Chapter 8
Romans 3:21–26 — Propitiation, Righteousness, and Divine Justice

Introduction: The Theological Summit of Paul's Gospel

If you had to choose just one paragraph in the entire New Testament that captures the very heart of what God did at the cross, you would be hard-pressed to find a better candidate than Romans 3:21–26. These six verses are, in a very real sense, the theological summit of Paul's letter to the Romans — and perhaps the single most important passage in the Bible for understanding how the atonement actually works. Many scholars consider it the apex of Paul's teaching on the atonement, and with good reason.¹ This passage explains not only that God saves sinners but how He can do so without compromising His own righteous character. It answers a question that lies at the heart of the entire Bible: How can a holy God forgive unholy people and still be just?

I believe this passage stands as the theological summit of substitutionary atonement. It is the place where Paul pulls together all the threads — sin, righteousness, grace, redemption, sacrifice, faith — and weaves them into one breathtaking statement about what God accomplished through the cross of Christ. To understand this passage well is to understand the gospel well. To misunderstand it is to risk misunderstanding the very foundation of what it means to be saved.

In this chapter, we will walk through Romans 3:21–26 clause by clause, paying careful attention to the Greek text, the Old Testament background, and the theological implications of each phrase. We will spend significant time on the most debated word in the passage — hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον), translated variously as "propitiation," "expiation," or "mercy seat" — and we will engage with the major scholarly arguments on all sides. I will argue that the context demands a meaning that includes propitiation (the satisfaction of God's justice) while never separating it from God's love. We will also engage with the "New Perspective on Paul" and with scholars who read this passage differently, including William Hess, who offers an alternative reading focused on purification rather than wrath-satisfaction. And we will see how this passage, rightly understood, supports the central thesis of this book: that substitutionary atonement, grounded in the unified love of the Trinity, is the heart of the gospel.

The Text: Romans 3:21–26 (ESV)

²¹ But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it — ²² the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. ²⁶ It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

The Context: Why This Passage Matters So Much

To understand why Romans 3:21–26 is so important, we need to understand what comes before it. Paul has spent the first two-and-a-half chapters of Romans making a devastating case that every single human being stands guilty before God. Gentiles are guilty because they have rejected the knowledge of God that creation makes plain (Romans 1:18–32). Jews are guilty because, even though they possess God's law, they have not kept it (Romans 2:1–3:8). Paul's conclusion is a sweeping indictment of the entire human race: "None is righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10).

The word "wrath" appears early in this section. Romans 1:18 announces that "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." Romans 2:5 warns of "the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed." By the time we reach Romans 3:20, the picture is utterly bleak. Everyone is a sinner. Everyone stands under God's just judgment. No one can earn a right standing with God through their own efforts. The courtroom scene is set, and the verdict is "guilty" across the board.

And then come the two most important words in the passage: "But now" (Romans 3:21). These words mark a total reversal from what has come before.² They introduce a divine solution to the devastating human problem that Paul has been diagnosing since Romans 1:18. If the first section of Romans tells us how bad the disease of sin really is, then 3:21–26 tells us what God has done to cure it. This paragraph functions as the major turning point in the entire letter — and, in many ways, the central statement of the entire Pauline gospel.³

"The Righteousness of God Has Been Manifested" (vv. 21–22a)

The first thing Paul announces in his great reversal is that "the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law." The phrase "the righteousness of God" — in Greek, dikaiosynē theou (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ) — is one of the most important and most debated phrases in all of Paul's writings. What exactly does it mean?

There are three main views. First, some scholars understand it as God's own attribute — His inherent quality of being just and righteous. On this reading, Paul is saying that God's justice has been revealed in a new way through the cross. Second, others understand it as God's saving activity — His power to set things right, to rescue and deliver His people. This is the view championed by the "New Perspective on Paul" associated with scholars like N. T. Wright and James D. G. Dunn. Third, the traditional Protestant reading takes it as the righteous status that God confers on believers — a legal declaration of "not guilty" that is given to those who have faith in Christ.

Fleming Rutledge helpfully points out that "righteousness" and "justice" are actually the same word-group in the Greek — dikaios, dikaiosynē, dikaiōsis, dikaioō — all come from the same root.⁴ In English, "righteousness" and "justice" sound completely different, which can obscure the connection Paul is making. When Paul speaks of the "righteousness of God," he is talking about something that encompasses both God's justice and His saving power — what Rutledge helpfully calls God's "rectifying" action, His power to make right what has been wrong.⁵

I believe the best reading is that Paul's phrase includes both God's own righteous character and the righteous status He gives to believers. It is God's attribute and God's gift. As David Allen rightly notes, this "righteousness combines God's righteous character, His saving initiative, and the resultant right standing before Him when a person believes."⁶ The noun "righteousness" or its verbal form "to justify" occurs seven times in this short paragraph, showing how central this concept is to what Paul is saying.⁷

Notice that Paul says this righteousness has been "manifested apart from the law." This does not mean it contradicts the law. Paul immediately adds that "the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it." The Old Testament itself pointed forward to this. The law was never the means of salvation; it was always the witness to the salvation that God would one day provide. What is new is not the concept but the fulfillment. The promises that God made through Moses and the prophets have now come to completion in Christ.⁸

Paul further specifies that this righteousness comes "through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." The double reference to faith — "faith in Jesus Christ" and "all who believe" — drives home the point that the means of receiving this righteousness is faith, not works of the law. Paul also stresses the universality of this offer: it is "for all." There is no distinction, no favoritism. God shows no partiality (Romans 2:11). The same gift is available to every person — Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female.⁹

"For All Have Sinned" (v. 23): The Universal Need

Before Paul explains the solution, he restates the problem one more time: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." This is a comprehensive statement of the human condition. No exceptions. No exemptions. Every person who has ever lived — apart from Jesus Christ Himself — has sinned and has fallen short of the glory that God intended for His image-bearers.

