“A Sacrifice Of Atonement”

By Douglas J. Moo

[Douglas J. Moo is Wessner Chair of Biblical Studies, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.]

[This is the fourth article in the four-part series “Salvation in Paul’s Epistles,” delivered as the W. H. Griffith Thomas lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, February 5–8, 2019.]

God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.
—Romans 3:25

The means by which God inaugurates the new realm is the whole work of Christ, but, as we have seen, with particular focus on his death. Paul uses Old Testament texts, concepts, and broad themes to illuminate the meaning of that death—a death that he clearly presents as “vicarious”—“for us.” But that “for us” remains undefined; what further, we rightly ask, does Paul say about how that death benefits us? Answering this question is complicated by a matter we raised earlier: Paul does not always distinguish between the inauguration of the new realm in salvation history and the entrance into that realm on the part of individual humans (the ordo historia versus the ordo salutis). For instance, as we noted earlier, Paul appears to use the language of redemption, his “buying people out of slavery,” to refer both to the work of the cross in history past and to the deliverance of people as they appropriate that accomplished redemption. Thus, for instance, “redemption” in Romans 3:24, because it is the means, or basis, of justification—“justified . . . through [διά] the redemption”—probably refers to the cross. In Ephesians 1:7, however, where “redemption” is defined as “forgiveness of sins,” the focus is on the believer’s experience of that redemption (though perhaps not the exclusive focus: redemption comes by means of “blood,” a reference to the cross).

This language of redemption might suggest that Paul views Christ’s work in terms of an expression of God’s power, by which he overcomes those “powers” that hold sway over sinful humans. This conception of Christ’s work, roughly similar to the classic Christus Victor understanding of the atonement, has been quite popular in recent years.[1] However, while deliverance from the powers is, indeed, an important theme in Paul—which I explore in an earlier lecture—it is questionable whether that theme aptly describes “atonement” in the way I am defining it. Victory over evil forces is, I suggest, the result of God’s work for us in Christ but not the mechanism by which that work is accomplished. Paul’s teaching about atonement in this sense—the means, or mechanism, by which God saves sinners—focuses on (but is not exhausted by) Christ’s death as a sacrifice.

To be sure, the place of sacrificial notions in Paul’s presentation of Christ’s death is debated. Some think it has minimal influence on Paul’s teaching; but I side with those who think it is quite central.[2] I have sketched the picture of sacrifice in Paul briefly as we looked at the Old Testament roots of his teaching. I need now to fill out that picture, and I begin by setting forth here texts mentioned earlier, in which Paul explicitly describes Jesus’s death on the cross as a sacrifice. There are, in fact, only five (and three of these are debated):

1. “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice [προσφορὰν καὶ θυσίαν] to God” (Eph 5:1–2).
2. “Christ, our Passover lamb [τὸ πάσχα ἡμῶν], has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:7).
3. “All are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement [ἱλαστήριον ] through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith” (Rom 3:24–25).[3]
4. “God . . . [sent] his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering [περὶ ἁμαρτίας ]” (Rom 8:3).[4]
5. “God made him who had no sin to be sin [ἁμαρτίαν, New International Version footnote: sin offering] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).[5]

While this evidence might seem rather meager, there are, in fact, many other allusions to sacrifice in Paul’s teaching about Jesus’s death. See, for example, Ephesians 2:13–16: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”

Paul uses three apparently parallel expressions to describe the means by which Gentiles have been “brought near” and reconciled with Jews: “the blood of Christ,” “his flesh,” and “the cross.” The parallelism makes clear that the reference in each case is to the death of Christ; and the language of “blood” and “flesh” probably connotes the idea of sacrifice.[6] In a text somewhat parallel to this one in Ephesians, Paul specifies “[in] Christ’s physical body through death” (ἐν τῷ σώματι τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ διὰ τοῦ θανάτου) as the means of reconciliation between humans and God—also probably an allusion to sacrifice (Col 1:22). We may add here the six other passages in which Paul refers to Christ’s blood as the means of redemption. Crucifixion was a relatively bloodless form of execution, so these references also probably allude to sacrifice (Rom 3:25; 5:9; Eph 1:7; Col 1:20).[7] Particularly significant are the references to “blood” and “body” in Paul’s allusions to and quotations of the words of institution from the Last Supper (1 Cor 10:16; 11:25, 27). We may assume that Paul’s churches regularly celebrated the Supper and thus had drilled into them this language, which 1) focuses on Jesus’s death; and 2) interprets that death as a sacrifice. Two other passages use the language of “washing” to depict Christ’s work on behalf of humans (Eph 5:26; Titus 3:6 [λουτρόν]). These words refer often to ritual cleansing in the Old Testament, a cleansing usually accomplished by sacrifice.[8] We may also think that sacrificial allusions lurk in Paul’s frequent claim that Christ’s death provides for “forgiveness of sins” (Rom 3:25; 4:6–8; 2 Cor 5:19; Eph 1:7; Col 1:14; see also Eph 4:32; Col 2:13; 3:13). It is obvious that the “solution” to any problem will have to respond directly to the nature of the problem itself; to use the terms common among Pauline theologians, “solution” and “plight” are bound together. Yet, as we have seen, and as the reference to “forgiveness of sins” indicates, Paul consistently presents the human plight in terms of the sins and transgressions that humans habitually and inevitably commit—often conceived specifically as the breaking of God’s law. The Old Testament, of course, massively presents sacrifice as the means by which sins can be forgiven; and even when the recognition dawns that the sacrifices cannot take care of this sin problem, the ultimate solution is still presented in terms of sacrifice.[9]

Unfortunately, Paul’s teaching about Jesus’s death as a sacrifice remains relatively undeveloped. Arguing that Paul probably takes over the Old Testament teaching about the efficacy of sacrifice does not get us very far, since there is widespread debate about the way those sacrifices atone.[10] It is tolerably clear, however, that the sacrificial system assumes the liability Israelites have incurred because of their sin and that escape from this liability comes via a faith-filled offering of certain sacrifices.[11] Further, as Jay Sklar has argued, the sacrificial system was designed to care, often at the same time, for two related problems: “endangerment” (for example, liability to death) and pollution. The work of atonement (using the כפר root) is designed to care for both problems: both “ransoming” and “purifying” are in view. And the need for a ransom relates to the issue of God’s wrath against sin. The blood shed in death and manipulated by the priest was vital in this work of atonement: “the animal’s lifeblood was accepted as the payment of a mitigated penalty on the sinner’s behalf, graciously accepted by the Lord (the offended party), in this way rescuing the sinner (the offending party) from due punishment and restoring peace to the relationship between the sinner and the Lord.”[12] While clearly beyond our purview and competence, others have made a strong case for the view that Old Testament sacrifices were conceived as having a substitutionary and judicial aspect. God’s wrath, kindled against sin, is appeased as the animal, in place of the worshiper, suffers death.

Does Paul apply this same idea to his interpretation of Jesus’s death? The view we are here discussing is often labeled “penal substitution” today. This view sees Christ as standing in our place, taking on our sins as our substitute and, on the cross, paying in his death the penalty of divine judgment that our sins incurred. While this specific label is of relatively recent origin, this general way of conceiving atonement has been part of the church’s understanding of the cross from the earliest centuries,[13] and it bears at least a family resemblance to the “satisfaction” view put forth by Anselm of Canterbury in his classic Cur Deus Homo. Common to this stream of interpretation is an insistence that the human sin problem cannot be solved unless the righteous judgment of God against sin is somehow dealt with and that the cross was the place where this was done.[14] Penal substitution finds an important place in the Reformation, and many later Protestant theologians elevated it to a place of primacy—a place that my own, quite unscientific, survey of recent Christian praise music suggests that it still has for many believers. Yet several scholars have recently argued that penal substitution is not well supported in Scripture and is even, perhaps, unchristian in its essence. Still others have insisted that, while we may retain the idea in some form, it is only one voice among a much larger chorus of biblical atonement perspectives.

The contemporary debate over this concept is often rooted in a certain conception of the Old Testament sacrificial system. In contrast to the view we have briefly sketched above, many scholars argue that these Old Testament sacrifices were not seen as “substitutes” for sinful humans. The sacrificial victim does not suffer in place of the sinner but because, in some sense the sinner is identified with the sacrifice, it takes sin away.[15] This being the case, it is argued, it is unlikely that Paul thinks of Jesus’s sacrificial death in terms of penal substitution.[16] Rather, Jesus’s death atones for sins because sinners identify with him and share his own victory over sin and its consequences.[17] This issue is complicated by conflicting definitions, which we might characterize as, respectively, “soft” substitution and “hard” substitution.[18] “Soft” substitution or, as it is sometimes called, “inclusive substitution” stresses the sinner’s identification with the death of the sacrificial victim. Jesus’s sacrifice atones for sins because sinners die with him and are brought to new life in him. Advocates of this general approach rightly appeal to Paul’s ubiquitous focus on believers being “in Christ,” with the corresponding idea of our doing things “with” Christ. The word “interchange,” popularized by Morna Hooker, is often used to describe this general focus in Paul’s theology.[19] Christ identifies with us in such a way that he takes on himself our sins and we take on his righteousness. He becomes what we are that we might become what he is, to cite a very old way of putting the matter. However, it is, I think, confusing to use the language of substitution to refer to this idea. On this view, Christ represents us, so that what happens to him happens also to us; but he is not, in any normal sense of the English word, our “substitute.”[20]

Many contemporary Pauline theologians think the “interchange” or “participation” motif looms large in Paul’s theology—and I agree. However, it is a further step to argue, as many do, that this “participatory” conception leaves no room for true substitutionary logic. Christ does not die in our place; we die with him.[21] This further step is not mandated by the logic of these ideas: an appropriate recognition of our participation with Christ does not exclude the substitutionary logic of Christ taking our place. Indeed, a genuinely substitutionary logic is a key mechanism within the interchange model. We can become what Christ is (in a limited sense, of course) because he became what we are—but this “becoming what we are” involves his taking our place: carrying our sin and suffering the just punishment of that sin on our behalf. Paul usually uses participation language to refer to our transfer into the new realm, the power to live for Christ within that realm, and the promise of resurrection and deliverance at the culmination of that realm. Being “with Christ,” in other words, refers broadly to our new realm existence, with focus on the power to live faithfully in that new situation. Christ in our place, on the other hand, focuses quite narrowly on the inauguration of the new realm. While the participation focus certainly captures a significant aspect of Paul’s theology, it does not logically, and should not, exegetically, push out all ideas of substitution. My representative in the national legislature, for instance, votes “in my place” (substitution), at the same time as it can be said that I vote “with” him; as my representative, his vote is my vote. Our participation with Christ in inaugurating redemptive events and his dying for sins on our behalf belong together under the umbrella of Paul’s basic union with Christ conception.[22] The legitimate focus on participation, then, does not eliminate substitution from Paul’s atoning logic.

To argue that the logic of participation and substitution coheres is not, of course, to prove that substitution is actually taught by Paul. For this we turn to other arguments.[23]

First, as we have seen, Paul regularly characterizes Jesus’s death as “for us,” “on our behalf,” using the preposition ὑπέρ. The exact manner in which Christ’s death is “for us” varies in Paul. In 2 Corinthians 5:14, for instance, Christ being “for” us takes the form of representation: “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for [ὑπέρ] all, and therefore all died.” The logic of this claim works only if Paul is thinking of Christ as the “second Adam,” the head of all humans, whose death is, then, our death as well. That Christ dies “for [ὑπέρ] us” means that we all died, in God’s sight, in and with him. This preposition also sometimes takes on the nuance “in place of”; after all, one often acts for someone by doing something in his or her place. G. B. Winer’s comment is widely quoted: “In most cases one who acts in behalf of another takes his place.”[24] “I will work for you today” might mean either “I will serve you by working for you” or “I will help you by myself doing the work you were supposed to do.” Certain occurrences of ὑπέρ in Paul pretty clearly have this “place taking” idea. In Galatians 3:13, for instance, Paul claims that Christ becoming a curse “for [ὑπέρ] us” takes the specific form of Christ receiving the curse in our place.[25] While debated, other texts arguably use the preposition with this sense (Rom 5:6–8; 9:3; 2 Cor 5:14, 21; Titus 2:14; compare 1 Cor 15:29; Philem 13). Paul never uses the preposition that normally conveys a substitutionary sense, ἀντί, although it does occur as a prefix on an important soteriological word, ἀντίλυτρον (“ransom”) in 1 Timothy 2:6.

