Atonement and Union with Christ

Atonement and Union with Christ

Rethinking Penal Substitution in Light of Scripture’s Priestly and Participatory Logic

Intro

Discussions of the atonement often generate more heat than light, not because Christians generally disagree about the gospel itself, but because the explanatory models used to describe Christ’s saving work are frequently treated as if they were identical with the gospel. Within Christian theology, the atonement has been explained through a variety of frameworks that seek to account for how Christ reconciles humanity to God. Over time, however, particular theories have come to be assumed as the default or even as the necessary expression of orthodoxy within certain traditions. When this occurs, disagreement over the mechanics of atonement is mistaken for disagreement over the good news itself, and faithful Christians are unnecessarily divided over matters that lie downstream from Scripture’s central proclamation of salvation.

This article is written to examine that confusion. It is not an attempt to minimize the seriousness of sin, deny the reality of divine justice and wrath, or question the necessity of Christ’s death for salvation. Nor is it a claim that those who affirm penal substitutionary atonement are outside the bounds of orthodox Christian faith. Rather, the goal is to ask whether penal substitutionary atonement, as commonly articulated, offers the most coherent account of the biblical data, or whether its distinctive assumptions create tensions when read alongside Scripture’s dominant priestly, covenantal, and participatory categories.

In undertaking this examination, I aim to represent the major atonement frameworks as accurately and charitably as possible. Neither penal substitutionary atonement nor the purification–union model is treated as a monolithic position; advocates within each tradition may express their views with different emphases and qualifications. The account of union with Christ offered here is a faithful synthesis of the biblical material, not an exhaustive or exclusive formulation. Where critical questions are raised, they concern the internal coherence and biblical fit of particular claims, especially when widely held assumptions create tensions if applied consistently. Even if individual adherents do not consciously affirm these implications, that does not remove the force of the underlying issues.

At stake is not the truth of the gospel, but the relationship between the gospel and the theological models used to explain it. Scripture proclaims what God has done in Christ. Atonement theories seek to account for how that saving work functions. Confusing these two leads to unnecessary division and misplaced confidence in particular systems rather than in Christ Himself. Clarifying the distinction allows for careful theological examination without threatening the unity of the church or the shared confession of Christ crucified and risen.

This article proceeds by first clarifying the gospel itself and the core affirmations shared across historic Christianity. It then identifies the primary biblical reasons Christ gave His life, distinguishing these from later explanatory models. From there, it places penal substitutionary atonement alongside the purification–union model, highlighting their differing assumptions about sin, righteousness, justice, wrath, and the role of union with Christ. By examining the Levitical sacrificial system, the logic of atonement in Hebrews, and the biblical language of forgiveness, cleansing, and participation, the article argues that the purification–union model better accounts for the full scope of the biblical witness.

At the same time, this exploration is undertaken with a commitment to unity rather than fracture. Christians across traditions remain united by their common confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, even as they differ in how they articulate the inner logic of His saving work. The purpose of this article, therefore, is not to replace one boundary with another, but to pursue clarity, coherence, and faithfulness to Scripture while maintaining the unity that belongs to all who are in Christ.

What Is the Gospel?

The word “gospel” means “good news,” and Scripture presents it as God’s announcement that His saving purpose has been fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah. Humanity, created for fellowship with God, has fallen into sin, corruption, and death, and therefore stands in need of redemption and restoration. The gospel, then, is not first about theories explaining how salvation works, but the proclamation of what God has done in Christ to redeem humanity, restore creation, and bring His kingdom.

Jesus is the eternal, sinless, only-begotten Son of God who became man for our salvation (John 1:14). Fully divine and fully human (Philippians 2:6–11), He is the One in whom God Himself has come among us to rescue His people. In His person and mission, the Father’s saving plan has reached its fulfillment.

Jesus proclaimed “the gospel of the kingdom” (Mark 1:14–15), declaring that God’s promised reign was breaking into the world through His life and ministry. He called people to repent and believe, and to enter into the reality of God’s kingdom. Through His teaching, compassion, and mighty works, Jesus demonstrated that God’s promises were being fulfilled in Him (Luke 4:18–21).

After His death and resurrection, the apostles proclaimed the same good news, now understood in light of Christ’s saving work. Through His life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus conquered sin and death, opening the way for reconciliation, forgiveness, renewal, and new life in Him. The kingdom Jesus announced has been inaugurated through His resurrection and exaltation, and the risen Christ now reigns and intercedes for those who draw near.

Paul summarizes this message in 1 Corinthians 15:1–4: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures. For those who trust in Him, repentance and forgiveness are given by God, along with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and incorporation into the covenant community of His people, the body of Christ, His Church (Acts 2:36–39).

In short, the gospel is the good news that God has acted to redeem, forgive, rescue, restore, and bring people into His kingdom through Jesus Christ, the eternal Son made flesh. Through Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and exaltation, forgiveness is offered, sin and death are defeated, and eternal life is opened to all who believe, sharing in His life through the Spirit, as members of His body (Rom. 6:3-5; 1 Cor. 12:12-13). In response to this gospel, we are called to repentance, faith, baptism, and obedience in lifelong allegiance to Him as Lord (Romans 10:9; Mark 8:34).

Core Affirmations Shared Across Historic Christianity

In addition to the gospel, historic Christianity has consistently affirmed a set of core truths about Christ’s saving work. These points represent broad agreement across Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, and non-Reformed traditions, even if each tradition expresses them with its own nuance.

1. Christ died for our sins. (1 Corinthians 15:3; Romans 5:8)

2. Christ’s sacrificial self-offering fulfills the Old Testament types, prophecies, and sacrificial institutions. (Hebrews 9–10; Luke 24:27)

3. Christ offered His life—expressed in His blood—for the cleansing, redemption, and restoration of humanity. (Leviticus 17:11; Hebrews 9:14; Ephesians 1:7)

4. The redemptive work of Christ—His life, death, resurrection, ascension, and ongoing intercession—is essential to our salvation. (Romans 4:25; Hebrews 7:25)

5. Christ’s atoning work is the basis for the forgiveness of sins, justification, and restored communion with God. (Romans 3:24–25; 2 Corinthians 5:18–21)

6. The saving benefits of Christ’s work are received through faith. (John 1:12; Romans 5:1)

7. Salvation is entirely a gift of God’s grace and cannot be earned by human works. (Ephesians 2:8–9; Titus 3:5)

8. Through His death and resurrection, Christ conquered sin, death, and the devil. (Hebrews 2:14–15; 1 Corinthians 15:54–57)

9. The risen and ascended Christ intercedes for believers and applies the saving benefits of His work to them. (Hebrews 7:25; Romans 8:34)

10. Those who persist in wickedness and refuse repentance will face God’s wrath and righteous judgment. (Matthew 25:46; Romans 2:5–8)

These shared affirmations reflect the theological center confessed by the church across centuries. Most Christians, myself included, have also historically affirmed the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed as faithful summaries of the biblical witness, even while recognizing that later theological disputes, such as those surrounding the filioque (the phrase “and the Son” added to the Nicene Creed’s description of the Spirit’s procession), exist within the bounds of orthodox Christian confession.

These core convictions unite historic Christianity and provide the shared theological soil from which Christians across traditions have identified several primary biblical reasons Christ gave His life. While these reasons reflect broad agreement, they do not settle every question about how Christ’s saving work is accomplished.

Shared Biblical Reasons Christ Gave His Life

Before turning to differing explanations of how the atonement works, it is important to identify what Christians across traditions have broadly agreed upon regarding the necessity and purpose of Christ’s death. These reasons are drawn directly from Scripture and affirmed across Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant theology. Disagreement over atonement models does not concern whether Christ’s death was necessary, but how the saving work of Christ brings humanity into reconciliation with God.

While this list isn’t exhaustive, here are 10 reasons why Christ died:

1. To Enter Fully into the Human Condition, Including Death
   Jesus truly shared in human life, suffering, and mortality, so that humanity could be healed in every aspect (Hebrews 2:14–18). Salvation requires the assumption of the whole human condition; what is not assumed cannot be healed.

2. To Reverse Adam’s Disobedience by Perfect Obedience
   Jesus’ life and death complete the obedience Adam failed to give, restoring what humanity lost through disobedience (Romans 5:19).

3. To Defeat Sin, Death, and the Powers of Evil
   By passing through death, Jesus conquered its power from within, defeated sin and the forces of evil, and opened the way for resurrection life and the glorification of human nature (Hebrews 2:14; 1 Corinthians 15:20–23; 15:55–57).

4. To Unite Believers with Christ in His Death and Resurrection
   By being united with Christ and participating in His death and resurrection, believers are transformed and raised into new life, called to die to self and live in obedience to God, following His example of self-sacrificial love and surrender (Romans 6:3–11; Colossians 2:12; Galatians 2:20).

5. To Fulfill Scripture and God’s Redemptive Promises
   Jesus’ suffering and death fulfilled the prophecies and promises of the Old Testament, demonstrating God’s faithfulness to His redemptive plan (Luke 24:46; Mark 8:31).

6. To Be the True Passover and Covenantal Offering
   Christ’s life was laid down as a self-giving offering, inaugurating liberation and communion, echoing the Passover and covenantal sacrifices of Israel (1 Corinthians 5:7; Matthew 26:28).

7. To Establish the New Covenant
   Through His death, Jesus opens the way for renewed communion with God, a covenant brought to fullness through His resurrection, ascension, and the outpouring of the Spirit (Hebrews 9:15; Luke 22:20).

8. To Reveal God’s Love for Humanity
   In laying down His life, Jesus reveals the depth of God’s self-giving love for the world (John 15:13; Romans 5:8).

9. To Open the Way for the Holy Spirit and New Life
   Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension make the Spirit available to dwell within believers, empowering participation in Christ’s life and communion with God (John 7:37–39; Acts 2).

10. To Draw All People to Himself
    By being lifted up in death, Jesus revealed God’s saving love and became a sign that draws people to faith and communion with Him (John 12:32–33).

The question that remains is not whether Christ gave His life according to God’s saving purpose, but how the entirety of His work brings about reconciliation between God and humanity. Christians have also long proposed different models to explain the mechanics of atonement, frameworks that should not be confused with the gospel itself.

Atonement Theories and the Gospel

Having affirmed the gospel itself, the shared core convictions of historic Christianity, and several primary biblical reasons Christ gave His life, it is important to clarify how various atonement theories relate to the gospel.

Because the gospel is the announcement of what God has accomplished in Christ, atonement theories, whether penal substitution, purification-union, Christus Victor, recapitulation, ransom, moral influence, or others, are not the gospel. They are theological frameworks that seek to describe the mechanism by which Christ’s saving work accomplishes reconciliation. In other words, these theories are reflections on the truths we have just outlined, not the good news itself.

Scripture presents the atonement as God’s act of making reconciliation possible through Christ’s self-offering. The New Testament affirms that Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and exaltation are essential for salvation, yet it does not reduce the gospel to a single explanatory model of how that work achieves reconciliation. Various interpretations have arisen throughout Christian history, but these models are reflections on the gospel rather than the good news itself.

Our standing before God does not rest on grasping a particular atonement model. Salvation comes through repentance and trust in the One who accomplished redemption. Atonement theories help us reflect on how Christ’s work brings forgiveness and reconciliation, but they do not constitute the gospel itself. Recognizing this distinction allows Scripture to speak clearly about what the gospel truly announces while also providing the foundation for respectful theological diversity within the historic Christian faith.

What Makes Penal Substitutionary Atonement Unique

While the core affirmations above reflect a large portion of the theological consensus of historic Christianity, Christians have long differed on how Christ’s saving work is applied. One framework that is especially popular in Western Protestant evangelicalism is penal substitutionary atonement (PSA). Its influence is widespread, and it is often treated as the default explanation of the atonement here in the west. However, PSA introduces several unique explanatory claims that distinguish it from other approaches to Christ’s saving work. These distinctive claims are not universally held within historic Christianity and identify PSA as a particular theological model rather than the gospel itself. Even James White, a Reformed theologian, acknowledges this when he notes, “Penal substitutionary atonement is a Reformed doctrine.” (“PSA: the Many Vital Issues, Part 1” – [Video Link]), highlighting its doctrinal location that stems from a particular theological tradition.

Although often assumed to represent the historic Christian understanding of the atonement, penal substitutionary atonement as a fully developed framework is relatively late. The early church spoke of Christ’s death primarily in terms of victory, healing, sacrifice, and union with humanity. The idea of atonement as the transfer of a precise judicial penalty does not appear in a formalized way until the medieval period. Anselm’s satisfaction theory in Cur Deus Homo (11th century) reframed sin chiefly as an offense against divine honor requiring satisfaction. The Reformers later adapted this framework within a penal and forensic context, emphasizing law, punishment, and imputed righteousness. PSA, as it is commonly articulated today, emerges from these Reformation developments and is further shaped by post-Reformation Reformed scholasticism. It is therefore best understood as a distinct theological model arising within a particular historical and doctrinal stream, rather than as the unanimous teaching of the early or undivided church.

Core Claims of PSA:

1. Sin requires retributive punishment.

2. God cannot forgive without that punishment being inflicted.

3. Christ bears the exact punishment deserved in the place of specific sinners.

4. The exhaustion of divine wrath in Christ’s suffering and death is the atonement.

5. Justification flows from that penal transaction.

* Note: For the remainder of the article I will be interchanging penal substitutionary atonement with the shortened acronym PSA.