What does it mean to "fall short of the glory of God"? Some interpreters take this as a reference to God's standard of moral perfection — we have all missed the mark of God's holy character. There is truth in that. But there may be something deeper here as well. William Hess suggests that this phrase connects to the idea of humanity's vocation as God's image-bearers. When Paul says we have "fallen short of the glory of God," he may be saying not just that we have violated God's law but that we have failed to live up to the honor and purpose for which God created us.¹⁰ We were made to reflect God's glory, to be the crown of His creation. Sin has marred that image and ruined that vocation.

Either way, the point is clear: every human being needs what Paul is about to describe. The atonement is not for a select few who happen to be worse sinners than others. It is for everyone, because everyone needs it. This universal need establishes the foundation for the universal scope of the atonement — a point we will explore in depth in Chapter 30.

"Justified by His Grace as a Gift, Through the Redemption That Is in Christ Jesus" (v. 24)

Now we come to the solution, and Paul packs an enormous amount of theology into a single verse. Believers "are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Let us unpack this phrase by phrase.

"Justified" — the Greek word is dikaioumenoi (δικαιούμενοι), from the same root as "righteousness" (dikaiosynē). To be "justified" in Paul's usage means more than just "declared not guilty," though it certainly includes that. As Allen helpfully explains, justification includes pardon for sin (the penalty is met), the bestowal of a righteous status in a legal sense, and the sinner's reinstatement into fellowship with God. It is not merely that the judge declares the defendant free; it is that God says to the sinner, "You are now in a new relationship with Me through My love — a relationship I have made possible by paying your penalty."¹¹

"By his grace as a gift" — the source of justification is not human effort but divine generosity. Grace (charis, χάρις) is unmerited favor. It is a gift (dōrean, δωρεάν — literally "freely," "without cost"). No one earns justification. No one deserves it. It is given.

"Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" — The word "redemption" is apolytrōsis (ἀπολύτρωσις), a commercial term from the ancient marketplace. It was used for the price paid to set a slave free. While the word does not always require the idea of a literal payment in every New Testament context, "invariably the notion of 'cost' is present," as Allen observes, "and the main focus is on deliverance through payment of a price."¹² The cost in this case is the blood of Christ — His sacrificial death on the cross. As discussed in Chapter 2, redemption language (see the full treatment of apolytrōsis and related terms there) carries strong echoes of the Exodus, where God redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt. Here, God is redeeming sinners from the slavery of sin and from the judgment that sin deserves.

John Stott helpfully summarizes what Paul is doing in this passage. He notes that the source of our justification is God and His grace; the ground for our justification is Christ and His cross; and the means of our justification is our faith in Christ.¹³ All three elements must be held together. Grace provides it. The cross accomplishes it. Faith receives it.

"Whom God Put Forward as a Hilastērion" (v. 25a): The Great Debate

We now arrive at the single most debated word in the passage — and arguably one of the most debated words in all of New Testament scholarship. Paul says that God "put forward" (or "set forth") Christ Jesus as a hilastērion (ἱλαστήριον) "by his blood, to be received by faith." How we translate and understand this word has enormous implications for how we understand the entire atonement.

There are three main options for translating hilastērion:

1. "Propitiation" — This is the translation favored by many evangelical scholars, including Leon Morris, J. I. Packer, Thomas Schreiner, and the ESV translation. To "propitiate" means to satisfy or turn away someone's wrath. On this reading, Christ's death satisfied God's righteous justice by bearing the penalty that sinners deserved. God's wrath against sin was directed at Christ on the cross, and because that wrath has been satisfied, God can now justly forgive those who believe.

2. "Expiation" — This is the translation championed by the influential British scholar C. H. Dodd, and it was adopted by the RSV and the NEB. To "expiate" means to cleanse or remove sin. On this reading, Christ's death dealt with sin by purging or washing it away, but the focus is on the sin being acted upon, not on God being appeased. Those who prefer "expiation" often object that "propitiation" makes God sound like an angry pagan deity who needs to be placated by a human sacrifice.

3. "Mercy seat" — Some scholars note that hilastērion is the word used in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) for the kapporet (כַּפֹּרֶת) — the golden lid of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, on which the high priest sprinkled blood on the Day of Atonement (see the detailed treatment of Yom Kippur in Chapter 5). On this reading, Paul is saying that Christ is the true mercy seat — the place where God and humanity meet, where sin is dealt with and forgiveness is granted.

