we, who knew no righteousness, might be treated as righteous.

William Hess, writing from a perspective more critical of penal substitution, argues that "sin offering" is the most natural reading, and that we should not understand this verse as teaching that Christ literally "became sin" in any ontological sense.⁹ He raises a legitimate concern. It would indeed be theologically problematic to say that Christ became sinful or that sin was somehow transferred to Him as a substance. Christ remained perfectly sinless throughout His suffering and death. But I do not think the forensic reading requires us to say that Christ became sinful. Rather, it means that Christ was treated as if He were guilty — He bore the judicial consequences that our sin deserved — while remaining personally innocent. This is the heart of substitution: the innocent one stands in the place of the guilty and bears the consequences that belong to them.

The church has long recognized the staggering nature of this exchange. Stott cites Martin Luther's famous letter to a struggling monk: "Learn to know Christ and him crucified. Learn to sing to him and say, 'Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, I am your sin. You took on you what was mine; yet set on me what was yours. You became what you were not, that I might become what I was not.'"¹⁰ And Luther was echoing a theme that stretches all the way back to the second century, where the anonymous Epistle to Diognetus celebrated this "sweet exchange" by which "the wickedness of many should be hid in a single Righteous One, and the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors."¹¹

Let me be clear about what this passage teaches, taken as a whole. It teaches that God, motivated by love, took the initiative to reconcile the world to Himself through Christ. It teaches that this reconciliation involved a genuine exchange — Christ took our sin upon Himself, and we receive His righteousness. It teaches that this exchange is substitutionary — Christ stood in our place, bearing what we deserved. And it teaches that this reconciliation, while objectively accomplished for all, must be personally received through faith. This is substitutionary atonement in its fullest and most beautiful expression — not a cold legal transaction, but a loving exchange initiated by God Himself.

I want to pause here and emphasize something that I believe is often missed in the debates about this passage. The exchange Paul describes in verse 21 is not merely a bookkeeping adjustment in heaven — as if God simply moved some numbers around in a celestial ledger. It is deeply personal. Christ did not merely have our sin attributed to Him in some detached, theoretical way. He entered into the reality of human sin and its consequences. He experienced what it means to be under the weight of the world's rebellion against God. And we, in turn, do not merely have righteousness attributed to us as a legal fiction. We are genuinely transformed — brought into a new relationship with God, made "new creation" (v. 17), and given a new identity as God's righteous people. The exchange is real, and it changes everything.

Allen draws several theological and practical conclusions from this text that are worth noting. First, God's love for all people is the motivation for His Son's death for the sins of all. Second, only those who have an atonement for their sins are "savable." Third — and this cuts against limited atonement — only those who have an atonement for their sins are "offerable." In other words, how can forgiveness and eternal life genuinely be offered to someone for whom no atonement exists?⁴⁶ The universal scope of God's reconciling work in 2 Corinthians 5 demands a universal atonement. Christ died for all, God was reconciling the world to Himself, and the appeal goes out to everyone: "Be reconciled to God."

D. Engaging the "Interchange" Model

Before we move on, we should briefly engage with an influential alternative reading of this passage. The British scholar Morna Hooker has proposed what she calls the "interchange" model, which she distinguishes from substitution. On Hooker's reading, the key idea in 2 Corinthians 5:21 is not that Christ takes our punishment but that Christ enters into our human condition so that we might share in His divine life. She summarizes this in the words of Irenaeus: "Christ became what we are, in order that we might become what he is."¹² For Hooker, this is "participation, not substitution; it is a sharing of experience, not an exchange."¹³

There are genuine insights in Hooker's approach. She is right that union with Christ and participation in His death and resurrection are important Pauline themes. She is right that 2 Corinthians 5:21 speaks of an exchange that goes both ways — not only is our sin placed on Christ, but we receive His righteousness "in him." However, as Gathercole points out, Hooker's model has difficulty accounting for the positive role that the death of Christ plays in Paul's theology. If Christ merely enters our condition to share it with us, why is His death specifically necessary? Why does Paul sum up his entire message as "Christ crucified" (1 Corinthians 1:23; 2:2)?¹⁴ The interchange model rightly stresses participation, but it struggles to explain why participation requires the death of an innocent person. Substitution provides the answer: Christ dies in our place, bearing what we deserved, and through that substitutionary death, we are brought into new life in Him. Interchange and substitution are not competitors; rather, substitution is the foundation upon which interchange becomes possible.

