15. Christ Died to Bring Us to God: A Biblical Theology of Atonement

Introduction: Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

Why did Jesus have to die?

For much of my Christian life, I would have answered something like this:

Human beings sinned. God is just. Our sins deserve punishment. Because God's justice requires sin to be punished, the punishment had to fall somewhere. Jesus received the punishment we deserved in our place. Those who put their faith in Jesus therefore escape that punishment and are forgiven.

There are important biblical truths in that framework. Sin really is serious. God's judgment is real. Jesus truly suffered for us. Scripture says that he bore sins, died for sins, made atonement for sins, and saves us from wrath.

But after studying Scripture more closely, I have come to believe that we need to begin even earlier.

Before asking what happened on the cross, we should ask:

Who is God?

What is God's justice?

What does God actually want to accomplish when He confronts sin?

And before importing a theory of atonement into Jesus' death, we should ask how Scripture itself had already taught Israel to think about atonement, sacrifice, priesthood, cleansing, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Only then should we come to Jesus.

Because penal substitution was the predominant atonement framework I encountered in the Christian churches and communities in which I was formed, it shaped my understanding of the cross for much of my life. I will therefore address it specifically later in this article. I recognize that Christians have understood the atonement in many different ways, and many Christians do not make penal substitution the center of the gospel. I also believe penal substitution preserves several real biblical truths. But I no longer believe a central claim of classic penal substitution is necessary: that God's justice requires the punishment deserved by sin to be borne—either by sinners themselves or by Christ—before sinners can be forgiven (Craig 147; Schreiner 67–98).

I believe Scripture tells a much larger and more beautiful story.

The question is not finally:

Has the penalty deserved by sin been fully borne?

It is the larger question:

Has sin been dealt with, and has what was broken actually been put right?

That distinction changes everything.

And if I had to summarize the purpose of Christ's atonement in one biblical sentence, I would begin with 1 Peter 3:18:

“Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.”

That, I believe, is the center.

Christ died to bring humanity back to God.

1. Begin With God

Any theology of atonement should begin with the character of the God to whom humanity is being reconciled.

Scripture tells us:

“God is love.”

—1 John 4:8

God is not merely capable of love. Love belongs to who God is.

When God reveals His character to Moses, He describes Himself as merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (Exodus 34:6–7).

Psalm 103 says that God is compassionate and gracious and then makes an extraordinary statement:

“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.”

—Psalm 103:10

That verse should matter enormously for Christian theology.

God knows what sin deserves.

And God does not give sinners the full measure they deserve.

Scripture celebrates that as mercy.

The New Testament presents the same God.

Jesus does not come because an unwilling Father must somehow be persuaded to love humanity.

“God so loved the world that he gave…”

—John 3:16

Paul says:

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

—Romans 5:8

And perhaps most importantly for understanding atonement:

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.”

—2 Corinthians 5:19

God is the initiator of reconciliation.

God loves.

God sends.

God forgives.

God reconciles.

God raises Jesus.

God gives the Spirit.

The entire saving mission begins in the heart of God.

That means our theology of the cross must be consistent with the God Scripture has already revealed.

2. What Is Divine Justice For?

God is loving.

But God is also just.

That matters.

Universal salvation cannot mean that evil does not matter. Real love requires God to care deeply about what His children do to one another.

God cares about victims.

God cares about truth.

God cares about righteousness.

God opposes oppression.

God judges evil.

Scripture repeatedly describes Him as Judge.

The question is not whether divine justice exists.

The deeper question is:

What is divine justice trying to accomplish?

We can easily assume that justice means something like this:

Every wrongdoing creates a punishment that must eventually be borne somewhere. Until that punishment is borne, justice remains unmet.

I was taught to think about divine justice in something like these terms in some of the Christian churches and communities I have been part of throughout my life. But is this actually how Scripture defines justice?

When the prophets call God's people to justice, they repeatedly describe something much larger.

Isaiah says:

“Seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.”

—Isaiah 1:17

Biblical justice includes confronting what is wrong and making it right.

It protects the vulnerable.

It exposes evil.

It vindicates those who have been harmed.

It holds wrongdoers accountable.

It restores right relationships.

It produces righteousness and peace.

