(Note: this article reflects and gives a fuller treatment of the views found in this study of Romans 3:21-26 by Aaron Welch. Please go and visit his blog, there is a lot of great exegetical work there!)
“And Jesus having again cried with a great voice, yielded the spirit; and lo, the veil of the sanctuary was rent in two from top unto bottom, and the earth did quake, and the rocks were rent.” (Matthew 27:50-51)
Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the very foundation of our faith. Something that happened at the moment of His death fundamentally changed the nature of the relationship between God and mankind, so much that we now have the ability to be saved and reconciled to Him (on this point, all Christians are agreed). Jesus tore the veil of the temple upon His death, a symbolic gesture demonstrating that the wall between the Holy of Holies (God) and the outer temple (mankind) had been broken down. However, across Christianity, there is a wide variation in views about what actually happened on the cross, and how it achieved God’s ultimate purpose of salvation.
Penal substitutionary atonement (the idea that Christ took the punishment for all our sins) is taken for granted as the correct view of Christ’s sacrifice by evangelicals and conservative Protestants, whereas liberal Protestants, following Socinus, tend to hold the view of “moral influence” (that Christ’s sacrifice was meant to change mankind’s attitude toward God, rather than God’s attitude toward mankind). Catholics and Orthodox are divided among many theories including the ransom theory of atonement (that Christ was sent to Hades as a ‘ransom’ for the devil to free all the sinners therein) and the satisfaction theory of atonement (that Christ’s ultimate act of obedience via death on the cross outweighed all our acts of disobedience, and so covered our sins).
Which of these views is correct? As always, scripture should be our guide for determining truth, so let’s see what the Bible actually says about these differing views.
Is God wrathful?
Some of the atonement theories described above, including the “moral influence” and “ransom” theories of the atonement, believe that Christ’s sacrifice was not meant to avert God’s wrath on sin (and indeed, some deny that God Himself is wrathful at all toward sin). Rather, these views postulate that it altered some outside beings’ attitudes to allow for salvation, with the “moral influence” theory arguing that Jesus died for the sole purpose of showing humans how to act in obedience to God (and so receive salvation), and the “ransom” theory arguing that Christ’s so-called “harrowing of hell” fundamentally voided Satan’s authority over humanity (and so brought salvation).
But is this the right view? Does God have wrath toward sin, and did Christ’s sacrifice avert that wrath, or did He die for a different purpose?
Contrary to these views, there can be no doubt that God indeed is justly wrathful towards sin. As Paul says in his epistle to the Romans, God’s wrath is revealed upon impiety and unrighteousness, and it is the “righteous judgment of God” that those who are disobedient are “worthy of death” (Rom. 1:18, 32). And, as a matter of fact, Paul actually anticipates the objection that God’s wrath on sin is unjust:
Is God unrighteous who is inflicting the wrath? (After the manner of a man I speak.) Let it not be! Since how shall God judge the world? (Rom. 3:5-6)
Notice that this clearly refutes the view that the wrath of God is simply the passive consequences of sin, as some proponents of moral influence theory have suggested, because it is God who is (actively) inflicting the wrath. Moreover, in many places in the New Testament, the “wrath of God” is specifically mentioned as coming upon those who disobey (John 3:36; Rom. 3:5; 5:9; 9:22; Eph. 5:6; Col. 3:6; Rev. 19:15). I say this not to provoke terror and fear, but because God’s justice and wrath is a necessary part of His character; anyone who worships a God Who has no wrath is not worshipping the one true God of the universe.
But as Paul goes on to say, Christ’s sacrifice ultimately causes us to be “saved through Him from the wrath [of God]”:
For in our being still ailing, Christ in due time did die for the impious; for scarcely for a righteous man will any one die, for for the good man perhaps some one also doth dare to die; and God doth commend His own love to us, that, in our being still sinners, Christ did die for us; much more, then, having been declared righteous now in his blood, we shall be saved through him from the wrath; for if, being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved in his life. (Rom. 5:6-10)
And furthermore, the ultimate result of Christ’s death on the cross is that the sins of all people may no longer be reckoned by God, and thereby for all to be conciliated to Him (2 Cor. 5:14-19). Although Jesus certainly meant to provide a moral example by being perfectly obedient to God and loving through His life and death (John 15:12-13), that was not the primary purpose of His sacrifice, which was to somehow cover the sins of others and, in doing so, avert the wrath of God.
