Introduction
When we look at Paul’s enigmatic gospel of salvation, we typically see a legal transaction, an idea originated by Anselm in the Middle Ages. Should we see a courtroom in which God, the judge, finds a clever way to acquit the guilty by punishing an innocent substitute? That entire framework, so deeply embedded in Protestant tradition, obscures what Paul is actually proclaiming. Paul’s gospel is not forensic; it is transformative. It is the announcement that God has begun the work he promised in the Torah and the Prophets — the work of giving Israel and Judah new hearts, writing his Torah within them, and breathing his Spirit into them.
C.S. Lewis adopted the German phrase Stirb und werde — “die and become” (from Goethe)— to capture this essence of Paul’s gospel. Lewis had been strongly influenced by Matthew Arnold’s 1870 book “St. Paul and Protestantism”, in which the author developed this idea into a formal doctrine that he called the “doctrine of necrosis”.
This “die to live” paradigm has been examined and dissected by theologians since the 1900s. It is unpacked anew in a forthcoming essay by Dr. Jason Staples [i] (from which unattributed quotations are made here) entitled “The Death of Death.” “Dying to live”, shaped by the thought of Arnold and George MacDonald, was critical to C.S. Lewis’s own conversion.
The Traditional Doctrine
Traditionally, Christians summarize justification with Galatians 2:16:
“yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ…”
But this model assumes that Christ becomes the surrogate who absorbs the defendant’s guilt. And that raises a profound problem: such a transaction is still unjust. Staples writes:
“…the usual criminal/legal formulation of this framework violates perhaps the most fundamental principle of justice: the foundation that each person gets what that person deserves.20 An innocent person being punished for the crime of another who then goes free does not preserve justice but rather adds to the injustice, even if the innocent person volunteered as substitute.”
The substitution model also suffers from its presumption of efficacy. By simply declaring the sinner sinless (as a courtroom verdict), he nevertheless remains a sinner — a sin “doer”, and therefore still unfit to live in communion with YHVH (the goal). He is ontologically non-Torah compliant. Just as the Torah was not effective to make one righteous (Ro 8:3), a declaration of sinlessness doesn’t end sinning[ii].
But this doctrine has a more insidious and potentially devastating effect than injustice or ineffective remediation. It has been misunderstood as promising the sinner redemption through Jesus’s sacrificial death in exchange for the sinner’s prayer of contrition, belief that Jesus was who he said he was and was resurrected. The problem is that a prayer of contrition isn’t what “repentance” is: the total rejection of one’s life apart from God (Ro 6:4).
Under essentially all salvation doctrines, sincere repentance – turning away from what and who was, to God – is the essential first step. An unrepentant sinner is an unredeemed sinner. And an unredeemed sinner faces a difficult prospect for his judgement (2 Cor 5:10). The untransformed sinner not only deceives himself, he deprives God of a potential member of his righteous, eternal family (Gen 1:26) who are intended for his glory (Is 43:7).
Paul’s New Covenant gospel is far more radical — and rational – than the traditional “sacrificial atonement” motif and founded on the promises God earlier made through his prophets.
The New Covenant: Transformation, Not Legal Theory
The prophets repeatedly promised that God would give Israel and Judah new hearts, true knowledge of God, his Torah written on their hearts, and his Spirit dwelling within them (Dt 30:6, Jer 24:7, Jer 31:33-34, Jer 32:39–40, Eze 11:19–20, Eze 36:26–27, Eze 37:1-22, Isa 44:3–5, Isa 57:15, Isa 59:21, Hos 2:23, Joel 2:28–29). This covenant is the inheritance of those who turn their lives over to God and Christ — including those who were once “not my people.”
This is what Paul means by “justification.” Staples says:
“Justification first and foremost refers to moral transformation—the fulfillment of the change of heart promised in the Torah and Prophets by receiving the spirit of Christ (Rom 2:14–16, 26–29; 8:2–4, 9–17; 2 Cor 3:4–6), which leads the previously sinful person to behave in a Christlike manner (Phil 2:12–13; Rom 5:3–5; 6:1–22; 2 Cor 3:4–6).”
Paul is not describing a legal acquittal. He is describing the fulfillment of God’s New Covenant.
Matthew Arnold and the Doctrine of Necrosis
Arnold’s “doctrine of necrosis” argued that death is central to Paul’s theology. Arnold identified three pillars of Paul’s soteriology: dying with Christ, resurrection from the (spiritually) dead, and growing into Christ. This stood in stark contrast to the traditional pattern of calling, justification, and sanctification.