II. Becoming a Curse for Us: Galatians 3:13

If 2 Corinthians 5:21 gives us the great "exchange," Galatians 3:13 gives us what we might call the great "curse-bearing." It is one of the most vivid and dramatic statements about the cross anywhere in the New Testament:

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." (Galatians 3:13, ESV)

The language here is startling. Paul does not merely say that Christ bore a curse, or that He dealt with the curse, or that He reversed the curse. He says Christ became a curse. The word "for" in "for us" is once again hyper (ὑπέρ), and in this context its substitutionary force is unmistakable. Christ became a curse in our place, as our substitute. The curse that rested on us because of our failure to keep God's law was transferred to Him. He took it upon Himself so that we would be set free from it.

What is this "curse of the law"? Paul has been building an argument throughout Galatians 3. In verse 10, he quoted Deuteronomy 27:26: "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them." The point is that anyone who relies on keeping the law for their standing before God is in trouble, because no one actually keeps the law perfectly. The law, which is good in itself (Romans 7:12), becomes a source of condemnation for everyone who fails to live up to it — which is to say, for every human being. The "curse of the law" is the condemnation that falls on those who violate God's commands.

And Christ "redeemed" us from this curse. The word Paul uses is exēgorasen (ἐξηγόρασεν), which literally means "bought out of" — it is marketplace language, the language of purchasing a slave's freedom. Christ purchased our freedom from the condemnation of the law, and the price He paid was bearing the curse Himself. Paul then supports this claim with a quotation from Deuteronomy 21:23: "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree." In its original context, this verse referred to the public display of an executed criminal's body on a wooden pole as a sign of divine judgment. Paul sees in Christ's crucifixion on a wooden cross the fulfillment of this text: by being "hanged on a tree," Jesus took upon Himself the visible sign of being under God's curse.

Now, this verse has been a battleground in the atonement debates. Scholars associated with the "apocalyptic" reading of Paul — particularly J. Louis Martyn and Martinus de Boer — have argued that Galatians 3:13 should be read not as substitution but as liberation. On their view, the human problem is not primarily guilt before God (which would call for substitution) but enslavement to hostile cosmic powers (which calls for deliverance). De Boer argues that a substitutionary reading "would imply that Christ took upon himself a penalty that ought to be imposed on human beings," but he maintains that the real emphasis is on Christ's liberation of humanity from the enslaving power of the law's curse.¹⁵

Gathercole's evaluation of this approach is, I think, exactly right. He acknowledges that Paul's warfare language should be taken seriously — the apostle genuinely does speak of deliverance from hostile powers. But the apocalyptic model, when it becomes the ruling paradigm that governs everything else, runs into serious problems. It works reasonably well in Galatians, but it "has much less explanatory power when applied to Romans — to say nothing of the other letters."¹⁶ More importantly, it cannot adequately account for the role of sins (plural) — individual acts of transgression — in Paul's theology. The apocalyptic model tends to focus on "Sin" with a capital S (a cosmic enslaving power) while marginalizing "sins" with a lowercase s (actual transgressions against God's will). But Paul consistently speaks of both, and his atonement theology addresses both.¹⁷

I would also push back on Hess's reading of this verse. Hess argues that when Paul says Christ "became a curse for us," he is referring to the curse of death — Christ experienced physical death on our behalf — and not to Christ bearing any divine punishment in our place. On Hess's reading, death is not directly punitive from God but is the natural consequence of being separated from God's life-giving presence, and Christ entered into this death to defeat it through resurrection.¹⁸ There is something right about Hess's insistence that Christ's death should be understood in the context of His victory over death through resurrection. But his reading does not do justice to the full force of Paul's language. Paul does not say Christ merely "experienced death for us." He says Christ became a curse for us — and the curse Paul has in mind, as verses 10–12 make clear, is the specific curse of the law that falls on those who disobey God's commands. This is not simply mortality or physical death in the abstract. This is the judicial condemnation that results from violating God's law. Christ bore that condemnation in our place. That is penal. And it is substitutionary.

Does this mean the Father was punishing Jesus in some vindictive, wrathful way? Absolutely not. As I have argued throughout this book (see especially Chapter 3 and our forthcoming treatment in Chapter 20), the cross was not the Father venting anger on an innocent victim. The Trinity acted in unified, self-giving love. The Son voluntarily took the curse upon Himself, and the Father was present with Him in love throughout. But the judicial consequences of our sin — the curse of the law — were genuinely borne by Christ on our behalf. That is what Paul is saying, and we diminish the power of the gospel if we try to soften it.

It is worth pausing to appreciate how remarkable Galatians 3:13 really is. Paul, a former Pharisee who had devoted his entire life to the law, is here saying that the Messiah — the anointed King of Israel, the hope of the nations — voluntarily took upon Himself the very curse that the law pronounced upon lawbreakers. In ancient Jewish thought, anyone who was "hanged on a tree" was considered cursed by God. The crucifixion of Jesus would therefore have appeared to be the ultimate proof that He was not the Messiah but rather a cursed blasphemer. And yet Paul, with breathtaking theological daring, turns this logic completely on its head. The curse that Jesus bore was not evidence of His rejection by God. It was the means of our redemption. He became what we were — cursed by the law — so that we might become what He is — blessed by God. This is substitution at its most radical, and it stands at the very heart of Paul's gospel.