It is very, very important to note, however, that God’s wrath toward sin is by no means His only characteristic, or even His primary characteristic. It was ultimately God Who purposed Christ to die and cover our sins, and in doing this His mercy and love superseded His righteous wrath.
For Him to be Just and a Justifier
Paul writes in Romans 3:25-26, his most detailed description of Christ’s atonement, that
God did set forth [Jesus Christ as] a mercy seat, through the faith in his blood, for the shewing forth of His righteousness, because of the passing over of the bygone sins in the forbearance of God — for the shewing forth of His righteousness in the present time, for His being righteous, and declaring him righteous who [is] of the faith of Jesus.
We see here a three-step description of why God purposed Christ to die, and I’ll discuss the meaning of each in turn:
1. “because of the passing over of the bygone sins in the forbearance of God”
This, according to Paul, is the reason for which God set forth Christ as our atonement. Apparently, God was already passing over sins in His forbearance prior to Jesus Christ, through the sacrificial system which He gave to Israel (Leviticus 1 - 7). David writes in one of his Psalms that
YHWH is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. (103:8-10 NKJV)
The amazing truth affirmed in these verses is that God did not punish people for their sins in Old Testament times, despite the apparent picture of a constantly wrathful God sometimes painted in the Hebrew scriptures. Since every act of disobedience is deserving of death (Rom. 1:32, 6:23), every time that someone sinned in the Old Testament and was not struck dead was an act of complete mercy.
Although there were certainly times that God acted out His righteous judgment on sin to set an example, most notably, via the Genesis flood (Gen. 6:3-7), I think it is safe to say that the overwhelming majority of the time people sinned prior to Christ, God was merciful toward them. After all, we have detailed records of ancient society from extra-biblical sources, and I’m fairly sure that people weren’t dropping dead the very first time they sinned.
Let this be clear, God’s mercy toward sinners prior to Christ was not merely a passive act by which He chose not to kill them. Rather, because God is the very force upholding the universe by His own power (Heb. 1:3), anyone who does something disobedient to God must die simply as a matter of course. As David writes in Psalms 36:5-6, it is by God’s kindness and faithfulness toward humanity that He “preserves man and beast”. So every single time that someone sinned prior to Christ and did not die, God was sustaining them by His mercy! For an example of this, look to 2 Samuel 12:
Then Nathan said to David... “Why have you despised the commandment of YHWH, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword; you have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the people of Ammon”... So David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against YHWH.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” (2 Sam. 12:7, 9, 13)
The sin of David in murdering Uriah was put away or passed over, and so he did not die; this is certainly the sort of thing that Paul had in mind when saying that God “passed over the bygone sins in His forbearance”.
But this system of sacrifice and free forgiveness could not last forever. God, being just toward sin in His holiness, cannot continue doing so without a denial of His very nature. As the author of Hebrews writes,
For the law having a shadow of the coming good things — not the very image of the matters, every year, by the same sacrifices that they offer continually, is never able to make perfect those coming near, since, would they not have ceased to be offered, because of those serving having no more conscience of sins, having once been purified? but in those [sacrifices] is a remembrance of sins every year, for it is impossible for blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. (Heb. 10:1-4)
In order to continue acting in mercy, God needed to cause a more perfect atonement to take place, which leads us to “Step 2” of Paul’s reasoning in Romans 3:25-26:
2. “God set forth [Jesus Christ as] a mercy seat, through the faith in His blood”
Paul describes Christ’s atonement as a “mercy seat” or ιλαστηριον, a term which is only used once elsewhere in the Bible, in Hebrews 9:5 to describe the cover of the Ark of the Covenant. Although this is often translated “propitiation” in many dynamic-equivalence versions of the Bible, this is reading too much into the word, and is ultimately eisegeting penal substitutionary atonement into the text (since technically ιλαστηριον could describe either a propitiatory or an expiatory covering of sin).
The “mercy seat” on top of the Ark of the Covenant was a place where, once every year on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the high priest would sprinkle a ram’s blood to cover over all the sins of Israel for the entire year. By describing Jesus Christ as a “mercy seat”, Paul is saying that His atonement on the cross covered over all of our sins, thereby justifying us and causing our sins to no longer be reckoned by God (2 Cor. 5:19).