The Mercy Seat Reading: Christ as the Place of Atonement

Before we dive into the Dodd-Morris debate, the "mercy seat" reading deserves some additional attention, because it is rich with theological significance. In the Septuagint, hilastērion is used in Exodus 25:17–22 and Leviticus 16:2, 13–15 to translate the Hebrew kapporet — the golden cover of the ark of the covenant in the Most Holy Place.⁴¹ On the Day of Atonement, the high priest entered the Most Holy Place and sprinkled sacrificial blood on the kapporet. This was the climactic moment of Israel's most sacred annual ritual — the moment when God's justice and God's mercy met in a single act (see Chapter 5 for the full treatment of Yom Kippur).

If Paul has this background in mind — and many scholars think he does — then the imagery is stunning. Christ is being presented as the true mercy seat. In the old covenant, the mercy seat was hidden away in the Most Holy Place, behind a veil, accessible only once a year and only by the high priest. But God has now "put forward" (proetheto) Christ publicly as the true hilastērion. What was once hidden is now revealed. What was once restricted to one man on one day in one place is now available to everyone everywhere through faith. The place where God and humanity meet — where sin is dealt with and forgiveness is given — is no longer a golden lid in a darkened room. It is the cross of Jesus Christ, displayed openly before the entire world.

Charles Cranfield captures the significance of this brilliantly in his commentary on Romans. He writes that God, "because in his mercy he willed to forgive sinful men, and, being truly merciful, willed to forgive them righteously, that is, without in any way condoning their sin, purposed to direct against his own very self in the person of his Son the full weight of that righteous wrath which they deserved."⁴² Notice the care with which Cranfield formulates this. God directed His righteous wrath not at a third party but "against his own very self in the person of his Son." This is the self-substitution of God — God bearing in Himself the cost that our sin demanded. And the mercy seat imagery helps us see that this was always God's plan: the kapporet was a divinely designed foreshadowing of the cross.

Engaging the Debate: Dodd, Morris, and the Linguistic Evidence

The debate over hilastērion has been one of the most significant scholarly controversies of the past century. It centers on a fundamental question: When Christ died, was the primary action directed at God (propitiation — turning away His wrath) or at sin (expiation — cleansing its defilement)?

C. H. Dodd, the distinguished British scholar who directed the New English Bible translation, argued forcefully that the correct meaning was "expiation." His argument was primarily linguistic. He acknowledged that in pagan Greek, hilaskomai (the verb from which hilastērion derives) regularly meant to "propitiate" or "placate" an offended deity. But he argued that in Hellenistic Judaism, as reflected in the Septuagint, the meaning had shifted. In the LXX, Dodd argued, hilaskomai was used to translate the Hebrew kipper (כִּפֶּר), and its meaning was closer to "purify" or "cancel" or "cleanse" — in other words, expiation rather than propitiation.¹⁴

Dodd's reconstruction, however, was subjected to devastating critique by Leon Morris and Roger Nicole, among others. Stott provides a masterful summary of this debate. Morris and Nicole demonstrated that Dodd's conclusions rested on incomplete evidence. For example, Dodd made no reference to the books of the Maccabees, which belong to the LXX and contain several passages speaking of "the wrath of the Almighty" being averted. Dodd also ignored the writings of Josephus and Philo, in which, as Friedrich Büchsel demonstrated, the meaning "to placate" prevails.¹⁵ Furthermore, in early Christian usage — both in Clement's First Letter (late first century) and in the Shepherd of Hermas (early second century) — hilaskomai is plainly used of propitiating God. As Stott wryly observes, for Dodd's theory to be correct, the Septuagint and New Testament would have to "form a sort of linguistic island with little precedent in former times, little confirmation from the contemporaries, and no following in after years!"¹⁶

Even in the Old Testament itself, there are many instances where kipper and hilaskomai are used for propitiating anger — whether the anger of a person (like Jacob pacifying Esau with gifts, Genesis 32:20) or the anger of God (like Aaron and Phinehas who turned God's anger away from the Israelites).¹⁷ Even in passages where the natural translation is "to make atonement for sin," the context often contains explicit mention of God's wrath, which implies that the human sin can be dealt with only if the divine anger is also addressed.

Hess's Alternative: Purification, Not Wrath-Satisfaction

William Hess, in Crushing the Great Serpent, offers a variation on the expiation reading. Hess argues that Christians have wrongfully imported a Greco-Roman concept of propitiation into their reading of Scripture. He contends that in the Septuagint, hilasmos translates the Hebrew kaphar/kipper (to cover, to wipe clean, to expiate), and that the Hebraic understanding focused on purification, not on appeasing an angry deity. In the Hebrew mind, Hess argues, atonement is fundamentally about sin being acted upon — being cleansed, purified, and removed — not about God being acted upon.¹⁸

Hess draws attention to how the word hilasmos was used in classical Greek literature. He notes that even in Homer's Iliad, hilasmos offerings were not always about appeasing wrath — sometimes they were made to induce a god to act favorably, and sometimes they were made in thanksgiving. Hess argues that the type of hilasmos involving wrath-appeasement has been "wrongfully imported into Christian understanding of propitiation" from pagan sources.¹⁹

I appreciate Hess's concern to protect the character of God from crude pagan portrayals, and I share his conviction that God is not a "capricious, vengeful, fickle, and humanlike god" who needs to be bought off with blood.²⁰ That caricature deserves to be rejected. But I believe Hess's argument ultimately falls short for several reasons.