One further observation deserves attention. The word "redeemed" (exēgorasen, ἐξηγόρασεν) in this verse connects the curse-bearing of Christ to the broader theme of redemption that runs throughout Paul's letters. Redemption language comes from the slave market — it pictures a captive being set free through the payment of a price. Christ redeemed us — bought our freedom — and the price He paid was taking the curse upon Himself. This means that Christ's substitutionary curse-bearing is not merely a judicial transaction between God and Christ; it results in our liberation. We are set free from the curse, free from condemnation, free to live in the blessing of God. Once again, substitution and liberation are not competing themes. Substitution is the means by which liberation is accomplished.

III. The Record of Debt Nailed to the Cross: Colossians 2:13–15

Our next passage is remarkable because it brings together, in a single paragraph, two atonement themes that many scholars tend to separate: the forensic/penal dimension and the Christus Victor dimension. Here is the text:

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. (Colossians 2:13–15, ESV)

The imagery here is extraordinarily vivid. Paul pictures a legal document — a "record of debt" — that listed all the charges against us. The Greek word is cheirographon (χειρόγραφον), which literally means a "handwritten document" and was used in the ancient world for a certificate of debt, an IOU, or a bond acknowledging what one owes.¹⁹ This document stood "against us with its legal demands" — it was a written record of our indebtedness to God, our failure to meet the righteous requirements of His law. And what happened to this document? God "set it aside, nailing it to the cross." The image is of the certificate of debt being physically nailed to Christ's cross — cancelled, annulled, rendered void by Christ's death.

This is unmistakably forensic and legal language. The problem Paul describes is a legal one: we have a debt, a record of offenses, charges against us. And the solution is also legal: the record is cancelled at the cross. This is not merely the language of liberation from cosmic powers or moral transformation. It is courtroom language. It is the language of charges being dismissed, of debts being paid, of legal obligations being satisfied.

But then — and this is what makes this passage so extraordinary — Paul immediately shifts to Christus Victor language. "He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him" (v. 15). The image here comes from the Roman military triumph — a public procession in which a victorious general would parade his defeated enemies through the streets. Christ, at the cross, disarmed the evil spiritual powers and publicly humiliated them. The cross, which looked like the ultimate defeat, was in reality the moment of Christ's greatest victory.

Gathercole makes this point with admirable clarity, noting that Colossians 2 "seamlessly combines" forgiveness of transgressions and triumph over the powers: "He forgave us all our transgressions. Having canceled the charge of our debt . . . he took it away and nailed it to the cross. And having stripped the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them."²⁰ The two themes are not merely placed side by side; they are woven together as part of a single integrated argument. The powers of evil held humanity in bondage partly through the accusation of our guilt. By cancelling the record of debt, Christ stripped the powers of their greatest weapon — and that is how He triumphed over them.

Hess, by contrast, focuses on the Christus Victor dimension while raising questions about the forensic reading. He argues that if the debt was cancelled by Christ's death, this raises the question of whether God can truly claim to "freely forgive" when payment was still required.²¹ This is a fair question, and it touches on deep issues in the philosophy of atonement that we will explore more fully in Chapters 25 and 26. But I would note that Hess's objection rests on a strictly commercial understanding of "debt" — as if God is a banker who cannot forgive a loan without receiving every cent. The debt language here is metaphorical, not commercial. What the cross demonstrates is that God takes sin seriously — it cannot simply be overlooked or ignored — while simultaneously providing the means of forgiveness through Christ's self-giving love. As Allen rightly notes, "The language of sin as 'debt' is wrongly interpreted along the lines of literal commercial debt."²² The atonement is not a commercial transaction. It is a costly, self-sacrificial act by which God addresses sin at its deepest level.

What Colossians 2:13–15 shows us is that any theology of the cross that plays the forensic and the Christus Victor themes against each other is a theology that Paul himself would not recognize. For Paul, these are not rival theories. They are complementary dimensions of a single magnificent event. The cross is both the place where our debt is cancelled and the place where the powers of evil are defeated. And I would argue that it is precisely the substitutionary, forensic dimension that makes the Christus Victor dimension possible: Christ triumphs over the powers by dealing with the guilt that gave them their leverage over us.