Again, we must remember that although God is wrathful toward sin, that is not His most prominent characteristic. Rather, it was He who originally “set forth” Christ to be a mercy seat, so that He could remain merciful while at the same time not denying His justice. This leads us to the final step in Paul’s description of Christ’s atonement:
3. “for the shewing forth of His righteousness in the present time, for His being righteous, and declaring him righteous who [is] of the faith of Jesus.”
Or, as the KJV and a few other translations poetically put it, God purposed Christ’s death “for Him to be Just and the Justifier”. That is, for God to remain merciful and be the Justifier of sinners, He needed a “mercy seat” to cover over the sins of all people, so that He could remain just at the same time.
But what is the “faith(fulness) in [Christ’s] blood” that Paul says in v. 25 to be the very basis by which Christ was set forth as a mercy seat?
The Faith(fulness) of Jesus Christ
According to Paul in Romans 3:25, Christ was set forth as a mercy seat “through the faith(fulness) in His blood”. He could not have been talking about our faith in Christ’s blood, because Paul never elsewhere describes Christ’s blood as the object of our faith, and furthermore, our faith or faithlessness in Him does not affect the ultimate efficacy of His atonement (2 Tim. 2:13). And yet, our redemption is said elsewhere to come through His blood (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14), and apparently from the faithfulness therein. What could this mean?
To understand this, we must first look to a much larger debate, which is whether our justification ultimately comes from our own faith in Christ, or Christ’s own faithfulness. This debate is over the correct translation of the phrase πιστις χριστου (“faith of Christ”), used eight times in Paul’s epistles, and whether it should be read as an objective genitive (“[our] faith in Christ”) or the more natural subjective genitive (“Christ’s faith(fulness)”). Most interlinear and formal-equivalence translations (along with the KJV) take the subjective-genitive reading, whereas dynamic-equivalence versions tend to take the objective-genitive reading.
I am of the belief that the correct reading is the subjective-genitive reading, for multiple reasons. First, Paul uses the word πιστις with a genitive name or pronoun twenty-four other times throughout his epistles, and every single time, he uses it subjectively (which is not debated). Although there are a few times outside of Pauline writings where πιστις + genitive is used objectively, because Paul only ever uses this as a subjective-genitive construct, the burden of proof rests squarely on those who would read πιστις χριστου objectively.
Furthermore, if πιστις χριστου is read as an objective-genitive, then this would create massive redundancies in the text. For example, here are a few of the places where Paul uses πιστις χριστου, translated as it would be if it were read objectively:
and the righteousness of God [is] through faith in Jesus Christ to all, and upon all those having faith (Rom. 3:22)
having known also that a man is not declared righteous by works of law, if not through faith in Jesus Christ, also we in Christ Jesus did have faith, that we might be declared righteous by faith in Christ, and not by works of law, wherefore declared righteous by works of law shall be no flesh. (Gal. 2:16)
but the scripture did shut up the whole under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ may be given to those having faith. (Gal. 3:22)
not having my righteousness, which [is] of law, but that which [is] through faith in Christ — the righteousness that is of God by the faith (Php. 3:9)
It should be very clear that translating πιστις χριστου as “faith in Christ” in these instances would cause all of these verses to become absolutely tautological. After all, what could possibly be the meaning of “a man is declared righteous through faith in Jesus Christ, also by having faith in Jesus Christ, to be declared righteous by faith in Christ” (paraphrase of Gal. 2:16)? But if the phrase is translated as a subjective genitive, “Christ’s faith(fulness)”, then these verses suddenly make much more sense:
and the righteousness of God [is] through Jesus Christ’s faith(fulness) to all, and upon all those having faith (Rom. 3:22)
having known also that a man is not declared righteous by works of law, if not through Jesus Christ’s faith(fulness), also we in Christ Jesus did have faith, that we might be declared righteous by Christ’s faith(fulness), and not by works of law, wherefore declared righteous by works of law shall be no flesh. (Gal. 2:16)
but the scripture did shut up the whole under sin, that the promise by Jesus Christ’s faith(fulness) may be given to those having faith. (Gal. 3:22)
not having my righteousness, which [is] of law, but that which [is] through Christ’s faith(fulness) — the righteousness that is of God by the faith (Php. 3:9)
If these verses are translated with the subjective-genitive reading, then they are describing the interplay between Christ’s faith (the ultimate source of our justification) and our own faith (which allows us to receive His faith). This is also reflected in Romans 1:17:
For the righteousness of God... is revealed out of faith for faith, according as it hath been written, “And the righteous one by faith shall live”
That is, our justification comes out of Christ’s faithfulness for our own faith. Furthermore, this makes sense of the prophecy in Habakkuk 2:4, “the righteous one by faith shall live”; this is not referring to every person who has faith, but rather a specific Righteous One who shall live by faith, namely, Jesus Christ (Acts 7:52).