God's justice, as I understand it, is His unwavering commitment to what is right: to confront evil, protect and vindicate those harmed by it, hold wrongdoers accountable, repair what can be repaired, and ultimately overcome evil by producing righteousness, peace, and restored relationships.

Punishment can be part of that.

Retribution is real.

Some actions genuinely deserve painful judgment.

Romans 2 says that God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”

But punishment and justice are not identical.

And punishment is not the final goal.

Ezekiel makes this especially clear. God asks:

“Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked…? Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?”

—Ezekiel 18:23

God's desired outcome is not:

The sinner suffered enough.

It is:

The sinner turned and lived.

Hebrews gives us another important picture.

God disciplines His children, but Scripture explicitly tells us why:

“God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.”

And the result is:

“a harvest of righteousness and peace.”

—Hebrews 12:10–11

That is fatherly justice.

A good father does not correct a child because he has an internal need to see the child suffer.

He corrects because something is wrong and must become right.

If one child harms another, a good father cares about the wounded child being protected and healed. He cares about truth. He cares about accountability. He may impose painful consequences. He may require restitution. But he also cares about the guilty child becoming the kind of person who will never do the same evil again.

The pain is not the goal.

Righteousness is the goal.

This gives us an important distinction.

Retributive judgment asks: What could this wrongdoing justly deserve?

Fatherly discipline asks: What does this person actually need in order to become holy?

They can overlap.

But they are not the same question.

And Scripture tells us that mercy can interrupt what strict retribution might otherwise demand:

“Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

—James 2:13

So perhaps the deepest question beneath atonement is not:

Does God’s justice require the full penalty deserved by sin to be borne before forgiveness can be given?

Perhaps it is:

How will God deal completely with evil and put His creation right?

3. Why Does Sin Need to Be Dealt With?

If God is merciful, why is atonement necessary at all?

Because sin does real damage. It alienates humanity from God, wounds other people, corrupts the sinner, fractures relationships, and ultimately leads to death. Sin enslaves. Sin produces fear, violence, injustice, and death. A just and loving God cannot simply leave all of that untouched. He must deal with sin itself and restore what sin has broken.

A God of love and justice cannot simply look at evil and say:

It does not matter.

Precisely because God loves His creation, He must deal with what destroys it.

The victim matters.

The sinner matters.

Truth matters.

Righteousness matters.

Communion with God matters.

So God's answer to sin must be larger than either extreme.

It cannot be:

Sin does not matter and nothing needs to be done about it.

But neither do I believe Scripture requires us to conclude:

God cannot forgive unless the penalty deserved by sin is first borne in full.

There is another possibility: God can deal seriously and justly with sin through judgment, atonement, forgiveness, cleansing, discipline, healing, transformation, and restoration.

That is the world into which biblical atonement belongs.

4. What Did Atonement Mean Before Jesus?

Before Christians explain Jesus' death, we should first ask what Scripture had already taught Israel about atonement.

The Old Testament sacrificial system is much richer than a simple transfer of punishment.

Leviticus 17:11 says:

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls.”

Notice first who provides the means of atonement.

God does.

The sacrificial system is itself an expression of divine mercy.

God creates a way for sin and impurity to be dealt with so that covenant relationship can continue.

And Leviticus connects blood with life.

It does not explain atonement by saying that the animal must experience the precise amount of suffering the sinner deserves.

The Day of Atonement makes this even clearer.

In Leviticus 16, atonement is made not only for human beings but also for the sanctuary because of Israel's uncleanness and transgressions.

A sanctuary cannot be punished.

It can, however, be cleansed.

Atonement therefore includes purification.

The two goats on the Day of Atonement also provide different images.

One is sacrificed.

The sins of Israel are confessed over the other, which carries them away into the wilderness.

That goat does not receive the mathematically equivalent punishment deserved by every Israelite.

It removes the sins from the community.

The imagery is multidimensional:

sacrifice, life, cleansing, removal of sin, priestly mediation, forgiveness, and restored covenant relationship.

There is another striking detail.

In Leviticus 5, an Israelite too poor to afford an animal could offer fine flour as a sin offering, and the priest would make atonement so that the person could be forgiven.

Whatever theory we construct, therefore, biblical atonement cannot simply be reduced to:

God requires an equivalent amount of suffering or death before forgiveness becomes possible.