As I noted in an earlier lecture, the root λυτρο- in this word comes from an important soteriological word group. And, as we have seen, though it is hard to find the notion of “price paid” for release in all occurrences of this word in Paul, some, at least, seem to convey this notion; and this price paid, taking the form of Jesus’s death, obviously supports a substitutionary idea. Here I want to press the significance of this language just a bit further.

If some occurrences of “redemption” language in Paul include the notion of a “price paid,” it is natural to ask a follow-up question: to whom was this “ransom” paid? One response to this question is simply to dismiss it. Since the Bible neither asks this question nor explicitly answers it, we are speculating without any real data to go by, pressing the metaphor beyond the limits of the way it is used in Scripture.[26] However, in this case, Scripture might at least imply an answer to our question. One popular answer in the early church was that the ransom was paid to Satan so that he would release sinners from his control. This view has possible exegetical basis in Paul when in Colossians 2:13–15, the apostle links the forgiveness of sins with the canceling of “the charge of legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us” and goes on to celebrate Christ’s victory over “the powers and authorities.” However, in light of broader biblical teaching, it is likely that the one who demands payment of the debt that our sins have accrued is God, the giver of the law, not Satan. And this appears to receive confirmation from Romans 3:25–26.

Romans 3:21–26 is one of the most significant soteriological texts in the New Testament. It concludes by stressing that Christ’s sacrifice was made in order to demonstrate “the righteousness of God” (ἡ δικαιοσύνη τοῦ θεοῦ, denoted here with the pronoun). Here again debate rages, and I can only briefly comment. In the Old Testament God’s righteousness is most fundamentally his own character as one who always “does right.” “Doing right” for Israel often takes the form of God saving Israel from the judgment of exile. Paul appropriates the way the language is used in these texts to denote God’s commitment to “do right” by saving his new covenant people, now defined christologically. Paul has used the phrase in this sense in verses 21 and 22. Many understandably think the phrase must also have this meaning in verses 25 and 26. But the immediate context points in a different direction. Paul claims that God acted in Christ to display his righteousness “because God had not fully punished sins committed beforehand” (v. 25). Only if “righteousness” here and in verse 26 refers to God’s justice does this connection make sense.[27] In the Old Testament period, Paul is suggesting, God did not punish sins with the full severity he should have. People who sinned should have suffered spiritual death, because they did not yet have an adequate sacrifice to atone for their sins. But in his mercy God “passed over” their sins. In doing so, however, God acted against his character, which requires that he respond to sin with wrath. In giving himself as a “sacrifice of atonement,” Christ paid the price for the sins of all people—both before his time (v. 25) and after (v. 26). All this suggests quite strongly that the price involved in the redemptive work of Christ was paid in order to vindicate God’s righteousness in forgiving sinners. The notion of Christ as our substitute, rendering to God the payment that we could not make, seems clear.[28]

One other controversial word from this same context requires brief comment: ἱλαστήριον. The addition of the phrase “through the shedding of his blood” (“in his blood”) suggests a sacrificial allusion. The particular background here, as most scholars now recognize, is the Leviticus 16 Day of Atonement ritual. The word Paul uses occurs in Leviticus 16 to denote the “mercy seat,” or, as the New International Version puts it, “atonement cover” (note also the only other occurrence of this word in the New Testament [Heb 9:5]). In a beautiful typological picture, Paul presents Christ’s cross as the place where God now deals definitively with human sin.[29] Important for our purposes here, however, is that, while the word refers to the Old Testament “atonement cover,” the word means “propitiation.” The word therefore presents Christ’s death as the means by which God’s wrath is averted. Paul typically thinks of wrath as being inflicted on unbelievers at the time of the judgment (Rom 5:9; 1 Thess 5:10). Those who are in Christ can be certain of escaping God’s wrath on that day because, in keeping with Paul’s usual eschatological perspective, it has been fully absorbed by Christ on the cross. Romans 3:26 summarizes the dense theology of this paragraph: God, Paul says, is both “just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” In the face of human sin and the condemnation under which sinners stand, God has sent Christ as a full final sacrifice for sins as a means of “justifying” believers—putting them in a legal state of righteousness—and remains “just” while doing so because Christ is our substitute, bearing the full judgment we deserve.

As I noted earlier, a pronounced tendency in recent study of Paul has been to downplay concepts of sacrifice and substitution in favor of a more straightforward “liberation” model. The basic human problem on this view is not that people commit sins and must be forgiven but that they are slaves to the power of “Sin” and must be set free from it. Paul’s common reference to “sin” in the singular and his reference to “setting free” and “redemption” show that this way of reading Paul has a basis in his teaching. On the other hand, first, many scholars who take this approach to Paul—labeled the “apocalyptic Paul” movement—isolate this liberative motif at the expense of other emphases. Thus, for instance, Paul’s references to sin in the singular cannot be isolated from his references to sin in the plural. Paul often makes clear that the human dilemma is that people are guilty because they commit sins. “Sin” in the singular appears to be Paul’s way of vividly picturing the power and devastating effects of human sin in the life of human beings. He shows that individual acts of sin constitute a principle, or “network,” of sin that is so pervasive and dominant that the person’s destiny is determined by those actions. In doing so, Paul follows Old Testament precedent, which also pictures sin as a power: it is “crouching at your door; it desires to have you” (Gen 4:7). Note, for instance, how, in Romans 3, Paul buttresses his claim that all are “under sin” (v. 9) by citing a series of Old Testament texts referring to different kinds of sinning (vv. 10–18). Second, we must rightly order the genuine focus on liberation in Paul to the clear focus on sacrifice that we have outlined above. These are sometimes placed on the same level and either contrasted with each other as mutually exclusive options or integrated as two parallel ways of thinking about the work of Christ. It might be better, however, to order these on different levels. On this view, liberation is one of the benefits secured by Christ’s sacrificial death. Several texts in Paul suggest this arrangement. “Redemption” in Romans 3:24 appears to be tied to Christ’s “sacrifice of atonement” in verse 25. Being “set free from the law of sin and death” in Romans 8:2 is based on Christ’s “sin offering” in verse 3. We were “redeemed” by means of Christ becoming a curse for us on the cross (Gal 3:13). Our “redemption,” described also as “forgiveness of sins,” comes via Christ’s “blood” (Eph 1:7). As Henri Blocher has argued, liberation, or the related idea of victory, is, indeed, an important part of biblical teaching about Christ’s work. But the issue, as he puts it, is “How is the battle fought and the victory gained?” And the answer to that question is through the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross.[30]

Conclusion

I return to a point I made at the start: any attempt to chart Paul’s soteriology by dividing what he says into particular categories will inevitably distort his teaching in some way. I am sure that my attempt to map the basic contours of the new realm falls prey to this criticism. While it is useful to identify the diverse blessings of this realm, we must remember that these blessings overlap and combine in various ways. Each approach—focusing on individual concepts or on the way they relate to each other—has advantages. Scot McKnight compares the diversity of images to a golfer who chooses a particular club for a particular shot he or she needs to make.[31] At the same time, if we want to get a sense of Paul’s overall theology, a better metaphor might be the making of a good latte; it will taste delicious only if the ingredients are measured and mixed the right way.[32]

At the risk of pushing alliteration to an extreme, I might summarize these articles with four “m” words. The many spiritual blessings are manifestations of the new realm. And, while the problem is not nearly as widespread or acute as some have made it out to be, there is no doubt that we have sometimes failed to appreciate the breadth and diversity of these manifestations. A concern for this problem motivates some of the recent books on the atonement that offer an expansive meaning of the word. And it is true that we have sometimes focused too exclusively on the individual believer while neglecting the very important focus on the community and the healing of rifts between ethnic, social, and economic groups within that community. Moreover, our preoccupation with the individual has often gotten in the way of appreciating the cosmic scope of God’s purposes. We have limited new realm blessings to forgiveness and a new state of righteousness while not adequately emphasizing the life of righteousness to which we are called.

But I don’t think the answer to this problem is to expand the word “atonement” to include these manifestations of the new realm. Rather, in my view, we more faithfully summarize Scripture if we distinguish manifestations of the new realm and the means and mechanism by which that new realm is inaugurated. Those means encompass the breadth of Christ’s work. Paul, as we have seen, attributes saving significance to Christ’s incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and exaltation—thereby creating important biblical-theological bridges with other New Testament authors, who give greater attention to some of these moments than Paul does (for example, incarnation in John or exaltation in Hebrews). Yet while including the whole gamut of Christ’s life in the means of atonement, for Paul, clearly, it is his death that is the decisive moment. Imitating and continuing a central Old Testament narrative thread, Paul views human sin, and the death, judgment, and wrath it incurs, as the fundamental barrier to God’s purposes.[33] God is, of course, working to create unified and loving communities and a renewed cosmos. But the means by which he is bringing this about, Paul suggests, comes via the renewal of individuals. And this renewal happens only through the appropriation of the benefits of Christ’s death. Jew and Gentile are brought together into one body by means of “the blood of Christ” (Eph 2:13); the entire creation will be “liberated from its bondage to decay” when it is brought into “the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21); the reconciliation of all things takes place by means of “his blood, shed on the cross” (Col 1:20).[34] As human sin first derailed God’s purposes, bringing a curse on the ground as well as on humans (Gen 3:17), so the cure of human sin opens the way to a new creation. And sin, Paul teaches, is dealt with through the sacrificial death of Jesus, who gave himself for us by taking our place, bearing God’s wrath against sin and therefore removing the great obstacle in the way of God’s redeeming work. Here we identify the mechanism that God has employed to take care of the human sin problem: substitutionary sacrificial death. We may, perhaps, think of a series of concentric circles, with the outermost one enclosing the wide sweep of new covenant blessings, the next one enclosing union with Christ, and the inner circle focused on Christ’s sacrificial offering on our behalf. The outer circle, encompassing the incredibly broad range of things God is wanting to accomplish, is, if we are focusing on Paul generally, arguably, in some sense, the most important. But the innermost circles should be our focus if we are wanting to answer the “how” question.[35] Liberation from our slavery to the powers, victory over Satan, peace with God and with other people, a new “home” characterized by righteousness and holiness—all these need to be fundamental themes in our preaching and teaching. But the means to achieve these ends is the sacrificial death of Christ, “for us” and “in our place.”[36] Finally, we return to where we began: the motivation of this new realm in the love, expressed in grace, of the triune God.