IV. Peace Through the Cross: Ephesians 2:13–16

Our next passage adds yet another dimension to Paul's rich atonement theology — the creation of peace and unity through the cross. It reads:

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. (Ephesians 2:13–16, ESV)

Paul is addressing the historic division between Jews and Gentiles — the deepest ethnic and religious divide in the ancient world. And his claim is breathtaking: this division has been overcome at the cross. Christ "is our peace" (v. 14) — not merely a maker of peace but peace Himself, embodied in His person. Through His death, He has "broken down the dividing wall of hostility" (v. 14) and created "one new man in place of the two" (v. 15).

But notice how this peace was accomplished. It was not through a mere proclamation or a change of attitude. It was "through the cross" (v. 16) and "by the blood of Christ" (v. 13). Christ reconciled both Jews and Gentiles "to God in one body through the cross" (v. 16). The reconciliation between human groups (horizontal reconciliation) is grounded in, and flows from, reconciliation with God (vertical reconciliation). And this vertical reconciliation was accomplished through Christ's sacrificial death.

The phrase "in his flesh" (v. 15) is significant. It reminds us that the atonement was not an abstract spiritual transaction but something that happened in the real, physical body of Jesus Christ. He broke down the wall of hostility "in his flesh" — that is, through His bodily suffering and death on the cross. This is consistent with what we saw in 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Galatians 3:13: the atonement involved the real, physical, substitutionary death of Jesus in His body.

The word "abolishing" (katargēsas, καταργήσας) in verse 15 is also important. Christ abolished "the law of commandments expressed in ordinances." This does not mean He abolished the moral law or God's ethical standards. Rather, it refers to the specific regulations and ceremonial ordinances that created the barrier between Jews and Gentiles — the dietary laws, circumcision requirements, and purity codes that functioned as a "dividing wall." By fulfilling these requirements in His own person and bearing their penalty on the cross, Christ rendered them no longer operative as barriers to fellowship with God and with one another.

What we see in this passage is the social and communal dimension of the atonement. The cross does not merely deal with individuals and their private guilt before God (though it certainly does that). It also creates a new community — "one new man" — where formerly divided peoples are brought together in peace. This is an aspect of the atonement that purely individualistic Western readings sometimes miss, and we should be grateful for scholars who have drawn attention to it. But notice: this communal reconciliation is grounded in the substitutionary death of Christ. It is "through the cross" and "by the blood of Christ" that peace is made. Remove the cross, and the new community has no foundation.

N. T. Wright has emphasized that we should read Paul's atonement theology within the broader narrative of Israel's story — not merely as abstract doctrine but as the fulfillment of God's covenant promises to Abraham and his descendants.⁴² There is real insight here. Ephesians 2 is precisely about the fulfillment of God's purposes for Israel and the nations — the "mystery" (Ephesians 3:6) that Gentiles are now fellow heirs with Israel through Christ. But Wright's emphasis on covenant narrative should complement the substitutionary reading, not replace it. The means by which God fulfills His covenant purposes is the substitutionary death of His Son. The narrative framework and the substitutionary mechanism work together.

The phrase "killing the hostility" (apokteinōn tēn echthran, ἀποκτείνων τὴν ἔχθραν) in verse 16 is a striking image. The hostility that divided Jew and Gentile, and the hostility that separated both from God, was put to death at the cross. It is as if Paul personifies hostility as an enemy that Christ slays through His own death. There is a Christus Victor element here — Christ kills the hostility, defeats the enmity. But He does so not by force of arms but by dying. The victory is won through sacrifice. The enemy is slain through self-giving love. Once again, victory and substitution are intertwined.

V. While We Were Still Sinners: Romans 5:6–11

We come now to one of the most beloved passages in all of Paul's letters — a passage that displays the heart of the gospel in language of extraordinary warmth and power:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. (Romans 5:6–11, ESV)

Several things stand out immediately. First, Paul emphasizes the utterly undeserved nature of Christ's death. He died for us "while we were still weak" (v. 6), "while we were still sinners" (v. 8), and "while we were enemies" (v. 10). We were not good people who deserved help. We were not neutral parties who happened to need assistance. We were weak, sinful, hostile enemies of God — and Christ died for us anyway. This is the scandalous grace of the gospel.

Second, notice that Christ "died for the ungodly" (v. 6). The preposition is hyper (ὑπέρ) again — the same substitutionary preposition we encountered in 2 Corinthians 5:14 and Galatians 3:13. And the beneficiaries are "the ungodly" — not the deserving, not the righteous, but the very people who had set themselves against God. Gathercole has shown that Paul's language here echoes a well-known pattern in Greco-Roman literature about "vicarious deaths" — heroic deaths in which one person dies on behalf of another. But Paul radically subverts the pattern. In the classical examples, the person who dies does so for a friend, a family member, or a beloved country — someone for whom the sacrifice makes sense given the existing relationship. Christ's death shatters this logic entirely. He dies for enemies. He dies for the ungodly. As Gathercole notes, "Christ's death does not conform to any existing philosophical norm. In Romans 5, Christ's death creates a friendship where there had been enmity."²³