A Clarifying Note on Orthodoxy

Diverging from these PSA-specific claims does not make one heretical, revisionist, liberal, or progressive, nor is it an attack on the gospel. Christians have long held diverse explanations for the mechanics of the atonement while affirming the same gospel truths and core affirmations that we covered above. PSA is one such framework. Other historic views differ in how they describe the means by which Christ reconciles sinners to God, yet they share the same biblical commitments: Christ died for our sins, offered Himself for our redemption, rose for our justification, and applies His saving work to those who trust Him. The purification–union model is one of these alternative approaches.

A Brief Personal Note

My goal in this article is not to undermine the faith of those who hold to PSA. Rather, I aim to explore what Scripture presents most faithfully and to highlight where PSA’s distinctives raise tensions when considered alongside the broader biblical narrative. While believers may disagree on the mechanics of atonement, such differences need not fracture fellowship. All orthodox models affirm that salvation is accomplished through the person and work of Christ and received through faith. My own study has led me to believe that the purification–union approach accounts for a wider range of biblical themes, particularly those related to purification, participation, resurrection life, and the priestly ministry of Christ. Yet this conviction does not diminish the genuine faith of those who hold to PSA, nor does it undermine the common ground shared by all who trust in Christ.

Because this article offers an alternative account of the atonement, I offer critique of PSA where I believe Scripture points in a different direction. This does not mean I am attempting to address every argument or proof text commonly cited in favor of PSA, nor is this intended to be an exhaustive rebuttal of the model. My aim is simply to present the view that seems to best reflect the biblical witness and to explain why certain features of PSA raise difficulties when considered alongside the broader scriptural narrative.

Since PSA introduces several distinct theological claims beyond the shared affirmations of historic Christianity, it is helpful to place it alongside the purification–union model to examine how each framework understands the way Christ’s work brings about reconciliation.

Comparing Two Frameworks

A central fault line in atonement theology concerns how the saving work of Christ is applied and what union with Christ actually accomplishes. Penal substitutionary atonement and the purification–union model both speak of union with Christ, yet they operate on fundamentally different causal structures, different understandings of sin, different accounts of righteousness, and different understandings of divine wrath. These differences are not peripheral; they make the systems internally incompatible.

Penal Substitution

PSA treats sin as a real and objective legal offense against God’s law that demands retributive justice. Within this framework, the “debt” of sin consists in the obligation to undergo the exact penalty prescribed by the law, namely the full measure of God’s personal, judicial wrath. Because God’s righteous nature requires the infliction of this penalty, He cannot freely forgive anyone’s debt, even the repentant, unless that wrath is historically poured out, either on the sinner or on Christ as their substitute. If Christ does not bear, or pay, this wrath-bearing penalty in the sinner’s place, the sinner must bear it themselves. The cross is therefore the decisive, once-for-all moment in which God collects this debt by pouring out His wrath against the sins of specific persons, fully expending, exhausting, and satisfying it in Christ.

In PSA, penal satisfaction is the atonement itself. The atonement consists in the complete exhaustion of divine wrath through Christ’s penal suffering. Everything else in Christ’s saving work, including His resurrection, ascension, and intercession, serves to confirm, vindicate, and apply the benefits of this already accomplished penal satisfaction. Within the federal union between Christ and the believer, their guilt is legally reckoned to Him and His righteousness legally reckoned to them. Union does not constitute righteousness; rather, it is the covenantal context in which the forensic exchange is applied to the believer.

Imputation flows from the wrath-bearing work of the cross, not from union itself. Justification rests entirely on the penalty Christ endured in the believer’s place. The repentant are forgiven solely because the penalty that they owed has already been fully inflicted in Christ, and not because God removes, pardons, or cancels their sins apart from punishment. Divine wrath is central in PSA. It must be historically poured out, and Christ bears it fully in the believer’s place. Once that substitutional punishment is inflicted, the believer is legally justified, and no further wrath is owed for the sins Christ bore.

Justification in PSA changes the believer’s legal standing before God without effecting any inner nature or intrinsic moral change in the believer themselves. The believer, though regenerate, remains internally sinful. Sanctification addresses what justification leaves untouched, and glorification completes the work by removing the sinfulness that still resides within. PSA is therefore a strictly forensic system. It revolves around the historical exhaustion of divine wrath and extends its benefits to believers through federal union and legal imputation.

Purification–Union Model

By contrast, the purification–union view interprets Christ’s saving work through the lens of participation and real, transformative union. Atonement is not defined by punishment but by cleansing, purification, and restoration of fellowship. The work of Christ extends beyond the cross to include His obedient life, sacrificial death, resurrection, ascension, presentation of His own life in the heavenly sanctuary, and ongoing intercession. Just as the Old Testament priest did not accomplish atonement at the moment the animal was slain, but when its life, represented through blood, was presented before God in the Holy of Holies, Christ’s atoning work is completed when He enters the heavenly holy place and presents His life before the Father. The cross supplies the sacrificial life that is offered, but its benefits are applied by the risen and ascended Christ through union with Him.

In this framework, Christ’s death is for us and on our behalf, yet not in our place in the penal sense. He does not bear the punishment we deserved, but offers His obedient life and sacrificial death as the divinely appointed means by which we are cleansed and restored through union with Him. Representation in this model is participatory rather than purely legal. Believers do not exchange states with Christ but share in what He has accomplished.

Union with Christ is the means by which the benefits of His atoning work are received and applied. Through union, the believer participates in the cleansing, righteousness, and resurrection life of Christ Himself. Justification flows from union rather than from an external legal imputation or transfer, sanctification grows out of the righteousness already shared in union with Christ, and glorification brings to completion the transformation that union guarantees. Participation does not make the believer a co-redeemer. Christ alone accomplishes atonement. Union is simply the means by which the believer receives the benefits of Christ’s priestly work.

Sin in the purification–union model is understood primarily in relational and purificatory terms rather than strictly legal ones. It is defilement, impurity, corruption, and relational rupture that separates humanity from God. Atonement supplies the means for cleansing and opens up the way for restored fellowship with God by removing the barriers caused by sin, as people draw near in faith and repentance. God’s wrath is real, and final judgment remains for the unrepentant, but He freely forgives those who repent, removing their transgressions and casting them away, leaving no remaining offense for wrath to fall upon. In this way, God’s justice toward the repentant is restorative rather than retributive. Divine wrath remains reserved for the final judgment against the unrepentant, rather than being poured out on Christ in their place.

Key Contrasts

A major point of disagreement concerns how the change of status takes place. Penal substitutionary atonement operates by exchange. The sinner’s guilt is transferred to Christ, Christ bears the penalty, and Christ’s righteousness is then legally reckoned to the sinner. The believer is righteous because another stood in their place. The purification–union model operates by incorporation rather than exchange. The believer’s status changes because they are united to the Righteous One and share in His life and standing. Righteousness is not transferred; it is participated in. Union is not the mechanism that applies a prior exchange but the causal reality by which any change of status occurs at all.

This difference in how status changes leads directly to a deeper disagreement over what must change for reconciliation to occur. In PSA, atonement functions to secure a change in God’s stance toward the sinner by exhausting His wrath on Christ, whereas in the purification–union model, atonement is directed toward creating a change in the sinner, cleansing and restoring them so they can draw near to God. These frameworks diverge sharply across foundational categories. In PSA, righteousness is external, forensic, and legally applied, arising from Christ’s substitutionary penalty, while in the purification–union view, righteousness is intrinsic, participatory, and arises through union with the living Christ, the Righteous One. PSA treats sin as requiring punishment even for the repentant and defines atonement as the historical exhaustion of divine wrath in Christ’s penal suffering. The purification–union view treats sin as defilement, impurity, corruption, and relational rupture to be cleansed, with atonement supplying the means by which these barriers can be removed and fellowship restored. PSA completes atonement at the cross, while the purification–union model completes it in Christ’s ascension and heavenly presentation and applies it through his intercession. In PSA, justification precedes and is distinct from sanctification, which repairs the internal state, whereas in the purification–union model, justification flows naturally from union, sanctification expresses that union-righteousness, and glorification completes it.

Because their causal logics, views of sin and righteousness, understanding of atonement, and treatment of divine wrath differ, the two systems cannot be coherently combined. Making union the causal point of righteousness collapses PSA, and making penal satisfaction primary undermines participatory union. One must choose between a retributive-penal framework and a restorative-participatory one.

Summary

PSA grounds salvation in Christ’s penal suffering, with union functioning as the legal sphere for imputation. Justification is forensic, sanctification repairs what justification leaves unchanged, and sin is retributively punished; divine wrath is exhausted on Christ. The purification–union model grounds salvation in Christ’s full priestly work (His life, death, resurrection, ascension, heavenly presentation, and ongoing intercession) and applies cleansing and righteousness through transformative union. Justification flows from union, sanctification grows out of union, glorification consummates it, and sin is dealt with through God’s cleansing removal of transgressions; divine wrath remains reserved for the final judgment against the unrepentant. Both frameworks affirm that God punishes sin, but they differ fundamentally in how that punishment relates to the repentant. These frameworks rest on mutually exclusive foundations and cannot be reconciled without destroying the internal coherence of one or the other.

The Purpose for Atonement

Before going into how Scripture explains the means by which atonement is accomplished, it is helpful to clarify the condition that makes atonement necessary. The biblical problem is not limited to moral transgression; it includes any state of impurity, moral or ritual, that separates humanity from God and disrupts covenant fellowship. Moral sin results from human disobedience, whether unintentional or willful, and damages the relationship with God, whereas ritual impurity arises from morally neutral conditions such as childbirth, disease, or bodily discharges. While these ritual conditions are not morally wrong, both moral and ritual impurity create relational rupture and barriers to participating fully in God’s presence.

Throughout Scripture, sin and impurity are depicted as conditions that prevent people from drawing near to God and that even render places and objects ritually defiled until they are purified. Isaiah declares that sin separates humanity from God (Isa. 59:2), while Ezekiel portrays Israel’s sins as contaminating both the people and the land (Ezek. 36:17). The psalmist pleads not merely for acquittal but for cleansing and renewal, asking God to “wash” him and “cleanse” him from impurity (Ps. 51:2, 7). These texts portray sin and impurity as something to be removed, not simply punished, in order to restore fellowship with God.

This understanding is made especially clear in the Torah. In the Book of Leviticus, moral and ritual impurity are treated as distinct yet overlapping sources of defilement. Moral sins, including unintentional transgressions, require atonement because they disrupt covenant fidelity (Lev. 4–5). Yet ritual impurities, arising from normal life events such as childbirth (Lev. 12:7–8), skin disease (Lev. 14:19–20), or bodily discharges (Lev. 15:15, 30), also require atonement. In each of these cases, the text explicitly states that “the priest shall make atonement … and he/she shall be clean.” The repeated formula makes the purpose unmistakable: atonement results in cleanness. Because childbirth and bodily discharges involve no moral wrongdoing, these passages demonstrate that atonement cannot be reduced to the absorption of punishment. It functions to purify and restore.

Leviticus further shows that impurity is not confined to individuals. It accumulates and affects sacred space itself. Israel is warned not to defile the sanctuary in their midst (Lev. 15:31), and the land itself can become defiled through sin (Lev. 18:24–25). This conceptual framework culminates in Leviticus 16. On the Day of Atonement, atonement is made not only for the sins of the people but also “because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions” (Lev. 16:16). The sanctuary requires cleansing precisely because it has been contaminated. The blood is sprinkled on the altar to “cleanse it and consecrate it from the impurities of the sons of Israel” (Lev. 16:19). The holy place, the tent of meeting, and the altar all receive atonement (Lev. 16:16–20, 33), despite being incapable of guilt or punishment. Earlier, even the altar itself is said to be purified when atonement is made for it (Lev. 8:15).

The chapter provides its own theological summary: “For it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD” (Lev. 16:30). The purpose clause is explicit. Atonement is made in order to cleanse. Sin is treated as defilement that must be removed so that Israel may stand clean before God.

Significantly, the grammatical objects of atonement in these rituals are consistently the people, the holy place, the tent of meeting, and the altar (Lev. 16:16–18, 20, 33). God is never presented as the direct object of the priest’s atoning action. Although the rites are performed “before the LORD” (Lev. 16:7, 10, 18, 30), this language indicates the setting and relational context of the ritual, not that something is being done to God or that His disposition must be altered. The blood is applied to purify and reconsecrate what has been contaminated (Lev. 16:16, 19), removing the defilement that disrupts covenant fellowship (Lev. 15:31; 16:16). The ritual logic is therefore restorative and purificatory rather than appeasing or retributive.

This focus is further confirmed by the limits of the Levitical system itself. Certain willful, high-handed sins had no prescribed sacrificial remedy (Num. 15:30–31), demonstrating that atonement was not designed as a universal mechanism for absorbing punishment. Instead, it functioned as a means of purification and restored access for those who turned back to God. King David’s experience reflects this reality. After his grave moral failures, he recognized that no sacrifice could atone for his sin, yet he still pleaded, “Purify me … wash me,” and God received his repentant heart (Ps. 51:7, 16–17). Atonement, therefore, is not identical with forgiveness or reconciliation; rather, it removes the defilement that separates humanity from God, preparing the way for restored fellowship.

Moral sin and ritual impurity, though arising from different sources, share a common effect: they render what is unclean unfit for communion with God and require cleansing so that fellowship may be restored. A helpful way to picture this is like clearing obstacles from a path: just as a blocked path prevents travel between two points, impurity creates barriers that prevent people from drawing near to God. The biblical vocabulary emphasizes this removal: impurity, whether moral or ritual, is washed away, wiped out, cleansed, purged, healed, or taken away, rather than punished as an end in itself. Understanding the problem in this way is essential for grasping the purpose of atonement. Because atonement extends to both people’s moral and ritual impurity and to things that cannot sin or be meaningfully punished, such as the land, altars, sanctuaries, and other sacred objects, its primary purpose cannot be the infliction of retributive penalty, yet Scripture presents all as receiving atonement. The consistent biblical pattern points instead to atonement as God’s gracious provision for removing defilement, restoring holiness, and enabling fellowship in His presence.

