A subject about which N. T. Wright has produced a ton of material is the atonement and its benefits. His 1996 academic book Jesus and the Victory of God includes a good amount of Wright’s early research on the cross and Jesus’ death. Of course, his commentaries over the years have explored key passages about Jesus’ death. There have been scholarly articles and chapters in popular books all exploring various aspects of the meaning, goal, and achievement of Jesus’ death. Then Wright stirred up a good amount of controversy in 2009 with the release of Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, in which he responded to John Piper’s critique of his understanding of justification.
Then in 2016, N. T. Wright released his big book on the atonement. It is titled The Day the Revolution Began, and it is Wright’s culminating work on the meaning of Jesus’ death. In interviews about the book, Wright says he tried to take a fresh run at the biblical data and that he learned much as he did so. And in fact, he changed his position on the atonement in some key ways during his work on this book.
The book itself is over 400 pages long, so there’s no way to interact with all of it here, nor is that necessary for our purposes. Suffice it to say that there is a wealth of helpful material in the book that can provide us with a deeper, broader, more wholistic understanding of the cross.
“Wright stirred up a good amount of controversy in 2009 with the release of Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, in which he responded to John Piper’s critique of his understanding of justification.”
In addition to helping us think through key passages in Paul’s letters, in keeping with Wright’s overall approach, The Day the Revolution Began also helps to set the cross into the context of the entire biblical narrative, especially showing how it is the culmination of Israel’s story. Wright also demonstrates that a full biblical theology of the atonement needs to include not merely Paul’s writings but also what the Gospels contribute to our understanding of it, and he points us in some helpful directions for what the Gospels teach us about the atonement. He also brings clarity to what it means to say that through the cross Jesus defeated the devil. Those are just some of the key themes of this big book on the atonement that are valuable and helpful to developing a richer, deeper understanding of Jesus’ death.
What I want to explore in this article is one key way Wright’s understanding of the atonement has changed from his earlier writings, particularly concerning the meaning of the word “propitiation.” In this case, Wright’s view is new (in the sense that it has changed), but I don’t think it is improved. Keep in mind that Wright was writing about his new understanding over ten years ago and doing so as a British evangelical Anglican. I point that out because in the last ten years it has become more commonplace in western evangelicalism to raise questions about, reject, or outright disparage the idea of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA for short), and some British pastors and theologians were on the leading edge of that trajectory more than ten years ago. I wonder if this context influenced Wright to speak in such a way as to keep both sides of that debate happy, even as his argument ultimately fed the anti-PSA trajectory.
“What I want to explore in this article is one key way Wright’s understanding of the atonement has changed from his earlier writings, particularly concerning the meaning of the word ‘propitiation.'”
What is penal substitutionary atonement? In short, some version of penal substitutionary atonement has been one of the central understandings of the atonement since the days of the church fathers. In brief, it’s the idea that Jesus’ death in some way paid the penalty for our sins to free us from the condemnation of God’s just repayment upon them (i.e., his wrath). One of the key passages for this understanding of the cross is Romans 3:21-26, a passage which Wright explores in The Day the Revolution Began and which he has explored in earlier writings as well.
My guess is that most anyone reading this book would accept the simple summary of PSA above as at least part of what they understand the cross to have accomplished. One of the helpful things Wright does in The Day the Revolution Began is to show us that the cross did much more than this, because evangelicalism has tended to limit the work of the cross only to paying the price for our sins. Nevertheless, one of the unhelpful side effects of this book is that it lends Wright’s considerable theological weight to those who reject PSA. To be clear, I’m not sure that Wright himself fully rejects PSA.[1] But in this book—his big book on the atonement—he is ambiguous enough and makes certain comments which those who choose to reject PSA can seize upon and then use the influence of N. T. Wright to support their case against PSA.
“He is ambiguous enough and makes certain comments which those who choose to reject PSA can seize upon and then use the influence of N. T. Wright to support their case against PSA.”