The Old Testament gives us a different pattern.

God appoints the means of reconciliation.

The worshiper comes.

The priest mediates.

The offering is presented.

Sin and impurity are dealt with.

The person is forgiven.

Relationship with God is restored.

This is the world of biblical atonement into which Jesus enters.

5. Jesus the Great High Priest

Hebrews gives us one of Scripture's richest ways of understanding Jesus' death:

Jesus is the Great High Priest.

The priest stands before God on behalf of the people.

The priest offers sacrifice.

The priest intercedes.

The priest mediates covenant relationship.

Through priestly ministry, sin is dealt with and people are brought near to God.

Hebrews says that Jesus entered with his own blood and “offered himself without blemish to God” (Hebrews 9:12–14).

By the time Jesus offered himself to God, he had learned obedience through suffering and is described in Scripture as holy, blameless, and without blemish.

But the emphasis of his sacrifice reaches far beyond himself.

Jesus freely gives himself for others.

Nothing forced him to extend his sacrifice to humanity.

He chose to.

He loved.

He obeyed.

He offered himself.

So how can one human offering address the sins of countless people?

I do not think Scripture answers that question with equivalent punishment.

No Israelite stood beside the Day of Atonement sacrifice calculating whether the animal had experienced precisely the aggregate amount of pain deserved by the nation.

That was not the logic.

The offering was appointed by God.

The priest presented it.

God accepted it.

Atonement was made.

The category is not mathematical equivalence.

The category is sufficiency.

God accepts the self-offering of His appointed Great High Priest as sufficient.

Jesus' suffering is real.

It is terrible.

It is costly.

It is genuinely offered concerning the sins of others.

Jesus truly sacrifices completely for others.

Something deeply substitutionary is happening.

He bears a cost on behalf of others so that they do not bear the full consequences they otherwise could.

But substitution does not require punishment arithmetic.

Jesus stands for humanity.

He intercedes for humanity.

He gives himself for humanity.

And God receives his offering as the decisive priestly act through which reconciliation is opened.

6. The Center of Atonement: Christ Died to Bring Us to God

Now we can return to 1 Peter:

“Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.”

—1 Peter 3:18

The purpose is not merely that punishment be avoided.

The purpose is reconciliation.

Paul says:

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.”

—2 Corinthians 5:19

Romans 5 says that while humanity was estranged from God, we were:

“reconciled to God through the death of his Son.”

Colossians expands the horizon:

God purposes “to reconcile all things to himself … making peace through the blood of his cross.”

—Colossians 1:20

Ephesians says those who were far away are brought near and given access to the Father through the Spirit (Ephesians 2:13–18).

This is atonement.

God is bringing what has been alienated back into communion with Himself.

Humanity needs forgiveness.

Humanity needs cleansing.

Humanity needs liberation.

Humanity needs reconciliation.

Humanity needs transformation.

Humanity needs resurrection.

Jesus' saving work addresses all of it.

7. The Second Adam: Jesus Reverses Humanity's Failure

The cross must also be understood through Adam.

Paul deliberately places Adam and Jesus opposite one another.

Through one man's disobedience come sin and death.

Through another man's obedience come righteousness and life.

Romans 5 says:

“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”

The contrast is:

Adam: disobedience.

Jesus: obedience.

And Philippians tells us where Jesus' obedience culminates:

“He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross.”

—Philippians 2:8

The cross is therefore not merely something Jesus suffers.

It is something Jesus does.

He obeys.

He trusts God.

He gives himself.

He remains faithful when faithfulness costs him everything.

The question becomes:

Will this human being obey God all the way?

Jesus' answer is yes.

The first Adam fails.

The second Adam succeeds.

Jesus reverses Adam.

He becomes the human being humanity was meant to become.

8. Atonement Does Not Merely Forgive: Grace Transforms

God's saving purpose is not exhausted by resolving the question of guilt and punishment.

God wants sinners to become righteous.

That means God's saving work does not stop with justification.

Grace must actually change us.

Paul says:

“God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance.”

—Romans 2:4

Titus says that God's grace trains us to reject ungodliness and live righteous lives (Titus 2:11–12).

Hebrews says God's discipline makes us participants in His holiness and produces righteousness and peace.