Third, and crucially for our argument, Paul explicitly connects Christ's death with deliverance "from the wrath of God" (v. 9). We have been "justified by his blood," and therefore we shall be "saved by him from the wrath of God." This is penal language. God's wrath is the settled, righteous response of a holy God to sin (as we discussed in Chapter 3), and Christ's blood — His sacrificial death — is what delivers us from it. This is not to say that God's wrath was poured out on Jesus in some vindictive fashion. As I have argued throughout this book, God's wrath is not irrational rage but the just, holy opposition of God's perfect nature to all that is evil. What Paul is saying is that Christ's substitutionary death absorbs and deals with the judicial consequences of our sin, so that we no longer face those consequences ourselves.

Rutledge captures the significance of this passage powerfully. She observes that God's love is demonstrated not by overlooking sin or pretending it does not matter, but by acting — at enormous cost — to deal with it. The cross is "the lens through which humanity is able to see and know God's love."²⁴ This is not love in the abstract or love as a sentiment. This is love that acts, love that sacrifices, love that bears the cost of reconciliation.

Allen draws attention to one more critical point about this passage. For the first time in Romans, Paul uses the word "love" in direct connection with the atonement. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (v. 8). The cross is the supreme demonstration of God's love. This is absolutely vital for a right understanding of substitutionary atonement. The cross is not the place where an angry God punishes an innocent victim. It is the place where a loving God demonstrates the depth of His love by bearing the cost of our reconciliation Himself.²⁵

VI. The Adam-Christ Parallel: Romans 5:12–21

Immediately following the passage we just examined, Paul launches into one of his most profound theological arguments: the parallel between Adam and Christ. This is a passage of immense importance for understanding both the mechanism and the scope of the atonement:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned... But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:12, 15–19, ESV)

Paul's argument here rests on a typological parallel: Adam and Christ are corresponding figures who each represent the whole of humanity. Through Adam's disobedience, sin and death entered the world and spread to all people. Through Christ's obedience — His faithful, self-sacrificial death on the cross — righteousness and life are made available to all. The two figures stand at the two great turning points of human history: Adam at the fall, Christ at the redemption.

Rutledge draws out the substitutionary implications of this passage with great clarity. She observes that Paul asserts no fewer than seven times, in seven different wordings, that "whereas 'Adam's' act of disobedience led to condemnation for all human beings, Christ's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all human beings." The logic is inescapable: "If this is a fair summary of Paul's argument, then does it not follow that by reenacting 'Adam,' Christ put himself in Adam's place?"²⁶ Rutledge's point is powerful. Christ does not merely reverse what Adam did; He does so by standing in Adam's place — by entering into the position of condemned humanity and bearing the consequences that belong to the Adamic race. This is substitution, even if Paul does not use the word explicitly.

The Adam-Christ parallel also has enormous implications for the scope of the atonement. Notice Paul's repeated use of "all" and "many" in this passage. "As one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men" (v. 18). The parallelism demands that the "all" in the second half of the sentence be as universal as the "all" in the first half. Just as Adam's sin affected every human being, Christ's atoning work is offered to every human being. This is universal in scope — as we will argue at length in Chapter 30.

The passage also introduces the important concept of federal headship or representation. Adam acted as the representative head of the entire human race, so that his actions have consequences for all his descendants. Christ acts as the representative head of a new humanity, so that His obedience and sacrifice have consequences for all who are "in Him." This representative or corporate dimension of the atonement does not eliminate substitution — it provides the framework within which substitution operates. Christ is both our representative (He acts on our behalf as our covenant head) and our substitute (He bears the consequences that belong to us). We will explore the concept of representation and federal headship more fully in Chapter 28.

VII. Condemned Sin in the Flesh: Romans 8:3

We turn now to a brief but extraordinarily dense verse — one that packs an enormous amount of theology into a single sentence:

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. (Romans 8:3, ESV)

This verse is easy to pass over quickly, but when we slow down and look at it carefully, it proves to be one of the most important atonement texts in the entire Pauline corpus. Several things need to be noted.

First, the phrase "for sin" translates the Greek peri hamartias (περὶ ἁμαρτίας). This is the very phrase used in the Septuagint — the Greek translation of the Old Testament that Paul knew well — for the sin offering in the Levitical sacrificial system.²⁷ When Paul says God sent His Son "for sin," he is using the technical language of the sacrificial system. Christ is the sin offering — the sacrifice that deals with the problem of human sin. This connects Christ's death directly to the Old Testament sacrificial typology that we explored in Chapters 4 and 5.