Notes

1. See, for example, Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).
2. For example, James D. G. Dunn, A Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 212–18; Stephen Finlan, The Background and Content of Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors, Academia Biblica 19 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004); Hans Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 212–18.
3. While the key word ἱλαστήριονhas long been debated, there is a growing consensus that the word alludes to the Leviticus 16, Day of Atonement ritual. The New International Version translates this word in Leviticus 16 as “atonement cover,” so “sacrifice of atonement” is an attempt to retain a connection between the two passages. The addition of the phrase “through the shedding of his blood” (“in his blood”) suggests a sacrificial allusion. See Douglas J. Moo, The Letter to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2018), 252–57.
4. The Greek περὶ ἁμαρτίας here often translates a Hebrew word meaning “sin offering” in the Septuagint (see Moo, The Letter to the Romans, 502–3).
5. As the New International Version suggests, an allusion to sacrifice in this verse is less clear than in the others. Christ “becoming” sin could well refer simply to his entrance into the full human state of sinfulness. Still, the “for us” that follows could suggest a reference to sacrifice. See our discussion in lecture one (“Because of His Mercy,’ ” Bibliotheca Sacra 177 [January–March 2020]: 3–14).
6. Frank Thielman, Ephesians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 168.
7. Leon Morris (The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955], 108–22) argues that “blood” in such contexts consistently refers to death in both the Septuagint and the New Testament.
8. Note, for example, that λούω occurs 23 times in Leviticus (out of 45 total in the Septuagint).
9. Also relevant are the passages in which Paul uses sacrificial imagery (for example, Rom 12:1; 15:16; 2 Cor 2:14–16[?]; Phil 2:17; 4:18).
10. For example, Peter Leithart has recently argued that Leviticus is important as a background for Paul’s teaching and that when the full picture of Leviticus is considered, Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension must be considered together in the work of atonement (Delivered from the Elements of the World: Atonement, Justification, Mission [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2016], for example, 115).
11. Steve Holmes, “Can Punishment Bring Peace? Penal Substitution Revisited,” Scottish Journal of Theology 58 (2005): 108–10.
12. Jay Sklar, Leviticus: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014), 53.
13. Barry D. Smith, The Meaning of Jesus’ Death: Reviewing the New Testament’s Interpretations (London: Bloomsbury, 2017); see also Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, 154–63.
14. See, for example, Fleming Rutledge, Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 144–46.
15. On the Old Testament cult in this sense, see especially H. Gese, “Atonement,” in Essays in Biblical Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1981). Arguing for a genuine substitutionary sense, however, is Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 57–63.
16. See, for example, Dunn, A Theology of Paul the Apostle, 214–23.
17. As Dunn puts it, Paul’s teaching is not that Christ dies in place of others so that they need not die; rather “Christ’s sharing their death makes it possible for them to share his death” (A Theology of Paul the Apostle, 223). See especially Otfried Hofius, “Sühne und Versöhnung: Zum Paulinischen Verständnis des Kreuzestodes Jesu,” in Paulusstudien, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.51 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 33–49; Richard H. Bell, Deliver Us from Evil: Interpreting the Redemption from the Power of Satan in New Testament Theology, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.216 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007); Joel B. Green and Mark D. Baker, Recovering the Scandal of the Cross: Atonement in New Testament and Contemporary Contexts (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000); Stephen H. Travis, “Christ as Bearer of Divine Judgment in Paul’s Thought about the Atonement,” in Jesus of Nazareth: Lord and Christ: Essays on the Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology, ed. Michael Green and Max Turner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994) 333–45.
18. For a useful analysis of the distinction, see, for example, Sung-Ho Park, Stell-vertretung Jesu Christi im Gericht: Studien zum Verhältnis von Stellvertretung und Kreuztod Jesu bei Paulus, Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 143 (Neukircken-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2015); Bernd Janowski, Stellvertretung: Alttestamentliche Studien zu einem theologischen Grundbegriff, Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 165 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1997); Jorg Frey, “Probleme der Deutung des Todes Jesu in der Neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft: Streiflichter zur exegetischen Diskussion,” in Deutungen des Todes Jesu im Neuen Testament, ed. Jörg Frey and Jens Schröter (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 3–50; Jens Schröter, “Sühne, Stellvertretung und Opfer: Zur Verwendung Analytischer Kategorien zur Deutung des Todes Jesu,” in Deutungen des Todes Jesu im Neuen Testament, 51–71.
19. Morna D. Hooker, “Interchange in Christ,” Journal of Theological Studies 22 (1971): 349–61; see also Morna D. Hooker, “Interchange and Atonement,” in From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 24–41.
20. See also Simon J. Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015), 118–53; Günter Röhser, Stellvertretung im Neuen Testament, Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 195 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2002), 33.
21. See, for example, Dunn, A Theology of Paul the Apostle, 223; Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, 221–23. Paul’s frequent reference to believers dying or being crucified or being buried or being raised or being vindicated “with Christ” (for example, Rom 6:5–8; Gal 2:19–20; Col 2:12–13; Eph 2:5–6; 1 Thess 4:14; Phil 3:21) is the primary textual basis for this participation concept.
22. I. Howard Marshall, Aspects of the Atonement: Cross and Resurrection in the Reconciling of God and Humanity (London: Paternoster, 2007), 91–92; Richard B. Gaffin Jr., “Atonement in the Pauline Corpus: ‘The Scandal of the Cross,’” in The Glory of the Atonement: Biblical, Historical and Practical Perspectives: Essays in Honor of Roger Nicole, ed. Charles E. Hill and Frank A. James III (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 144–45 (“For Paul the participatory or relational involves an inalienable juristic, forensic aspect, and the forensic does not function apart from the relational” [145]). See also the distinction in Francis Turretin between Christ as our “surety,” involving forensic imputation, the foundation of justification, and Christ as our “head,” securing moral and internal infusion—the principle of sanctification (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 3 vols. [1679–85; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1997], Topic 16, Q 3 part VI).
23. Several scholars have recently re-asserted the importance of substitution in our conception of the atonement. See especially Gathercole, Defending Substitution; Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach, eds. Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007); Graham A. Cole, God the Peacemaker: How Atonement Brings Shalom, New Studies in Biblical Theology 25 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 233–57; Marshall, Aspects of the Atonement, 1–67; I. Howard Marshall, “The Theology of the Atonement,” in The Atonement Debate: Papers from the London Symposium on the Theology of the Atonement, ed. Derek Tidball, David Hilborn, and Justin Thacker (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 49–68; William Lane Craig, The Atonement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); and see also Hermann Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 182–93. In his recent book on the atonement, N. T. Wright is unclear on this point. While he distances his view from a traditional “substitutionary” model, he also says: “Jesus, representing Israel and the world, took upon himself the full force of the divine condemnation of Sin itself, so that those ‘in him’ would not suffer it themselves” (The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’ Crucifixion [New York: HarperOne, 2016], 229). Others are content with retaining “penal” but think it is more accurate to refer to “penal representation” (Boersma, Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, 177).
24. See also R. E. Davies, “Christ in Our Place—the Contribution of the Prepositions,” Tyndale Bulletin 21 (1970): 82; Murray J. Harris, Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 211–16; Ridderbos, Paul, 190.
25. Wright (The Day the Revolution Began, 82–83) argues that the curse was removed in order to extend God’s promise to the Gentiles. This is certainly part of what is being said here (“He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles”—v. 14a), but it was also so that soteriological benefits could flow to all of “us”: “so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit” (v. 14b).
26. See, for example, Leon Morris, The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1983), 129–30.
27. Richard N. Longenecker, The Epistle to the Romans: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 434.
28. For a more detailed defense of this interpretation, see Moo, The Letter to the Romans, 257–64.
29. See Moo, The Letter to the Romans, 252–57.
30. Henri A. G. Blocher, “Agnus Victor: The Atonement as Victory and Vicarious Punishment,” in What Does It Mean to Be Saved? Broadening Evangelical Horizons of Salvation, ed. John G. Stackhouse Jr. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 78; also Rutledge, Crucifixion, 530–31. Another reason to put sacrifice at the center of God’s work of atonement is that it adequately answers a key question: Why did God go to the extent of sending his Son to die on a Roman cross to inaugurate the new realm? See, for example, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “The Atonement in Postmodernity: Guilt, Goats, and Gifts,” in The Glory of the Atonement, 389; see also Horton: “What would a God be like who gave up his Son to death if it were not necessary?” (Michael S. Horton, Lord and Servant: A Covenant Christology [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005], 195).
31. A Community Called Atonement (Nashville: Abingdon, 2007), 11–13.
32. Trevor Hart comments, “The plurality of biblical imagery does not seem to be intended purely or even primarily as a selection box from which we may draw what we will according to our needs and the pre-understanding of our community. . . . the metaphors are not to be understood as exchangeable, as if one might simply be substituted for another without net gain or loss, but complementary, directing us to distinct elements in and consequences of the fullness of God’s saving action in Christ and the Spirit” (“Redemption and Fall,” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine, ed. Colin E. Gunton [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], 190). See also Gaffin, “Atonement in the Pauline Corpus,” 154–56.
33. The juridical imagery of this atonement perspective is identified as central also by, for example, Henri Blocher, “Biblical Metaphors and the Doctrine of the Atonement,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 47 (2004): 645. With respect to those, for instance, who privilege the Christus Victor model over others, he asks the pertinent question: “How is the battle fought and the victory gained?” (“Agnus Victor: The Atonement as Victory and Vicarious Punishment,” 78; see also Jeremy Treat, The Crucified King: Atonement and Kingdom of God in Biblical and Systematic Theology [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014]).
34. It is possible that we might find the same idea in 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.” In light of Colossians 1:20, a clear parallel text, “world” might refer to the cosmos, and the reconciliation of the cosmos takes place as God forgives the sins of humans (for this view of the verse, see, for example, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “Reconciliation in Pauline Theology,” in No Famine in the Land: Studies in Honor of John L. Mckenzie, ed. James W. Flanagan and Anita Weisbrod Robinson [Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1975], 161; Richard A. Bauckham, The Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation [Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010], 175 [hesitantly]).
35. Note, in this regard, Colossians 2:13–15. Paul implies that the victory over the powers (v. 15) comes by means of the forgiveness of sins (v. 13) and the removal of the legal basis for condemnation (v. 14). In Romans 5, also, “reigning in life” is the product of “the [forensic] gift of righteousness” (v. 17; see also v. 18 [δικαίωσινζωῆς, perhaps “justification leading to life”] and v. 21: “grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life”).
36. Horton, Lord and Servant, 252. What atonement theory we privilege will depend, then, to some extent, on what we are talking about. For instance, Michael Bird, while not dismissing other atonement perspectives, claims the Christus Victor model is the “crucial integrative hub” of atonement theories, “the canopy under which the other modes of atonement gain their currency.” But he also affirms that “Jesus’ substitutionary death constitutes the basis and center of the divine victory” (Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013], 414, 418).

“Christ Died For Us”

By Douglas J. Moo

[Douglas J. Moo is Wessner Chair of Biblical Studies, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.]

[This is the third article in the four-part series “Salvation in Paul’s Epistles,” delivered as the W. H. Griffith Thomas lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, February 5–8, 2019.]

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
—Romans 5:8

In the first two lectures, I surveyed in a cursory fashion the “why” and the “what” of salvation in Paul. The grace and love of the triune God are the motive for the inauguration of the new realm, even as God’s glory is its end. This new realm is filled with spiritual blessings that people, transferred into this realm from the old realm, enjoy. We now turn to the critical question of “how” God makes it possible for these blessings to be conferred on believers.

The Breadth Of Atoning Events

Our focus is on the founding events of the new realm, particularly Christ’s death and resurrection. These events constitute for Paul the heart of the “good news,” as the famous summary in 1 Corinthians 15:1–8 makes clear:

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.[1]

Paul’s concern in this context, as the elaboration in verses 5–8 suggests, is with the third point in this summary: “he was raised.” But he sets this point in the broader context of the essential elements of the gospel he preaches: Jesus died, was buried,[2] was raised, and (proving that resurrection) “appeared” to many. The language Paul uses to introduce this passage makes clear that he is citing tradition: what he “passes on” (παρέδωκα) to the Corinthians is something he himself has “received” (παρέλαβον) (v. 3; compare also v. 1). It is entirely to be expected that the earliest Christians would have grappled with the significance of these redemptive events. Why did the Messiah have to die? What does the resurrection accomplish? Peter’s speech in Acts 2 reveals one early attempt to answer these questions—and, of course, Jesus himself addressed this issue in his own teaching. Paul assures the Corinthians that his teaching is located within this developing Christian tradition. Paul undoubtedly contributes significantly to this tradition. But we should not forget that he is not creating theology on this point, but developing and extending a theology that was already in place.

Paul’s brief outline of the “gospel I preach” focuses on the end of Jesus’s life. The history of theologizing about the atoning value of Jesus’s work has followed suit, with Jesus’s death on the cross as the focus of attention. However, we should begin by noting that Paul can attribute general soteriological significance to the entire “Christ event.” In Ephesians 3:11, he refers to “his [God’s] eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In 2 Timothy 2:9–10, he refers to the “appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” When Paul becomes more specific about this “in Christ,” he mentions nine different “moments” in the story of Christ that have some kind of soteriological value:

Pre-existence. See Ephesians 1:4: “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”

Incarnation. See for example, 2 Corinthians 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” See also Romans 8:3; Galatians 4:4.

Life. As noted above, it is possible, maybe probable, that Paul’s references to Jesus’s obedience (Rom 5:19; Phil 2:8) at least include Jesus’s life of faithful submission to the will of his Father, culminating at the cross.