This reveals something profound about God's way of overcoming evil.

Punishment can restrain.

Consequences can teach.

Discipline can correct.

But grace can do something punishment by itself cannot:

grace can win the heart.

Consider what the sinner encounters through Christ.

I deserved judgment, but God showed mercy.

I was alienated, but God sought reconciliation.

Jesus loved me.

Jesus gave himself for me.

God forgave me.

God gave me His Spirit.

God did not abandon me.

God continues correcting and transforming me.

That can produce gratitude.

Trust.

Love.

Repentance.

Loyalty.

A desire to become like Jesus.

The cross therefore does more than reduce punishment.

The cross wins the heart.

And if God's goal is actual righteousness, that matters enormously.

9. The Cross Creates a New Humanity

If Jesus is the second Adam, salvation cannot be merely individual.

Adam represents an old humanity.

Jesus begins a new one.

Ephesians says Christ creates “one new humanity” and reconciles that humanity to God through the cross (Ephesians 2:15–16).

Second Corinthians connects Christ with new creation.

Romans 6 describes salvation through participation.

We are baptized into Christ's death.

Buried with him.

Raised into newness of life.

The old life dies.

A new life begins.

Atonement therefore does not excuse us from transformation.

It makes transformation possible.

Jesus' story becomes the pattern of the new humanity:

death to sin → obedience → new life → holiness → resurrection.

The cross creates more than forgiven individuals.

It creates a people.

A kingdom.

A priesthood.

A family being conformed to God's Messiah.

10. Through Death Jesus Defeats Death

Hebrews says:

“Since the children share in flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of the one who holds the power of death … and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

—Hebrews 2:14–15

Notice the mechanism:

through death.

Jesus enters humanity's great enemy.

And he comes through it.

First Corinthians 15 says:

“Since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a human being.”

That is extraordinary.

A human being enters death.

A human being comes back alive.

A human being becomes the firstfruits of the resurrection harvest.

If Jesus had merely shown humanity how to live righteously and then remained dead, he could lead humanity only as far as the grave.

But Jesus becomes the Way through the grave and out the other side.

The cross is therefore not merely about escaping punishment.

It is part of God's war against death itself.

11. Resurrection Is Part of Salvation

Christians sometimes speak as though the cross accomplished salvation and the resurrection merely proved afterward that the cross worked.

Paul says something stronger:

“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”

—1 Corinthians 15:17

Resurrection belongs inside the saving event.

God raises Jesus.

The resurrection vindicates the man human authorities condemned.

It reverses death.

It begins new creation.

It makes Jesus the firstfruits of humanity's future resurrection.

And Hebrews says that Jesus now possesses:

“the power of an indestructible life.”

—Hebrews 7:16

Because he continues forever, his priesthood continues forever.

He lives to intercede.

There is now a living human being on the other side of death.

That human being is humanity's Great High Priest.

Our Lord.

Our brother.

Our Savior.

The resurrection proclaims:

Death does not get the last word.

God does.

And God's final word is life.

12. What About Penal Substitution?

Because penal substitution shaped my own understanding of the gospel for most of my life, I want to address it directly and fairly.

Penal substitution sees real biblical truths.

Sin genuinely deserves judgment.

Jesus genuinely suffers for others.

Scripture says he bears sins.

Isaiah 53 connects the servant's suffering with human sin and healing.

Romans says we are justified through Christ's blood and saved from wrath.

My disagreement begins when those truths are placed inside a further theological mechanism:

God's justice requires the full punishment deserved by sin to be borne. That punishment must therefore fall either upon the sinner or upon Christ. Christ bears the penal burden on behalf of believers, allowing them to be forgiven (Craig 147; Schreiner 67–98).

Not all defenders of penal substitution claim that Jesus experienced the identical duration or physical form of every punishment sinners would otherwise experience. Some speak instead of an equivalent penal value (Craig 147, 209).

So my objection is not primarily mathematical.

It is deeper:

Why should we conclude that God's justice requires the full penal consequence of sin to be borne through suffering before God can forgive?

I do not see Scripture explicitly stating that requirement.

Psalm 103 praises God because He does not repay us according to our sins.

Ezra acknowledges that God had punished Israel less than its sins deserved (Ezra 9:13).