The Meaning of Atonement

Having established the conditions that make atonement necessary, namely moral and ritual impurity that separate humanity from God and disrupt covenant fellowship, we now turn to the biblical means by which atonement is accomplished. To understand how union with Christ removes these barriers, restores holiness, and enables fellowship with God, we will examine the mechanisms of atonement in Scripture and their fulfillment in Christ’s priestly ministry.

The Hebrew term often translated atonement is kaphar (or kippur). English readers commonly associate it with reconciliation itself, largely because of William Tyndale’s coinage of the word atonement (“at-one-ment”). Yet this English term subtly conflates the result, reconciliation or restored fellowship, with the means by which that reconciliation is made possible.

In the Old Testament, kaphar describes the process or mechanism that enables reconciliation, not reconciliation itself. Scripture consistently presents atonement as addressing impurity, defilement, and loss of access to God, rather than the satisfaction of retributive punishment, a category that does not organize the atonement rituals in Leviticus or the priestly logic developed in Hebrews. Many assume that Christ’s death automatically reconciles a preselected group, but Scripture presents the work of Christ as providing the means and opportunity for reconciliation to all who respond in faith and repentance. The entire work of Christ—His life, death, resurrection, ascension, presentation of Himself before the Father, and ongoing intercession—constitutes the divine provision through which sinners may be reconciled to God.

The Nature of Sacrifice in the Levitical System

A close reading of the Levitical sacrificial system shows that kaphar is not centered on the killing of the animal as an end in itself, but on the priestly handling and presentation of the life that death makes available. The animal was slain in the courtyard, outside the Holy Place, ordinarily by the offerer himself (Lev. 1:5; 3:2; 4:29), and on the Day of Atonement by the high priest (Lev. 16:11, 15). Only after this did the priest receive the blood and carry out the priestly rites by which atonement is said to occur (Lev. 4:8–10, 26, 31, 35), applying the blood to the altar and sanctuary and burning the appointed portions, thereby presenting the life of the offering to God (Lev. 4:6–7; 16:14–16, 25). This division of labor reinforces that atonement is a mediated ritual act. The killing of the animal is therefore preparatory rather than climactic, serving to ready the offering for priestly presentation before God. This distinction is crucial. In fact, Scripture consistently locates atonement not in the killing or death itself, nor in blood alone, but in the priestly presentation and ritual application of the life offered to God, completed only when the priest carries out the appointed rites in God’s presence (Lev. 16:11–19). This stands in contrast to later models that treat death itself as the decisive, law-satisfying act, a move that shifts the focus away from priestly mediation and presentation, which Scripture consistently places at the center of atonement.

In Israel’s sacrificial worldview, death, apart from priestly mediation and ritual transformation, functioned as a source of defilement rather than holiness, such that contact with death rendered a person unclean (Lev. 11:24–28; Lev. 21:1–4; Num. 19:11–16), which is why bloodshed outside priestly mediation incurred bloodguilt (Lev. 17:3–4). If death itself were capable of cleansing, then every act of killing would only introduce further impurity requiring yet more death to remove it, creating an endless cycle of death. Death itself does not cleanse and, apart from the priestly mediation, cannot accomplish atonement.

This understanding is additionally supported by the fact that Leviticus explicitly permits atonement without blood or animal death. In cases of poverty, a grain offering may be brought as a sin offering, and the text plainly states that the priest “shall make atonement” and that the worshiper “shall be forgiven,” despite the absence of blood or death (Lev. 5:11–13). Because grain is not capable of being “punished,” and yet atonement is still effected, it is clear that punitive substitution is not a necessary component of the ritual. If atonement required the offering to bear punishment in the place of the worshiper, these types of offerings would have been insufficient. Instead, atonement is tied to the divinely appointed ritual by which life, or its representative gift, is presented to God through priestly mediation.

When an animal was slain, what transformed it into an acceptable offering was the ritual process that reconceptualized it as a gift of life presented to God through priestly mediation. The blood did not signify death as such but life given over. As Leviticus 17:11 explains, “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” Through ritual handling and priestly presentation, what would otherwise be a defiling corpse was transformed into a sacred gift or offering. The goal was never to bring death into God’s presence but to present life to Him in a form He had appointed.

An analogy may help clarify the point. If someone were to present the corpse of a dead animal as a gift, it would rightly be received as repulsive. Yet if that same animal were carefully prepared, transformed, and presented as food, the gift would be welcomed. In the sacrificial system, the priest’s work functions in an analogous way. The animal’s death alone does not constitute the offering; the offering consists in what the priest does with the life that death makes available.

The death of the animal initiates the preparation of the offering, but the priestly presentation accomplishes the atonement by purifying what is defiled and removing the barriers to fellowship (Lev. 4:6–7, 16–18; 16:14–16). This is further reinforced by the purification of sacred objects themselves, such as the altar and sanctuary, which are “atoned for” to remove Israel’s defilements (Lev. 16:14–19). Since inanimate objects cannot bear guilt or receive punishment, their purification demonstrates that atonement addresses ritual defilement and disrupted access, not the infliction of a penalty.

Once impurity has been addressed and access to God restored through atonement, Leviticus portrays renewed fellowship as a shared meal in God’s presence. This is most clearly expressed in the peace offering, in which portions are given to God, the priest, and the worshiper, and the remaining meat is eaten before the Lord (Lev. 3; 7:11–21). The peace offering is not the primary rite by which atonement is effected; rather, it presupposes that atonement has already occurred and celebrates the restored relationship it makes possible. Sacred meals, therefore, are the outcome of atonement, not the means by which it is achieved. This pattern anticipates the fuller communion made possible through Christ’s priestly work. In this sense, atonement may be described as the pathway God provides for cleansing and the removal of impurity, so that we may be welcomed to His table for fellowship.

The Scapegoat and the Removal of Sin

The Day of Atonement ritual in Leviticus 16 makes this even clearer. Two goats are required, each serving a distinct purpose. The first goat is slain, and its blood is used to purify the sanctuary from the impurities of Israel (Lev. 16:15–19). The second goat, the scapegoat, is not killed. Instead, the high priest lays his hands upon it and confesses over it the sins of the people, after which the goat is sent away alive into the wilderness, symbolically carrying their sins away from the community (Lev. 16:20–22).

This second rite makes explicit what is implicit throughout the sacrificial system: atonement involves the removal and cleansing of sin and impunity rather than the punishment of a substitute. The scapegoat bears no punishment, suffers no death, and absorbs no wrath. Its function is not penal substitution but removal. Atonement, therefore, involves both the purification of what has been defiled and the removal of sin from God’s people. Sin is not punished in the scapegoat; it is taken away or removed (Ps. 103:12).

Christ’s Fulfillment of Atonement

Christ’s atoning work fulfills the biblical pattern of sacrifice and priesthood in a unified yet multi-staged redemptive act. Scripture does not present the cross as the terminus of atonement, but as the decisive moment by which the sacrificial life to be offered is prepared. Hebrews consistently locates the completion of atonement not in the act of death itself, but in Christ’s priestly presentation of Himself before the Father in the heavenly sanctuary. The life given in death becomes the offering only through priestly mediation, just as in the Levitical system the death of the animal prepared the offering but did not itself accomplish atonement.

This structure is made explicit in Hebrews’ sustained emphasis on Christ’s entry into the heavenly tabernacle. Hebrews 9:11–12 states that Christ “entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands” and did so “through His own blood,” thereby obtaining eternal redemption. The movement of the text is deliberate. Redemption is secured not merely by the shedding of blood, but by Christ’s priestly entry into God’s presence with that blood. This directly corresponds to the Day of Atonement ritual, in which the high priest did not complete atonement at the moment the animal was slain, but only after he carried the blood into the sanctuary and performed the appointed rites before God (Lev. 16:11–19).

Hebrews reinforces this point by repeatedly locating Christ’s priestly activity in heaven rather than on earth. Hebrews 8:1–2 declares that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven and is now “a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.” The text explicitly states that if Christ were on earth, “He would not be a priest at all” (Heb. 8:4). This statement is decisive. It means that Christ’s priestly offering, strictly speaking, does not occur on earth. His death occurs on earth, but His priestly ministry, including the presentation of His offering, takes place in the heavenly sanctuary.

Hebrews 9:24 makes this even clearer: “Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands… but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” The purpose of Christ’s ascension is priestly appearance. He enters God’s presence for us, fulfilling the role that the high priest played on the Day of Atonement when he entered the Holy of Holies as the representative of the people. Christ’s resurrection and ascension are therefore not ancillary to atonement but essential to its completion. Without His entrance into the heavenly sanctuary, the offering prepared by His death would remain unpresented.

This sequencing preserves the Levitical logic that Scripture consistently assumes. In the sacrificial system, death was part of the preparation of the offering, but priestly mediation accomplished atonement. The priest’s work involved the application, presentation, and ritual handling of the life given, transforming what would otherwise be defiling into an acceptable gift presented to God. Hebrews shows that Christ fulfills this pattern precisely. His death supplies the sacrificial life, but His priesthood consists in presenting that life before the Father on behalf of humanity.

This pattern is further reinforced by the Levitical requirement that both the offering and the priest who presented it had to be unblemished. In Israel’s sacrificial system, access to God required fitness in both roles. The gift brought near had to be without defect, explicitly excluding what was maimed or injured, and the one who brought it had likewise to be qualified to stand in God’s presence (Lev. 1:3; 21:16–23; 22:20–25). These requirements, which remained distinct under the old covenant, converge in a single person in Christ. Hebrews consistently emphasizes both His moral and priestly perfection, describing Him as “holy, innocent, undefiled” (Heb. 7:26), while also identifying Him as the one who “offered Himself without blemish to God” (Heb. 9:14). Christ is therefore not merely a priest who presents an acceptable offering, nor merely an offering brought by another, but the uniquely qualified High Priest who presents His own perfected life before the Father. This convergence helps to explain why resurrection and ascension are essential to atonement’s completion, since both the offering and the priest who brings it must be without blemish before God. Only the risen and exalted Christ can fulfill both roles simultaneously in the true sanctuary.

Importantly, Hebrews does not depict Christ repeatedly offering Himself in heaven. His offering is described as once for all (Heb. 7:27; 10:12). Yet the once-for-all character of the offering refers to the sufficiency and finality of the sacrificial act, not to the cessation of priestly ministry. Christ offers Himself once, but He remains forever the living High Priest who represents humanity before God on the basis of that completed offering.

This is why Hebrews can affirm both that Christ has “sat down” at the right hand of God (Heb. 10:12) and that He continues to minister. Sitting down signifies the completion and sufficiency of the offering, not the end of priestly activity. Christ sits because His offering is complete, yet He remains active as High Priest in applying its benefits. Hebrews 8:2 explicitly states that Christ “ministers in the sanctuary,” and Hebrews 7:25 declares that He “always lives to make intercession” for those who draw near through Him.

Thus, Christ’s fulfillment of atonement must be understood as a unified redemptive work encompassing His obedient life, death, resurrection, ascension, presentation of Himself before the Father, and ongoing intercession. The cross is indispensable, but it is not isolated. Atonement is not a momentary legal transaction completed at death, but a priestly act completed through resurrection and heavenly presentation. This preserves the internal coherence of Hebrews and avoids collapsing priesthood into punishment.

By locating the climactic act of atonement in Christ’s heavenly ministry, Scripture also safeguards the participatory nature of salvation. Christ does not act as a substitute who excludes those He represents, but as a faithful High Priest who stands within humanity and brings that humanity into God’s presence. His offering is made for us so that we may draw near through Him. The goal of atonement is not the satisfaction of a judicial demand, but the removal of impurity, the restoration of access, and the renewal of covenant fellowship through union with the living High Priest.

Christ’s Ongoing Intercession

Hebrews places sustained emphasis not only on Christ’s once-for-all offering, but also on His present and ongoing priestly ministry. While the offering itself is complete and unrepeatable, its benefits are continually applied through Christ’s living intercession in the heavenly sanctuary. This distinction is crucial. The finality of the sacrifice does not imply the cessation of priesthood. Rather, it establishes the basis upon which Christ continually mediates access, cleansing, and life to those who draw near through Him.

Hebrews 7:25 states this with remarkable clarity: “Therefore He is able to save completely those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” The text explicitly grounds Christ’s saving efficacy in His ongoing intercession. Salvation here is not described as a static legal status secured solely at the moment of crucifixion, but as a living reality made effective through a High Priest who remains active on behalf of His people. The ones who are saved are those who draw near, and they are saved because Christ continues to intercede for them.

This language mirrors the Levitical pattern in which atonement was never understood as self-applying. The priest’s role did not end with the preparation of the offering. He was required to present it, apply it, and mediate its effects before God. Hebrews presents Christ as fulfilling this role in the true sanctuary. Hebrews 8:1–2 declares that Christ is seated at the right hand of God and is now “a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.” The term minister is not metaphorical. It denotes active priestly service. Christ’s seated posture signifies the completion and sufficiency of His offering, but His ministry continues as He applies that offering on behalf of those who approach God through Him.

This resolves a tension that is often misunderstood. Hebrews repeatedly affirms that Christ has sat down, emphasizing that His sacrificial work is finished (Heb. 10:12). Yet the same epistle insists that He continues to minister and intercede. These claims are not contradictory. Sitting down does not signal inactivity, but completion of the sacrificial task. Unlike the Levitical priests, who stood daily because their offerings could never fully remove sin, Christ sits because His offering is sufficient. Yet precisely because His sacrifice is complete, He is able to function perpetually as the living mediator who brings others into the benefits of that sacrifice.

