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Recently, I wrote Jesus Didn’t Die for our Sins: An Alternative Perspective on the Crucifixion. I was genuinely surprised by the amount of heated pushback I received on the piece. The article focused on how substitutionary atonement didn’t exist as an atonement theory until Anselm of Canterbury created it in the 11th century.

My goal has always been to engage in honest and healthy dialogue with anyone who genuinely has questions or desires to understand my perspective. Reading back through emails and comment threads, I noticed the majority of pushback revolved around two points:

I didn’t use the Bible to prove my point.
How can I read the Apostle Paul and see anything but substitutionary atonement in his writing?

Regarding point one, I didn’t use the Bible simply because I was making my point from a historical, not biblical, perspective. If anything, the constant questioning of why I didn’t cite more bible verses is a symptom of how Christians are taught to ‘cherry-pick’ verses to substantiate any point they make on topics of faith. I understand the behavior and was taught to do the same thing. However, I now find it perplexing as I have never seen it convince someone of the truth of another claim. If anything, whoever holds an opposing view simply cherry-picks verses they believe support their ideology, and round and round, we go; where will we stop? No one knows...

For the second point, I have read Paul extensively for the better part of two decades. Paul’s writing has helped shape my current position that the cross of Christ has nothing to do with substitutionary atonement in any form. This article will walk through some verses to show you how I came to this position.

Understanding “Christ Crucified” “For Others,” and as a “Sacrifice”

Throughout his writings, Paul frequently uses the phrase “Christ crucified,” which, in my perspective, sees the crucifixion as the revelation and depth of God’s and Christ’s love for humanity. I believe, and don’t believe there is much controversy here, that Jesus is the decisive revelation of God. Meaning Jesus reveals what God is like and shows us what can be seen of God in human life.

When Paul talks about Christ crucified, he describes God’s character as love and passion for the world. I do not believe that Paul has in mind substitutionary atonement or payment for human sin when referring to “Christ crucified.” I think this is the case for two reasons:

Neither God’s wrath nor judgment emphasizes or prioritizes God’s love and passion for the world.
Paul’s use of “for” and “sacrifice” does not imply substitution.

What it means to do something for others

Let’s start with the word “for.” In its ordinary use in the Bible and our day-to-day lives, it rarely, if ever, means in that person’s place. The word’s typical meaning is for a person’s sake or benefit.

For example, as a husband, if I do the dishes for my wife, it doesn’t mean I’ve taken her place; instead, I’ve done the dishes for her sake and benefit. It’s now one less thing she needs to worry about. A more extreme example is when a soldier jumps on a grenade to save the lives of his fellow service members. In neither situation is substitute meant; instead, both acts were for the benefit and sake of the other. I did dishes so my wife could benefit from getting some time back while the soldier jumped on a grenade for the sake of his friends having the chance to live.

In both examples, doing something for others does not mean the soldier or I have taken someone else’s place. It means we gave of ourselves because of our love and passion for the people we care about. Despite two radically different examples, love, and passion led to action.

What it means to sacrifice as a ritual practice

Sacrifice refers to pre-modern ritual practice. It comes from the Latin root sacrum facere, which means making something sacred by offering it to God. In the ancient world, sacrifice often involved animals, but not exclusively. It could also be grain or precious objects.

It is worth noting how animal sacrifices often involve a meal. Once the animal was sacrificed to God, it was made sacred, and portions of it were then used for a meal. So sacrifice, gift, and meal were often intertwined.

Now, when our 21st-century Christian ears hear ‘sacrifice,’ we have been conditioned to automatically associate the word with atonement or a sacrifice as payment for some wrongdoing. However, sacrifices were more commonly made for reasons having nothing to do with atonement, such as:

Sacrifices of thanksgiving
Sacrifices of petition, especially during times of trouble
Sacrifices of reconciliation

At the heart of sacrifice is the goal of becoming one with God by eating sacred food with God. Let me repeat it: sacrifice was not about substitution.

When an animal was sacrificed, there was not a belief that God was punishing animal instead of a human. Sacrifice was not and has never been about animal suffering and dying in the place of a person.

Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan explain;

To see Paul's understanding of the death of Jesus as a substitutionary sacrifice for sin is to import into the notion of sacrifice a meaning that it did not have in the ancient world, including the world of Paul. (The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon p. 143)

Borg and Crossan’s point ties back to the point I made in my previous article. Reading substitutionary atonement into sacrifice transports an 11th-century invention into a 1st-century context where that idea is entirely unknown and foreign. Let’s examine a few verses from Paul’s writings with this understanding.

Romans 5:6-8 - Christ Dying for the Ungodly

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. (NRSVUE)

In this passage, Paul discusses Jesus dying for others, mainly “the ungodly,” “sinners,” and “us.” We see this primarily in relation to contrasting a righteous person to the three groups just mentioned. What Paul is saying is that rarely will someone die for the benefit or sake of a righteous person, but for someone to die for the ‘ungodly’ is extraordinary.

The point of the passage is to show how much Christ loved us. That Christ did the extraordinary by dying for the sake and benefit of the ungodly shows the depth of God’s love for us. The depth of God’s love reveals God’s character as uncontrolling love. We know this love of God because we see it in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:14-21 - God’s purpose and passion

14 For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15 And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for the one who for their sake died and was raised.