First, the linguistic evidence is stronger for propitiation than Hess acknowledges. As Morris, Nicole, and Stott have demonstrated, the propitiatory meaning of hilaskomai and its cognates is well-established not only in classical Greek but in the Septuagint itself, in Josephus, in Philo, and in early Christian writers. The "pagan import" argument cuts both ways: if the word naturally carried propitiatory overtones in the linguistic world of the first century, then we need good contextual reasons to strip those overtones away — and the context of Romans 3 actually supports them, as we will see.

Second, and more importantly, the immediate context of Romans 3:25 makes the propitiatory reading almost unavoidable. Paul has spent two and a half chapters demonstrating that God's wrath is a reality — a righteous response to human sin (Romans 1:18; 2:5; 3:5–6). As Morris observes, "Wrath has occupied such an important place in the argument leading up to this section that we are justified in looking for some expression indicative of its cancellation in the process which brings about salvation."²¹ If Paul introduces hilastērion at precisely the point where he explains how God's solution to the wrath-problem works, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that propitiation — the turning away of God's righteous judgment — is part of what the word means here.

Third, and crucially, the propitiatory reading does not require us to accept the pagan baggage that Hess rightly rejects. Biblical propitiation is fundamentally different from pagan propitiation, because in the biblical picture, God Himself provides the sacrifice. Pagan propitiation is a human attempt to bribe or manipulate an angry deity. Biblical propitiation is God's own initiative, motivated by His own love, to deal with the problem that His own justice creates. As Stott so memorably puts it: "God himself gave himself to save us from himself."²²

Hess also reads Romans 3:23–25 through the lens of the New Covenant. He argues that redemption in this passage should be understood primarily as purification — Christ's blood cleanses us from sin and thereby reconciles us to God, not because God's wrath was satisfied but because the people were "repentant, cleansed, and their sin was purified."⁴³ There is a kernel of truth here. The New Covenant dimension is certainly present in Paul's thought, and the purifying power of Christ's blood is a genuine biblical theme. But Hess's reading does not adequately account for the specific language Paul uses in verses 25–26. Paul does not say that God set forth Christ to purify sinners (though that is true). He says God set forth Christ to demonstrate His righteousness and to prove that He Himself is just in justifying sinners. The problem Paul is solving is not primarily a defilement problem (though defilement is real) but a justice problem — and the justice language of the passage demands a propitiatory component.

Furthermore, the concept of "passing over former sins" in verse 25b makes much more sense on a propitiatory reading. If the only issue were purification, there would be no particular problem with God "passing over" sins in the past — He could simply purify people whenever He chose. But if God's justice is at stake — if every sin requires a just reckoning — then "passing over" sins is a serious problem that demands an explanation. The cross provides that explanation by showing that God was not ignoring sin during those centuries; He was planning to deal with it decisively through Christ's substitutionary sacrifice.

All Three Meanings May Be Present

Having said all this, I want to be clear that I do not think we need to choose between propitiation, expiation, and the mercy seat. Allen argues persuasively that "no doubt all three meanings inhere in Paul's usage." We do not need to succumb to a false dichotomy. Paul's use of hilastērion likely carries layered meaning: Christ is the true mercy seat (the place where God meets sinful humanity), His blood provides expiation (the cleansing and removal of sin), and this sacrifice also achieves propitiation (the satisfaction of God's righteous justice).²³

However — and this is a critical "however" — while all three meanings are present, the context of Romans 3 gives the propitiatory dimension particular prominence. Paul's argument in Romans 1–3 has been building toward the question of how God's justice can be satisfied, not merely how sin can be cleansed. The climax of the passage in verse 26 makes this unmistakable: God set forth Christ as a hilastērion so "that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." The issue Paul is resolving is a justice problem — and propitiation is the justice-oriented term. Expiation alone does not adequately explain why God needed to demonstrate His righteousness. Propitiation does.

Rutledge, who approaches the atonement from a more catholic perspective, agrees that the propitiatory dimension cannot simply be dismissed, even as she urges caution. She rightly insists that "it is crucial to maintain the agency of the three persons and to remind ourselves that the whole enterprise is a transaction undertaken among the persons of the Trinity."²⁴ The Son is not intervening to change the Father's disposition toward us. Rather, the entire Trinity is acting together in love. This is exactly right, and it is the framework within which propitiation must always be understood.

"By His Blood" (v. 25a): The Means of Atonement

Paul specifies that this hilastērion is accomplished "by his blood" (en tō autou haimati, ἐν τῷ αὐτοῦ αἵματι). This phrase connects Christ's death directly to the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, where blood was the essential element of every atoning sacrifice. As detailed in Chapters 4 and 5, the blood of the sacrifice represented the life of the victim given in place of the sinner. "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins," as Hebrews 9:22 states. The "blood" of Christ is not a reference to His physical blood in isolation but to His sacrificial death — His life poured out in our place.