Hebrews further clarifies that Christ’s intercession is exercised within the heavenly sanctuary itself. Hebrews 9:24 states that Christ entered “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” His appearance before God is not a past event only, but an ongoing priestly reality. Christ remains before the Father as the embodied offering, representing humanity in glorified flesh. His presence itself is intercessory. He does not plead as one attempting to change the Father’s disposition, but as the faithful High Priest whose self-offering stands continually before God as the ground of restored access.

This also explains why Hebrews consistently frames salvation as something that is approached and received rather than mechanically dispensed. The repeated exhortation is, “Let us draw near” (Heb. 4:16; 7:25; 10:22). The benefits of atonement are applied relationally through union with Christ, not automatically by virtue of a past transaction alone. Christ’s intercession functions as the divinely appointed means by which those who respond in faith and repentance are brought into participation with His cleansing, access, and life.

Acts 5:31 reinforces this same pattern outside the book of Hebrews. Peter declares that God exalted Christ to His right hand “to grant repentance and forgiveness of sins.” The granting of repentance and forgiveness is explicitly linked to Christ’s exalted position, not merely to His death. This aligns perfectly with Hebrews’ insistence that Christ’s saving work continues in His heavenly ministry. Forgiveness is not detached from Christ’s priestly mediation, but flows from it.

Importantly, this understanding preserves the open and invitational character of the gospel. Because Christ’s intercession is ongoing, the application of atonement is present and accessible. The once-for-all offering establishes the objective basis of salvation, but its benefits are mediated through Christ’s living priesthood. This means atonement is not a closed system limited to a predetermined group, but a provision extended to all who draw near through the High Priest God has appointed.

Christ’s intercession ensures that believers can fully receive the benefits of His saving work. He does not act as a substitute who bypasses human involvement, but as a representative who brings humanity into God’s presence. Salvation is accomplished entirely by God through Christ’s priesthood, and those who draw near do not contribute to its efficacy; rather, they receive what He has secured. Christ’s ongoing ministry removes the barriers that once excluded sinners and graciously opens the way for all to approach God in faith.

Thus, Christ’s ongoing intercession is not an optional appendage to atonement, nor a mere pastoral image. It is the divinely appointed means by which the once-for-all offering is continually applied. Atonement, as Hebrews presents it, is a living priestly reality. Christ’s sacrifice is complete, His seat is secured, and His ministry continues. As the living High Priest, He always lives to intercede, bringing those who draw near into restored access, cleansing, and fellowship with God through union with Himself.

Summary

Atonement, as Scripture presents it, is not fundamentally about punishment or the infliction of death, but about the priestly removal of impurity and the restoration of access to God. In Leviticus, atonement is accomplished through divinely appointed rites in which offerings are mediated, applied, and presented before God in order to cleanse what has been defiled and remove the barriers that disrupt covenant fellowship. Death prepares the offering, but it is priestly presentation and mediation that accomplish atonement.

Christ fulfills this pattern in its fullness. His death provides the sacrificial life to be offered, but His resurrection, ascension, presentation of Himself before the Father, and ongoing intercession complete the atoning work. As the living High Priest, He continually applies the benefits of His once-for-all self-offering to those who draw near in faith and repentance. Through this response, believers are brought into union with Christ and so participate in His cleansing, restored access, and resurrection life. Atonement, therefore, is not a closed penal transaction accomplished at the cross alone, but a living priestly ministry, completed in Christ and applied to those who draw near in faith and repentance, through which God removes impurity, forgives sin, and restores fellowship.

How God Deals With Sin

As we’ve been covering, Christ’s atoning work provides the means by which the barriers that sin creates can be removed, and God applies that atonement to those who turn to Him in faith and repentance, freely forgiving them, removing impurity, and restoring them to covenant fellowship. In other words, atonement is the healing and purifying power made available, while faith and repentance are the participatory means by which that power is received through God’s gracious forgiveness. This restoration is exercised freely according to God’s mercy, not as the mechanical execution of retributive punishment.

Hebrews 9:22 and the Meaning of Forgiveness

A common appeal against non-penal accounts of the atonement is Hebrews 9:22, which states, “according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” This verse is often treated as a decisive proof that God cannot forgive apart from the execution of retributive punishment. Yet this reading assumes categories the author of Hebrews neither states nor presupposes.

First, the qualifying phrase “according to the Law, one may almost say” governs the entire statement and signals that the author is summarizing the normal operation of the sacrificial system, not asserting an absolute metaphysical requirement for forgiveness. The language itself acknowledges exceptions. As already shown in The Meaning of Atonement section, not all atonement rites under the Law involved blood, as in the case of grain offerings. Hebrews 9:22 functions as a general description of how purification ordinarily occurred under the Mosaic system, not as a timeless rule that forgiveness is impossible without retributive death.

The second issue is the meaning of “forgiveness” itself. The Greek term aphesis does not inherently denote the satisfaction of retributive justice. It regularly refers to release, cancellation, or liberation, such as the remission of debts or the freeing of captives. In the Septuagint and Second Temple literature, it is closely associated with cleansing, restoration, and the removal of defilement, precisely the framework governing the Levitical understanding of atonement already examined above.

Third, Hebrews explicitly links forgiveness with cleansing rather than with the infliction of penalty. Blood functions in this system not as a symbol of punishment, but as the bearer of life. As Leviticus 17:11 explains, “the life of the flesh is in the blood.” Blood cleanses because life is given to counteract death and corruption, not because wrath is discharged upon a victim.

Fourth, Hebrews follows the same priestly logic outlined earlier. Atonement is not located in death alone but in priestly mediation, ritual application, and presentation before God. Christ does not merely die; He enters the heavenly sanctuary “through His own blood,” appearing in God’s presence on our behalf (Heb. 9:11–12, 24). Hebrews also makes clear that animal blood was ultimately insufficient to accomplish what those rituals pointed toward. The problem was not that punishment had not yet been adequately inflicted, but that animal life could not cleanse the conscience, perfect the worshiper, or open lasting access to God (Heb. 9:9; 10:1–4).

Christ’s offering succeeds not because it finally satisfies a demand for penal equivalence, but because His own life, obediently offered and presented before God, accomplishes what animal sacrifices could only prefigure. Hebrews 9:22, therefore, does not teach penal substitution. It affirms sacrificial purification within a priestly system in which life overcomes death, access is restored, and forgiveness is mediated through cleansing rather than through retributive punishment.

God Relents from Judgment When the Wicked Repent

This understanding of forgiveness is not an isolated feature of Hebrews but reflects a consistent pattern in how God deals with sin throughout Scripture. The Old Testament consistently portrays divine judgment as responsive to repentance rather than as an inflexible necessity. God openly declares that announced judgments may be withdrawn when people turn from their evil.

In Jeremiah 18:7–8, God states that when He speaks judgment against a nation, “if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.” Judgment is neither transferred nor satisfied elsewhere; it is withheld. Jeremiah 26:3 and 26:13 reinforce this same logic. God calls Israel to repentance precisely so that He may “repent of the calamity” He intends to bring. These appeals would be incoherent if justice required that punishment be carried out regardless of repentance.

Ezekiel 18:21–23 is even more explicit. If a wicked person turns from his sins and practices righteousness, God declares that “all his transgressions which he has committed will not be remembered against him” (v. 22). God then asks whether He takes pleasure in the death of the wicked rather than in their repentance and life. This same truth is reiterated in Ezekiel 33:11, where the Lord declares, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live.” Justice, in this context, is not retributive punishment but the restoration of the sinner who turns from evil.

The book of Jonah provides a narrative demonstration of the same principle. When Nineveh repents, God “relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it” (Jonah 3:10). No substitute is punished, no wrath is redirected. God’s justice is expressed through mercy toward the repentant.

Joel 2:13 summarizes this aspect of God’s character: He is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in faithful love, and He relents from sending disaster.” Judgment is real, but it is not mechanically inevitable.

God Freely Forgives and Removes Sin

Alongside God’s willingness to relent from judgment, Scripture repeatedly affirms that He actively forgives and removes sin when sinners return to Him.

Isaiah 55:7 calls the wicked to forsake their ways and return to the Lord with the promise that God “will have compassion on him… for He will abundantly pardon.” This promise is immediately clarified by what follows. God explains, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8–9). In context, God’s “higher ways” are not an appeal to inscrutable mystery but a declaration of mercy. Human instinct often concludes that persistent sin deserves final rejection. God declares instead that He will abundantly pardon the repentant. His way of forgiving and restoring the repentant exceeds human expectations of justice without compromising righteousness.

Psalm 86:5 likewise declares that the Lord is “ready to forgive” and abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon Him. Psalm 103:8–12 provides one of the clearest descriptions of divine forgiveness. God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness. He “has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.” Instead, He removes transgressions “as far as the east is from the west.” This language stands in direct tension with the idea that justice requires God to exact the full measure of deserved punishment before forgiveness can occur.

Micah 7:18–19 repeats this theme. God delights in faithful love, passes over rebellion, vanquishes iniquities, and casts sins into the depths of the sea. Isaiah 43:25 brings the point to a climax when God declares, “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” Forgiveness is grounded in God’s character and purposes, not in the prior satisfaction of retributive demands.

Continuity with the New Testament Witness

The New Testament continues the same understanding of forgiveness found in the Old Testament: God freely forgives repentant sinners, removing their indebtedness without requiring the prior exhaustion of retributive punishment. Jesus consistently teaches forgiveness as the release of debts, rather than the redirection of punishment. In the Lord’s Prayer, believers ask God to forgive their debts as they forgive their debtors (Matt. 6:12). In the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:21–35), the king cancels an unpayable debt without extracting payment or punishment. The parable’s force depends entirely on forgiveness being the non-exaction of what is owed.

Jesus explicitly grounds forgiveness in mercy rather than in satisfied retribution: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful… forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:36–37). Forgiveness is portrayed as a merciful release that restores relationship, not as the delayed execution of justice.

This same pattern governs the apostolic exhortations. Believers are commanded to forgive one another “just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:13). The force of this command presupposes that God’s forgiveness is intelligible as forgiveness itself, not as punishment displaced onto a substitute. Human forgiveness, as Jesus consistently defines it, never involves the prior extraction of penalty, whether from the offender or from a third party. When believers forgive, they relinquish a legitimate claim and release a real debt. If divine forgiveness, by contrast, required the full execution of retributive punishment before release could occur, the moral pattern would be reversed. God would forgive only after retributive claims are fully exacted, while commanding His people to forgive by relinquishing those very claims. In that case, the biblical call to imitation would collapse into a principle of “do as I say, not as I do,” a notion wholly foreign to Jesus’ ethical teaching. The command to forgive as God forgives is intelligible only if God’s forgiveness of the repentant is itself a just act of merciful release rather than the delayed satisfaction of retributive penalty.

This understanding is reinforced by the way forgiveness is joined to cleansing in the New Testament. In 1 John 1:9, God’s forgiveness is described in explicitly purificatory terms: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Forgiveness is not portrayed as the satisfaction of an abstract penal demand, but as the removal of moral defilement that disrupts fellowship. Forgiveness and cleansing function together as complementary descriptions of the same restorative act.

Colossians 2:14 provides a particularly important statement of how forgiveness is understood within this framework. God is said to have “canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way.” Forgiveness is depicted as the cancellation and removal of indebtedness. Once the debt is canceled, there is nothing left to collect and no remaining charge demanding punishment. This language coheres seamlessly with the biblical depiction of forgiveness as the removal of guilt rather than the satisfaction of retributive justice.

Throughout Acts, forgiveness is proclaimed as something granted in response to repentance and faith. Sins are “wiped away” (Acts 3:19), forgiveness is “received” (Acts 10:43), and it is announced as a gift through Christ (Acts 13:38). The emphasis consistently falls on pardon, cleansing, and restored fellowship, not on the prior execution of penalty. The New Testament, therefore, does not revise or replace the Old Testament understanding of forgiveness but confirms and intensifies it, presenting forgiveness as God’s merciful act of release, purification, and reconciliation.

Exaction vs. Forgiveness: Conceptual Clarification

Once the biblical picture of forgiveness is established, it becomes clear that exaction and forgiveness are opposites. Forgiveness involves the voluntary cancellation of a debt, penalty, or claim, whereas exaction involves demanding and forcefully extracting a penalty, payment, or compensation. While Scripture affirms that natural consequences for sin may follow, the work of Christ demonstrates that God freely forgives the repentant. Even John Piper, a Reformed Baptist theologian who affirms PSA, acknowledges that forgiveness would cease to be forgiveness if repayment were required:

“When we forgive a debt or an offense or an injury, we don't require a payment for settlement. That would be the opposite of forgiveness. If repayment is made to us for what we lost, there is no need for forgiveness. We have our due. Forgiveness assumes grace. If I am injured by you, grace lets it go. I don't sue you. I forgive you. Grace gives what someone doesn't deserve. That's why forgiveness has the word give in it. Forgiveness is not 'getting' even. It is giving away the right to get even.”
— John Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, pg. 36

The biblical pattern directly contrasts with penal substitutionary atonement, which is built on a retributive conception of justice closely mirroring the lex talionis principle, “eye for an eye.” Sin is treated as a legal offense that incurs a determinate punishment, and justice is satisfied only when that punishment is inflicted. In PSA, the offender is spared not because the penalty is set aside, but because it is transferred to a substitute. The logic of equivalent retribution remains intact; only the recipient of the punishment changes. Forgiveness, on this model, is not the release of a debt or the relinquishing of a claim. It is the declaration that the required punishment has already been executed. Justice cannot be satisfied by mercy, repentance, or reconciliation alone; it must be satisfied through penal equivalence.

