Romans 3:25-26 — Hilastêrion as a Public Sign

“Whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness — because of the passing over of former sins, in the forbearance of God — to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Romans 3:25-26

Context

Rom 3:21–26 is the theological centre of the Letter to the Romans and the turning point in the argument of chapters 1–3. Paul has previously (1:18–3:20) set out at length: Gentiles and Jews alike stand under sin, no one is made righteous before God by works of the law. V. 21 opens with the decisive “but now”: nyni de chorís nómou dikaiosynê theou pephanerôtai — “but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.” Vv. 25–26 explain how and where this manifestation takes place: through Christ as hilastêrion, publicly, before all eyes.

The word hilastêrion occurs in the entire NT only in two places: here and Heb 9:5. In Hebrews it is used unmistakably as a terminus technicus for the mercy seat (Hebr. kapporôt, the golden cover of the Ark of the Covenant). In the Septuagint hilastêrion translates 21 of 27 occurrences of kapporôt — the place above the ark at which God showed himself gracious to the people on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16; Exod 25:17–22). Paul, a former Pharisee, thinks in this language: a term denoting a place, not a mechanism.

The double sentence vv. 25b–26 is syntactically chiastic in build: “for the demonstration of his righteousness — because of the passing over of former sins in God's forbearance — for the demonstration of his righteousness at the present time.” Twice the noun endeixis: demonstration, showing, making-visible. A penal-substitutionary reading would have to press endeixis into a foreign sense of “production” or “reparation” — the lexical evidence will not bear this.

V. 25 names a decisive background: dia tên páresin tôn progegonótôn hamartiôn en tê anochê tou theou — “because of the passing over of sins formerly committed, in the forbearance of God.” Before Christ God had “let sins go past,” not punished them in every case, deferred judgment. If God had demanded a payment of penalty, his pre-Christian patience would have been unjust. The cross shows publicly: God was just even in his patience; his forgiveness was no surrender of his righteousness but its very expression.

In the wider context, vv. 25–26 stand in immediate line with Rom 1:17 (“in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith”) and Rom 5:8 (“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us”). Both parallel passages use language of public showing: apokalyptetai, synistêsin. The theological point is consistently demonstrative, not juridical-transactional.

The Socinian core thesis

God is the acting subject: proetheto — “he has set forth,” active voice. An appeasement theology requires God as recipient; a penal substitution requires God as addressee of a payment. Both founder on the active verb. Christ is not a payment directed to God; he is what God himself has presented, publicly planted, made visible to all the world. Sozzini in his exposition has seized on precisely this point: the whole event is God's initiative, not Christ's pressure on God.

Hilastêrion is, in LXX usage, the place at which God's forgiveness becomes visible, not the means by which God is made willing to forgive. Above the kapporôt God spoke to Moses (Exod 25:22). On the Day of Atonement the blood was sprinkled on the kapporôt — not because the blood appeased God, but because there it became visible how God, out of free goodness, forgives sins (cf. Lev 16:14–16). Christ as hilastêrion: where God forgives, he is now publicly visible.

The double phrase “for the demonstration of his righteousness” (v. 25c and v. 26a) is the rhetorical peak of the whole passage. Endeixis means, throughout Paul, “showing, demonstration, visible proof” (cf. 2 Cor 8:24; Phil 1:28; and endeiknymi in Rom 9:17, 22). The cross is demonstration, public showing, making-visible — not an inner-divine settlement. God displays what he is; he does not first produce it.

The point in v. 26b resolves the apparent tension between righteousness and pardon without any juridical intermediate step: eis to einai auton díkaion kai dikaiounta ton ek písteôs Iêsou — “so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” The kai is not adversative (“just although he justifies”) and not resultative (“just because penalty has been carried out”); it is conjunctive-coexistential: by justifying, he is just. God's righteousness shows itself precisely in his saving faithfulness.

The whole section presupposes that dikaiosynê theou does not primarily mean “penal justice” but “saving covenant faithfulness” in the line of the Psalms and Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Ps 22:32; 24:5; 31:2; 35:28; 40:11; 71:2, 15–19; Isa 46:13; 51:5–8; 56:1; 61:10). If dikaiosynê is covenant faithfulness, then its public showing is not juridical penal execution but the world-public manifestation that God saves his people. Precisely this happens in Christ — and precisely this is the endeixis.