Second, God "condemned sin in the flesh." The word "condemned" (katekrinen, κατέκρινεν) is judicial language — it refers to the passing of a sentence of condemnation by a judge. God rendered a judicial verdict against sin, and He did so "in the flesh" — that is, in the physical, human body of Jesus Christ. Sin was condemned not in the abstract, not in heaven, not in theory, but in the actual flesh of Jesus on the cross. This is both penal (a judicial condemnation) and substitutionary (it happened in Christ's flesh, not in ours).

Rutledge provides a rich reading of this verse, emphasizing the repetition of "sin" (hamartia) and "flesh" (sarx, σάρξ) throughout Romans 8:3–4. She notes that sarx for Paul refers not merely to physical flesh but to "the entire existence of the human being under the reign of Sin."²⁸ When God sends His Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh" and condemns sin "in the flesh," the Son enters fully into the human condition under the dominion of sin — not that He Himself sinned, but that He entered our sphere of existence where sin reigns. And in that very sphere, in His own body, sin was condemned and defeated. Rutledge then draws the substitutionary implication: "Does this not contain the idea — among other ideas — that the sarx of the Savior, in which sin was condemned, was a substitute for our sarx — his exchanged for ours?"²⁹

Hess also engages this verse, emphasizing the "sin offering" reading of peri hamartias and arguing that the closest Christ came to being "made sin" is taking on the "likeness of our sinful flesh."³⁰ I agree that the sin offering language is important here. But what Hess does not adequately explain is the word "condemned" (katekrinen). Condemnation is a judicial verdict — a sentence passed by a judge. God passed the sentence of condemnation against sin, and He executed that sentence in the flesh of Christ. This is penal language. It is not enough to say that Christ defeated sin or overcame sin or exposed sin. Paul says sin was condemned — judicially sentenced — in Christ's flesh. That language points directly to penal substitution.

Third, notice the structure of the verse: "God has done what the law... could not do." The law could not save us, because it was "weakened by the flesh" — that is, human weakness and sinfulness rendered the law unable to accomplish our salvation (even though the law itself is good — see Romans 7:12). What the law could not do, God did by sending His Son. The atonement accomplishes what no amount of law-keeping, moral effort, or religious activity ever could. This is pure grace — God doing for us what we could never do for ourselves.

There is something else worth noticing about this verse. Paul says God sent His Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh." The word "likeness" (homoiōmati, ὁμοιώματι) is carefully chosen. Paul does not say God sent His Son in "sinful flesh" — that would imply Christ was Himself sinful. Nor does Paul say God sent His Son in "the likeness of flesh" — that would imply Christ's humanity was only apparent, not real (which would be the heresy of Docetism). Instead, Paul says Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh. That is, Christ took on genuine, real, full humanity — He lived in the same sphere of existence where sin reigns — but without Himself becoming sinful. This is the mystery of the incarnation as it relates to the atonement: Christ had to be fully human to stand in our place, yet fully sinless in order to stand in our place as a perfect substitute.

The implications of Romans 8:3 for our understanding of the atonement are far-reaching. This single verse ties together several themes: the inadequacy of the law, the necessity of the incarnation, the sacrificial nature of Christ's death (through the sin offering language), and the judicial condemnation of sin through Christ's substitutionary death. It is a verse that deserves far more attention in the atonement debates than it typically receives.

VIII. A Ransom for All: 1 Timothy 2:5–6

Our next passage takes us outside the "undisputed" Pauline letters (some scholars question whether Paul personally wrote the Pastoral Epistles, though I believe a strong case can be made for Pauline authorship). Regardless of one's view on authorship, the theology of this passage is fully consistent with what we have found in Paul's other letters:

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. (1 Timothy 2:5–6, ESV)

The key word here is antilytron (ἀντίλυτρον) — translated "ransom." This is a compound word, and its components are theologically significant. It combines anti (ἀντί), meaning "in place of" or "instead of," with lytron (λύτρον), meaning "ransom" or "price of release." The combined word antilytron therefore means "a ransom paid in the place of" someone — a substitutionary ransom. And this ransom is qualified by the preposition hyper (ὑπέρ) — "for" or "on behalf of" — followed by pantōn (πάντων) — "all." So the full phrase reads: "a substitutionary ransom on behalf of all."³¹

This verse is enormously important for several reasons. First, it explicitly uses substitutionary language — the anti prefix in antilytron makes the "in place of" meaning unmistakable. Christ gave Himself as a ransom in the place of others. Second, the ransom is universal in scope — it is "for all" (hyper pantōn), not merely for some. Allen observes that 1 Timothy 2:6 is essentially a rewording of Jesus' own saying in Mark 10:45, "The Son of Man came... to give his life as a ransom for many," with "all" replacing "many" to clarify the universality of Christ's ransom.³² Third, Christ is described as the "mediator" (mesitēs, μεσίτης) between God and humanity — the one who stands between two estranged parties and brings them together. This mediatorial role connects to Christ's work as high priest, which the book of Hebrews develops at length (see Chapter 10).