Jesus’ teaching operates on a different moral logic. In His parables, forgiveness is framed as debt cancellation, not penalty transfer. The servant in Matthew 18 is released from his unpayable debt because mercy is granted, not because someone else is punished in his place. This only makes sense if forgiveness is not conditioned on the execution of retributive justice. If every debt had to be paid in full before forgiveness could occur, then forgiveness would be a legal fiction. Nothing would truly be forgiven. The reductio is clear: if Jesus’ parables reflected PSA’s understanding, the creditor would insist that justice requires payment and would demand that an innocent party suffer the loss before forgiveness could be granted. Yet Jesus never constructs a parable this way. Not once.

Proverbs 17:15 reinforces a fundamental biblical principle of justice: “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.” This reflects God’s own moral character, not merely human courtroom procedure. In Scripture, the unrepentant wicked are not justified, while those who repent are forgiven and restored and therefore no longer regarded as wicked. Penal substitutionary atonement, however, requires God to condemn one who is truly righteous, namely Christ, in the place of the guilty. Yet the condemnation of the righteous is precisely what Proverbs 17:15 declares morally abhorrent. Biblical forgiveness, by contrast, preserves justice by restoring the repentant rather than redirecting condemnation onto the innocent.

In this light, Christ’s atoning work is not a forced exaction of penalty from Himself in place of sinners; it is God’s gracious cancellation of sin, freely applied to those who repent. Forgiveness, both in the Old and New Testaments, is therefore fundamentally restorative rather than retributive.

Forgiveness, Judgment, and Divine Wrath

None of the foregoing denies that God judges sin, disciplines His people, or that real consequences may follow wrongdoing. Scripture repeatedly affirms divine judgment, temporal discipline, and final accountability. What it does not teach is that forgiveness itself is conditioned upon the prior exhaustion of retributive wrath. Throughout both Testaments, forgiveness is consistently described as the removal of sin, the cancellation of debt, the withholding of judgment, and the restoration of relationship in response to repentance. Judgment and discipline may still occur where God deems them fitting, but they are not presented as the mechanism by which forgiveness is achieved. To conflate forgiveness with the execution of punishment is to import a conceptual framework foreign to the biblical texts themselves.

At the same time, Scripture is clear that divine wrath is real and that God does punish the unrepentant. God’s justice is not compromised by His mercy, nor is His holiness diminished by His willingness to forgive. Rather, Scripture draws a consistent distinction between how God deals with the repentant and the unrepentant. When sinners repent, God freely forgives them by removing their transgressions, casting them away, and no longer holding them against the person. Where sin has been forgiven in this way, there is no remaining offense upon which wrath must fall. Justice toward the repentant is therefore restorative rather than retributive. God does not ignore sin; He overcomes it by calling the sinner to repentance, cleansing them, and restoring them to life and covenant fellowship. To insist that wrath must still be fully discharged after God has removed and remembered sin no more is to treat forgiveness as a legal fiction rather than as the decisive moral and relational act Scripture consistently presents it to be. Divine wrath remains reserved for final judgment against the unrepentant, not redirected onto Christ in their place as a prerequisite for forgiveness.

The Nature of Christ’s Representation

In the purification–union model, Christ’s saving work is repeatedly described in Scripture as being “for us” and “on our behalf.” This language of representation does not mean that Christ bears the exact punishment we deserve in our place. Rather, it describes a representative and priestly action in which Christ acts on behalf of humanity for its benefit, not as a legal replacement who excludes those He represents from participation. Representation here is participatory and inclusive, not penal and substitutionary.

It is important to note that much of the language commonly associated with penal substitutionary atonement, such as “Christ died in our place,” “the wrath of God was satisfied at the cross,” or “Jesus took the punishment we deserve,” does not appear explicitly in Scripture. These phrases arise from later theological constructions built upon particular assumptions about justice, punishment, and atonement. By contrast, Scripture consistently frames Christ’s work using the language of representation, priesthood, mediation, and solidarity, rather than punishment-transfer.

The New Testament grounds Christ’s representative role in the incarnation itself. Hebrews emphasizes that Christ could only represent humanity by truly assuming it: “Since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same” (Hebrews 2:14). The author continues, “For surely it is not angels that He helps, but He helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore He had to be made like His brothers in every respect” (Hebrews 2:16–17). Christ’s work is effective precisely because He stands within humanity, not over against it. As the early church rightly recognized, “For that which He has not assumed He has not healed” (Gregory of Nazianzus). His representation is effective precisely because He has fully identified with those He came to save.

Scripture frequently describes Christ’s death using “for” (huper) and “on behalf of” language, such as “for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6), “for all” (2 Corinthians 5:14–15), and “for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3). This language indicates benefit, purpose, and representative action, not the infliction of punishment in place of others. Paul uses the same preposition when speaking of believers, noting that we have been given the privilege of suffering for (huper) Christ (Philippians 1:29). Our suffering huper Christou plainly does not mean we suffer instead of Christ, but on His behalf and in solidarity with Him. In the same way, the New Testament’s consistent description of Christ acting huper hēmōn (“for us” or “on our behalf”) signals mediation, benefit, and faithful representation rather than exclusionary replacement.

At the same time, Scripture contains a limited number of passages that use the preposition anti, most notably in Jesus’ own words that He came “to give His life as a ransom (lytron) anti many” (Mark 10:45; Matthew 20:28). The presence of anti here does not introduce penal substitution or the idea of a debt paid to God. Rather, it reflects the logic of ransom and liberation. In Scripture, the problem from which humanity needs rescue is bondage to sin, death, and corruption, not captivity to God Himself. Jesus does not pay a ransom to God, and the New Testament never states that Christ paid a debt owed to God. Instead, anti expresses exchange at the level of cost and outcome: Christ gives His life in order to secure the freedom of the many. The exchange is life-for-liberation, not punishment-for-acquittal. The controlling metaphor is not a courtroom but captivity and deliverance. Nothing in the text suggests that Christ undergoes a judicial sentence in the place of sinners; rather, His self-giving service is the costly means by which those held under the power of sin and death are freed and restored.

This representative language is further illustrated in 1 Peter 3:18, which states that “Christ also suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that He might bring us to God.” PSA advocates often read “the righteous for the unrighteous” as indicating penal substitution, where Christ bears the judicial punishment due sinners. Yet Peter’s wording points in a different direction. The preposition huper (“for” or “on behalf of”) denotes representative action undertaken for the benefit of others, not the transfer of guilt or punishment. Christ is presented as the righteous one who suffers on behalf of the unrighteous, remaining righteous while acting for their good. The purpose clause, “so that He might bring us to God,” clarifies the aim of this suffering: mediation and restored access, not penal satisfaction. In this light, Christ’s suffering is part of His faithful, representative work on behalf of humanity, fully consistent with the participatory pattern found throughout the New Testament.

This representative understanding is clearly illustrated in John 11. Caiaphas declares that it is better for one man to die “for the people,” and John explains that Jesus would die “for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:51–52). The outcome of Christ’s death “for” others is not their exclusion from the event, but their gathering, restoration, and inclusion. The text itself defines the meaning of “for”: Christ’s death serves a unifying and restorative purpose, not a penal exchange.

Christ’s representative work is also consistently framed in priestly categories. He acts as the faithful High Priest who offers Himself on behalf of the people and then presents that offering before God. Hebrews emphasizes that Christ “appears in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24) and “always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). His death supplies the sacrificial life that is offered, but the atoning act is completed and applied through His ascension, presentation, and ongoing intercession. Representation here is not a momentary legal transaction but a continuing priestly ministry carried out on behalf of humanity.

In this framework, Christ does not function as a substitute who stands where we should have stood so that we need not be involved. He functions as a faithful representative who acts on our behalf in order to bring us into the benefits of His work. Representation is effective because it is lived, embodied, and presented before God, not because punishment has been redirected. This participatory account of representation avoids the conceptual difficulties of penal substitutionary atonement: it requires no double punishment, no legal fiction, and no separation between Christ’s work and the believer’s restoration. Christ represents humanity by standing with it, acting for it, and opening the way for it to be cleansed, restored, and gathered into one.

Christ’s work on our behalf establishes the objective reality of salvation, but Scripture goes further by explaining how the benefits of this representative work are actually received. This occurs through union with Christ, which functions as the causal means by which His life, righteousness, and victory become ours, allowing believers to participate in the benefits of His representative work.

The Causal Role of Union with Christ

In the purification–union model, union with Christ is the causal foundation of every saving benefit rather than a secondary category applied after the fact through a legal transaction. Justification, sanctification, and glorification do not arrive as externally conferred statuses but flow organically from participation in the life of the living Christ. Union is not merely positional or covenantal; it is the means by which Christ’s life, righteousness, and transforming power are genuinely shared with those who belong to Him.

A central weakness of the imputation model is that it treats righteousness as a purely forensic status detached from the believer’s actual identity. On that view, God declares a person righteous not because they truly share in righteousness, but because Christ’s obedience is legally credited to them. The declaration does not correspond to what the believer is, but to what is counted as theirs by judicial assignment. Justification becomes a change in standing without a corresponding change in being.

The difficulty is not that justification involves a declaration. Scripture clearly affirms that God declares the righteous. The problem arises when that declaration is grounded in a legal transfer rather than in real participation. When righteousness is said to belong to someone who does not, in any meaningful sense, possess it, the declaration functions as a legal fiction. The believer is treated as if righteous while remaining, in themselves, unrighteous. The verdict does not describe reality but stands alongside it.

Scripture, however, consistently frames salvation in participatory and union-based terms rather than in the language of detached legal exchange. Believers are described as being “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), “buried with Him” (Romans 6:4; Colossians 2:12), “raised with Him” (Colossians 3:1), and even “seated with Him in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6). These are not metaphors for a courtroom verdict but descriptions of shared life. The believer participates in Christ’s death, resurrection, and exaltation. The benefits of Christ’s priestly work extend to those who are joined to Him, not merely to individuals connected to a prior penal transaction.

This is why Paul can say, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). The decisive category is being “in Christ.” Justification flows from incorporation and participation, not from a satisfied legal transaction that occurred independently of the believer. The absence of condemnation is not explained by penalty exhaustion elsewhere, but by union with the One who has passed through death and now lives to God.

Union also shapes the believer’s active participation in Christ’s life. Scripture does not present salvation as a passive legal declaration that sidelines the believer’s involvement. We are called to take up our crosses (Matthew 16:24), to be “united with Him in the likeness of His death” (Romans 6:5), and to share in Christ’s sufferings (Romans 8:17; Philippians 3:10; 1 Peter 2:21; 4:13). These participatory realities make little sense if Christ’s death functions exclusively as a penal substitute that leaves no role for shared dying. Genuine union entails both the gift of Christ’s life and the believer’s real participation in the path He walked.

Romans 6:3–11 makes this explicit. Baptism into Christ is described as immersion into His death and resurrection. “If we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:5). Union is the causal mechanism. The death Christ died to sin and the life He now lives to God are shared realities for those who are in Him. The decisive change occurs not in an external declaration but in the believer’s participation in Christ’s own life.

Because union is real, it produces genuine identity change. Paul can therefore say, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20), language that speaks not merely of moral influence or legal representation but of a transformed center of personal life through union with Christ. Believers are said to be “born again” (John 3:3–7), a description that refers to the beginning of a new mode of existence, not a revised legal classification. They are called “a new creation” in Christ, with the old passing away and the new coming into being (2 Corinthians 5:17). They are exhorted to “put on the new self” created according to God’s righteousness (Ephesians 4:24). In the same vein, Peter says that believers become “partakers of the divine nature,” having escaped the corruption that is in the world (2 Peter 1:4), language that makes sense only if salvation involves real participation and transformation rather than an external legal status. This is not compatible with a view of righteousness that remains external to the believer. 

If regeneration involves the genuine sharing of Christ’s life rather than a mere declaration of life, it is difficult to see why righteousness alone would remain external, as though believers were counted righteous while remaining unrighteous, rather than being made complete in Him through union with the Righteous One (Colossians 2:9–10). This is further supported by Paul’s description of believers as members of Christ’s body (1 Corinthians 12:12–27; Ephesians 1:22–23), for incorporation into a righteous head is not merely representational but constitutive of the identity of the body itself. Justification thus arises from union with Christ and initiates an inward transformation that sanctification continues and glorification completes.

This contrasts sharply with penal substitutionary atonement, where justification and righteousness are typically framed as external legal states. In PSA, God declares the sinner righteous because Christ bore the believer’s penalty in their place. Guilt is imputed to Christ, righteousness is imputed to the believer, and justice is said to be satisfied at the cross as a completed legal act. Union then functions primarily as the covenantal context in which this forensic exchange is applied. The believer is declared righteous while remaining sinful in themselves, requiring a separate sanctification process to repair what the declaration alone does not change.

In the purification–union framework, justification does not flow from a penal exchange but from incorporation into Christ. Righteousness is not credited from outside but shared through participation in His resurrected life. The believer is declared righteous because they genuinely share in the Righteous One. God’s verdict corresponds to reality rather than standing alongside it.

Scripture presents union as the fountainhead of every spiritual blessing. Ephesians 1:3–14 repeatedly grounds forgiveness, redemption, cleansing, and inheritance “in Christ,” locating every saving benefit in incorporation rather than transaction. Likewise, Christ’s ongoing priestly work is applied to believers through union, as He “always lives to make intercession” for those who draw near through Him (Hebrews 7:25; 9:24). Salvation is not merely declared; it is lived, sustained, and consummated through participation in Christ’s life.