Allen draws attention to the connection between this phrase and the broader sacrificial framework: "Notice the connection between the propitiation or atoning sacrifice of Christ and 'His blood,' signifying His sacrificial and substitutionary death on the cross."²⁵ The Day of Atonement background is especially important here. On Yom Kippur, the high priest entered the Holy of Holies and sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on the mercy seat (kapporet/hilastērion). If Paul is indeed alluding to the mercy seat in his use of hilastērion, then the image is breathtaking: Christ Himself is the mercy seat, and His own blood is the atoning blood sprinkled upon it. He is simultaneously the place of atonement and the sacrifice of atonement — both the mercy seat and the sacrificial victim whose blood makes atonement possible.

"To Be Received by Faith" (v. 25a): The Instrument of Appropriation

Paul adds that this propitiation is "to be received by faith" (dia pisteōs, διὰ πίστεως). This is a critically important qualifier. The atonement accomplished by Christ is objective — it is a real, historical event that took place at Calvary, independent of anyone's personal response. But the benefits of the atonement are received subjectively through the instrument of faith. The atonement is not applied to anyone automatically. As Allen notes, "There is a condition of faith which must be met, a condition annexed by God Himself."²⁶

Paul stresses the role of faith three times in this short paragraph (vv. 22, 25, 26), making it unmistakably clear that while the atonement is universally available, it is personally received by faith. Christ died for all (see Chapter 30 for the full argument for the universal scope of the atonement), but the saving benefits are applied when individuals respond in faith. The atonement creates the possibility of salvation for everyone; faith is the means by which that possibility becomes a reality for each person.

"To Show God's Righteousness, Because in His Divine Forbearance He Had Passed Over Former Sins" (v. 25b): The Theological Problem

Now we come to one of the most fascinating — and often overlooked — aspects of the passage. Paul says that God set forth Christ as a hilastērion "to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins." What is Paul talking about here?

Paul is identifying a theological problem that the cross solves. Throughout the Old Testament, God had been "passing over" sins — that is, He had been withholding the full and final punishment that sin deserved. God did not immediately destroy humanity when Adam sinned. He did not annihilate the world despite the overwhelming wickedness that preceded the flood (and even the flood was accompanied by the salvation of Noah's family). He bore with Israel's rebellions century after century. The Old Testament sacrificial system provided a temporary covering for sin, but it could not provide a permanent solution (as the author of Hebrews makes clear — see Chapter 10).

The word translated "passed over" is paresin (πάρεσιν), which occurs only here in the New Testament. It is different from the more common word for "forgiveness" (aphesis, ἄφεσις). Paresin suggests something closer to "overlooking" or "leaving aside" — a temporary deferral rather than a full pardon. The Old Testament sacrifices, while divinely ordained and genuinely efficacious within their covenantal context, did not provide a final resolution to the problem of sin. They were, in a sense, promissory notes — temporary measures that pointed forward to the ultimate sacrifice that would one day settle the account.

Acts 17:30 provides a helpful parallel. In his speech on the Areopagus, Paul says that "the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent." The idea is similar: there was a "before" in which God bore with human sin in forbearance, and there is a "now" in which He has acted decisively through the cross. The cross does not merely open a new chapter; it retroactively makes sense of all the previous chapters by showing that God's patience was purposeful, not permissive.

But this divine patience raised a serious question: Was God just in passing over all those sins? If a human judge repeatedly let criminals go free without punishment, we would rightly call that judge corrupt. How, then, could God pass over the sins of generation after generation and still be called righteous? As Thomas Schreiner puts it, the question Paul is really asking is not "How can God justly punish people for their sins?" but "How can God justly forgive anyone?"²⁷

This is the question that the cross answers. God's centuries of patience were not indifference to sin. He was not "looking the other way." Instead, He was operating under what Allen vividly calls "a stay of execution." God was temporarily withholding His full judgment because He already had a plan — a plan to deal with sin once and for all through the sacrifice of His own Son.²⁸ Until the cross, sins had been "neither punished as they deserved nor atoned for as they were going to be."²⁹ The cross retroactively vindicates God's patience by demonstrating that He was never indifferent to sin — He was always planning to deal with it in the most decisive way imaginable.

"That He Might Be Just and the Justifier" (v. 26): The Theological Climax

Verse 26 is the theological climax of the entire passage — and, I would argue, one of the most important verses in the entire Bible for understanding the atonement. Paul writes that God set forth Christ as a hilastērion "to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

Here is the breathtaking logic: God wanted to be both just and the justifier. He wanted to uphold His own righteousness (by not simply overlooking sin) and to declare sinners righteous (by forgiving them). Without the cross, these two goals appear to be in irreconcilable conflict. If God simply forgives sin without any consequence, He is merciful but arguably unjust — He is overlooking real evil. But if He simply punishes sin as it deserves, He is just but there is no hope for any of us. How can God be both?

The answer is the cross. Through Christ's substitutionary death, God's justice is fully satisfied — sin is punished, its consequences are borne — and God's mercy is fully expressed — sinners are forgiven, their guilt is removed. The "penalty" is not swept under the rug; it is absorbed by the Son of God Himself. And so God can be simultaneously "just" (His righteousness is upheld) and "the justifier" (He declares believing sinners righteous).