Previously, Wright held to an unambiguous, even if nuanced, form of PSA. In his large commentary on Romans, he provides a lengthy exploration of Romans 3:25 and the meaning of the word “propitiation,” especially in its Old Testament context. Toward the end of that explanation, he writes that “the death of Jesus, described in sacrificial terms, not only [reveals] the righteousness of God but also [deals] properly, i.e., punitively, with sins.”[2] He then adds that this is controversial but “it is exactly this idea that Paul states, clearly and unambiguously, in [Romans] 8:, when he says that God ‘condemned sin in the flesh’—i.e., in the flesh of Jesus.”[3] He even continues his comments to say that the overall context of Romans 1:18-3:20 is concerned with the wrath of God, and thus the context demands that we understand propitiation as dealing with divine wrath. What he writes in this commentary is an effective and helpful explanation of Romans 3:25 in context and of PSA.
Wright’s latest position on this subject, however, is less clear. In one place in The Day the Revolution Began, he refers to penal substitutionary atonement as “quasi-pagan,” describing it as “the quasi-pagan narrative of an angry or capricious divinity and an accidental victim.”[4] Yet in another place, he talks about Jesus taking our condemnation, saying that Jesus “took upon himself the full force of the divine condemnation of Sin itself, so that all those ‘in him’ would not suffer it themselves.”[5] In a YouTube video in which he’s asked to answer a question about the validity of PSA, Wright beats around the bush to such an extent that it’s never completely clear what he thinks. Read the comments on the video and you’ll see a number of listeners expressing frustration about how unclear he is.[6]
“In one place in The Day the Revolution Began, he refers to penal substitutionary atonement as ‘quasi-pagan.'”
Regarding Romans 3:25, in The Day the Revolution Began, Wright rejects his prior understanding of the meaning of “propitiation” in the verse. Whereas in his commentary on Romans as noted above, he explained that it meant Jesus’ death dealt punitively with sins and with God’s wrath, now he is emphatic that there is no idea of God punishing our sins in Jesus in that passage. He now asserts that the word “does not denote a ‘propitiatory sacrifice,’ in which Jesus is punished for the sins of others.”[7] Instead, he now claims that, based on the word’s usage in the Greek version of Leviticus 16, it only refers to cleansing and preparing a place for people to meet with God.
Closely related to his new understanding of “propitiation,” we could consider what Wright now says about the wrath of God. Recall that in his commentary on Romans, he had pointed out that the context of Romans 1:18-3:20 was unambiguous: God was angry at sin and the solution for that in Romans 3:21-26 is Jesus’ death. Now, in the final paragraph of The Day the Revolution Began, he exhorts us to “forget the ‘works contract’ [approach to atonement] with its angry, legalistic divinity.”[8] He says this as he summarizes the main message of the book. 
Nowadays, when discussing Jesus’ death, Wright makes these kinds of dismissive statements about God’s wrath all over the place. God is utter, self-giving love, he contends, “but you would never know this from listening to the story of the angry God who is determined to punish someone and just happens to pick on his own son.”
“Nowadays, when discussing Jesus’ death, Wright makes these kinds of dismissive statements about God’s wrath all over the place.”
He even goes so far as to denigrate the idea of Jesus bearing the punishment of God’s wrath for our sin as suggesting that “God so hated the world.”[9] Wright surely knows this is a straw man of the classic understanding of what it means that Jesus’ death paid the penalty for our sins, but that doesn’t stop him from saying it.
The irony is that just a page after the “God so hated” line, Wright goes on to explain what God’s wrath is. Why does he do this? Because any thoroughgoing Bible scholar—and Wright certainly is that—has to acknowledge that the Bible does teach that God expresses wrath. So Wright describes God’s wrath as “the shadow side of the love of God.” It is “God’s anger at evil” that is “determined to put things right.”[10] But a mere three paragraphs earlier, he was using a caricature to run down the idea of an angry God whose wrath needs to be dealt with through the cross.