Union also resolves the conceptual difficulties often associated with PSA. There is no need for double punishment, no reliance on legal fiction, and no requirement that divine wrath be exhausted on Christ in order for believers to be forgiven. Reconciliation is grounded in Christ’s completed priestly work and applied through relational union. What Christ has accomplished is experienced by the believer as a living reality rather than as an abstract legal settlement.

In short, union with Christ is the causal mechanism of salvation. Through real participation in His life, death, resurrection, and intercession, believers are justified, transformed, and ultimately glorified. Salvation is not merely declarative but relational and transformative, producing a genuine new identity in Christ rather than a revised legal status layered over an unchanged self.

Double Imputation and Its Problems

A central feature of penal substitutionary atonement is the doctrine of double imputation: our sins are counted to Christ, and His righteousness is counted to us. The intention is to preserve God’s justice by providing a legal basis for both Christ’s punishment and our acceptance. Yet when examined closely, this framework generates internal contradictions that undermine its coherence. More importantly, it stands at odds with the New Testament’s presentation of salvation as participation in the life of Christ rather than a merely external legal exchange. In the traditional formulation, Christ is “considered” sinful but never becomes sinful, while believers are “considered” righteous but never become righteous. These imputations are said to be strictly forensic rather than ontological. The problem is that this turns both sides of the exchange into declarations that contradict reality. Christ is declared guilty, though He remains guiltless, and we are declared righteous, though we remain unrighteous. This produces a double legal fiction. God would be declaring two things to be true that are not actually true of either party. Scripture, however, presents God as the One who does not lie, does not justify by mere declaration, and does not simply call someone righteous without actually making them righteous. A salvation model rooted in non-correspondence between declaration and reality cannot stand.

The New Testament itself helps clarify what Paul means in passages often cited in support of double imputation. In Galatians 3:13, Christ is said to “become a curse for us.” Jesus literally hung on a tree, fulfilling Deuteronomy 21:23, where anyone executed on a tree was regarded as under the curse, publicly marked as one condemned. Yet Paul does not mean that Christ was personally guilty or literally cursed by God. Rather, He entered into the condition of the condemned, identifying with those under the curse in order to redeem them. He bore the reproach of the cursed, not the moral guilt of sin itself. This reading aligns with 1 Corinthians 12:3, which emphasizes that no one empowered by the Spirit calls Jesus “accursed,” affirming His perfect righteousness and divine Sonship. 

Similarly, in 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul says that Christ “became sin” for us. This does not indicate that Jesus Himself became sinful or morally guilty. In Hebrew thought, the word translated “sin” (chatat) also refers to a sin offering, as in Leviticus 4:24 and 6:25, where the same term designates the offering made to atone for sin rather than sin itself. Paul, then, can be understood as saying that Christ became the sin offering on our behalf. He entered fully into the human condition as it exists under sin, experiencing suffering, mortality, and human weakness, without Himself being defiled, guilty, or ever separated from God. He gave Himself as the spotless, unblemished representative, identifying with humanity’s plight in order to redeem it. This language highlights the participatory, representative, and transformative nature of His work, preserving the reality of His righteousness.

In reaction to the “legal fiction” charge, some push imputation toward a more ontological reading. But that path collapses penal substitution in the opposite direction. If Christ truly takes on the moral guilt or corruption of sin, even for a moment, several impossibilities follow. Christ would cease to be the spotless Lamb required for an acceptable offering, He would become morally defiled, severing the very union with God that grounds His representative work, and union with Christ would transmit corruption to believers. If Christ were truly constituted sinful, salvation would be impossible. If He is not, then the exchange PSA requires never actually happens. Thus double imputation cannot be ontological without destroying both Christology and soteriology.

The doctrine also demands that several incompatible assertions be held together. Christ must genuinely bear the punishment of sin, yet He must not actually become sinful. Believers must genuinely be counted righteous, yet they must not actually become righteous. These pairings produce contradictory identities: Christ becomes guilty-but-innocent, while believers become righteous-but-unrighteous. A theological model that requires mutually exclusive identity states for both Christ and believers reveals a structural incoherence at its core. Either the imputation is real, in which case Christ becomes sinful and believers become righteous, or the imputation is not real, in which case no genuine exchange occurs.

The New Testament consistently teaches that believers are united to and participate in Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension. This union is the mechanism of transformation. We become righteous because we are in the Righteous One. We become clean because we are joined to One who remains undefiled. We share His holiness because His life becomes ours. We are reconciled because He draws humanity into communion with God, not because God pretends a legal exchange occurred. Union resolves every tension that double imputation creates. Since Christ never becomes sinful, union with Him does not transmit corruption. Since believers are truly made new, righteousness is not a legal disguise but the fruit of participation in His life. No legal fiction is needed, and no contradictory identity states are imposed on Christ or the redeemed.

In short, double imputation fails because if it remains forensic, it turns salvation into a fiction; but if it becomes ontological, it corrupts Christ and destroys the very union through which salvation occurs. Only the participatory union taught throughout Scripture explains how we genuinely become righteous without compromising Christ’s holiness or reducing the cross to a legal abstraction.

The Incoherence of Penal Substitution in Light of Union With Christ

Some theologians assume that participatory models, in which believers share in Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, can coexist with PSA. A closer look shows these two approaches are logically incompatible at their foundations.

Penal substitution asserts that Christ saves by standing in the place of sinners and enduring the penalty they deserve. The mechanism is juridical: the penalty owed by the guilty is transferred to Christ, who bears it as their substitute. In this arrangement, the decisive saving act is His undergoing of God’s judgment instead of the offender. The sinner is not present in the act itself; the entire point is that Christ undergoes what the offender would have otherwise borne.

Participatory models operate on a fundamentally different premise. Here, Christ saves by drawing humanity into union with Himself. Believers are united to His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension so that His redemptive work becomes the ground of their new life. This does not render them co-redeemers; Christ’s redemptive work remains His alone, yet through union with Him believers come to share in the reality and outcome of what He has accomplished on their behalf.

These two models require opposite relational stances between Christ and the believer at the very point where His redemptive work is applied. Substitution, by definition, means “instead of,” which requires the individual’s absence from the act, while participation means “with,” which requires their presence, at least covenantally, within it. The same act cannot demand both simultaneously without collapsing into contradiction. If Christ’s death functions as a replacement for the sinner’s own, then the believer cannot meaningfully be said to die with Him; and if the believer truly dies with Christ in a real covenantal union, then His death cannot at the same moment function as a penal death carried out instead of theirs. One cannot be both replaced and included in the very event from which one was supposedly removed. Substitution excludes; participation includes.

An illustrative example hopefully might clarify this tension. Imagine a condemned man standing at the gallows. A volunteer steps forward and says, “I will take his place.” The condemned man is removed, and the substitute dies in his stead. Now imagine the substitute turning to the same man and saying, “But you must join me on the platform. You must die with me.” The scenario collapses and from my estimation is nonsensical. If the condemned man participates, then the act is no longer substitution, but if the substitute truly dies instead of him, then the condemned man cannot participate. Substitution and participation are logically irreconcilable and when combined become incoherent.

This tension becomes even clearer when we consider the way Jesus Himself describes the path His followers must walk. PSA requires that Christ undergo suffering instead of His people, absorbing a penalty they will never face. Yet Jesus tells His disciples that they will drink the same “cup” He drinks and undergo the same “baptism” with which He is baptized (Matthew 20:22–23). The very cup He prays might pass from Him in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39) is commonly assumed to be the cup of divine wrath, yet Jesus explicitly says James and John will drink it as well. This means the “cup” cannot refer to a punitive experience Jesus undergoes in their place. Rather, it signifies the appointed path of suffering and faithfulness that He walks first and into which they are later drawn. Far from substitution in the penal sense, Jesus portrays a shared vocation.

In the same way, Jesus does not portray His death as a penalty borne in isolation from His followers but as the pattern into which His disciples must be conformed: “take up your cross,” “follow Me,” and “lose your life to find it.” The New Testament presents believers as co-crucified, co-buried, and co-raised with Christ, not exempted from His death but united to it. Paul seeks to “know Him… by the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil 3:10). This desire is not because believers add anything to Christ’s work, but because union with Him necessarily involves participation rather than replacement. Christ goes before His people as the forerunner who has already secured the victory and cleared the way into resurrection life, not as one who undergoes a wholly different fate so that His followers escape the path altogether. The Christian life is patterned after His self-giving, not shielded from it.

This participatory framework sits uneasily with a model in which Christ suffers instead of His people, for participation requires inclusion whereas penal substitution requires exclusion. Scripture never envisions two crosses, Christ’s cross where wrath is spent, and another where believers are united with Him. The New Testament knows only one: the cross in which Christ dies and into which believers are joined.

Likewise, if Christ’s death is fundamentally a penal event carried out in our place, then participation in that death becomes impossible in the sense required by union-with-Christ accounts. If His death is instead something we share with Him, then it cannot be the penal replacement that penal substitution requires. Additionally, this tension becomes even sharper when considering resurrection, ascension, and new life. If Christ dies instead of us, why does the substitution cease at resurrection? Scripture repeatedly affirms that believers are raised with Him, share in His life, and will reign with Him. If PSA were applied consistently, we would be forced to say, Christ rose instead of us, so we do not rise; Christ ascended instead of us, so we do not ascend; Christ reigns instead of us, so we do not reign with Him; Christ lives a new life instead of us, so we do not walk in newness of life. Yet Scripture affirms the exact opposite: believers are united to Christ in every stage of His redemptive work. PSA artificially isolates His death, creating a sharp discontinuity in the redemptive narrative that Scripture never supports.

This structural conflict at the level of participation and substitution is only the one of many difficulties. Even if one were to set aside the incompatibility between PSA and the New Testament’s participatory framework, an even more basic problem emerges when we examine the nature of the penalty itself. PSA maintains that Christ endured the very punishment due to sinners. Yet the kind of judgment Scripture describes is not the kind of judgment Christ experienced. The internal logic of PSA therefore falters not only when placed alongside union with Christ but also when evaluated according to its own claims about divine punishment.

Did Christ endure the punishment we are due?

A central claim of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) is that Christ endured the very punishment due to sinners. Whether articulated in legal, forensic, or theological terms, the core assertion remains that God’s wrath fell on Christ in our place, so that the penalty deserved by humanity was borne by Him. Yet Scripture consistently presents the death and judgment awaiting sinners in terms that Christ did not experience. The fate of the wicked is repeatedly described as permanent, irreversible, or terminal: they are “cut off” and “vanish” (Psalm 37:9–10), “destroyed forevermore” (Psalm 92:7), “exterminated” (Isaiah 13:9), or made “as though they had never been” (Obadiah 1:15–16). They face “eternal punishment” and “eternal destruction” (Matthew 25:46; 2 Thessalonians 1:9), and exclusion from God’s presence (Matthew 7:23). No matter which doctrine of judgment one adopts, whether eternal conscious torment, eternal separation, or irreversible death, the punishment prescribed for sinners is permanent, unending, and final, whereas Christ’s suffering was temporally bounded, forward-looking, and followed by vindication, resurrection, and exaltation.

Some may object with “the wages of sin is death, and Christ died in our place,” but this objection assumes two things Scripture never explicitly teaches: first, that Christ endured the same kind of death or penalty that the unrepentant will experience, and second, that He did so in our place rather than on our behalf. By contrast, Scripture depicts the punishment of the wicked in a manner Christ never underwent, exposing the incoherence of claiming He literally bore the exact penalty deserved by sinners.

For example, if the penalty is unending torment, Christ’s suffering was finite and completed. If the penalty is eternal separation, Christ was never estranged from the Father in a permanent, relational sense, a reality that would break the unity of the Trinity and result in heresy. If the penalty is irreversible death or annihilation, Christ’s resurrection demonstrates that His death was neither final nor terminal. Even hybrid models that combine ruin, misery, and estrangement presuppose permanence, which Christ did not experience. At most, PSA could claim He suffered a lesser substitute, but this undermines the very idea of enduring the exact penalty we deserved.

A further problem arises when union with Christ is considered. Scripture consistently describes believers as dying, being buried, and being raised with Christ. This is not merely forensic; it is genuine covenantal participation in His redemptive work. Yet, if PSA is correct that Christ endured sinners’ punishment as their substitute, then union with Him would connect believers to the very punishment PSA claims He suffered in their place. Participation and exemption cannot coexist. To be truly united to Christ in His death is to share, in some sense, the very thing from which PSA insists we are spared or delivered from - God’s wrath. The logic of union thus exposes an internal contradiction in PSA.

Why Do We Still Die?

A persistent difficulty within Penal Substitutionary Atonement arises from a straightforward question: if Christ bore the very penalty sinners owed, then why do believers still die? Scripture identifies death as “the wages of sin” (Rom. 6:23). Within a strict substitutionary framework, a wage that has already been paid should no longer be exacted. If Christ physically died in our place in a strict penal sense so that we would not have to, then believers should no longer undergo physical death. Yet all Christians still do.

The problem is not merely experiential; it is conceptual. Romans 6:23 does not present death as a judicial invoice God must collect in order to forgive, but as what sin itself produces. A wage is what flows from one’s service. To live under sin’s dominion is to share in sin’s outcome, and that outcome is death. Paul’s contrast is not between a penalty Christ pays in the place of others and a reward believers receive, but between two masters and their respective ends: sin yields death; God gives eternal life. Eternal life is explicitly described as a gift, not a wage, which already signals that Paul is not operating within a framework of transferable penalties.