Arnold explained that the “dying” Paul has in mind is dying to “obedience to blind selfish impulse,” which then allows resurrection to “obedience to the eternal moral order” as a member of Christ.
Paul is not interested in moral improvement. He is announcing the death of the old self and the Spirit‑empowered birth of a new one.
Why Death Is Necessary
One’s typical reaction to the call to death-to-self is, understandably, one of repulsion. It is normal to push back on its rationale, hoping to escape it. One can cite, for example, the requirements for the atonement of sins articulated in the Torah (e.g., Lev 26), noting that the pattern there is to pray for God’s forgiveness, to offer a sacrifice, or both. The result was God’s forgiveness. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
Staples explains Paul’s thought:
“…the Torah contains provisions for forgiveness and atonement. But those provisions do not cover more systemic covenantal violations; for these more serious violations, the only means of atonement is the death of the violator(s).31 The cultic practices that function to atone and grant access to forgiveness within a functioning covenantal relationship cannot renew an entirely broken covenant.” (Emphasis mine.)
This is why death was not extreme for Paul. The Torah prescribed death as the only remedy for covenant-breaking offenses (e.g., nine of the ten Commandments.) that threatened the purity and life of the community. Paul sees death as essential — the only remedy that allows life with God.
Staples illustrates the underlying problem of ungodly natures vividly:
“The problem is akin to trying to make a corpse into an excellent dancer. Moral effort alone cannot bring life. In the end, no matter how superior one’s dance instructors, choreography, costuming, and marionette technology may be, it remains a corpse. The problem of death overshadows every other aspect of the problem, and no external behavioral technology can achieve the goal unless and until someone can breathe life into the dead body. As Paul says, ‘If a law had been given that could make alive, then righteousness would indeed have been from law’ (Gal 3:21).”
And again:
“For Paul, humans are not merely weak or misguided and in need of forgiveness but fully under the power and dominion of sin and death. The solution therefore requires something significantly more radical than forgiveness or moral instruction: the weapon God uses against sin and death is the cross. Only by passing through death is death defeated — death is both the enemy and the weapon by which that enemy is defeated, and the crucifixion and resurrection therefore effectively mark the death of death.” (Emphasis mine.)
Paul is not proclaiming forgiveness alone. He is proclaiming deliverance from death itself.
The Torah’s Promise of Life
Paul characterizes the Torah in Ro 8:2-5 as a diagnostic tool that reveals unrighteousness. This matters because Leviticus 18:5 declares:
“5 You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by[iii] them: I am the LORD.”
Paul insists that Jesus, having lived in perfect obedience to YHVH, was granted the life promised in Leviticus 18:5. Thus he says in Romans 10:5:
“For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.”
And in Galatians 3:10–12:
“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’ Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ But the law is not of faith, rather ‘The one who does them shall live by them.’”
Paul’s point is simple: obedience [iv] to the law (the same law Jesus said he was here to ‘fulfill’) is God’s requirement for life. This is the unmistakable message of the Hebrew Bible.
But Paul also knows that humanity is incapable of fulfilling this requirement by themselves — apart from the Spirit.
Paul’s Other Gospel
Paul’s message of dying to live is cast in and among a series of passages that seem to validate the traditional view of substitutionary atonement. The following verses are a good representation of this “other” view: Rom 3:24-25, 4:25, 5:6-10, 1 Cor 5:7, 6:20, 15:3, 2 Cor 5:14-15, 21, Gal 1:4, 3:13, 4:4-5, Eph 1:7, 5:2, 25, Col 1:14, 20-22, 1 Tim 2:6, Tit 2:14.
There are likely two causes for this ambiguity: 1) Paul saw the crucifixion and resurrection multi-dimensionally, one branch of which was Jesus as sacrifice, and 2) centuries of various word pictures of the crucifixion have influenced not only our interpretation of Paul’s words, but the translators of his Greek words themselves.
And on one level he’s entirely justified in his view of Christ’s death and resurrection as a sacrificial offering. Had he not offered his life, there would have been no Pentecost.
As far as Greek (mis-)interpretation, there are likely many examples in the above list, but we’ll concentrate only on the first, Ro 3:25, and break it down to see what Paul’s words truly said. To see this deconstruction, click on this text. Otherwise simply continue reading.
Breaking Down Propitiation in Romans 3:25
25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
This ESV translation inserts the verb phrase “to be received by”, which is missing from Paul’s Greek. A better translation reads:
“whom God publicly set forth as propitiation through the faithfulness which is in his blood . . . .”