Stott frames this in terms that get to the very heart of the matter. The problem of forgiveness, he argues, is located not outside God but within His own being. How can the holy love of God come to terms with the unholy lovelessness of humanity? "Because God never contradicts himself, he must be himself and 'satisfy' himself, acting in absolute consistency with the perfection of his character."³⁰ The cross is the place where all of God's attributes — His love, His justice, His holiness, His mercy — are expressed simultaneously, without any one attribute overriding the others. As T. J. Crawford stressed, this is "a case of combined action, and not of counteraction, on the part of these attributes, that is exhibited on the cross."³¹

This is why I believe substitutionary atonement is not merely one theory among many but the central reality of the cross. Without it, you simply cannot explain how God can be "just and the justifier." Christus Victor — Christ's victory over sin, death, and the devil (treated in depth in Chapter 21) — is a glorious and genuine dimension of what happened at Calvary. But victory over the devil does not explain how God's justice is satisfied. Moral influence — the cross as a demonstration of God's love — is profoundly true. But a demonstration of love, by itself, does not resolve the problem Paul is addressing: the problem of how a just God can forgive unjust people. Only substitution addresses this problem directly. Christ died in our place, bearing the consequences of our sin, so that we might receive the gift of His righteousness.

Consider the alternatives. If the cross is only a victory over evil powers (Christus Victor without substitution), we are left with the question: What about God's justice? How is the real guilt of real sins dealt with? Defeating Satan is wonderful news, but it does not, by itself, tell us why God can now declare guilty sinners to be righteous. If the cross is only a demonstration of love (moral influence without substitution), we face a different problem: Why was the cross necessary? Could God not have demonstrated His love in some less horrific way? And even if the cross inspires us to repent and change, what about the guilt we have already accumulated? A moral example does not pay a debt. If the cross is only satisfaction of God's honor (Anselm's satisfaction theory, to be discussed in Chapter 16), we come closer to the truth, but we still miss the specifically penal dimension that Paul's argument requires. Anselm spoke of restoring God's honor but not of bearing the penalty that sin deserves. Paul, however, is talking about justice, about righteousness, about a God who takes sin so seriously that He will not simply waive the penalty.

Only when we understand the cross as substitutionary — Christ in our place, bearing our consequences, absorbing the judicial weight of our sin — does the logic of "just and the justifier" make full sense. And this is precisely why substitution, rightly understood, must stand at the center of our atonement theology, with the other models arranged around it as genuine but complementary facets.

I should add an important qualification here, one that runs throughout this entire book. When I say that the "penalty" of sin was borne by Christ, I am not saying that the Father was full of rage and poured out His fury on an unwilling victim. That is the "cosmic child abuse" caricature, and it is a distortion of the truth (see Chapter 20 for a thorough refutation). The Father did not turn against the Son at the cross. The Trinity acted in unified love. The Son voluntarily accepted the judicial consequences of our sin. The Father was present with the Son in love, even amid the real agony of the cross. As Stott so powerfully argues, the cross is not the Father punishing the Son; it is "the self-substitution of God" — the Triune God bearing the cost of our sin in His own person.³²

The New Perspective on Paul: A Brief Engagement

No responsible treatment of Romans 3:21–26 can ignore the "New Perspective on Paul" (NPP), associated especially with E. P. Sanders, James D. G. Dunn, and N. T. Wright. The NPP has challenged several key elements of the traditional Protestant reading of this passage, and while a full engagement with the New Perspective is beyond the scope of this chapter, a few key points deserve attention.

The NPP argues that "the righteousness of God" in Paul's letters refers primarily to God's covenant faithfulness — His determination to keep His promises to Israel — rather than to a legal status imputed to believers. On this reading, "justification" is less about how individuals get saved and more about how God demonstrates His faithfulness to His covenant by including Gentiles in His people alongside Jews. The NPP also tends to read "works of the law" as referring specifically to Jewish identity markers (circumcision, food laws, Sabbath-keeping) rather than to human effort to earn salvation in general.

There are genuine insights here. Wright is surely correct that Paul's argument in Romans has a deeply covenantal dimension and that "the righteousness of God" does include God's covenant faithfulness. He is also correct that the Jew/Gentile question is central to Paul's argument. But I believe the NPP overreacts to the older Protestant reading rather than correcting it. The traditional emphasis on individual justification by faith is not a misreading of Paul; it is right there in the text. "The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe" (v. 22) is addressed to individuals, not just to ethnic groups. And the climax of the passage — "the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (v. 26) — focuses squarely on the individual believer's relationship with God.

A both/and approach is more faithful to the text than an either/or. Paul is talking about God's covenant faithfulness and about how individuals are justified before God. He is talking about the inclusion of the Gentiles and about the universal problem of human sin and God's gracious solution. The NPP helpfully draws out dimensions that were sometimes underemphasized in traditional Protestant exegesis, but it errs when it tries to replace the juridical/forensic dimension with a purely covenantal one. As the passage itself makes clear, the legal language — justification, righteousness, "just and the justifier" — is front and center in Paul's argument.