Although this is not a complete description of all the arguments for the subjective-genitive reading, I hope that this suffices to show why the burden of proof rests squarely on those who would take the objective reading - the plain meaning of the text is that πιστις χριστου refers to Christ’s own faith, not our faith in Christ [1].
Penal substitution vs. “satisfaction theory”
So we see from these passages, along with Romans 3:25, that the efficacy of Christ’s atonement (by which we are justified) comes primarily from His own faithfulness toward God. This is “the faith(fulness) in His blood” by which He was made a mercy seat for us. And what was Christ’s faithfulness? It was His obedience to God even unto death:
For, let this mind be in you that [is] also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought [it] not robbery to be equal to God, but did empty himself, the form of a servant having taken, in the likeness of men having been made, and in fashion having been found as a man, he humbled himself, having become obedient unto death — death even of a cross, wherefore, also, God did highly exalt him, and gave to him a name that [is] above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee may bow — of heavenlies, and earthlies, and what are under the earth — and every tongue may confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Php. 2:5-11)
This shows that penal substitutionary atonement, the idea that the efficacy of Christ’s atonement is because He was punished as a sacrifice for all our sins, is false. As the author of Hebrews says, God does not desire sacrifice, but desires us to do His will:
Wherefore, coming into the world, [Jesus] saith, “Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not will, and a body Thou didst prepare for me, in burnt-offerings, and concerning sin-offerings, Thou didst not delight, then I said, Lo, I come, (in a volume of the book it hath been written concerning me,) to do, O God, Thy will;” saying above — “Sacrifice, and offering, and burnt-offerings, and concerning sin-offering Thou didst not will, nor delight in,” — which according to the law are offered — then he said, “Lo, I come to do, O God, Thy will.” He doth take away the first that the second he may establish; in the which will we are having been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. (Hebrews 9:5-10)
This passage cannot be clearer. Jesus did not come to offer His body as a sacrifice, but rather to do the will of God and be completely obedient in all things. The amazing part of Christ’s sacrifice is not that He died, but that He was obedient even unto death. This is reflected in the gospel accounts, which do not dawdle on the aspects of Jesus’ death itself, but rather on the fact that He gave Himself up to God’s will and remained obedient:
And having taken Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee, [Jesus] began to be sorrowful, and to be very heavy; then saith he to them, “Exceedingly sorrowful is my soul — unto death; abide ye here, and watch with me.” And having gone forward a little, he fell on his face, praying, and saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou.” And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them sleeping, and he saith to Peter, “So! Ye were not able one hour to watch with me! Watch, and pray, that ye may not enter into temptation: the spirit indeed is forward, but the flesh weak.” Again, a second time, having gone away, he prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from me except I drink it, Thy will be done.” And having come, he findeth them again sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And having left them, having gone away again, he prayed a third time, saying the same word...
Then saith Jesus to him, “Turn back thy sword to its place; for all who did take the sword, by the sword shall perish; dost thou think that I am not able now to call upon my Father, and He will place beside me more than twelve legions of messengers? How then may the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it behoveth to happen?” (Matt. 26:37-44, 52-54)
Jesus could have chosen to do His own will at any time, and called upon God to release Him from His fate. But instead of taking the easy way out, He chose to die in accordance with God’s will.
But how exactly did Christ’s act of obedience (the “faithfulness in His blood”) cause Him to become a mercy seat, and justify our sins? Well, as described above, sin is any act of disobedience against God, and the “righteous judgment of God” is that every person who is disobedient is “worthy of death” (Rom. 1:32). Sin is ultimately a debt of obedience to God (Matt. 6:12; 18:34-35), and we cannot pay our own debts with acts of obedience, because our obedience is already required of us.
To fulfill the debt of obedience, an act of overflowing obedience is necessary. And the only possible act of overflowing obedience is the death of a sinless being (because one who is sinless is not already deserving of death). Therefore, because Jesus was perfectly obedient in all things throughout His life, when He died in accordance with God’s will, He committed the only possible act of overflowing obedience, and in doing so all our acts of disobedience are covered.