God says He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but wants the wicked to turn and live.

Paul describes reconciliation as God “not counting their trespasses against them.”

James says:

“Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

None of this means sin does not matter.

It means God's justice should not be reduced to the assumption that the full penal consequence due to sin must be borne somewhere before forgiveness is possible.

The Old Testament sacrificial system does not require that conclusion either.

Sacrifice is costly.

Blood matters.

Priestly mediation matters.

Sin is dealt with.

But Scripture never describes the sacrificial victim as undergoing a calculated equivalent of the punishment deserved by the worshiper.

Atonement is larger.

This leads to what I believe is the fundamental difference between the two frameworks:

A classic penal-substitution framework asks: Has the penalty due to sin been fully borne?

The restorative framework I see in Scripture asks: Has sin been dealt with, and has what was broken actually been put right?

The second question is much larger.

Putting evil right requires truth.

Accountability.

Forgiveness.

Healing.

Repentance.

Reconciliation.

Transformation.

Holiness.

Victory over death.

The restoration of creation.

And this is also why I worry about making penal substitution the primary explanation of the gospel.

It can unintentionally produce an emotional picture in which the Father is primarily the One whose judgment must be escaped, while Jesus is primarily the one who protects us from Him.

I know that faithful Christians who affirm penal substitution usually reject that picture. They rightly emphasize that the Father loves humanity and that Christ gives himself willingly.

Nevertheless, I believe the imbalance is a real danger whenever the gospel is repeatedly summarized as:

God had to punish someone, so Jesus took the punishment meant for you.

I believe the New Testament gives us a larger and more complete picture.

God Himself initiates reconciliation.

Jesus is not convincing an unwilling God to become merciful.

Jesus is carrying out God's merciful saving purpose.

The Father loves.

Jesus loves.

God appoints.

Jesus offers himself.

God raises him.

God gives the Spirit.

Through Jesus, God brings humanity home.

That is the gospel I believe Scripture presents.

13. Christian History Contains Many Biblical Ways of Understanding the Cross

Christian reflection on the cross has long drawn on multiple biblical images (Craig; Beilby and Eddy).

Irenaeus emphasized recapitulation: Christ as the second Adam relives humanity's story in obedience and reverses Adam's failure (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.21.10; 5.21.1).

The family of interpretations later called Christus Victor emphasizes Christ's victory over sin, death, Satan, and enslaving powers (Aulén 16–35).

Participatory approaches emphasize Paul's language that believers die, are buried, and rise with Christ.

The moral-influence tradition preserves another genuine insight: encountering self-giving love can transform the sinner's heart (Thurow, sec. 4.5).

Priestly and sacrificial approaches emphasize offering, cleansing, mediation, forgiveness, and restored relationship with God.

Different Christian traditions have emphasized these themes in different combinations.

I do not need to adopt every historical theory associated with them.

The point is simply that Scripture itself gives us many images because salvation addresses many problems.

Sin is guilt.

But sin is also corruption.

Alienation.

Slavery.

Disobedience.

Hostility.

Death.

So Jesus forgives.

Cleanses.

Reconciles.

Liberates.

Obeys.

Transforms.

Defeats death.

And brings us to God.

No single metaphor should be allowed to swallow all the others.

14. Universal Restoration Reveals the Final Purpose of Justice

This is where universal restoration makes the entire picture even more coherent.

If final judgment is understood primarily in terms of retribution, eternal punishment might appear to provide a simple answer: evil is punished forever. But endless punishment creates another problem of justice, because punishment without end is impossible to reconcile with proportional judgment for finite human wrongdoing.

And even setting that problem aside, punishment alone would not actually overcome evil.

Would the sinner become righteous?

Would alienation be healed?

Would victims be fully restored?

Would death be defeated?

Would creation be reconciled?

No.

Punishment can be part of God's judgment, but punishment by itself cannot accomplish the final restoration Scripture describes.

Under universal restoration, God's purpose is much greater.

Human beings sin.

Sin produces devastating consequences.

God judges.

God corrects.

God shows mercy.

Jesus comes.

Jesus learns obedience.

Jesus becomes perfected.

Jesus gives himself.

Jesus reconciles.

God forgives.

Grace transforms.

Jesus enters death.