Wright himself, it should be noted, is more nuanced than some of his followers. While he reframes justification in covenantal terms, he does not entirely reject the substitutionary dimension. In his later writings, Wright has affirmed that there is a genuine penal dimension to Christ's death, even as he locates it within a broader narrative of God's covenant faithfulness and the defeat of evil. The traditional Protestant reading and the NPP are not as far apart as the heated debates of the 1990s and 2000s sometimes suggested. What we need is not a choice between covenant and courtroom but a recognition that Paul's atonement theology holds both together — and Romans 3:21–26 is the passage that demonstrates this most powerfully.

William Lane Craig has argued persuasively that the forensic and the relational dimensions of justification are inseparable. When God declares a sinner "righteous," He is not playing a legal fiction — He is actually reconstituting the relationship. The legal declaration has relational consequences, and the relational restoration requires a legal basis. Romans 3:21–26 is the passage that explains what that legal basis is: the substitutionary, propitiatory, redemptive death of Christ.⁴⁴

Philippe de la Trinité and Vicarious Satisfaction: A Catholic Perspective

It is worth pausing here to note how the Roman Catholic tradition engages with this passage. Philippe de la Trinité, writing from a Thomistic perspective, offers a perspective on Christ's atoning work that is remarkably close to the position defended in this book — though with important differences in emphasis. Philippe insists that Christ is indeed "a propitiatory victim for our sins," but he is insistent that this propitiation operates "in virtue of merciful love and not of retributive justice."³³

Philippe is at pains to distinguish his position from what he calls "penal substitution" in its strictest sense. He argues that retributive justice "implies a judgment of the just punishment and is exercised on the guilty alone, never on the innocent, and should, therefore, be excluded from the relations of the Father with the Son, even in the course of the Passion."³⁴ On this point, Philippe echoes a concern that many thoughtful Christians share: can it really be just for the Father to punish the innocent Son for the sins of the guilty?

I have significant sympathy with Philippe's concern, and I believe he is right that the Thomistic notion of "vicarious satisfaction" rooted in love and mercy captures something essential about the atonement. Christ's sacrifice was not an act of retributive punishment forced upon an unwilling victim by a wrathful Father. It was an act of love in which the Son voluntarily offered Himself, in union with the Father, to bear the consequences of human sin. Where I would push back gently is on the question of whether the penal dimension can be entirely excluded. As Romans 3:25–26 makes clear, God's purpose in setting forth Christ was to "demonstrate His righteousness" — that is, to show that He is just in forgiving sin. The passage resolves a justice problem, not merely a defilement problem. Something in God's character needed to be satisfied, and while "love" and "mercy" are rightly identified as the motivation for the atonement, "justice" names the specific divine attribute that the cross addresses. The penal dimension — the idea that the consequences of sin were genuinely borne by Christ — is not separable from the substitutionary heart of the cross, even if it must always be understood within the framework of Trinitarian love (see Chapter 20 for the full argument).

Gathercole and the Distinction Between Substitution and Propitiation

Simon Gathercole offers an important methodological clarification that helps us navigate this debate with more precision. Gathercole observes that substitution and propitiation, while often closely related, are logically distinct concepts. Propitiation can occur without substitution (as in many pagan rituals), and substitution can occur without propitiation (as in the scapegoat ritual, which was substitutionary but not directly propitiatory).³⁵

Why does this matter? Because it means we do not have to collapse these concepts into one another. When I argue that substitution is the heart of the atonement (the thesis of this book), I am not making a claim about propitiation per se. Substitution is broader than propitiation. Christ died in our place, bearing our consequences — that is substitution, and it stands at the center. The propitiatory dimension — the fact that this substitution also satisfied God's justice — is real and important, but it is a dimension of the substitutionary event, not the whole of it. This distinction allows us to affirm the penal dimension without making it the sole or even primary category. As argued throughout this book, the penal dimension is genuine but secondary to the substitutionary heart of the cross.

The Universal Scope of Atonement in Romans 3:21–26

Before we leave this passage, we should note what it says about the scope of the atonement — a topic treated fully in Chapter 30 but worth touching on here. Paul's argument in Romans 3:21–26 is built on a foundation of universality. "There is no distinction" (v. 22). "All have sinned" (v. 23). God's righteousness is "for all who believe" (v. 22). The logic of Paul's argument depends on the atonement being universal in scope.

As Allen observes, the death of Jesus effects a complete change in the situation between sinful humanity and God. Grace is available to all and offered to all on the grounds of an atonement for the sins of all — and this universality is essential to Paul's argument that "there is no difference" between Jews and Gentiles.³⁶ If Christ died only for some, Paul's argument falls apart. The "no distinction" that Paul asserts applies both to the universality of sin (all are equally guilty) and to the universality of the offer (all are equally able to receive God's grace by faith). As Paul will state later, in Romans 5:12–21, the scope of grace in Christ must exceed the scope of sin in Adam. Unless Christ died for the sins of all, the universality of grace cannot surpass the universality of Adam's sin.