What is God doing in setting Jesus forth as “propitiation”? There are several possible meanings. But first, we have to understand what propitiation (ἱλαστήριος hilastḗrios) is to Paul. The word carries the meaning of “place of sacrifice”, “Mercy Seat”, the place where the High Priest sprinkled blood annually on Yom Kippur as part of the ritual cleansing of the temple (and its most holy object where YHVH was thought at one time to sit/rest) and the people.
- The image is understood to be God’s throne on earth. It’s the place where he talked to Moses, the place from which God interacts with Israel. (Num 7:89)
- Jesus has become God’s designated spokesman (Lk 9:35).
- It’s the object in the Holy of Holies that, once a year, was purified by the sprinkling of sacrificial blood by the High Priest as a part of the remission of the sins of Israel (Lev 16:14-15)
- Jesus’s blood purifying God’s home on earth (the place of atonement), which is about to be “both Jew and Greek” following the pouring out of his Spirit at Pentecost. (Acts 2:1-4, 1 Cor 6:19-20)
- This lid of the Ark of the Covenant enclosed the tablets of God’s covenant with Israel (Dt 10:5). Above that covenant we have God’s throne, sealing in his covenant, and representing the heavenly place from which he judged Israel’s fidelity to that covenant law, and could elect to delay judgment in deference to his mercy (Ps 9:7–8).
- It locates God’s holiness on earth (Ex 26:33).
So, God sets forth (maybe “establishes”?) Jesus as the place of sacrifice. Whichever of the above meanings Paul intended, notice that Jesus is not set forth as a sacrifice, nor does it read that he is set forth as removing sin but rather purifying from it.
The other key corruption of meaning in this verse is the (common) mistranslation of the term rendered “faith” (πίστις pístis; gen. písteōs). Comparing the two translations above, you see that the ESV translates the word as meaning our faith (in Jesus), while the more accurate translation reveals that it is the subject’s (Jesus’s) faithfulness (subjective genitive) that is represented in (the giving of) his blood. (He uses the identical grammatical structure immediately prior in verse 22.)
Most know the verse that says that Jesus “became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (Phil 2:8, cf. Rom 5:19). It’s presenting the same image as our subject verse, Ro 3:25.
In other words, the more accurate interpretation is that God established Jesus because of his faithfulness, as proven by his willingness to give his blood, as the one (or “place”, the holiest of objects) “on” (or “by” or “through”) whom one’s offerings to God should be expressed. And in the New Covenant sense, our offerings to God are ourselves.
Christ’s Death and Our Participation
Most Christians believe Christ’s death substitutes for the death they will now not experience. But Paul understood that this was not its purpose. Staples writes:
“…Paul argues that Christ died so that, by joining him in his death, we may join him in his resurrection: Now if we have died with Christ, we trust that we will also live with him (Ro 6:8; cf. 8:13; 1 Cor 15:31; Col 2:20, 3:3; 2 Tim 2:11).”
Christ’s death is not a substitute for ours. It is the means by which we die and rise with him. The substitution Christ had in mind is that through transformative death and spiritual resurrection, we have been equipped to live the life Christ would live if he were us.[v] He has provisioned his life for ours, not substituted his death for ours.
And Paul is clear that God’s judgment applies to everyone — including believers. As he writes in 2 Corinthians 5:10:
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
Paul is writing to Christians! Transformation, not mere forgiveness, is the basis of salvation.
Thus, Paul exclaims in Romans 8:2:
“For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”
Jesus was not resurrected because he was crucified. He was resurrected because he fulfilled the “righteous requirements of the law” (Lev 18:5) and thus became “the end of the law for righteousness.” His followers do not inherit that righteousness; they reproduce it in their own lives.
The Radical Nature of Paul’s Salvation
Paul’s salvation produces new people — people who are obedient to God’s eternal moral order. Other New Testament authors gesture toward this reality with metaphors (“deny himself,” “take up your cross,” “follow me,” “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”), but Paul exposes its radical power and working with clarity.
Paul’s gospel is not about escaping punishment. It is about dying and becoming. It is about the Spirit fulfilling the promises of the New Covenant by transforming the heart, empowering obedience, and raising the believer into Christ’s own life.