Moreover, the death in view cannot be reduced to physical mortality. All people die, including infants who have committed no personal acts of sin. Scripture consistently traces bodily death to the fall itself, to Adam’s introduction of mortality into the human condition (Rom. 5:12; 1 Cor. 15:21–22), not to the accumulation of individual moral debts. Physical death is a universal consequence of life in a fallen world, not a wage earned through personal service to sin. This alone makes it implausible to identify Romans 6:23 with biological death understood as a judicial punishment exacted for individual guilt.

Instead, Paul’s language points beyond mere mortality to the final outcome of remaining under sin’s dominion. Throughout Romans, “death” frequently functions as an eschatological category, referring to the loss of life that stands in direct contrast to the eternal life God gives in Christ (cf. Rom. 6:21; 7:10; 8:6, 13). This aligns with Scripture’s broader witness, which distinguishes between the universal experience of physical death and the “second death,” the ultimate and irreversible fate of those who remain in sin (Rev. 20:14; 21:8). Read in this light, Romans 6:23 identifies the true wage of sin not as the fact that humans die, but as final death in contrast to the life God freely grants through union with Christ.

Some attempt to avoid PSA’s tension by narrowing the penalty to “spiritual death,” often defined as separation from God. But this move only sharpens the difficulty. If the true wage of sin is eternal separation from God resulting in an eternal death, then Christ would have to undergo that penalty for substitution to be genuine. Yet Scripture nowhere suggests that Christ experienced the final death that sin produces. But if spiritual death means eternal separation from God, then suggesting that Christ endured it would imply a rupture within the Trinity and within Christ’s divine life, something incompatible with both Scripture and historic Christian doctrine resulting in heresy.

On the other hand, if Christ did not undergo spiritual death, and yet PSA identifies spiritual death as the actual penalty owed, then His physical death becomes difficult to justify within PSA’s own logic. For a substitute to genuinely be a substitute, it must bear the precise penalty due. Recasting the penalty to preserve the model only disconnects Christ’s bodily death from the very framework meant to explain it.

Objectors might respond that death no longer “stands over” believers because they go to be with the Lord or because the resurrection will undo it. But this shifts the discussion away from PSA’s central claim. The question is not whether God graciously redeems believers after death, but whether death itself should still occur as a penal reality if Christ has already paid the wage in their stead. Appeals to post-mortem comfort or to the resurrection do not resolve the issue. If the penalty has been fully satisfied by a substitute, the penalty should not still fall on those for whom it was paid. Allowing the penalty to occur and then compensating for it is not substitution; it is mitigation.

The participatory model avoids these internal tensions. In this framework, Christ does not die instead of His people as a penal replacement; He dies as their representative head. His death is the decisive end of the old, sin-governed life (Rom. 6:6–8), and believers share in that death through union with Him. We still undergo physical death, but its meaning has been transformed. It no longer functions as a judgment upon those in Christ. 

Those united to Christ already share in His risen life (Rom. 6:4; Col. 3:1), and the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will raise our mortal bodies as well (Rom. 8:11, 23). The true wage of sin, final death, has been overcome not by the payment of a penalty, but by deliverance from sin’s dominion and incorporation into Christ’s life. For this reason, Christ’s death is not a substitution that removes death from our path, but the beginning of a shared victory over death itself. Believers still pass through death as He did, yet they do so confident that it leads toward the bodily life He has already entered. The completion of that union awaits the resurrection, but death no longer carries the significance it once did. Its final form has been abolished, and its remaining presence is only a temporal shadow, for death has lost its sting.

Under PSA’s strict logic, the continued death of believers remains difficult to explain. Under the participatory pattern Paul actually describes, it fits naturally: we die with Christ, and through that shared death we are raised into the life He now lives.

Why Is There Still Wrath to Come?

Another recurring difficulty for penal substitutionary atonement lies in its claim that God’s wrath was fully poured out on Christ at the cross. If the wrath of God has already been spent, then the New Testament’s repeated warnings about a coming day of wrath make little sense. Paul speaks of wrath being “stored up for the day of wrath” (Romans 2:5), and Revelation portrays divine judgment as a future, climactic event. If all of God’s divine wrath was exhausted at the cross, nothing should remain for Him to unleash at the end of the age. Yet Scripture insists that final judgment is still ahead. This tension is not peripheral. PSA’s central claim is that Christ absorbed the exact penalty sinners owe. If that is true, then any future outpouring of wrath is inexplicable. This tension has historically driven some to doctrines such as limited atonement, where Christ is said to have borne wrath and provide reconciliation only for a predetermined group of individuals to avoid the charge of double payment.

This is the logic behind limited or definite atonement. According to this view, Christ’s death did not make salvation possible but effectually accomplished it for the elect. His death removed guilt, satisfied divine anger, and secured reconciliation for a fixed number of individuals chosen from eternity rather than being a general provision for all humanity. On this reading, the atonement had a built-in scope: God intended Christ to suffer wrath only for the elect, thereby ensuring that none of His wrath remains for them. Those outside the elect receive none of Christ’s saving benefits and will face the final judgment without His substitution.

But this framework assumes a definition of atonement that Scripture does not support. Earlier we saw that the biblical term kaphar refers not to satisfying divine anger but to the removal of impurity and the restoration of the conditions necessary for communion. Atonement in the Levitical pattern is not accomplished by death as punishment but through the priestly presentation of life before God. The blood represents life, not wrath-bearing. The barrier between God and His people is removed not by inflicting retribution but by purifying and removal of what is defiled. This pattern is fulfilled in Christ, whose death provides the sacrificial life that He, as the risen and ascended High Priest, presents in the heavenly sanctuary. The cross was the beginning of the offering. Atonement is completed in His presentation before the Father and applied through His ongoing intercession.

Once this biblical perspective is in view, the rationale for limited atonement collapses. If atonement is the purification that restores access to God, not the exhausting of wrath, then limiting it to a predetermined number is unwarranted. Hebrews does not treat the application of atonement as a fixed distribution completed at the cross. Instead, it locates cleansing, forgiveness, and access to God in Christ’s living priestly ministry. He is able to save completely those who draw near to God through Him because He always lives to intercede (Hebrews 7:25). The text ties the application of His atoning work to an ongoing relational response, not to an eternal decree that predetermines who is reconciled before they believe.

This exposes a deeper inconsistency in the logic of limited atonement. If Christ fully bore the penal wrath due to preselected individuals at the cross, then from that moment onward there was no longer any unresolved penal liability against them. Whatever condemnation they are said to be under prior to faith must therefore be condemnation that lacks penal enforceability, otherwise justice would be exacting what has already been fully borne.

Further, the New Testament repeatedly affirms the universal scope of Christ’s death. He tasted death for everyone (Hebrews 2:9). He gave Himself as a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:6). He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for our sins but also for the whole world (1 John 2:2). These texts occur in contexts that emphasize the priestly pattern of Christ’s offering, not a wrath transaction restricted to the elect. Christ’s once-for-all offering before the Father is universal in provision, while its benefits are applied personally and relationally through His intercession as people draw near. The scope of the offering is global, and the application of its cleansing is contingent on response.

Another complication appears when we examine how the New Testament actually speaks of wrath in relation to Christ’s death. If the cross was the moment in which God’s wrath was decisively exhausted, we would expect the apostolic writings to draw that connection explicitly and repeatedly. Instead, the New Testament locates divine wrath almost entirely in the future. Believers are consistently described as those who will be delivered from coming wrath, not as those whose wrath was already discharged onto Christ. The only verse that places “wrath” near the death of Christ is Romans 5:9, yet even there Paul does not say that wrath fell on Christ; he simply states that those now justified by His blood will be saved from the wrath to come. This pattern is unmistakable. The New Testament regularly connects salvation to the future avoidance of wrath, but it never directly identifies the cross as the moment when God vented that wrath. If wrath-satisfaction were the central meaning of the crucifixion, the silence of the texts becomes difficult to explain.

When viewed through the lens of biblical atonement, the future wrath of God no longer conflicts with Christ’s saving work. Those united to Him are delivered from the wrath to come not because their wrath was spent on Him in advance, but because union with Him brings them into the life that escapes judgment. Final wrath remains real and future, but those who share in Christ’s resurrection life will not experience it.

The strict logic of PSA forces a narrowing of Christ’s work to avoid double payment. The biblical logic of atonement allows for neither exhaustion of wrath at the cross nor a limited scope. Christ’s offering is once for all, His intercession is ongoing, and His atonement is an open provision for all who draw near.

Additional Objections

Hilastērion and Hilasmos:

Several passages frequently cited in support of penal substitutionary atonement depend heavily on particular translations of Greek ritual terms. Two of the most important are hilastērion and hilasmos. A closer examination of their usage, background, and biblical imagery reveals that these terms do not require, and often do not support, a penal or retributive framework.

Hilastērion in Romans 3:25–26 and Hebrews 9:5

Romans 3:25–26 states that God presented Christ as hilastērion by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness. The term hilastērion has been translated in a variety of ways, including “propitiation,” “expiation,” “sacrifice of atonement,” and “mercy seat.” These translations often reflect theological conclusions rather than the lexical or ritual referent of the word itself.

The only other occurrence of hilastērion in the New Testament is Hebrews 9:5, where it unambiguously refers to the mercy seat, the golden lid of the Ark of the Covenant overshadowed by the cherubim. In the Septuagint, hilastērion consistently translates the Hebrew kapporet, the mercy seat located within the Holy of Holies. This strongly suggests that Paul’s use of hilastērion in Romans is drawing on established Levitical and temple imagery rather than introducing a new abstract concept of appeasement or punishment.

Translating hilastērion as “propitiation” or “expiation” replaces the concrete ritual object with an assumed function. By contrast, retaining “mercy seat” preserves the imagery and allows the meaning to be derived from the biblical context. This is especially important for consistency. If one were to substitute “propitiation” or “sacrifice of atonement” into Hebrews 9:5, the verse would become incoherent. The consistency of translating hilastērion as “mercy seat” across both passages better aligns Romans 3 with the Levitical framework that Hebrews explicitly develops.

Crucially, atoning sacrifices were never killed on the mercy seat. In the Old Testament sacrificial system, animals were slaughtered outside the Holy of Holies, often in the courtyard, and their blood was then brought by the priest into the sanctuary. Atonement was completed through ritual presentation and application, not at the moment of death itself. The mercy seat was not a place of execution but the locus of cleansing, covenant renewal, and restored fellowship. Reading Romans 3 through this imagery supports an understanding of Christ’s blood as the means by which purification and reconciliation are accomplished, rather than as the execution of retributive punishment upon Him.

Hilasmos in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10

The noun hilasmos appears only twice in the New Testament, in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10, where it is commonly translated “propitiation” or “atoning sacrifice.” As with hilastērion, these translations often carry doctrinal freight that exceeds what the term itself requires.

Hilasmos is cognate with hilastērion and hilaskesthai (Heb 2:17), and it is frequently translated according to the translator’s atonement theology. Lexically, however, its usage does not favor the idea of appeasing divine wrath. In extant Greek literature, hilasmos only clearly carries the sense of propitiation or appeasement in a single instance in Plutarch, where it refers to conciliation. In Jewish Greek literature, including Philo and the Septuagint, the term consistently refers to atonement, sin offerings, or forgiveness.

Notably, none of the occurrences of hilasmos in the Septuagint mean propitiation. Its uses include references to sin offerings (Ezek 44:27), forgiveness (Ps 129:4 LXX; Dan 9:9), atonement (Lev 25:9), and guilt offerings (Num 5:8; Amos 8:14). Intertestamental Jewish texts, such as 2 Maccabees 3:33, likewise use the term for sacrificial healing or restoration. Since the Septuagint was the primary scriptural corpus of the New Testament authors, its usage is especially significant for understanding how these terms would have been heard by early Christian audiences.

The immediate context of 1 John further supports this reading. The pericope of 1 John 1:10–2:2 is concerned with cleansing, forgiveness, and ongoing purification from sin. Christ’s blood is presented as that which cleanses us from all sin, not as that which redirects God’s wrath away from us. This coheres with 1 John 4:9–10 and Romans 5:8, which explicitly ground the sending of the Son in God’s prior love. Christ is not sent so that God might love, but because God already loves.

Summary

Taken together, the biblical, lexical, and historical evidence indicates that hilastērion and hilasmos are best understood within the cleansing, restorative, and participatory framework of atonement already present in Leviticus and developed throughout the New Testament. These terms describe God’s provision for the removal of sin and impurity and the restoration of covenant fellowship. The problem addressed by atonement is not a change required in God’s disposition, but a transformation required in us.

Isaiah 53

Isaiah 53 is frequently cited as one of the strongest biblical foundations for penal substitutionary atonement. Verses 4–6, 10, and 12 are often treated as self-evident descriptions of divine retributive punishment inflicted upon the Servant in place of sinners. Yet this reading depends upon assumptions that are not demanded by the text itself. When Isaiah 53 is examined within its linguistic, ritual, and canonical context, particularly in light of the Septuagint and the New Testament’s own use of the passage, the penal framework proves to be imposed rather than derived.

The New Testament’s Interpretation of Isaiah 53

The New Testament overwhelmingly draws its quotations and allusions to Isaiah 53 from the Septuagint rather than directly from the Masoretic Text. The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, began in the third century BC (roughly 300–200 BC) and was largely complete by the second century BC (approximately 200–100 BC). This makes it centuries earlier than the Masoretic Text, which was codified by Jewish scribes known as the Masoretes between the seventh and tenth centuries AD (approximately AD 600–1000), which is considered quite late in church history. This historical reality is consistent with the broader pattern of apostolic usage and is theologically significant because it shows us how Isaiah 53 was already being read and understood in the Jewish world and then received by the early church. 