Allen drives the point home by asking a penetrating question: "How can God be said to be righteous if He arbitrarily selects some to save from their sins yet passes over others? If He chooses to save all or none, His righteousness would not be called into question. But if He chooses some to be saved and some to be reprobated, it is difficult to see how His divine character can fail to be impugned on this point."³⁷ This is a strong argument, and it grows directly out of the logic of Romans 3:21–26 itself.

The Atonement as God's Initiative: The Green Synthesis

One more dimension of this passage deserves attention. Paul says that God "put forward" (proetheto, προέθετο) Christ as a hilastērion. The initiative is entirely God's. This is not a human sacrifice offered to appease a reluctant deity. It is God Himself who sets forth the sacrifice. It is God Himself who provides the solution to the problem that His own justice creates.

Green captures the dual direction of Christ's role beautifully: Paul's logic "introduces Christ's dual role in his death — his substitution for humanity before God and in the face of God's justice, but also his substitution for God in the face of human sin."³⁸ This is a remarkable formulation. Christ stands before God on our behalf, bearing our sin. And Christ stands before us on God's behalf, expressing God's love. He faces both directions, mediating between a holy God and sinful humanity. The cross is not one-directional — it addresses both the Godward problem (how can God be just in forgiving?) and the humanward problem (how can sinners be reconciled to a holy God?).

This is why the "self-substitution of God" language that Stott develops so powerfully is so important. The cross is not God punishing someone else for our sins. It is God, in the person of His Son, stepping into our place and bearing the cost Himself. As Stott puts it, the only way God could simultaneously express His holiness in judgment and His love in pardon was "by providing a divine substitute for the sinner, so that the substitute would receive the judgment and the sinner the pardon."³⁹ But the substitute is not a third party. The substitute is God Himself.

Putting It All Together: What Romans 3:21–26 Teaches About the Atonement

Let me now draw together the threads of this chapter's argument. What does Romans 3:21–26 teach us about the atonement?

First, the atonement is necessary. God cannot simply forgive sin without consequence and still be just. The cross is not an arbitrary choice but a divine necessity — not because God is constrained by some external law, but because God cannot contradict His own character. His justice demands that sin be dealt with. His love provides the way.

Second, the atonement is substitutionary. Christ was "put forward" as a hilastērion — a propitiation/mercy seat — "by his blood." His sacrificial death was the means by which sin was dealt with and God's justice was satisfied. He stood where we should have stood and bore what we should have borne.

Third, the atonement is propitiatory. While I affirm that expiation (the cleansing of sin) and the mercy-seat allusion are genuine dimensions of hilastērion, the context demands that propitiation — the satisfaction of God's justice — be given primary emphasis. God's purpose was to demonstrate His righteousness, to show that He is just in justifying sinners. This is a justice-problem, and propitiation is the justice-oriented solution.

Fourth, the atonement is Trinitarian. God Himself "put forward" Christ. This was not the Father punishing an unwilling victim but the Triune God acting in unified love. The initiative came from the Father. The Son willingly offered Himself. The Spirit empowered and sustained the sacrifice. All three persons acted together.

Fifth, the atonement is universal in scope. It is "for all who believe" because Christ died "for all." There is "no distinction." The atonement is available to every person who has ever lived.

Sixth, the atonement is received by faith. While the atonement is objective and universal, its benefits are personally applied when individuals respond in faith. Faith is the instrument by which we receive what Christ has accomplished.

Seventh, the atonement vindicates God's character. By dealing with sin decisively at the cross, God demonstrates that He was never indifferent to sin, even during the long centuries of "passing over" former sins. His patience was not injustice; it was purposeful forbearance. The cross retroactively vindicates every act of divine patience in history.

Conclusion: The Theological Summit

We have climbed, in this chapter, to the theological summit of the atonement. Romans 3:21–26 is the passage where Paul pulls together every thread — sin, wrath, grace, redemption, sacrifice, propitiation, justification, faith — and weaves them into one majestic statement about what God accomplished at the cross. The passage answers the deepest question of the Bible: How can a holy God forgive unholy people and still be just?

The answer is breathtaking in its simplicity and its profundity: God Himself, in the person of His Son, stepped into our place and bore the consequences of our sin, so that He could be both "just" and "the justifier" of everyone who trusts in Jesus. This is substitutionary atonement at its finest — not the crude caricature of a vengeful Father torturing an innocent Son, but the beautiful reality of a loving Triune God who absorbs the cost of human sin in His own being so that sinners can go free.

John Stott captured this truth with a formulation that deserves to be pondered again and again: the cross is "the self-substitution of God."⁴⁰ God Himself bore the cost. God Himself paid the price. God Himself absorbed the consequences. This is not cosmic child abuse. It is cosmic love — the kind of love that is willing to suffer the worst imaginable agony in order to rescue the beloved. And that, I believe, is the heart of the gospel.

In the next chapter, we will expand our gaze beyond Romans 3 to take in the broader Pauline witness — including the great "exchange" passage of 2 Corinthians 5:21, the curse-bearing of Galatians 3:13, the Christus Victor triumph of Colossians 2:13–15, and more. We will see that the theology we have found concentrated in Romans 3:21–26 pervades Paul's entire body of writing, confirming that substitution is not a proof-text based on a few isolated verses but a pervasive and central theme in Pauline theology.