Exegesis: key terms and word-field

Five key terms decide the interpretation of Rom 3:25–26 linguistically and philologically:

hilastêrion — mercy seat / place of encounter

In classical-pagan Greek hilastêrion could denote a votive gift offered to appease a deity (4 Macc 17:22 is often cited in this regard). For the NT, however, it is not the pagan but the Septuagintal word-field that is the primary horizon of reference. There hilastêrion, in 21 of 27 occurrences, translates the Hebrew kapporôt — the golden cover of the Ark of the Covenant. That is the standard rendering in Exod 25:17–22; 31:7; 35:12; 38:5–8; Lev 16:2, 13–15; Num 7:89.

Heb 9:5 confirms this sense directly in the NT: there it reads hyperánô de autês Cheroubeim dóxês kataskiázonta to hilastêrion — “and above it the cherubim of glory overshadowing the hilastêrion.” Here hilastêrion is unmistakably the place above the ark. Since Paul uses the same word in Rom 3:25, and since Hebrews and Romans stand in the same linguistic-theological milieu, the identity of the line of meaning is highly probable.

Theologically central: at the kapporôt God forgives by his own authority. The blood sprinkled there on the Day of Atonement was not a payment to God, but a sign to which God attached his forgiveness. Lev 16:30 summarises: “on that day atonement shall be made for you” — passive, God is the one who forgives, the sacrifice is rite, not pressure. Christ as hilastêrion carries this logic into the new covenant: where God forgives, he is now publicly visible.

Sozzini took up this allegory explicitly and summarised it pointedly in the Racovian Catechism: that cover of the Ark of the Covenant, to which Paul alludes in Heb 9:5 and Exod 25:22, was likewise called propitiatorium — though it is plain that this cover itself did not in any way satisfy God for sins (see the original quotations below).

proetheto — “set forth,” active, with God as subject

The verb protithemi in the active means “to set before the eyes, to set forth publicly, to put forward, to determine beforehand.” It belongs to a word-group (protithemi, prothésis, prothymía) that throughout aims at initiative and resolve — never at receiving. Rom 1:13 uses proethémên for “I have purposed”; Eph 1:9 speaks of God's eudókian hên proetheto en autô, “the good purpose which he set forth in him.” The vocabulary is consistently volitional and initiatory.

In Rom 3:25 God is syntactically unambiguous as subject. An appeasement reading would want to read the verb passively (“God was appeased by…”) — but Paul formulates actively. This one grammatical fact alone strikes any penal-substitution theory at this passage from the field: God is not the addressee of an act but its author. Christ is not given to God; Christ is set by God before the world.

The double sense “present publicly” and “determine beforehand” fits ideally the twofold aspect of the passage: on the one side God's eternal saving plan (cf. 1 Pet 1:20; Acts 2:23), on the other the world-public manifestation at the cross. Both aspects exclude penal substitution: an eternal plan made possible only through penal execution upon a third party is no free saving plan but a necessity shackled by a logic of compulsion.

endeixis dikaiosynês — “demonstration of righteousness”

Named twice (v. 25c, v. 26a) and thereby placed pointedly at the centre. Endeixis is verbal-substantival and means “indication, showing, public demonstration.” Paulinely cognate: 2 Cor 8:24 (“demonstration of love”), Phil 1:28 (“demonstration of destruction”). The semantic field is demonstrative-public, not juridical-restitutive. A translation “discharge” or “reparation” would not hit the word.

Dikaiosynê theou is, in Paul as in his OT forerunners (Deutero-Isaiah, the Psalms), primarily “saving covenant faithfulness,” not “penal justice.” Ps 71:15 LXX: “My mouth shall declare your righteousness, your salvation all the day” — dikaiosynê in parallel with sôtêria. Isa 46:13 LXX: “I have brought near my righteousness, it is not far, and my salvation will not delay.” If dikaiosynê is saving faithfulness, then endeixis dikaiosynês is the public manifestation of that faithfulness — not its forensic production.

The second naming is explanatory of the first: “en tô nyn kairô” — “at the present time.” This binds the christological act with the earlier letting-go of sins (v. 25b). Before Christ God endured in his anochê; in Christ he shows that this patience was the expression of his righteousness — and not its suspension.

páresis tôn progegonótôn hamartiôn — “passing over of former sins”

Páresis (from paríêmi) is not identical with áphesis (“forgiveness”). The term appears in the NT only here and means “passing-over, overlooking, letting-go-unpunished.” Classically used for not avenging a wrong, without the guilt being thereby remitted eo ipso. Paul thereby characterises the mode in which God dealt with sin before Christ: not continually punishing, but often forbearing.