Death. Paul refers to Jesus’s death in several ways: cross/crucify; blood; “flesh” (Eph 2:15; see cross in v. 16; compare also Col. 1:22); “handed over” (Rom 4:25; 8:32; Gal 2:20; Eph 5:2, 25; note 2 Cor 4:11, referring to Paul: “given over to death” [εἰς θάνατον παραδιδόμεθα]; compare also “gave himself” in Gal 1:4). References to Jesus’s sufferings probably focus mainly on Jesus’s death, but may include his “passion” more generally (2 Cor 1:5).

Burial. Christ’s burial is one of the elements of the gospel Paul passes on to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15:4); in Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12 he implies that believers benefit from their identification with Christ in his burial.

• Resurrection (Rom 4:25; 5:10; 7:4; 14:9; 2 Cor 4:10–11; 5:15; 13:4; 1 Thess. 1:10).
• Exaltation/Ascension (Rom 8:34; Eph 4:8–10).
• Intercessory Ministry (Rom 8:34; 1 Cor 1:8; Phil 1:6).
• Coming Again in Glory (for example, Phil 3:20–21; 1 Thess 1:10; 4:16–17).

This list should not deceive us into thinking that Paul is always interested in investing one moment above others with particular significance. These various moments are finally all of one piece, and we should be wary of too neatly distinguishing them. For instance, being “handed over,” which we have included above under Christ’s death, may include (or at least imply) his being “sent” into this world and the life of obedience that eventuated in the cross.

We noted earlier that in recent years scholars have criticized traditional atonement theories for being too narrow, in the sense that they have been preoccupied with the means of redemption at the expense of the outcome of redemption. Scholars have criticized traditional views for being too narrow in another sense as well: for focusing too exclusively on Christ’s death while inappropriately minimizing other aspects of Christ’s redemptive work, such as his life, his resurrection, and his exaltation.[3] When considering the

New Testament as a whole, this criticism may to an extent be justified. The Gospel of John attributes redemptive significance to the great sweep of Christ’s coming to earth and being “lifted up” on the cross. The Letter to the Hebrews, as has recently been emphasized, highlights the atoning significance of Christ’s ascent to and ministry in the heavenly tabernacle. And, while the Gospels clearly present the death of Christ as the culmination of his work, we should not neglect the theological significance of his life and teaching.[4]

However, the claim that we have focused too much attention on Jesus’s death has less force when we consider Paul’s letters. This is particularly so when we zoom in on the issue we are concerned with in 1 Corinthians 15: the inauguration of the new realm. Many of the soteriological benefits associated with various aspects of Christ’s life have more to do with the believer’s entry into the new realm, or ultimate salvation within that realm, than with God’s inauguration of that realm in Christ. We are reminded here again of the difficulty of neatly separating the work of God in Christ in inaugurating the new realm from our appropriation of that work as we enter that realm. However, if we ask which events Paul cites in the life of Christ as the basis for bringing people into the new realm, his focus on Christ’s death emerges clearly. Paul never explicitly cites Jesus’s earthly life as having soteriological value, although, as we have seen, references to Christ’s obedience in Romans 5:19 and Philippians 2:8 might include Jesus’s life.[5] Paul ties the inauguration of the new realm to Jesus’s incarnation once (2 Cor 8:9; compare Gal 4:4?), to Jesus’s resurrection five times (Rom 1:4 [?]; 4:25; 5:10; Eph 1:19–23; Col 2:12)—and to Jesus’s death 28 times. The implication of these statistics is confirmed by explicit references. In the 1 Corinthians 15 text quoted above, for instance, it is only Jesus’s death that Paul claims is “for our sins” (1 Cor 15:3). Paul elsewhere summarizes his message in terms of the “message of the cross” (1 Cor 1:18; see also 1:17; Gal 3:1; 6:14; Eph 2:16; Phil 3:18; Col 1:20; 2:14). Of course, there are clear rhetorical reasons for this focus on the cross in some contexts, where Paul is countering a spirit of triumphalism with a reminder of the believer’s cruciform existence. And not all these references are connected directly to soteriology. But the focus remains clear enough. Paul’s focus is clearly and unarguably on the cross as the decisive event in securing salvation for the people of God; any atonement theory that lays claim to Paul’s witness must account for that focus.

Before moving on to probe the significance of Jesus’s death for Paul, we should briefly comment on the significance of resurrection for our subject.[6] In general, Paul’s references to Christ’s resurrection take on seven patterns. Christ’s resurrection:

1. Is critical to faith (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 15:14, 17; compare 2 Tim 2:8–9);
2. Is simply paired with death (Rom 4:25; 5:9–10; 6:3–10; 7:4; 8:17, 34; 14:9; 1 Cor 15:3–4; 2 Cor 4:10–12; 5:14–15; 1 Thess 4:14);
3. Is contrasted with Jesus’s earthly life (Rom 1:3–4; 1 Tim 3:16; 2 Tim 2:8–9);
4. Leads to exaltation (Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; 2:6–7);
5. Guarantees the resurrection of believers (Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:13–14; 1 Thess 4:14);
6. Leads to new life/power for the Christian life (Rom 6:4; 7:4; Col 3:1);
7. Confers soteriological benefit (Rom 1:4 [?]; 4:25; 5:10).

Several points in this list deserve comment.

First, Paul’s very common pairing of death and resurrection captures what is, for him, a fundamental pattern of Christ’s life.[7]

On one hand, this pattern provides a template for the lives of his followers, who by identifying with Christ’s death are assured of new life and are called on to lead lives of humiliation, service, and even suffering in order to enjoy new life and ultimate resurrection life. See especially 2 Corinthians 4:10–12:

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.[8]

At the same time, the two events in this pattern are often cited as the basis for benefits granted the believer: Christ’s death providing the basis for initial entrance into the new realm, with his resurrection providing the basis for faithful living in that realm (see especially Rom 5:10; 6:3–8; 7:4; 2 Tim 2:11–12). It is then, as believers participate in this life and are represented before God by this “living one,” that they find hope for ultimate vindication in the judgment of God. As I noted in an earlier lecture, Paul’s concept of justification includes not only a decisive moment of entrance into divine favor at conversion, but also a final declaration of “being right with God” in the judgment to come. Christ’s resurrected life is important as the means by which this final verdict will be confirmed.

Second, while this pattern might suggest we can neatly link the death of Christ to our entry into the new life, and the resurrection to its ultimate confirmation, Paul’s theology resists such a neat categorization. Death and resurrection are together fundamental for both aspects of our salvation. Romans 4:25 is especially important, since it claims that Jesus’s resurrection contributes to our justification (taking the Greek preposition διά to mean “for the benefit of”). We could perhaps think that Paul is focusing on the final aspect of justification, but this is unlikely in the context. Perhaps Paul is suggesting that, while Christ’s death is the definitive moment of justification, the resurrection was also necessary as the moment when that “justification” in its more positive aspect—a new status of “rightness”—was secured.[9] We may helpfully compare the (probably traditional) christological claim Paul makes in 1 Timothy 3:16: Christ “was vindicated [ἐδικαιώθη, “was justified”] by the Spirit.”[10]

The Meaning Of Jesus’s Death

Martin Hengel claims that Jesus’s atoning death and resurrection is “the most frequent and most important confessional statement in the Pauline Epistles.”[11] This observation is easily confirmed by even a cursory reading of Paul’s letters. However, what is somewhat surprising is that, while Paul repeatedly stresses the central importance of Christ’s death “for our sins” and his resurrection, he rarely comments directly on the way in which Christ’s death and resurrection takes care of the human sin problem. We may surmise that this was not an issue in the churches of Paul and that, for this reason, he had no need to address the matter in any detail.

However, while our evidence is not as abundant or as clear as we might like, Paul provides enough data for us to get a good general sense of how he views the significance of Christ’s death.

We begin at the most basic level: Paul’s frequent claim that Christ died “on behalf of” believers. He makes this point, using the preposition ὑπέρ, sixteen times.[12] Most of the occurrences of the preposition in these texts have a personal object. Romans 5:8 is typical: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (see also Rom 5:6; 14:15; 2 Cor 5:14–15; 1 Thess 5:10). Similarly, Paul speaks of Christ being “crucified” for us (1 Cor 1:13), “giving” himself for us (using a form of παραδίδωμι: Rom 8:32; Gal 2:20; Eph 5:2, 25; using δίδωμι: 1 Tim 2:6; Titus 2:14), being made sin for us (2 Cor 5:21), and becoming a curse for us (Gal 3:13). In a departure from normal Greek usage, Paul also speaks of Christ dying (1 Cor 15:3) or “giving himself” “for our sins” (Gal 1:4).[13] Paul’s use of both these formulas makes clear that Christ dying “for us” has atoning significance: it is by dealing with our sins that Christ’s death benefits us.[14] In dying, Christ takes on himself “the consequences of our sins.”[15]

If we probe just how Christ’s death is “on our behalf,” we naturally turn to the Old Testament, which has such a formative influence on Paul’s theology. Indeed, in 1 Corinthians 15:1–8, Paul claims that Christ’s death “for our sins” was “according to the Scriptures”—κατὰ τὰς γραφάς (v. 3). It is probable that this phrase modifies both parts of the previous sentence: it is not only Christ’s death that is “according to the Scriptures,” but Christ’s-death-for-sins.[16] It is not clear just which Old Testament texts Paul might have in view here. Nor does it help to look at Paul’s teaching elsewhere. Somewhat surprisingly, he never explicitly cites an Old Testament text to illuminate or explain the death of Christ for us. Most interpreters, however, rightly consider that the figure of the Servant in the fourth “servant song” (Isa 52:13–52:12) is a key Old Testament source for Paul’s thinking about Jesus’s death, especially in 1 Corinthians 15:3. As is well known, the Servant in this passage suffers and is “handed over” (in the Septuagint) to death because of the sins of the people. See especially:

Verse 5a: “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities”; Septuagint: “But he was wounded because of our acts of lawlessness and has been weakened because of our sins [διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν]” (New English Translation of the Septuagint);

Verse 8b: “for the transgression of my people he was punished”; Septuagint: “he was led to death on account of the acts of lawlessness of my people” (New English Translation of the Septuagint);

Verse 12, Septuagint: “because his soul was given over to death, and he was reckoned among the lawless, and he bore the sins of many [διὰ τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν παρεδόθη]” (New English Translation of the Septuagint).[17]

This is the only passage in the Old Testament in which someone’s death is pictured as “for” or “in place of” others. The profile of this servant figure, as one who dies because of and for the sake of the sins of the people, provides an obvious source for Paul’s elaboration of the meaning of Jesus’s death—a connection that had already been forged in the Christian tradition, going back to Jesus himself.[18] But there is no reason to think that Isaiah 53 is the only part of the “Scriptures” that Paul has in view here. The tradition before him, for instance, used psalms that describe the suffering and vindication of a “righteous person” (often, David himself) to characterize Jesus’s death (for example, Pss 22, 69).[19] That we hear words from one of these psalms on the lips of Jesus in Romans 15:3 (Ps 69:9b) makes clear that Paul was familiar with this tradition.

Another important Old Testament source for Paul’s interpretation of Jesus’s death is the Old Testament sacrificial system. The “Scriptures” Paul cites in 1 Corinthians 15:3 probably include reference to this tradition. We must remember that these passages and concepts do not exist in watertight compartments. The sin-bearing work of the Servant of Isaiah 53 is interpreted in sacrificial terms: “the Lord makes his life an offering for sin [Heb. אָשָׁם; Septuagint περὶ ἁμαρτίας]” (v. 10). While it is debated, Paul’s use of this same phrase in Romans 8:3 is probably a further allusion to this sacrifice (see New International Version, New Living Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, Christian Standard Bible).[20] This “sin offering,” also called a “guilt offering” (most English versions) or a “reparation offering” (New American Bible; compare New Jerusalem Bible), is prescribed in Leviticus 5:14–6:7. “Reparation” is argued to be the better rendering, because the text emphasizes that the sin involves a “direct offence against the Lord.”[21] The slaughter and offering of the animal “makes atonement” (Lev 6:7). However, the background for Paul’s sacrificial language should not be confined to one sacrifice. He also compares Christ to “the Passover lamb” (1 Cor 5:7) and, as we will argue below, also refers to the Day of Atonement ritual in Leviticus 16, referenced in Romans 3:25. And the words of institution that Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 11:24–25—“This is my body, which is for [ὑπέρ] you,” and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”—are ultimately allusions to the covenant-inaugurated sacrifice of Exodus 24:8 and, probably, to the Passover Lamb as well. Finally, Paul also alludes in Romans 8:32 to the Genesis 22 story about Abraham’s “sacrifice” of Isaac. Compare the first part of this verse—“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all” (ὅς γε τοῦ ἰδίου υἱοῦ οὐκ ἐφείσατο ἀλλ᾿ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν πάντων παρέδωκεν αὐτόν)—with Genesis 22:12: “You have not withheld from me your son, your only son” (Septuagint, οὐκ ἐφείσω τοῦ υἱοῦ σου τοῦ ἀγαπητοῦ).