When Isaiah 53 is applied to Jesus in passages such as Matthew 8:17, Luke 22:37, Acts 8:32–35, and 1 Peter 2:22–25, the emphasis consistently falls on suffering, healing, faithful obedience, and reconciliation. Matthew explicitly applies Isaiah 53:4 to Jesus’ healing ministry: “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases,” not to a penal transaction. Peter interprets Isaiah 53 in terms of righteous suffering, example, and restoration: Christ bears sins in order to free people from sin and bring them back to God. At no point do the New Testament authors present the Servant in Isaiah 53 as receiving punishment in the place of others. The Servant’s suffering is redemptive and restorative, not juridical.

Understanding this interpretive context explains why appeals to the Septuagint are central. Its wording, which differs in key respects from the Masoretic Text, shapes the early church’s understanding and guards against reading the passage through later juridical categories like PSA.

Misinterpretation and Human Perspective in Isaiah 53:4

Isaiah 53:4 already signals the danger of misreading the Servant’s suffering. The Masoretic Text states that “we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” This is not a divine explanation of the Servant’s suffering but a confession of human misunderstanding. The verse explicitly identifies the belief that God was striking the Servant as a mistaken perception, which the passage then proceeds to correct.

The Septuagint reinforces this distinction. It renders the verse as: “He bears our sins, and is pained for us: yet we accounted him to be in trouble, and in suffering, and in affliction.” The contrast is deliberate. The Servant’s suffering is real, but observers wrongly interpret his suffering as divine judgment. This dynamic closely mirrors the New Testament portrayal of the crucifixion, where Jesus is publicly regarded as rejected by God, even as the apostolic witness denies that conclusion.

Verses 5–6 and the Nature of Substitution

Isaiah 53:5–6 explicitly grounds the Servant’s suffering for or because of our transgressions and iniquities. These verses indicate that the Servant suffers in relation to human sin and experiencing its effects in the world, but they do not claim that God punished him in place of others. The text emphasizes connection, identification, and the impact of sin, not juridical penalty.

This causal language is often treated as decisive proof for penal substitution, particularly in translations that speak of “the chastisement that brought us peace” or “the punishment that brought us peace.” The assumption behind these readings is that peace with God can only be achieved if God inflicts retributive punishment on the Servant in the place of sinners. Yet neither the wording nor the broader context of Isaiah 53 requires this conclusion.

The Hebrew term commonly rendered “chastisement” (musar) does not inherently denote punitive justice. Across the Hebrew Scriptures, musar frequently refers to formative discipline, corrective instruction, or the consequences of sin, rather than the satisfaction of a legal penalty. It can be costly and painful without implying guilt in the one who bears it. Wisdom literature repeatedly affirms that the righteous may endure musar without deserving punishment (cf. Prov. 3:11–12). In Isaiah 53, the Servant’s suffering is not because he is morally culpable, but because he participates in addressing the effects of human sin.

Verse 6 highlights a critical textual difference. The Masoretic Text states that “the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” while the Septuagint reads, “the Lord gave Him up for our sins.” These expressions are not interchangeable, and neither requires a penal interpretation. The Septuagint’s language of “gave up” corresponds closely with New Testament usage, such as Romans 8:32, where God “did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all.” This language expresses divine permission and redemptive intent, not active retributive punishment. Even in the Masoretic phrasing, “laid on Him” does not entail the transfer of guilt or the infliction of punishment. Within Israel’s ritual framework, the laying of sin upon a representative signifies identification and responsibility, not penal substitution.

The most direct parallel is the scapegoat in Leviticus 16. There, the sins of Israel are symbolically placed upon the live goat, which carries them into the wilderness. The goat is not punished or killed; it bears them away in order to remove sin from the people. Isaiah 53:6 operates according to the same logic: the Servant is a representative who bears the burden of sin to deal with it and remove it from the people, enabling restoration without retributive punishment.

Verse 6 also reinforces a broader participatory framework. Humanity’s condition is described as wandering and disordered: “All of us like sheep have gone astray.” God’s response is not to transfer punishment, but to place the weight of this disordered condition upon the Servant so that it may be addressed through him. The Servant suffers because of the effects of sin, not as a punished substitute.

This understanding aligns naturally with the broader movement of Isaiah 53. The Servant does not stand over against humanity as a punished substitute, but with them as a representative who enters into their condition to restore it. His suffering is not a legal transaction that exempts others from consequences, but a redemptive participation that opens the way for peace. People are healed not because punishment has been diverted, but because sin has been confronted, borne, and overcome through faithful obedience.

Read in this light, verses 5–6 do not support penal substitution. They teach that peace comes through the Servant’s costly, obedient participation in humanity’s broken condition. He bears the impact of human sin through his faithful obedience, engaging with its destructive effects to open the way for restoration.

Isaiah 53:10–12 and the “Pleasure” of the Lord

Isaiah 53:10 is often treated as the strongest proof text for penal substitution: “But the Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief.” Yet even in the Masoretic Text, this statement does not require that God takes pleasure in the act of crushing itself. Hebrew usage readily allows the sense that God is pleased with the redemptive outcome accomplished through the Servant’s suffering.

The Septuagint makes this clearer still. Rather than stating that God was pleased to crush the Servant, it says that “the Lord is pleased to purge him from his stroke” and “to take away from the travail of his soul.” The emphasis is restorative and vindicatory. God’s pleasure is directed toward healing, deliverance, and exaltation, not toward inflicting suffering as retribution.

Verses 11–12 reinforce this trajectory. The Servant sees light, is justified, justifies many, and intercedes for transgressors. These are priestly and representative functions, not penal ones. His suffering leads to restoration, not because a penalty has been satisfied, but because faithful obedience and self-giving love overcome the damage wrought by sin.

Bearing Sin and the Levitical Framework

A non-PSA reading of “bearing sin” in Isaiah 53 becomes much clearer once the phrase is situated within the sacrificial and priestly framework of Leviticus and read as an ancient Israelite would have heard it.

In the Levitical system, “bearing sin” does not normally mean absorbing a judicial penalty in place of another. More often, it refers to carrying sin in the sense of dealing with it within God’s covenant system. Priests are said to “bear the iniquity” of the people not by being punished instead of them, but by taking responsibility for its removal and by performing the rituals God prescribed to cleanse the community and restore covenant fellowship (e.g., Exodus 28:38; Leviticus 10:17). The priest bears sin representatively and ministerially, not punitively.

This representative dimension of “bearing” is further clarified by the high priest’s garments. Aaron is explicitly said to “bear” the names of the sons of Israel on his shoulders and over his heart when he enters the holy place (Exod. 28:9–12, 29). This bearing is neither punitive nor imputational. Aaron is not charged with Israel’s sin, guilt, or liability, nor does he absorb punishment on their behalf. Rather, he bears Israel representatively as God’s covenant people, carrying their identity and cause before the Lord. The imagery concerns personal identification and priestly mediation, not the transfer of guilt or retributive consequences. In this context, “bearing” denotes representation and responsibility within God’s appointed means for addressing sin, not penal substitution.

The sacrificial animals function similarly. In sin and purification offerings, the animal does not receive a legal penalty equivalent to the sinner’s punishment. Rather, the offering serves as a divinely appointed means of removing impurity from the worshiper and from the sanctuary. Atonement in Leviticus focuses on cleansing, restoration, and reconciliation, not on transferring guilt or punishment.

The scapegoat in Leviticus 16 is especially important. The goat “bears” the sins of the people into the wilderness, symbolically removing them from the community. It is not punished, killed, or judged for retributive purposes. Its role is expulsion and removal, not substitutionary punishment. This establishes a strong precedent for understanding “bearing sin” as carrying it away rather than paying for it.

A key linguistic point further supports this understanding. The Hebrew verb nasa’, often translated as “bear,” can also mean “to carry, to lift up, or to take away,” which aligns closely with both the priestly and scapegoat imagery.

When Isaiah 53 says the Servant “bore the sin of many” and that “the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all,” an early Jewish audience would naturally hear this against that backdrop. The Servant is portrayed as identifying with the people whose sin must be addressed and as engaging in God’s divinely appointed means for dealing with it on their behalf. Like the priest who bears Israel representatively and the scapegoat that carries sin away from the community, the Servant bears sin in a mediatorial and restorative sense rather than a penal one.

Importantly, Isaiah 53 itself emphasizes suffering, rejection, and faithfulness rather than divine retribution. The Servant suffers because of the sins of others, not because God is punishing him in their place. His suffering expresses solidarity, devotion, and the cost of mediating God’s restorative work, not penal substitution.

Early readers steeped in Levitical imagery would not have imported later categories of penal satisfaction into the text. They would have understood “bearing sin” as involving both priestly mediation and scapegoat-like removal: the Servant acts as a righteous representative who engages with sin on the people’s behalf and carries it away in a way that opens the way for restoration and renewed fellowship with God.

In short, a non-PSA reading sees Isaiah 53 drawing on sacrificial and priestly categories where sin is borne in order to be addressed and removed, not punished in a retributive sense. The Servant carries sin the way priests and sacrificial figures do in Leviticus: by confronting it, participating in God’s divinely prescribed processes for addressing its effects, and helping restore humanity to fellowship with God. In doing so, he actively participates in the healing and transformation of those burdened by sin, opening the way for reconciliation and renewed communion with God.

Summary

Isaiah 53, properly understood in its textual, ritual, and canonical context, does not describe the Servant as enduring divine punishment in the place of sinners. Instead, the passage portrays him as a representative figure who engages with people's sin, bearing it in a relational and restorative sense, and participates in God’s divinely appointed processes to remove it. Both the Masoretic and Septuagint texts support this reading, as do the New Testament applications to Jesus, which emphasize faithful obedience, healing, and reconciliation rather than any juridical or penal transaction.

The Servant’s suffering is real, but its purpose is not juridical; it expresses solidarity with humanity, obedience to God, and the cost of engaging in redemptive work. Phrases such as “bearing sin” and “the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all” should be read against the Levitical and ritual backdrop, where sin is borne to be addressed and removed, not punished. Just as the scapegoat symbolically carries away sin and priests mediate for the people without incurring retribution, the Servant acts to restore, reconcile, and heal, opening the way for renewed fellowship with God.

In short, Isaiah 53 presents the Servant as a righteous representative whose suffering and faithful obedience enable God’s restorative purposes for the community. The text focuses on identification, mediation, and reconciliation, not on penal substitution. Any reading that imposes penal satisfaction or the Servant suffering in place of others is reading into the text what its language, ritual context, and canonical usage do not require.

Final Conclusion

Throughout this article, the central claim has not been that penal substitutionary atonement denies the gospel, but that it represents a particular explanatory framework whose distinctive assumptions are not required by Scripture and, in several respects, sit uneasily alongside the Bible’s own priestly and participatory logic. By grounding atonement in the exhaustion of retributive wrath through a penal exchange, PSA redefines forgiveness, justice, and reconciliation in ways that diverge from how these realities are consistently portrayed across both Testaments. The result is a system that must rely on legal transfers, forensic abstractions, and completed transactions in order to secure what Scripture more often describes as cleansing, restoration, and living communion with God.

By contrast, the purification–union model situates Christ’s saving work within the biblical pattern established in the Levitical system and fulfilled in the priestly ministry of Christ. Atonement is not accomplished through punishment, nor located exclusively at the moment of death, but completed through Christ’s obedient life, sacrificial death, resurrection, ascension, presentation of Himself before the Father, and ongoing intercession. Sin is addressed not merely as legal guilt but as defilement, corruption, and relational rupture, and reconciliation is achieved through God’s gracious removal of these barriers so that humanity may once again draw near. Forgiveness, on this account, is not the declaration that punishment has been executed elsewhere, but the merciful cancellation and cleansing God freely grants to those who repent.

Union with Christ emerges as the causal center of salvation rather than a secondary category applied after the fact. Justification flows from participation in the Righteous One, sanctification expresses the life already shared in that union, and glorification completes what union with Christ guarantees. God’s verdict corresponds to reality rather than standing alongside it, because righteousness is not merely credited but genuinely shared. Divine wrath remains real and final judgment remains certain, yet Scripture consistently distinguishes between how God deals with the repentant and the unrepentant. Where sin has been forgiven and removed, there is no remaining offense upon which wrath must fall.

None of this diminishes the seriousness of sin, the costliness of redemption, or the holiness of God. On the contrary, it preserves the integrity of forgiveness as forgiveness, justice as restorative toward the repentant, and atonement as God’s gracious provision for cleansing and restored fellowship. Christ’s saving work is not reduced but expanded, encompassing the full scope of His priestly ministry and the living reality of communion with Him through the Spirit.

At the same time, it is important to reiterate that disagreement over atonement models does not negate shared faith in Christ. Christians who affirm penal substitutionary atonement and those who affirm a purification–union account stand on common ground where it matters most: the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord, that He died for our sins, that He rose from the dead, and that salvation is the gift of God’s grace received through faith. The unity of the church is grounded not in uniformity of theological explanation but in shared allegiance to the crucified and risen Christ.

The hope of this article is therefore not to draw new lines of exclusion, but to invite careful reconsideration of how Scripture itself speaks about atonement, forgiveness, and union with Christ. If the church is willing to distinguish the gospel from the models that seek to explain it, then robust theological disagreement can coexist with genuine unity, humility, and charity. In the end, our confidence rests not in having mastered a particular theory, but in being united to the living Christ, who has acted once for all to cleanse, restore, and bring His people into eternal fellowship with God.

P.S. - Check out this other article if you are interested in reading about further issues that PSA presents with the Trinity and Christology: Penal Substitution’s Tension with the Trinity and Christology.