This “forbearance of God” (anochê) is theologically delicate: why did God not always judge sins? A penal-substitution dogmatic would have to reply: because the penalty was later carried out on Christ. Paul, however, answers otherwise: the endeixis dikaiosynês in Christ shows that God's forbearance was no failure of his righteousness but the expression of it — it was from the beginning the saving faithfulness that became public in Christ.

Sozzini places this point at the centre of his exposition: “Paul writes in Rom 3:25 that there are forgiven us by God through Christ the previous sins, that is, those of which men were guilty before Christ, since indeed atonement had never been granted them by any public and manifest decree of God.” (On Jesus Christ the Saviour (De Iesu Christo Servatore), Part Two, ‘Death in the Sacrificial Types’). The cross is thus ratification and public manifestation — not juridical condition of possibility — of that forgiveness which was already real before.

en tô haimati autou — “in his blood”

The phrase en tô haimati autou is, on the penal-substitutionary view, often taken as the key: blood as the indicator of a penal act. But in the Septuagintal cult blood is not a penal means but a sign of cleansing and of covenant: Lev 17:11 says that the blood, as bearer of life, is given upon the altar “for your atonement” — not as a payment to God, but as a ritual carrier appointed by God himself. Sozzini argues at length in On Jesus Christ the Saviour: no one held the blood of a goat to be a payment to God — why should the blood of Christ be construed differently?

En with the dative is instrumental-modal: “by means of, through.” The blood is the mode in which the public-becoming occurs; not the substance through which God is appeased. This fits the allegory of the kapporôt, over which on the Day of Atonement blood was sprinkled: not so that God might forgive, but that it might become visible that he forgives.

The mention of blood is also syntactically not the centre of the sentence. The centre is eis endeixin tês dikaiosynês autou — “for the demonstration of his righteousness.” The blood is mode, the demonstration is purpose. To reverse this and make the blood the purpose is to shift the Pauline point.

Comparison of interpretations

Reference to Fausto Sozzini

Sozzini made Rom 3:25 a chief locus of his argument against the doctrine of satisfaction. In On Jesus Christ the Saviour (De Iesu Christo Servatore), Part One, ch. 9, he expounds the Pauline usage at length and refutes the juridical reading on two paths: first via the LXX allegory (the kapporôt), and second — even if one were to reject this allegory — via the inner linguistic logic of the passage itself. The Racovian Catechism summarises the argument pointedly in its section on ‘Christ as Atoning Sacrifice’.

The name Propitiatorium — as most have noted — is nothing other than the cover of the Ark of the Covenant of the old covenant; and that cover was designated by the translators with the same name that Paul used, and likewise in the Letter to the Hebrews 9:5, namely hilastêrion: not because it propitiated God to the people of Israel, but because in it God not infrequently showed himself as gracious and reconciled to the people present, and spoke to Moses, as is significantly written in Exod 25:22. With this name Christ in this passage was fittingly designated by Paul, because in him God has shown himself to us in the most gracious way.

Fausto Sozzini, “On Jesus Christ the Saviour (De Iesu Christo Servatore)”, Part One, ch. 9 (Propitiatorium: cover of the Ark of the Covenant, not appeasement of God)

Sozzini argues consistently from the word-field of the Septuagint: the cover of the Ark of the Covenant did not propitiate God; it was the place at which God displayed his own goodness. The antitype (Christ) must be read in the same logic, not in an alien juridical one. If the type rendered no penal payment, neither can the fulfilment-image. The allegory is no dispensable ornament but the hermeneutical key.

Sozzini undermines the juridical reading even if one rejected the kapporôt allegory: “Will you straightway conclude from this that God has been reconciled to us through Christ? Why will you not rather, because you see that it is here a matter of God's grace and of the forgiveness of sins, conclude that God has shown himself gracious and reconciled to us through Christ?” (On Jesus Christ the Saviour, Part One, ch. 9). The direction of reconciliation runs from God to us — not the other way around; from the word alone it follows at most that Christ was set forth by God as a means of atonement for us, not that God has been paid.