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view;[a] even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view,[b] we no longer know him in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there[c] is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being![d] 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,[e] not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.(NRSVUE)

In a different letter, Paul makes the same claim: Jesus and the crucifixion reveal God’s character. In this passage, we are told Jesus dies “for all” so that we might no longer live for ourselves but for God in Christ. Paul claims that Jesus discloses God’s purpose and passion, reconciling the world to God.

The world matters to God! Recent developments in theology have taken literal interpretations of the Bible, specifically the book of Revelation, to mean God doesn’t care about the world because Jesus intends to destroy it; we see Paul arguing to the contrary. God’s purpose and passion create wholeness and oneness within every aspect of the world.

Romans 8:31-39 - A Parable of God’s Love for Humanity

31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ[a] who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all day long;

we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NRSVUE)

In the original Greek, this passage reads lyrically and rhapsodically. It is a parable of God’s love for us, as shown by Jesus’s death.

Throughout the passage, Paul uses a series of parallel questions:

If God is for us, who is against us?
Who will bring any charge against God’s elect?
Who is to condemn?
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Spoiler alert: the answer is nothing and no one.

Paul’s confidence is rooted in God’s love for us. The cross, seen as the death of God’s son, reveals God's love for us. Thus, nothing can separate us from God's love.

A Word of Caution

This passage uses the language of divine causation as if God willed the death of Jesus. In my view, this is untrue for two reasons. First, I believe this is a post-Easter retrospective viewpoint. Meaning as the Christian community looked back on the life of Christ and tried to make sense of his death, they began to understand Jesus’s death as part of God’s bigger plan. This also has implications for the Father-Son relationship referenced in the passage. The parent-child relationship is a metaphor emphasizing God’s love. As mentioned above, this passage is a parable and, like all parables, should not be literalized.

Romans 3:24-25 - Christ the Liberator

24 they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement[a] by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed;(NRSVUE)

This passage uniquely uses sacrifice and atonement to summarize the first three chapters of Romans. To state the obvious, the passage clearly teaches grace is a gift, “his grace as a gift.” This gift comes through the redemption that is in Christ.

Much like sacrifice, the word redemption comes with modern preconceived notions. When we see the word redemption, we are conditioned to understand it as “forgiveness of sins.” However, throughout the Bible and in the writings of Paul, redemption is not about forgiving sins but is about liberation from bondage.

The primary story of redemption in the Hebrew Bible is God saving Israel not from sin but from bondage to Egypt. Applied in this passage, redemption is about being liberated by Christ Jesus.

The million-dollar question in this passage revolves around the phrase “a sacrifice of atonement by his blood...” I know, I know, I can already see the comments, “If this doesn’t mean substitutionary atonement, what else could it mean?!”

Let me preemptively answer the question with a few questions. Did Jesus sacrifice his life? Yes! He was willing to be crucified (by his blood) because of his passion for God and a different kind of world that the gospels call the kingdom of God.

Did Paul think Jesus died as a substitute? No. Did Paul see Jesus’ crucifixion as an atoning sacrifice? Yes. As described above, the atoning sacrifice brings us to oneness with God. Again, Borg and Crossan explain;

"*Christ's love and passion led to the cross - and in that we see both his love and the love of God. So also the cross, understood as God sacrificing "his own Son" for the sake of the world, is a revelation of God's love, a parable of God's character and passion. Within this framework, the cross is a revelation of divine generosity - of God's grace and distributive justice, God's grace freely available to all." (*The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon p. 147)

Having examined multiple texts from Paul, we have seen that substitutionary atonement is not a prerequisite or even necessary to understand Paul’s radical atonement view. We can now stop and pause to reflect on why substitutionary atonement is not only bad theology and lousy history but also how it turns God from loving and passionate for humanity into a tyrant.

What Substitutionary Atonement Says About the Character of God

Within the framework I’ve discussed, it is clear that the radical Paul emphasizes and prioritizes the love of God for humanity and the passion of God for the world. According to Paul, God’s love and passion are on fullest display in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Taking a step back and pondering the implications of substitutionary atonement on the character of God, what is God’s character like? Honestly, take a moment and consider the question. What is God’s character like when God is a wrathful judge who needs to be appeased, soothed, and satisfied by the death of his son?

Is God a strict parent? Maybe a by-the-book judge? A demanding monarch? A feudal Lord? For me, the God of substitutionary atonement is like a parent who wrestles with addiction. One moment, God can be kind, merciful, and generous, but on a whim, God could become angry, vengeful, and wrathful.

As someone who grew up in a home with a loved one who wrestled with substance addiction, I know all too well the eggshells that you must walk on around that person. Regardless of how much you try to appease them, they can always lose control and become a tyrant on the turn of a dime. I cannot fathom a God of uncontrolling love and passion for this world, as demonstrated in the life of Jesus, being anything like this. At the same time, I can’t imagine a god that requires the substitutionary sacrifice of their child as anything but a wrathful tyrant.

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Paul’s Letters Revisited: Debunking the Myth of Substitutionary Atonement