So, the question is, if God expresses wrath and anger toward sin and evil, does the cross address that wrath or not? If not, then how can it provide full atonement and be the complete solution for sin? If so, then Wright needs to be more honest and clear about that when explaining propitiation and PSA.
“If God expresses wrath and anger toward sin and evil, does the cross address that wrath or not?”
So, what does Wright believe about PSA these days? If left to The Day the Revolution Began, I don’t think we’d actually know. In that book, it seems as if Wright is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. In 2023, however, Wright released a new book on Romans titled Into the Heart of Romans in which he makes his view a little clearer. In that book, he unambiguously states that he believes in PSA, albeit a distinctive version of it unique to himself.
His most updated understanding is that Jesus as Messiah is the climax of God’s covenant with Israel and as Israel’s representative, God fulfilled his covenant with Israel by condemning sin through Jesus’ death. He sees in other versions of PSA Jesus somehow arbitrarily being put to death, but that in his view it’s not arbitrary because Jesus as Messiah is the culmination of Israel’s story. He also distinguishes his view from usual explanations of PSA by emphasizing that God condemned sin— not Jesus—on the cross, so that it is incorrect to say that Jesus was punished for our sin. Jesus himself was never punished or condemned, according to Wright. Furthermore, in all of this, Wright maintains his rejection of the standard meaning of propitiation as an offering to turn away wrath.[11]
So, his current view of the atonement is new from what he used to believe, but in my opinion, it is not improved. His treatment of “propitiation” in his 2002 commentary is stronger lexically and contextually, as well as being much more clearly written and argued. And concerning penal substitutionary atonement these days, Wright vacillates (and even at times bloviates), speaking unclearly and leaving it uncertain what he really thinks.
“His treatment of ‘propitiation’ in his 2002 commentary is stronger lexically and contextually, as well as being much more clearly written and argued.”
But because he frequently speaks pejoratively about people who talk about Jesus’ death dealing with the anger of God, he lends his voice and immense theological weight to those today who seek to eliminate any need for a penalty to be paid for human sin. There are times, however, when he does pause to admit that the Bible speaks about God’s wrath, explaining God’s wrath in virtually the same terms as all those people about which he spoke pejoratively. I’m not sure what to make of all this, but it does make me wonder if Wright is laboring to keep everybody theologically happy when it comes to what it means for Jesus to die for our sins.
[1] He is clearer in his 2023 book Into the Heart of Romans, as I’ll explain below.
[2] N. T. Wright, “Romans.” New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. X, Nashville: Abingdon (2002), 476.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, 253. Note: PSA does not see Jesus as an “accidental victim.” That’s a caricature by Wright.
[5] Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, 229.
[6] See “Penal Substitution and Salvation Explained by Theologian and Historian NT Wright” on Premier Unbelievable? https://youtu.be/4Yz1yK4usrA?si=5nfPHrPT2eFPlzyk.
[7] Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, 331.
[8] Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, 416.
[9] Wright, Simply Good News, 69.
[10] Wright, Simply Good News, 70, emphasis in the original.
[11] See Wright, Into the Heart of Romans, 55.
One Response
I too find Wright’s view on PSA to be rather obscure and inconclusive especially when listening to podcasts where he deals with the subject. For me it is hard to deny the main tenements of PSA especially in light of the Isaiah 53 passage. BUT the question I have, is was this atoning suffering on the cross inflicted directly by God the Father to appease His wrath which seems an affront to both the unity of the Godhead and the character of God the Father. Or… was it inflicted by sinful people and accepted by the Father as a satisfaction of His justice as the means by which He could forgive sin. In Acts 2:23 and 3:13b-15 Peter puts the blame directly on those who perpetrated the crucifixion, not that God the Father. The death of Christ on the cross certainly atoned for sin, paying the full price for sin, but was His suffering and agonizing death actually done by the God the Father. Stan