Of course, Paul also ties God’s redemptive work in Jesus into the larger biblical story. He utilizes two levels in this story to interpret the work of Christ: the broad human story in which Adam and Christ function as representative heads of humanity, and the story of Israel, with a particular focus on the plight created by her sin and idolatry and the anticipated rescue from that plight in a fresh and spectacular work of God.

While, as so often is the case, the Old Testament and Jewish teaching provide the key background for Paul’s theologizing, we should not neglect the larger Greco-Roman world, where the idea of giving one’s life for another was fairly widespread. Recent discussion of Jesus’s vicarious death has drawn attention, for instance, to the Greek “heroic death” motif, which features a person dying in order to avert a catastrophe.[22]

Notes

1. Quotations of Scripture come from the New International Version, unless noted otherwise.
2. Paul does not ascribe any explicit soteriological value to Jesus’s burial. Paul probably includes it here, and in Romans 6:3–4 and Colossians 2:11–15, to attest to the reality of Christ’s death.
3. For example, Peter J. Leithart (Delivered from the Elements of the World: Atonement, Justification, Mission [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2016]) argues that the pattern of the Levitical sacrifices, whose efficacy is based on several distinct “moments,” and not on death alone, is reason to think Christ’s atoning work likewise includes his life, death, resurrection, and ascension (for example, p. 115).
4. For criticism of the tendency to ignore Jesus’s life in atonement discussions, see, for example, N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’ Crucifixion (New York: HarperOne, 2016), 170–73, 195–200; Leithart, Delivered from the Elements of the World, 115, et al.
5. On one reading of 2 Corinthians 5:19, God’s reconciling activity is the product of his “being in Christ”—probably a reference to the entire life of Christ. Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 442–43. This conclusion assumes the much-debated point that the syntax of the verse consists of an independent clause—“God was in Christ”—followed by an adverbial participle—“reconciling the world” (New Living Translation—rather than a periphrastic construction—“God was reconciling the world in [or through] Christ” (New International Version, English Standard Version, New Revised Standard Version, Common English Bible, Christian Standard Bible).
6. For an emphasis on the theological centrality of resurrection in Paul, see Beale: “The majority of Paul’s doctrines ultimately derive from his continuing reflection on Christ’s resurrection as a new creation and escalation of the kingdom that he has already begun to establish” (G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011], 297).
7. Ridderbos plausibly suggests that death and resurrection were basic for Paul, and thus his inclusion of other moments in Jesus’s life involve moving backward (for example, incarnation, life) and forward (ascension, session) from this center focus (Hermann Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975], 54).
8. See also, for example, Rom 5:9; 8:17; 2 Cor 5:14–15; 13:4; Phil 3:10–11.
9. See, for example, Michael Horton, Justification, New Studies in Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018), 2:257–80.
10. On the soteriological significance of the resurrection, see especially Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978); and also I. Howard Marshall, Aspects of the Atonement: Cross and Resurrection in the Reconciling of God and Humanity (London: Paternoster, 2007), 68–97. I should note, however, that, as the New International Version translation “vindicated” suggests, it is also possible that Paul is using δικαιόω in this verse with a meaning unrelated to the doctrine of justification.
11. Martin Hengel, The Atonement: The Origins of the Doctrine in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 37; see also Simon J. Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015), 78.
12. Martin Gaukesbrink, Die Sühnetradition bei Paulus: Rezeption und theologischer Stellenwert, Forschung zur Bibel (Würzburg: Echter, 1999), 261.
13. See Reimund Bieringer, “Dying and Being Raised For: Shifts in the Meaning of Hyper in 2 Cor 5:14–15, ” in Theologizing in the Corinthian Conflict: Studies in the Exegesis and Theology of 2 Corinthians, ed. Reimund Beiringer et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 167.
14. Contra Cilliers Breytenbach, “‘Christus Starb für Uns’: Zur Tradition und Paul-inischen Rezeption der sogenannten ‘Sterbeformeln,’” New Testament Studies 49 (2003): 447–75.
15. Simon J. Gathercole, “The Cross and Substitutionary Atonement,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 21 (2003): 160–61; “for the removal of sins,” see also Bieringer (“Dying and Being Raised,” 167).
16. Wolfgang Schrage, Die Erste Brief an die Korinther, vol. 4: 1Kor 15, 1–16, 24, Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament (Neukirken-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2001), 34.
17. Two other passages in Paul may allude to the servant figure in connection with Jesus’s death: Romans 4:25—“He was delivered over to death for our sins” (ὃς παρεδόθη διὰ τὰ παραπτώματα ἡμῶν); compare Isaiah 53:12; and Romans 5:19b—“through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous”; compare Isaiah 53:11b: “by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many.” See Douglas J. Moo, The Letter to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2018), 288, 345.
18. For the view that Isaiah 53 was important in Jesus’s own description of his death, see Douglas J. Moo, The Old Testament in the Gospel Passion Narratives (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1983), 79–172.
19. See, again, Moo, The Old Testament in the Gospel Passion Narratives, 225–300.
20. Moo, The Letter to the Romans, 480.
21. See, for example, Nobuyoshi Kiuchi, Leviticus, Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2007), 116. Jay Sklar sees the betrayal of covenant loyalty to be the fundamental issue with which this sacrifice deals (Leviticus: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014], 118–25).
22. A notable example of this tradition is Alcetis, who, in the play of that name by Euripides, gives herself to death in place of her husband Admetus. See, on this tradition, Christina Eschner, Gestorben und Hingegeben “für” die Sünder: Die griechische Konzeption des Unheil abwendenden Sterbens und deren Paulinische Aufnahme für die Deutung des Todes Jesu Christi, 2 vols., Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 122 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2010). See also Gathercole, Defending Substitution, 85–107 (with particular focus on Rom 5:6–8); Michael Wolter, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2015), 101–2.

“Every Spiritual Blessing”

By Douglas J. Moo

[Douglas J. Moo is Wessner Chair of Biblical Studies, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.]

[This is the second article in the four-part series “Salvation in Paul’s Epistles,” delivered as the W. H. Griffith Thomas lectures at Dallas Theological Seminary, February 5–8, 2019.]

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
—Ephesians 1:3

In my first lecture, I focused on the “why” of salvation in Paul. God inaugurates the new realm and all the blessings we enjoy in it, because in his grace and love he chooses to do so. He ultimately does so for his own glory.

In this second lecture, we turn to the “what” of salvation. In an inevitably cursory way, we want to get a sense of the features of the landscape of salvation in Paul, beginning with the general contours of Paul’s concept of salvation.

General Contours Of Paul’s Soteriological Landscape

When we look over the new realm with the widest perspective, we see Christ. Union with Christ is the fundamental and all-encompassing blessing—and source—of the new realm. The text from Ephesians quoted above ends with the phrase “in Christ,” and this phrase or its equivalent is the leitmotif of the long sentence this verse introduces (Eph 1:3–14). Paul uses “in Christ” language so often and in so many contexts that the union-with-Christ concept it denotes deserves to be considered as the center of Paul’s theology. In terms of our purposes here, then, our being “in Christ” is the fundamental blessing from which all the others flow.

Focusing our survey of the new realm a bit more narrowly, five general conceptions stand out.

First, “new creation.” This might seem like an odd starting point, since the phrase occurs only twice in Paul (Gal 6:15; 2 Cor 5:17). We begin here because we think this conception is the most general of those under consideration: it encompasses the breadth of God’s new realm work. To be sure, many interpreters think it refers narrowly to the Christian, as a “new creation” in Christ. This view is represented in the English Standard Version translation of 2 Corinthians 5:17a: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Others think “new creation” refers to the new community, especially in its Galatian context. However, the phrase, which appears nowhere else in the New Testament and not at all in the Septuagint, probably echoes Isaiah’s expansive vision of God’s redemptive work extending to the entire cosmos, encom-passing “new heavens and a new earth” (Isa 65:17; see 66:22). Jewish authors sometimes used “new creation” in this sense (for example, Jub 1:29, 4:26, 1 En 72:1, 1QS 4:25, and 2 Bar 44:12). “New creation” is Paul’s shorthand for the entirety of God’s redemptive work, the new state of affairs inaugurated by Christ, including individual renewal, community restoration, and cosmic redemption.[1] The phrase is therefore an important reminder that the new realm, while existing in this era mainly in transformed individuals and the church, will one day encompass nothing less than all the created universe.

A second general feature of the new realm is “new covenant.” Surprisingly, in light of its importance in the Old Testament and in Paul’s Jewish environment, Paul uses the word “covenant” (διαθήκη) only nine times. “Covenants”—perhaps referring to the several iterations of God’s covenant with Israel—signal God’s special gifts to Israel (Rom 9:4; see also Eph 2:12, “covenants of promise”). At the outset of Israel’s history stands the promissory covenant God entered into with Abraham (Gal 3:17; compare also Rom 11:27, in light of 11:28). The contrast between “covenants” in Galatians 4:24 suggests that this Abrahamic covenant finds its fulfillment, or culmination, in a covenant that brings God’s people into the new realm of freedom. This contrast between the “old” covenant of Sinai and the new covenant inaugurated in Christ is explicit in 2 Corinthians 3 (see vv. 6, 14). The foundational nature of “new covenant” in Paul is implied also by his citation of Christ’s “word of institution” over the cup in the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:25).

However, I would argue that “new covenant,” as a concept, is far more important in Paul than the number of explicit references indicate.[2] Paul’s regular description of the church as the place where Old Testament prophecies of restoration are being fulfilled confirms the textual evidence (cited above) that he has taken over the fundamental “covenant” structure of the prophets. Arguing that the people of Israel had broken the original covenant (Isa 24:5; Jer 11:10; 22:9; 31:32; 34:18; Ezek 16:59; 17:18, 19; 44:7; Hos 6:7; 8:1), the prophets predict that God will enter into a “new covenant” with his people (Jer 31:31; compare Isa 59:21)—an “everlasting covenant” (Isa 55:3; 61:8; Jer 32:40; 50:5; Ezek 16:60–62; 25:26), or “covenant of peace” (Isa 54:10; Ezek 34:25, 26) that the servant of the Lord will inaugurate (Isa 42:6; 49:8). Paul reflects this fundamental “covenant” structure in frequent claims that Old Testament prophecies about the new covenant are fulfilled in the church of his day (for example, Hos 1:10; 2:20 in Rom 9:25–26; Isa 11:10 in Rom 15:12; Isa 49:8 in 2 Cor 6:2; Jer 32:38 and Ezek 37:27 in 2 Cor 6:16).[3] Paul’s claim that the church of his day is the place where God’s new covenant is being enacted is especially clear in his claim that believers enjoy distinctive new covenant blessings. Standing out among these blessings is the bestowal of God’s Spirit.

The “gift of the Spirit” is, then, the third broad contour in Paul’s landscape of salvation. The prophets predicted that in the last days, God would pour out his Spirit on his people (Isa 44:3; 59:21; Ezek 11:19; 36:26–27; 37:14; 39:29; Zech 12:10 [?]; Joel 2:28–32). The eschatological gift of the Spirit comes upon God’s people for the first time at Pentecost (Acts 2) and becomes the decisive mark of true conversion (Acts 8:15–19; 9:17; 10:44–47 [compare 11:15–16]; 19:6). For Paul, also, possession of the Spirit is the key identifying mark of belonging to the eschatological people of God. When he reminds the Galatians of their entry into salvation, he puts it in terms of receiving the Spirit (3:2, 3, 5). Romans 8:9 is especially clear: “You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ” (see also Rom 8:14; 1 Cor 12:13; 2 Cor 1:22; 5:5; 11:4; Gal 4:6; Eph 1:13; 4:30).