God raises him.

Jesus intercedes.

The Spirit works.

Human beings become holy.

Every enemy is eventually defeated.

Death itself comes to an end.

Creation returns to God.

Paul describes the final horizon in 1 Corinthians 15.

Christ reigns until every enemy is defeated.

The last enemy destroyed is death.

And finally:

God will be all in all.

That gives us a much deeper way to think about justice.

God's justice reaches its fullest victory when evil no longer exists—not merely when evil has received judgment.

This does not make judgment unnecessary.

It gives judgment a purpose.

Retribution can be part of God's judgment, but it is not the whole purpose of divine justice.

God's purpose is ultimately to overcome evil, establish righteousness, heal what has been broken, and restore His creation.

And if evil is finally overcome—if victims are healed, wrongdoers become righteous, relationships are restored, death is destroyed, and creation lives in communion with God—then justice has achieved something infinitely greater than retribution alone ever could.

The cross therefore does not change God's ultimate purpose for humanity.

The cross is one of the central means through which God accomplishes that purpose.

The purpose is not payment for payment's sake.

The purpose is restoration.

15. Jesus Is Worthy

Jesus trusts God.

He obeys.

He serves.

He heals.

He forgives.

He loves enemies.

He refuses retaliation.

He gives himself.

He remains faithful even when obedience costs him his life.

Philippians says:

“He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place.”

—Philippians 2:8–9

The therefore matters.

His exaltation follows his obedience.

The cross is the climax of an entire human life of dependence upon God, growth, service, faithfulness, love, and eventual perfection.

The cross reveals decisively what kind of person Jesus has become.

This human being will obey God completely.

This human being will use power to serve.

This human being will give himself for others.

God raises him.

God exalts him.

God makes him Lord and Messiah.

God entrusts authority to him.

Jesus becomes our Great High Priest.

Our King.

Our Savior.

Our brother.

Jesus is worthy.

16. Conclusion: Christ Died to Bring Us to God

So why did Jesus die?

Not for only one reason.

Jesus died for sins.

He offers himself as humanity's Great High Priest.

His sacrifice makes atonement.

He bears a genuine and terrible cost for others.

Through him, God extends mercy beyond what strict retribution would require.

Sin is forgiven.

Guilt is dealt with.

Consciences are cleansed.

Enemies are reconciled.

Grace wins hearts.

The Spirit transforms people.

The obedient second Adam reverses humanity's failure.

A new humanity begins.

Jesus enters death.

God raises him.

Death's dominion is broken.

Jesus receives indestructible life.

He becomes humanity's permanent High Priest.

He continues to intercede.

His followers enter his life.

They die to sin.

They learn obedience.

They become holy.

And ultimately, death itself is destroyed.

This is why I do not believe the cross is fundamentally about God ensuring that the full punishment deserved by sinners is transferred onto Jesus.

Scripture gives us something larger.

The loving God who refuses to abandon His creation appoints a Great High Priest.

Jesus freely gives himself.

God receives his offering.

Sin is dealt with.

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Reconciliation becomes possible.

Grace transforms sinners.

Death is defeated.

Creation is restored.

The cross tells us that sin is serious.

But it also reveals something even greater:

God is committed to overcoming it.

Grace does not deny justice.

Grace helps justice accomplish its deepest purpose.

It makes what is wrong right.

Jesus' sacrifice does not remove the need for holiness.

It opens the Way into holiness.

Jesus saves humanity so that we can become like him.

And resurrection tells us where that Way ultimately leads.

Not finally to punishment.

Not finally to corruption.

Not finally to the grave.

But to life.

That is why I believe 1 Peter 3:18 captures the center of Christ's atonement:

“Christ suffered for sins once for all … that he might bring us to God.”

Christ died to bring humanity back to God.

And if God's plan truly is the restoration of all things, Jesus will ultimately succeed.

Sin will be defeated.

Those who harmed others will be made righteous.

Those who were harmed will be healed and vindicated.

Humanity will be reconciled.

Death will be destroyed.

Creation will be restored.

And God will be all in all.

Classic penal substitution asks: Has the penalty due to sin been fully borne?

I believe the larger biblical story ultimately asks an even greater question: Has God put everything right?

I believe the answer Scripture gives us is:

He will.