Fourth, notice that Christ "gave himself." This was a voluntary act. No one took His life from Him; He offered it freely (cf. John 10:18). This is critically important for countering the "cosmic child abuse" caricature of penal substitution. Christ was not an unwilling victim dragged to the cross by an angry Father. He was the willing mediator who freely gave Himself as a substitutionary ransom for the sake of all humanity.

I. Howard Marshall has observed that substitution and representation are complementary rather than competing categories in Paul's thought, and 1 Timothy 2:5–6 illustrates this beautifully.³⁹ Christ is both the representative who acts on behalf of all humanity (the "mediator") and the substitute who gives Himself in the place of all (the antilytron hyper pantōn). He represents us before God as our mediator, and He substitutes for us by paying the ransom that we owed. These two roles — representation and substitution — are not in tension. They are two sides of the same coin. Christ can substitute for us because He represents us, and His representation is effective because it involves genuine substitution.

It is also worth noting the broader context of this verse. Paul has just urged Timothy that prayers should be made "for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions" (1 Timothy 2:1–2), and he has declared that God "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2:4). The declaration that Christ gave Himself as a ransom "for all" is the theological ground for both the universal call to prayer and the universal saving will of God. God desires the salvation of all people because Christ died for all people. The universal scope of the atonement is not a peripheral theological detail — it is the foundation of the church's mission to the world.

IX. Redeeming Us from All Lawlessness: Titus 2:11–14

Our final passage in this survey comes from the letter to Titus:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. (Titus 2:11–14, ESV)

This passage connects several important themes. First, the grace of God has appeared "bringing salvation for all people" (v. 11) — once again affirming the universal scope of God's saving intention. God's desire is the salvation of all, and His grace reaches out to all. Second, Christ "gave himself for us" (v. 14) — again using hyper (ὑπέρ) language, the substitutionary "for." Third, the purpose of Christ's self-giving is "to redeem us from all lawlessness." The word "redeem" (lytrōsētai, λυτρώσηται) is from the same word family as lytron (ransom) — it means to set free by paying a price, to liberate through redemption.³³

But notice that the passage does not stop with forgiveness and liberation. Christ also gave Himself "to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works" (v. 14). The atonement is not merely about getting us off the hook for our sins. It is about transforming us into a people who reflect God's character — who are "zealous for good works." This is the moral and ethical dimension of the atonement, which we will explore further in Chapter 37. The cross is not just about what Christ saves us from (lawlessness, sin, condemnation) but also about what He saves us for (a purified life of godliness, self-control, and zealous good works).

Allen helpfully observes that this passage makes an important connection between the universal scope of God's grace ("bringing salvation for all people") and the particular act of redemption that makes it possible ("who gave himself for us"). If God's grace truly has appeared to all people, then the death of Christ must be for all people. Otherwise, the universal offer of grace has no corresponding universal atonement to ground it.³⁴

X. Pulling the Threads Together: Paul's Multi-Faceted but Substitution-Centered Atonement Theology

We have now worked through eight major Pauline passages beyond Romans 3:21–26, and it is time to step back and consider the big picture. What do these passages, taken together, reveal about Paul's understanding of the cross?

First, they reveal that Paul's atonement theology is genuinely multi-faceted. He does not limit himself to a single image or metaphor. He speaks of substitution (Christ died in our place), exchange (He took our sin, we receive His righteousness), reconciliation (the broken relationship between God and humanity is restored), redemption (we are set free from bondage through the payment of a price), triumph over evil powers (the rulers and authorities are disarmed and publicly shamed), curse-bearing (Christ becomes the curse that was ours), judicial condemnation of sin (sin is condemned in Christ's flesh), and creation of a new community (Jews and Gentiles are made one through the cross). Any attempt to reduce Paul's atonement theology to a single model — whether that model is penal substitution, Christus Victor, moral influence, or anything else — will inevitably flatten and distort what Paul actually taught. Gustaf Aulén's influential threefold typology of atonement models helpfully identifies three main streams, but his tendency to treat them as competitors rather than complements does not do justice to the way Paul himself integrates these themes.³⁷ More recently, Joshua McNall has argued for a "mosaic" approach to the atonement that sees the various models as pieces of a unified picture, and I think this instinct is exactly right — as long as we recognize that substitution is the central piece of the mosaic around which the others are arranged.⁴⁴