Fourth, and continuing the focus on blessings given to believers, is “salvation.”[4] Paul refers to this concept over sixty times. While a few instances are debated, it is likely that every occurrence of the word group in Paul refers to deliverance in a theological sense.[5] “Salvation” is an umbrella soteriological concept in Paul,[6] most likely taken from key Old Testament prophecies, especially in Isaiah, involving God’s promise to deliver his people Israel and restore them to their inheritance.[7] “By this gospel you are saved” is Paul’s introduction to his famous summary of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8. Christ followers can be described generally as “those who are being saved” (1 Cor 1:18; 2 Cor 2:15); the Christian message is “the gospel of your salvation” (Eph 1:13). While these texts make clear that salvation covers the entirety of Christian experience, salvation language often focuses on the time of ultimate deliverance: our salvation, Paul writes to the Roman Christians, is “nearer than when we first believed” (Rom 13:11). Paul typically uses salvation in an absolute sense. But he occasionally also specifies what believers are saved from: the final outpouring of wrath (Rom 5:9; compare 1 Thess. 5:9; compare 1 Cor 3:15, with its comparison between being “saved” and “escaping through the flames”) and, once, what they are saved for: “his heavenly kingdom” (2 Tim 4:18, NRSV).[8]

A fifth umbrella conception is “life.” “Life,” as we would expect, is often contrasted with “death.” With Genesis 3 in view, Paul at times uses death to refer to the judgment under which all people fall because of sin. As its opposite, “life” often has an additional forensic flavor (note, for example, its contrast with “wrath” in Romans 2:8, and with “condemnation” in 5:18). However, Paul ultimately uses the language of life so widely that it should also be seen as a general way of connoting the blessings of the new realm. For example, 2 Corinthians 2:15–16 says, “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?” Paul often qualifies “life” as “eternal” (αἰώνιος; see Rom 2:7; 5:21; 6:22, 23; Gal 6:8; 1 Tim 1:16; 6:12; Titus 1:2; 3:7). More so than “salvation,” “life” refers approximately equally in Paul to the life believers already enjoy, and to the life they will finally enjoy in the consummated kingdom.[9] When life refers to this “not yet” side of our experience, it often indicates, or is associated with, resurrection (1 Cor 15:42, 45; see also Gal 6:8).

Specific Features Of Paul’s Soteriological Landscape

With the general contours now in place, we can zero in on some of the more specific features of Paul’s soteriological landscape. Here, however, the map gets more complicated, even confused. Landforms are not always clearly marked; one folds into another. Paul employs many different terms and images to depict the blessings of the new realm. We run the danger of artificially isolating concepts that are intertwined with others or of imposing a structure on Paul’s teaching that is simply not there. However, while the risk of oversimplifying and overgeneralizing is real, it seems possible to identify some of the main features of Paul’s soteriology.

Paul typically presents the contours of the new realm in terms of a contrast with the old realm. Sometimes he does so explicitly, and sometimes implicitly. We propose, then, to get a sense of the rich and variegated map of new-realm salvation by identifying and analyzing the specific word images Paul uses to portray the transfer from old realm to new—from “plight” to “solution,” to use language popular with modern Pauline theologians.

Justification: Overcoming Condemnation

The best-known new-realm blessing in Paul is “justification.” The concept of justification is closely aligned with key words from the δικαι- root. The three key words are the noun δικαιοσύνη (“righteousness”), which Paul uses 57/58 times, the verb δικαιόω (“justify”), which occurs 27 times in Paul, and the adjective δίκαιος (“righteous,” “just”), which appears 18 times. This vocabulary is not spread evenly across the Pauline corpus, being clustered in Romans, Galatians, and Philippians 3. Also, as we will see, not all these words contribute to the concept of justification.

In a break with most of the Christian tradition, the Protestant Reformers insisted that God’s justifying work is a purely judicial action; we might add “forensic alone” to the list of well-known Reformation solas (“faith alone,” “grace alone,” etc.).[10] The Reformers’ insistence on this point set them at odds with the bulk of the Roman Catholic tradition, a situation highlighted at the Council of Trent, where the claim was made that justification is “not the remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man” (chap. 7). The theological landscape is much more complex these days, with some Roman Catholics giving greater attention to the forensic element, while some Protestants explicitly distance themselves from a “forensic only” view. We will analyze reasons for this shift below, but begin by briefly sketching why a “forensic only” view of justification is correct.

First, Paul’s use of the verb δικαιόω takes up the use of the Hiphil form of צדק in the Old Testament. This verb means “declare righteous,” not “make righteous.” Its forensic flavor is undeniable.

Second, several contexts in which Paul uses the verb make clear that he retains this forensic focus. In Romans 2:13, for instance, δικαιόω, “justify,” as well as the adjective δίκαιος, “righteous,” are antonyms of “judge” and “condemn” (κρίνω and ἀπόλλυμι): “All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.” Similarly, in Romans 8:33–34, δικαιόω, “justify,” is the opposite of κατακρίνω, “condemn”: “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” Paul’s insistence that justification is “before God” also lends a judicial flavor to the word (Rom 3:20; Gal 3:11). Paul links justification with the forgiveness of sins (Rom 4:5–8). He views justification in parallel with reconciliation, which is a matter of restored relationship rather than transformation (Rom 5:9–10; compare 2 Cor 5:14–21). Also significant are contexts where Paul does not use δικαιόω with reference to justification per se, but where the word clearly has a judicial flavor (1 Cor 4:4; 1 Tim 3:16). Paul cites two Old Testament texts to buttress his teaching about justification (Gen 15:6 and Hab 2:4), and, while there is controversy over both texts, they arguably use δικ- words in the sense of standing with God. Paul uses a number of “minor” words from the δικ- root; these also have a distinctly forensic flavor.[11] Finally, we add an argument from silence (which by its nature cannot be overly compelling). It is striking that, after having developed a clear teaching about justification in Romans 1–5, Paul in Romans 6 asks whether the grace found in justification opens the way to cavalier sinning. Paul’s response is not to say, “Well, of course you should not sin because you have enjoyed the grace of justification; justification itself has transformed you.” Rather, he argues from the believer’s participation in Christ’s death: we die to sin’s power with the one who died for us to justify us.[12]

We noted above that Roman Catholic theologians have traditionally contested this “forensic only” sense of the word, arguing that it denotes not just a legal, but also a “real” or “effectual” “making right.” A significant number of recent interpreters from a variety of theological traditions have argued much the same, expanding the scope of justification to include a transformative element.[13] For instance, Michael Gorman’s definition of justification is:

Justification is the establishment of right covenant relations—fidelity to God and love for neighbor—by means of God’s liberating grace in Christ’s faithful and loving death and our co-crucifixion with him. Justification therefore means co-resurrection with Christ to a new life of faithfulness toward God and love toward others, expressed concretely as biblical justice, within the Spirit-empowered people of God, with the certain hope of God’s welcome, on the day of judgment, into the fullness of resurrection life.[14]

The case for a “more-than-forensic” meaning of justification in Paul rests on three main arguments.

First, it is argued that “forensic-only” advocates can maintain their position only by arbitrarily ignoring many occurrences of the relevant words in Paul. For instance, in Romans 6:7, Paul grounds his claim that Christians are no longer slaves to sin on the fact that Christians, when they die with Christ “are justified [δεδικαίωται] from sin.” Translations, such as the New International Version, which render this as “set free from sin,” simply mask the fact that “justification” here involves rescue from sin’s power as well as its penalty. Similarly, later in the same chapter, Paul teaches that “obedience” is bound up with righteousness (6:13, 16, 18, 19, 20): “righteousness” is more than judicial standing. The issue here is methodological: which occurrences of lexemes from the δικαι- root should “count” toward the doctrine of justification? Word and concept are not the same. Gorman, whom we quoted above, insists that we should count all the language unless and until there is strong reason not to do so.[15] The point may be granted.

However, in our view, there are sound contextual reasons for thinking that these occurrences in Romans 6 should not, indeed, be used to develop the doctrine of justification. Romans 6:7, for instance, uses a combination of verb—δικαιόω—and preposition—ἀπό—that Paul uses nowhere else. The word δικαιοσύνη in 6:13–20 occurs in a “language game” that features distinctively different vocabulary than that which is found in the earlier teaching about righteousness. To be sure, “righteousness” is contrasted with “death” in verse 16, but the fundamental contrast is with “wickedness” (v. 13), “sin” (vv. 18, 20), and “impurity” (v. 19). This shift in argument and key vocabulary suggests that Paul in Romans 6 is using δικαιοσύνη, in continuity with the Old Testament and other New Testament authors, to refer to appropriate ethical behavior (for example, Rom 6:13, 16, 18, 19, 20; Eph 5:9; 1 Tim. 6:11; see Matt 5:20; Luke 1:75; Acts 10:35; James 1:20). The Old Testament and Paul’s own contextual uses make clear that he operates with two semantic categories of δικαι- language—for the sake of brevity, the “moral” and the “forensic”—which can be distinguished on the basis of sound syntagmatic considerations.

A second argument for a transformative aspect in justification is the relationship Paul draws between justification and transformation. For instance, in Galatians 2:15–21, Paul moves from justification (vv. 16–17) to co-crucifixion with Christ (vv. 19–20), while in 1 Corinthians 6, Paul cites “justification” (v. 9) to make a claim about “righteous” conduct.[16] However, association does not mean identification. It has always been acknowledged by the best defenders of a “forensic-only” view of justification that being justified necessarily means that one is also “sanctified,” “transformed,” turned into an obedient child of God. But nothing in any of the texts cited suggests that justification must itself include these transformative elements.

Third, a forensic-only view, it has often been argued, turns justification into a “legal fiction.” This claim rests on an erroneous notion that the word “justify” must by its nature refer to ethical transformation. Only with this assumption one can make the argument that a forensic-only declaration of righteousness must be a fiction. Quite the contrary: God’s “word” of “justified” is a powerful, effective speech-act that creates a new reality—but, as the meaning of the word suggests, a forensic reality.[17]

Finally, in general, we should stress that the concern about adequately grounding the vital work of transformation in the people of God is understandable. But the concern can be met, not by trying to smuggle a transformative element into justification, but by noting the inextricable connection in Paul between justification and transformation: both are inevitable products of being “in Christ.” Calvin is particularly clear on this point.[18] We should, additionally, note the importance of God’s Spirit in bridging what some might see as a gap between the forensic verdict of “justified” and the transformed life of the believer. Galatians makes this point particularly clearly. Since Christ is the “seed of Abraham” (Gal 3:16), it can be only in and through Christ that a person can receive the promised “blessing of Abraham”—and, Paul says, “the promise of the Spirit” (3:14). The “promised Spirit” links the first part of Galatians, with its focus on justification, to the last part, with its focus on the new life of the believer. With the “blessing of Abraham” (in context, justification), God also gives the Spirit—which becomes the controlling power in the believer’s life.[19]

Reconciliation: Overcoming Enmity

A second route Paul traces from human plight to solution uses the language of personal relationship. Two closely related word groups, “reconciliation” / “reconcile” and “peace”/ “making peace,” are key to this concept. Reconciliation language is not common in Paul, occurring only in Romans 5 (vv. 10, 11), 2 Corinthians 5 (vv. 18, 19, 20), Ephesians 2 (vv. 15–16), and Colossians 1 (vv. 20, 22). However, “peace” is a more common idea in Paul. Its close relationship to reconciliation is indicated by the way Paul interprets one in light of the other (compare Rom 5:1 and 10, 11; Col 1:20). Paul also refers to “peace” as the final soteriological state (Rom 2:10) and, especially often, the present inaugurated state (Rom 8:6; 14:17; Eph 2:14, 15, 17; 6:15; Col 3:15; and all thirteen letters feature “peace” in their opening prayer wish [Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Gal 1:3; Eph 1:2; Phil 1:2; Col 1:2; 1 Thess 1:1; 2 Thess 1:2; 1 Tim 1:2; 2 Tim 1:2; Titus 1:4; Philem 3]; see also prayer wishes elsewhere [Rom 15:13; Gal 6:16; Eph 6:23]). Paul also speaks twice of the “God of peace” (1 Thess 5:23) and once of the “Lord of peace” (Rom 16:20; 2 Cor 13:11; Phil 4:9; 2 Thess 3:16).