Click on this text to review a tabular summary of some of the key differences.
| Belief | Traditional Foregiveness | New Covenant Transformation |
|---|---|---|
| Nature of men | Sinful but not beyond God’s grace | Sinful but not beyond God’s gracoius offer of new life |
| Requirement for being saved | Praying a prayer of contrition. No “effort” or “work” necessary (or allowed) as God’s grace is all sufficient. | Contrition accompanied by a commitment to fidelity to God for one’s life that replaces the priority of himself. |
| Goal of those seeking salvation | Predominantly, to be granted amnesty from God’s final judgment (I,e, go to heaven when you die.) | Be able to live the life God wants for him so that he is judged righteous on the last day. |
| Torah | Not part of its doctrine | The representation of the moral and ethical standards of God we are enabled to live out. |
| Role of Death in Salvation | Not part of its doctrine other than symbolically in water baptism as a memorial/metaphor of Chirst’s death and resurrection. | One’s necessary state in order to be resurrected to life. |
| Man’s state following salvation | Sin free. Granted eternal sinlessness and life with God. | Empowered by the Holy Spirit to live righteously. |
| Justification | Forgiven and essentially declared saved. | God’s gift of tranformation by his grace (Rom 3:28). |
| Eternal Security | Most, not all, believe and emphasize this idea. (“Once saved, always saved.”) | Not formally a part of the doctrine. Discounted by the Last Day Judgement. |
| Christ’s Roles: | ||
| Fulfill the “law and the prophets” | Not part of its doctrine. | Key to demonstrating the pattern of the obedient, righteous life that leads to eternal life with God. |
| Christ as God’s required sacrifice (whether to appease God, or vent his wrath, or bring us to purity). | The most common understanding: “substitutionary sacrifice “ | Unnecessary, though not precluded. |
| Satisfy God’s wrath against humanity’s sin. | Central. | Not part of its doctrine. (Understood to be the medieval theology of Anselm.) |
| Substitutionary atoning for man’s sins through his death. | Essential. Central. “Paid for all sin”. | Christ’s death does not replace the death of sinners so much as it allows sinners to die with him. |
| Provide “redemption and forgiveness for all who believe” | Redemption is seen as not going to hell when you die. Forgiveness is often mistakenly seen as all encompassing. | Redemption is the gift of new life through the Spirit in God/Christ. Forgiveness (“to cause to stand away”) is the casting off of the old life and its sin, and the working of the Spirit in defeating new sin. |
| Resurrected | Central. | Central. |
| Other | ||
| Role of God’s Spirit | Not emphasized, as a practical matter. A member of the Trinity. | Essential. Central. (Phil 2:13) |
| Relationship to God’s promise to Abram’s | Not part of its doctrine | Transformation is the fulfillment of Abram’s promise of blessing to all the nations and families of the earth. |
| Relationship to God’s New Covenant | None | Its purpose and implementation. |
| Relationship to God’s promised regathering of Israel and Judah to himself. | None | A byproduct. See “What Paul Meant by All Israel“ |
| Relationship to the fulfillment of God’s promise of blessing to Abram | None | Yet another byproduct of God’s New Covenant plan. |
This is the death of death. This is the fulfillment of Torah. This is the New Covenant. And, this is Paul’s gospel.
[i] Staples, Jason A, In his contribution entitled “The Death of Death” to an unnamed, forthcoming book. (Hereinafter, “Staples”) This essay is also the source of otherwise unattributed quotes throughout this piece.
[ii] A statement like this is quite heretical, especially to those in churches like this webpage example. They say:
“Jesus Christ, through His death on the cross, paid for all sin, completely satisfied the righteous wrath of God against sin, and provided redemption and forgiveness for all who believe.”
[iii] There are various versions of the Leviticus statement in different Bibles, including the Septuagint, re: the preposition in front of “them” (i.e. the laws) as “by”, “in” or “through”. It seems Paul has in mind the idea that “live by them” has the instrumental sense: that obedience to God’s law results in life — that life is obtained by (or through) obedience to them. (The predicate of the statement is “a person does them”. The consequent of the statement “he shall live by them” then assumes they’re already being obeyed. So, living “by them” can’t be an implied exhortation to obey them. It can (and likely does) mean living – having life – as a consequence of the predicate condition – “a person does them”.
[iv] There is a question as to what meaning of the preposition בָּהֶם (by, in, through) in Lev 18:5 Paul understood in penning Gal 3:10-12? Many scholars see the “Instrumental” sense of the word, giving the phrase the meaning of “live by means of” or “live through obedience to” the laws, where obedience is assumed (i.e. the purpose of the law is to elicit obedient behavior to it).
[v] Willard, Dallas, “Renovation of the Heart”, NavPress, 2021
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