Second, however, these passages also reveal that substitution stands at the center of Paul's multi-faceted vision. The substitutionary theme is not one motif among many, equally weighted. It is the recurring thread that ties all the other motifs together. Christ's reconciliation of the world to God happens through the substitutionary exchange (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ's triumph over the powers is accomplished by means of the cancellation of our legal debt at the cross (Colossians 2:13–15). Christ's redemption of humanity from the curse of the law happens because He bore that curse in our place (Galatians 3:13). The condemnation of sin in the flesh is a penal and substitutionary act — it happens in Christ's flesh, not ours (Romans 8:3). The ransom for all is a substitutionary ransom — antilytron, a ransom paid in the place of others (1 Timothy 2:6). Remove substitution from Paul's theology, and the other motifs collapse. As J. I. Packer argued in his landmark essay, penal substitution provides the logical foundation upon which all other atonement motifs depend — it is the hub of the wheel, not just one of the spokes.⁴⁵ William Lane Craig has more recently provided a rigorous philosophical analysis of the substitutionary logic running through Paul's letters, concluding that substitution is inescapable as the central category.³⁸ Thomas Schreiner concurs, arguing that the cumulative force of the Pauline evidence makes substitution unavoidable as the center of Paul's atonement theology.⁴⁰

Third, these passages reveal that the atonement is grounded in the love of God. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). "The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all" (2 Corinthians 5:14). "The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people" (Titus 2:11). The cross is not the place where a wrathful God punishes an unwilling victim. It is the place where a loving God, at infinite cost to Himself, provides the means of reconciliation for a rebellious world. Philippe de la Trinité, writing from the Catholic tradition, captures this beautifully with his insistence that Christ is the "victim of love" who acts "in union with His Father" — the atonement flows from divine love and mercy, not from divine rage.³⁵

Fourth, and finally, these passages give us reason to push back — respectfully but firmly — against several contemporary proposals that marginalize substitution in Paul. The "interchange" model (Hooker) rightly emphasizes participation but cannot adequately account for why Christ's death is necessary. The "apocalyptic deliverance" model (Martyn, de Boer) rightly emphasizes Christ's victory over hostile powers but marginalizes the problem of individual sins and transgressions.³⁶ And readings that reduce "made him to be sin" to purely sacrificial categories (Hess) capture a genuine element but miss the forensic and substitutionary force of Paul's language. All of these approaches have something to teach us, and I have tried to acknowledge their contributions. But none of them, taken alone, does justice to the full range and depth of what Paul teaches about the cross. Joel Green and Mark Baker, in their influential book Recovering the Scandal of the Cross, advocate for a more multi-dimensional approach that does not privilege penal substitution — and their call for multiple perspectives is well taken, but their unwillingness to recognize substitution's central place does not match the Pauline evidence.⁴³ Henri Blocher has argued persuasively that a careful integration of sacrificial and penal categories is essential for understanding Paul, and that attempts to separate them ultimately distort the apostle's thought.⁴¹

The apostle Paul was not a systematic theologian who sat in a library developing a tidy atonement "theory." He was a pastor, a missionary, and a former persecutor of the church who had been radically transformed by a face-to-face encounter with the risen Christ. When he wrote about the cross, he drew on every image and category available to him — sacrificial, legal, commercial, military, relational — because no single image was adequate to capture the full reality of what God had done. But running through all of these images, like a river running through a landscape, was the foundational conviction that Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, had stood in our place and borne the consequences of our sin so that we might be set free, forgiven, reconciled to God, and made new. That is substitution. That is the heart of the Pauline gospel. And that is the message we are called to proclaim.

Conclusion

We began this chapter by asking whether Paul's atonement theology extends beyond the famous "Romans 3 passage" that we examined in Chapter 8. The answer is an emphatic yes. From the great exchange of 2 Corinthians 5:21 to the curse-bearing of Galatians 3:13, from the debt-cancelling triumph of Colossians 2:13–15 to the peace-making blood of Ephesians 2:13–16, from the love-demonstrating death of Romans 5:6–11 to the sin-condemning sending of Romans 8:3, from the substitutionary ransom of 1 Timothy 2:5–6 to the redeeming self-gift of Titus 2:14, Paul's letters are overflowing with atonement theology that is rich, multi-dimensional, and consistently centered on substitution.

I find myself deeply moved every time I study these passages. The more closely we look at what Paul says about the cross, the more staggering it becomes. The sinless one was made sin. The blessed one became a curse. The record of our debt was nailed to the cross. The one who was in the form of God took the form of a servant and died the death of a condemned criminal — and all of this was motivated by love. "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." That is the Pauline gospel. That is the message that changed the world. And it is the message we turn to, again and again, as the inexhaustible center of the Christian faith.

In the next chapter, we will turn to the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the sacrificial and priestly dimensions of the atonement receive their fullest New Testament development, and where we will see how Christ functions as both the perfect high priest and the perfect sacrifice — the one who offered Himself "once for all" for the sins of the world.