Paul refers forty times to this concept via these two word groups, the references are scattered fairly evenly throughout his letters, the scope of the reconciling work is extremely broad—including individual believers, the Christian community, Jews and Gentiles, and the entire cosmos—and it is a blessing that God’s people enjoy as well as one they are charged to spread. Consequently, it is no wonder that the concept has received considerable attention in recent years, and has been thought by some to lie at the very heart of Paul’s theology.[20] An additional virtue of this concept is its ties to the Old Testament. To be sure, “reconciliation” language is virtually absent from the Septuagint,[21] but “peace,” translating the Hebrew shalom, is very common, often denoting the promised eschatological state of “wholeness” (for example, Isa 9:7; 52:7; 54:10; 55:12; 66:12; Jer 30:10; 33:6; Ezek 37:26; Zech 9:10). Reconciliation reveals the difficulty noted above in neatly separating out means and outcome. The act of reconciliation that took place definitively in Christ (2 Cor 5:19) must be appropriated (v. 20) and leads to a state of reconciliation (Rom 5:1; 8:6).

The need for reconciliation obviously implies a disruption in relationship. Sin is again the ultimate reason for the disruption, as 2 Corinthians 5:19 suggests: God’s reconciling of the world to himself involves, negatively, “not counting people’s sins against them.” Sin has brought a state of enmity between God and humans—an enmity that goes in both directions (Rom 5:10; 11:28; Col 1:21). Not only are people hostile to God; we may also say that, in a certain sense, God is hostile to humans as well, as Paul’s frequent references to wrath make clear.

Redemption/Freedom From The Powers Of This World: Overcoming Slavery

Another route that we can chart in Paul’s soteriological landscape runs from slavery to freedom. Pauline scholars have focused attention on this concept in recent years, as a central element of the so-called “apocalyptic Paul” movement. Often dismissing any notion that God is required to act in some way to satisfy his own justice, advocates of this approach think that Paul presents God as responding to the human predicament by a sovereign liberating act.[22] The fundamental human problem is imprisonment under powers—especially the powers of sin and death. God’s response to that problem is, appropriately, to liberate humans by an exercise of his power in Christ. Leaving aside for now the meaning and appropriateness of the term “apocalyptic,” we simply note here that the movement both reflects and fuels the renewed popularity of the Christus Victor model of the atonement.

Several vocabulary combinations contribute to this theme. One, of course, is Paul’s recourse to the contrast between slavery and freedom to denote the nature of old realm life, versus life in the new realm. The old realm is dominated by sin, death, and the law. People are helpless captives of these powers, as their inevitable sinning in and because of Adam means that they suffer under penalty of death (Rom 5:12–21). The law, the torah God gave Israel, may have been expected to change or ameliorate this situation, but it has made the situation worse: sin uses God’s good law to bring and confirm people in death (Rom 7:7–25; see also Gal 3:19; Rom 5:20). Believers therefore are “put to death” to the law, even as they “die to sin” (Rom 7:4; 6:2). As Paul makes clear in these contexts, “dying to” is language for transfer out of the realm of slavery (compare Rom 6:2 with 6:6, 14). Having “died to sin,” believers are “set free” from sin (Rom 6:18, 22; compare 8:2). Paul can therefore characterize our new status generally in terms of freedom: “for freedom Christ has set you free” (Gal 5:1; compare v. 13; also Gal 2:4; 1 Cor 7:22; 2 Cor 3:17).

Another set of terms that point to this “power”-oriented conception of Christ’s work are those drawn from the λυτρ- root: the verbs λυτρόω (“redeem”: Titus 2:14), the noun ἀπολύτρωσις (“redemption”: Rom 3:24; 8:23; 1 Cor 1:30; Eph 1:7, 14; 4:30; Col 1:14), and the noun ἀντίλυτρον (“ransom”: 1 Tim 2:6). Paul uses the noun “redemption” in places as a general depiction of the new state of affairs believers enjoy in Christ. For example, 1 Corinthians 1:30 states, “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” Suggesting the same broad idea are two texts in which Paul refers to “redemption” as something believers possess, and he associates it with “the forgiveness of sins” (Eph 1:7; Col 1:14). The breadth of the concept is also revealed in the way Paul can use it to describe both past (Rom 3:24; 1 Tim 2:6; Titus 2:14) and future (Rom 8:23; Eph 1:14) acts of deliverance. Therefore, the tendency to use “redemption” as a general way of referring to salvation has some basis in Paul; all this might suggest that we should include redemption in the umbrella category of soteriological terms we considered above.

We include the concept here, however, because the basic meaning of the word group has to do with liberation. While the Septuagint uses Paul’s favorite word from this root—ἀπολυτρωσις, “redemption”—only once (Dan 4:34), the cognate verb λυτρόω, “redeem,” occurs 108 times, and most often refers to a deliverance or liberation from a state of bondage or slavery. Reference to Israel’s “redemption” from Egypt in the Exodus, or to her deliverance from other nations when God ends her exile are especially significant.[23] Deuteronomy 7:8 is typical: “But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” Paul’s use of “redemption” language might suggest, then, that new covenant believers experience a “liberation” similar to that which old covenant believers experienced in the Exodus, and the event for which they longed—the restoration of their nation from Exile.

It is often thought that redemption language has a further theologically important nuance: a “price paid” as the basis for the liberation. This sense of the language is obvious in its application to the manumission of slaves in Paul’s day: a slave or prisoner of war was “redeemed” through the paying of a “ransom.” This notion of “legal release by paying a price” is also found in some of the occurrences of the language in the Septuagint. See, for example:

If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull is to be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull is to be stoned and its owner also is to be put to death. However, if payment is demanded, the owner may redeem [Septuagint δώσει λύτρα] his life by the payment of whatever is demanded (Exod 21:28–30).

No one can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them—the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough—so that they should live on forever and not see decay (Ps 49:7–9).

In other Septuagint texts, however, the notion of a “price paid” appears to have been lost, suggesting that “redemption” language had come to have simply the general sense of “deliver” or “liberate.”[24] As we note above, this seems to be true for some of Paul’s uses of the language. However, there is also reason to think that the idea of a “costly payment” or “price paid” continues to be connoted in some of the places where Paul uses the language.[25] Not only is it arguable that this is the normal meaning of this word group, but Paul also uses similar language of “buy” or “buy up” in just this sense.[26] Paul uses the language of “buy up” with reference to a “cost” in parallel texts such as in Galatians 3:13: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (see also Gal 4:5). Paul makes this same point elsewhere: “you were bought at a price” (ἀγοράζω; see also 1 Cor 7:23).[27] Taken together, these texts provide a solid basis for the conclusion that Paul views liberation from bondage as an important benefit of the new realm, and that this liberation occurs only at the “cost” of the death of Christ.

Paul does not usually denote the situation from which we have been liberated, but context sometimes helps here. For instance, in Romans 3:24 Paul roots our justification in “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” This claim is the response to the way Paul presents the human predicament in Romans 3:9: all humans “are under the power of sin.” The human problem is not simply that we all sin; it is, ultimately, the problem of slavery under sin’s power. At the same time, it is quite likely that Paul is reflecting the way this language is applied in the Old Testament. As God liberated his people from slavery in Egypt and from their slavery to other nations in the Exile, so now, in Christ, the ultimate Exodus, the true “return from exile” takes place.

Finally, of course, we note the best-known textual basis for the Christus Victor theme in Paul, Colossians 2:13–15:

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

The role of Christ’s death in this “triumph” over the powers is not entirely clear, since the last word of this quotation in the New International Version, “cross,” translates a Greek pronoun that could refer to Christ (as it does, for example, in the English Standard Version and Christian Standard Bible). However, the prominence of the cross in a somewhat parallel verse earlier in the letter (1:20) suggests that Paul might be referring to the cross here as well. Believers’ freedom from the oppression of spiritual powers is an important theme in Colossians (see 2:10 and also 1:16; perhaps 2:8, 20 [if στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου, as many think, refers to spiritual powers]). While we will develop this point later, it is worth noting here that the means by which this victory is accomplished is the removal of “the charge of our legal indebtedness”: the victory is won through the removal of condemnation by means of Christ’s death.

Holiness: Overcoming Uncleanness

The last few decades have seen a renewal of interest in the temple idea, to some degree a product of renewed focus among Old Testament theologians on the significance of “sacred space.” A variety of Pauline themes and vocabulary could conceivably be brought into the scope of temple, but here we will simply mention that Paul explicitly refers to the idea in four texts. One refers to the bodies of individual believers as temples (1 Cor 6:19), while three others depict the entire Christian community as a temple (1 Cor 3:16–17; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21). Paul applies temple language to the church especially to emphasize the holiness of the community. Indwelt by the Holy Spirit, both individual believers and the Christian community are to live out their status as a holy temple in a life dedicated to God. Of course, we touch here on another fundamental biblical-theological theme. Israel was called to imitate their “holy” God by being a “holy” people (for example, Lev 11:44–45; 19:2; compare 1 Pet 1:16)—set apart from the world and dedicated to serve and imitate God. Another important contour of the new realm of salvation, then, is holiness, which refers both to the holy status enjoyed by Christians as God’s people (for example, believers as “holy ones” [ἁγίοι]; Rom 6:19, 22; 1 Cor 1:30; Col 3:12) and to the holy calling implicit in that status (2 Cor 7:1; Eph 1:4; 4:24; 5:26–27; Col 1:22; 1 Thess 3:13; 4:4, 7; 1 Tim 2:2, 8; 2 Tim 1:9; 2:21; Titus 1:8). Another concept that could be integrated into this category is “forgiveness.” This is a minor focus in Paul; he uses the language of forgiveness with reference to the work of Christ only six times: Romans 4:7 (quoting Ps 32:1–2)], Eph 1:7; 5:32; Col 1:14; 2:13; 3:13).[28] We mention it here because being made holy involves, negatively, being forgiven. However, forgiveness focuses more on the issue of guilt, while “holiness” involves the removal of uncleanness.

Paul says little explicitly about how these relational identities that characterize our new realm existence are procured. In other words, though the conceptions we have considered in this section fill out our view of the outcomes of atonement, they don’t help very much in identifying means. One perhaps obvious point should be made: in all these conceptions, the role of the Holy Spirit in creating, sustaining, and making us aware of these benefits is significant. We might therefore stress a straightforward observation: for Paul, the benefits of Christ’s work, while varied and extensive, can to some degree, be traced back to the most basic and extensive of those benefits: possession of the Spirit.

A Home For The Homeless: Overcoming Estrangement

The fourth route from old realm to new realm that we will trace embraces several rather diverse sets of contrasts and conceptions that can generally be lumped under the category of “new relational identity.” We might summarize by grouping our material into three basic conceptions.

First, life in the new realm involves living as “sons of God.” We deliberately retain the masculine language in order to convey the full force of the imagery. Adoption was a feature of Paul’s Greco-Roman environment. When in that culture a man was adopted, that man became legally entitled to all the rights and privileges pertaining to his new status. Paul celebrates the fact that, in Christ, men and women can equally become “sons” in this sense. Paul explicitly mentions adoption in only three passages: Romans 8:14–17, 23; Galatians 4:4–7; and Ephesians 1:5. However, for Paul’s soteriology the concept of adoption has significance out of proportion to its few explicit mentions.

First, the concept embraces both the believer’s “already” and “not yet”: we now have the Spirit of adoption, leading us to cry “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15), but we also await the day we receive our full adoption, when our bodies are redeemed (8:23). In both Galatians 4 and Romans 8, Paul transitions from our present to our future via the idea of inheritance: a son is, by definition, an heir; and an heir, by definition, while legally assured of his or her inheritance, does not yet possess it. So, Paul makes clear, as God’s sons, we rejoice in what we now have and long for what is still to come.

Second, the conception ties into an Old Testament theme. In addition to the influence from the Roman legal institution of adoption, Paul undoubtedly intends us to draw a comparison with Israel as God’s “son” (see Exod 4:22; Jer 3:19; 31:9; Hosea 11:1).