This is the “faithfulness in His blood” by which Christ was made a mercy seat, and by which we are saved and reconciled to God.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ
How does Christ’s resurrection fit into all of this? After all, Paul presents the Resurrection as a necessary part of the Gospel, and argues that “if Christ hath not risen... ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:17). Peter also says that Christ’s resurrection was necessary, because “it was not possible for Him to be held by [death]” (Acts 2:24).
The satisfaction theory of atonement, as presented above, makes perfect sense of these statements. Because Christ died in perfect obedience to God’s will, He was not actually deserving of death, per the “righteous judgment of God” of Romans 1:32. This means that, unlike us when we die, Christ actually logically could not have remained dead, or else God would not have been just. His resurrection is the confirmation that His death was in perfect obedience to God, and so it confirms to us that the atonement was efficacious in covering over our sins.
However, if penal substitutionary atonement were true, then Christ was deserving of death, because He died to take the penalties of all our sins. That is, the “righteous judgment of God” would be that Jesus must remain dead. This means that if penal substitution were correct, the Resurrection would not have been a confirmation that the atonement were efficacious - far from it! - it actually would have shown that He did not take the penalties for all our sins, and so He failed to cover over our sins.
Therefore, Christ’s resurrection not only provides a confirmation that the atonement was efficacious, and that our sins actually have been covered over, but it also shows that penal substitutionary atonement is false. He did not take the penalties for our sins; rather, He took upon Himself the sins themselves, and covered over our disobedience with His overflowing obedience. It was simply not possible for Him to be held by death!
The ultimate effect of the atonement
This scriptural view of the atonement provides another important consequence. Because Christ was obedient unto death, all our acts of disobedience are covered over by His mercy seat. It isn’t only that we don’t have to take the punishment for our sins; instead, God doesn’t even reckon the sins themselves (2 Cor 5:19)! The logical consequence of this is that everyone for whom Christ died will be ultimately saved, because God simply doesn’t recognize their sins any more (He imputes to us His own perfect righteousness, Rom. 3:22).
But how many people did Christ die for? Well, Paul repeatedly tells us the answer, which is “all mankind“ (1 Tim. 2:6 cf. 2 Cor. 5:14). From this, a clear logical argument can be made for universalism:
Premise 1. Everyone for whom Christ died as a ransom will be saved (see above)
Premise 2. Christ died as a ransom for all people, everyone affected by Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:15-19; 2 Cor. 5:14; 1 Tim. 2:6)
Premise 2a. The “all mankind” for whom Christ died includes even Nero, the persecutor of Christians, who was in authority at the time that Paul wrote 1 Tim. 2:2
Conclusion. All people, everyone affected by Adam’s sin, will be saved (even Nero).
Some Calvinists will dispute this conclusion on the basis of the “limited atonement” (the idea that Christ died for only a small subset of humanity). As noted above in Premise 2a, the context of 1 Tim. 2:6 requires that even the Roman emperor Nero, who initiated a terrible persecution of Christians and remained a pagan until death, was part of the “all mankind” for whom Christ died, which seems to preclude the idea that Christ died only for those who believe in this lifetime.
However, this Calvinist view of the limited atonement is based largely on Matthew 20:28 and its parallel passages:
“the Son of Man did not come to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Calvinists argue that because Jesus said that He only died as a ransom for “many”, not all, He only died for the “elect”. This assumes that Jesus only died for the “many” in view here. However, elsewhere Jesus says that He died for the sheep of Israel (John 10:15 cf. Matt. 15:24), but that doesn’t mean that Gentiles cannot also be saved. In the same way, just because Jesus said that He died for “many” doesn’t mean that He did not also die for “all”, especially given that Paul later says that He died for “all mankind”.
Conclusion
Out of all of the theories of Christ’s atonement, only one fits with the testimony of scripture: the “satisfaction theory” of the atonement. According to this theory, Christ’s overflowing act of obedience (by dying in accordance with God’s will) covered over all of our acts of disobedience. Consequently, everyone for whom Christ died will be saved, because their sins are no longer being recognized as sins by God. This means that, because Christ died for “all mankind” per 1 Timothy 2:6, it is absolutely necessary that all people will eventually be saved.
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