Third, as Paul makes clear in both Galatians 4 and Romans 8, our sonship is tied to Christ’s own sonship: like him, we cry “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6); we are sons because God sent “his Son” (Gal 4:4). We are sons in him, who is the Son (note the references to God’s son in Rom 8:3, 29, 32). Perhaps we can discern here a secondary connection. In Romans 8:29, Paul claims that we are “predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” As sons, God’s goal for us is that we increasingly become like the Son. He is himself “the image of God” (2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15), and our destiny is to share, derivatively and only partially, in that image. This conception also picks up a key biblical-theological theme. In Christ, God is restoring humans to that “image of God” in which he first created us, an image that, while never lost, has been sadly defaced by sin. At the risk of extending this chain of references to the breaking point, perhaps we could also bring in the concept of “glory,” since Paul implies some degree of relationship between the concepts of “image” and “glory” (see Rom 1:23; 1 Cor 11:7; 2 Cor 3:18; 4:4). Continuing a central Old Testament theme, “glory” denotes, first of all, the “weighty presence” of God himself (Rom 3:7, 23; 6:4). In a move typical of Paul’s high Christology, Christ is then said also to possess, or share, this glory (Rom 8:17; 1 Cor 2:8; 2 Cor 3:18; 4:4; 2 Thess 2:14; Titus 2:13). Within the soteriological realm, Paul usually uses “glory” to refer to the ultimate state of our new realm existence (Rom 5:2; 8:17, 18, 21; 9:23; 1 Cor 2:7; 15:43; 2 Cor 4:17; Col 1:27; 3:4; 1 Thess 2:12; 2 Thess 2:14; 2 Tim 2:10; compare Rom 2:7), but he can also claim that we are even now “being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory” (2 Cor 3:18). Here again is expressed the underlying logic of participation: we are joined to Christ, the Son, the image of God, the “Lord of glory,” and because of that union we are sons, being created in his image and destined for glory.[29]

One final word about the adoption conception. Adoption language brings together in one image the legal and the relational—two perspectives on new realm life that, as important as they each are in their own right, need finally to be deeply connected to each other. When we are adopted as God’s sons, we are given a new legal standing at the same time as we are integrated into a new family: we are “members of [God’s] household” (Eph 2:19).

The second conception to consider is the idea of being God’s people. Obviously, being the people of God is a central theme of the Old Testament depiction of Israel, both in terms of her destiny and in terms of her call. During the Exile, God continues to promise Israel that he would be their God and they would be his people (for example, Jer 12:16; 32:38; Ezek 14:11; 37:23). Paul quotes this language and sees it fulfilled in the experience of the Christians of his day (2 Cor 6:16). Another dimension of the “people” language is its application to Gentiles. In Romans 9:25–26, Paul quotes language from Hosea 1 and 2, applying to Gentile Christians the passage’s promise that the northern tribes of Israel would be moved from the status of “not my people” to “children of living God.” In a Pauline motif that many recent scholars have rightly drawn attention to, the apostle is deeply concerned to stress the full integration of Gentiles into the new covenant people of God. Perhaps this “people” conception is also where we might integrate Paul’s teaching that Christians receive an “inheritance.” In the Old Testament, this “inheritance” is especially the land (for example, Deut 31:7; Josh 11:23; Ps 105:11; Jer 3:18; Ezek 47:13). Claiming that Christians have an inheritance (Gal 3:18; 4:30; Eph 1:14, 18; 5:5; Col 1:12; 3:24; compare “inherit” in 1 Cor 6:9–10; 15:50; Gal 5:21), then, probably implicitly claims that believers, both Jew and Gentile (note Eph 3:6), are the recipients of this promise of God—not in the form of a single piece of geography, but in the form of the whole cosmos (see Rom 4:13).

Notes

1. See especially Douglas J. Moo, “Creation and New Creation,” Bulletin of Biblical Research 20 (2010): 39–60.
2. See also, especially, Michael J. Gorman, The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Testament (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014).
3. This pattern is elaborated in G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011).
4. For salvation as a broad category in Paul, see, for example, Garwood P. Anderson, Paul’s New Perspective: Charting a Soteriological Journey (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2016), 298–308.
5. The most debated occurrence is σωτηρίανin Philippians 1:19, which most English versions translate as “deliverance” (for example, New Revised Standard Version; New International Version; English Standard Version; note “release” [from prison] in Common English Bible). A compelling argument for taking all occurrences of salvation language in Philippians to denote salvation in a theological sense is found in Paul Cable, “‘We Await a Savior’: ‘Salvation’ in Philippians” (PhD diss., Wheaton College, 2017).
6. The noun “salvation” (σωτηρία) occurs 18 times in Paul; the verb “save” (σώζω) 29 times, the title “Savior” (σωτήρ) 12 times, and the adjective “saving” (σωτήριος) twice. Ten of Paul’s uses of σωτήρ occur in the Pastoral Epistles, where Paul uses the title for both God and Christ (see, for example, Titus 1:3–4). See also Ephesians 5:23 and Philippians 3:20. Also relevant is the verb ρύομαι, which Paul usually uses for deliverance from this-worldly dangers but which he uses four times to refer to spiritual deliverance (Rom 7:24; 11:26 [=Isa 59:20]; Col 1:13; 1 Thess 1:10).
7. See 2 Corinthians 6:2, quoting from Isaiah 49:8: “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation [σωτηρίας] I helped you.” See also the quotation from Isaiah 59:20 in connection with the “salvation” of “all Israel” (Rom 11:26).
8. See also 2 Timothy 1:10, which claims that “our Savior, Christ Jesus,” “has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”
9. By my count, eleven references to “life” focus on the present, and nine on the future. Many occurrences have no clear temporal focus.
10. Indeed, Alistair McGrath argues that it was this “deliberate and systematic distinction . . . between justification and regeneration” that distinguished Protestant from medieval Roman Catholic theology (Iustitia Dei, 1.183–86). Without denying the basic point, it should be noted that other scholars think that precedents for the Reformation view are found in the earlier tradition (for example, Michael Horton, Justification, New Studies in Dogmatics [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018], 222–29).
11. See δικαίωμα (“just decree”; see Rom 1:32; 2:26; 5:16, 18; 8:4); δικαίωσις (“justifying”; see 4:25; 5:18); δικαιοκρισία (“righteous judgment”; see 2:5); ἔνδικος (“just”; see 3:8). Antonyms are also revealing: the noun ἀδικία (“unrighteousness”), with the alpha-privative prefix (much like our “un-”), refers, as one would expect, to behavior that God condemns (1:18 [twice], 29; 2:8; 3:5; 6:13; 1 Cor 13:6; 2 Cor 12:13; 2 Thess 2:10, 12; 1 Tim 2:19; see also ἄδικος in 1 Cor 6:1, 9), but it can also refer to an alleged failure to “act in a just way” on God’s part (Rom 9:14; see also ἄδικος in 3:5). It is worth noting the degree to which “righteousness” language in general clusters in Romans.
12. N. T. Wright endorses a “forensic-only” view of justification, but he gives it a particular spin, based on the importance of the category of covenant. To be “justified,” he argues, is to be declared a member of the people of God, with special focus on the inclusion of the Gentiles. This declaration is the recognition of an already existing reality: it is God’s “call” that transfers people into the covenant, while justification enables us to know who is in and who is out. See, for example, N. T. Wright, Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009), 59–101. However, the use of the verb in the Old Testament and in Paul offers little basis for the notion that the word means “to be included in God’s people.” Stephen Westerholm is quite blunt: “So ‘righteousness’ does not mean, and by its very nature cannot mean, membership in a covenant” (Justification Reconsidered: Rethinking a Pauline Theme [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013], 63). To be justified, of course, entails that one becomes a member of God’s people, but the word itself does not mean this. As Simon Gathercole insists, “The content of the doctrine of justification by faith should be distinguished from its scope” (“Justified by Faith, Justified by His Blood: The Evidence of Romans 3:21–4:25, ” in D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark Seifrid, eds., Justification and Variegated Nomism, Vol. 2: The Paradoxes of Paul [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004], 156). Membership in God’s people and justification are closely related, but they are not identical. The former is penultimate; the latter, ultimate.
13. The transformative power of justification is an important part of Ernst Käsemann’s famous definition of “God’s righteousness” in terms of both gift and power (see, for example, “The Righteousness of God in Paul,” in New Testament Questions of Today [London: SCM, 1969], 168–82) and has been taken up by his followers: see, for example, P. Stuhlmacher: “the justification of which he speaks is a process of becoming new that spans the earthly life of a believer, a path from faith’s beginning to its end” (emphasis original; “The Apostle Paul’s View of Righteousness,” in Reconciliation, Law, and Righteousness: Essays in Biblical Theology [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986], 72; see also idem, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments, vol. 2: Grundlegung: Von Jesus zu Paulus [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005], 332–34). A broad understanding of justification as including both forensic and transformative aspects was widespread before the Reformation (for example, in Augustine). Such a view was hinted at in the work of Adolph Schlatter (for example, The Theology of the Apostles [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999, 248–50]) and is becoming widespread in current scholarship (for example, Eberhard Jüngel, Justification: The Heart of the Christian Faith. A Theological Study with Ecumenical Purpose [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001], 208–11; Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009], 48–57; Peter J. Leithart, Delivered from the Elements of the World: Atonement, Justification, Mission [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2016], 179–214).
14. Michael J. Gorman, Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 228.
15. Gorman, Becoming the Gospel, 223.
16. See again here Gorman, Becoming the Gospel, 234–40 (on 1 Cor 6).
17. As H. Blocher puts it, “The judge’s verdict does change the real situation—in the forensic sphere” (“Justification of the Ungodly (Sola Fide): Theological Reflections,” in Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid, eds., The Paradoxes of Paul, 494).
18. William B. Evans has recently surveyed some of the ways that union with Christ and justification are related in historical and contemporary reformed theology (“Déjà Vu All over Again? The Contemporary Reformed Soteriological Controversy in Historical Perspective,” Westminster Theological Journal 72 [2010]: 135–51).
19. See Chee-Chiew Lee, “The Blessing of Abraham and the Promise of the Spirit: The Influence of the Prophets on Paul in Galatians 3:1–14” (PhD diss., Wheaton College, 2009), especially 312–13.
20. See especially Ralph P. Martin, Reconciliation: A Study of Paul’s Theology, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989); Michael J. Gorman, “The Lord of Peace: Christ Our Peace in Pauline Theology,” Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters 3 (2013): 219–53; Gorman, Becoming the Gospel, 142–80; Willard M. Swartley, Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).
21. The word group occurs only six times. The two occurrences with a Hebrew original (Isa 9:4; Jer 31:39) are not relevant; only the four occurrences in 2 Maccabees (1:5; 5:20; 7:33; 8:29) refer to reconciliation.
22. See especially Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).
23. For the former, see, for example, Brant Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile: Restoration Eschatology and the Origin of the Atonement (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 407.
24. See especially David Hill, Greek Words with Hebrew Meanings: Studies in the Semantics of Soteriological Terms, Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 5 (Cambridge: University Press, 1967), 58–80.
25. See the classic study by Leon Morris: The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 9–59. Morris might, however overplay the “price paid” aspect of the word group. Note in this respect I. Howard Marshall’s distinction between “price” and “cost” (“The Development of the Concept of Redemption in the New Testament,” in Reconciliation and Hope: New Testament Essays on Atonement and Eschatology Presented to L. L. Morris on His 60th Birthday, ed. R. Banks [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974], 153). See also, along similar lines, Hermann Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 194–97.
26. See, for example, James D. G. Dunn, A Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 228.
27. Ridderbos notes the family resemblance among these terms (Paul, 193).
28. As Morris notes, Paul prefers to present Christ’s work in more positive terms (Leon Morris, “Forgiveness,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne and Ralph P. Martin [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993], 311).
29. Some scholars have appropriated the important Eastern Orthodox idea of theosis to refer to this focus on being made like God or Christ (for example, Michael J. Gorman, Inhabiting the Cruciform God: Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009]). However, whatever the merits of the idea, the term theosis may import too much extraneous theological baggage into Paul’s theology (Gösta Hallonsten, “Theosis in Recent Research: A Renewal of Interest and a Need for Clarity,” in Partakers in the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, ed. Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung [Cranbury, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007], 281–93; compare Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004]).