In the Racovian Catechism, section ‘Christ as Atoning Sacrifice’, the same point is formulated directly with reference to Rom 3:25: “When Paul says that Christ has been set forth by God as propitiatorium in his blood, through faith in him, he means: Christ in accordance with God's will has poured out his blood for all sins. Whoever therefore would experience God as gracious and obtain forgiveness of his sins, let him come to Christ by faith in him. This is the only refuge for all sins.” (Racovian Catechism, ‘Christ as Atoning Sacrifice’). The passage calls not to a juridical logic of imputation but to faith's coming-to-refuge.

Sozzini finally takes up v. 25b: “Paul writes in Rom 3:25 that there are forgiven us by God through Christ the previous sins, that is, those of which men were guilty before Christ, since indeed atonement had never been granted them by any public and manifest decree of God. But that God would do this, he had promised through the prophet Jeremiah (ch. 31).” (On Jesus Christ the Saviour, Part Two, section ‘Death in the Sacrificial Types’). Christ makes public what God had already promised before through the prophets: forgiveness was a matter of promise, its public manifestation occurs at the cross.

Overview of Sozzini's writings

Logical arguments

From Rom 3:25–26 there follow nine logical and linguistic-philological arguments against a penal-substitutionary reading:

1. Argument from the active subject (proetheto). God is the agent, not the recipient. A penal payment to God would make God the passive addressee; Paul, however, formulates actively. With this the penal-substitutionary basic constellation (God as wrathful creditor who must be paid) is already syntactically excluded.
2. Argument from LXX usage. Hilastêrion is in 21 of 27 Septuagintal occurrences the kapporôt — a place, not a mechanism. Heb 9:5 confirms this sense directly in the NT. Paul writes for a public formed by the LXX and himself thinks in LXX language. The pagan secondary meaning “appeasement-gift” is not the primary horizon of reference.
3. Argument from public-showing language. Endeixis means “showing, demonstration, visible proof” (cf. 2 Cor 8:24; Phil 1:28). If the cross were to be juridical discharge, Paul would have had to choose another word (such as katallagê in transactional sense). God displays his righteousness; he does not produce it.
4. Argument from the final clause of v. 26. “That he might be just and the justifier” — the kai is conjunctive-coexistential, not resultative. God is just by justifying; not: just after a penalty has been executed. The apparent tension is resolved in one single act of saving faithfulness, without any penal intermediate step.
5. Argument from the preceding forbearance of God (v. 25b). God had “passed over” sins (páresis) in his anochê. If every sin demanded a penalty, God's pre-Christian patience would have been unjust. The cross shows publicly that God's patience was the expression of his righteousness, not its suspension — an argument against the forensic reading.
6. Argument from the addressee problem. A payment requires a recipient. Who receives the payment in this passage? God himself (Anselm)? Then God is at the same time recipient and owner of the payment — a logical circle. A foreign power? Then God would be bound vis-à-vis it, which is not possible within monotheism. The metaphorical reading solves the problem; the penal-substitutionary does not.
7. Argument from inner-biblical prejudication. On the kapporôt in the temple blood was sprinkled without God being thereby paid — Lev 16:30: “on that day atonement shall be made for you,” passive, God forgives. If the antitype (Christ) introduced a wholly different logic from the type (the kapporôt), Paul's allegory would be amiss. The figure of speech holds only if both follow the same logic.
8. Argument from Sozzini's exposition of Leviticus 16. The OT sacrifices worked as signs to which God attached his forgiveness — not as pressure on God. The Racovian Catechism holds firm that the cover of the Ark of the Covenant was indeed called propitiatorium, “although it is plain that this cover itself did not in any way render satisfaction to God for sins.” This logic holds all the more for the antitype.
9. Argument from the biblical direction of reconciliation. Scripture nowhere says that God has been reconciled to us through Christ; always, rather, that we have been reconciled with God (2 Cor 5:18–20; Rom 5:10–11; Col 1:20–22). The direction of reconciliation goes from God outward to us — not from us (or from a substitute for us) to God. A penal-substitutionary reading of Rom 3:25–26 reverses this direction against the witness of the rest of the Pauline correspondence.

Biblical cross-references

The following passages are particularly important for understanding Rom 3:25–26 as a text of public showing:

Exodus 25:17–22 — the kapporôt as place of encounter

“You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold… There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat… I will speak with you.” The kapporôt is the place of God's presence, not a means of appeasement. Paul transfers this image to Christ: God meets us in Christ, speaks to us in Christ — and forgives from there.

Leviticus 16:14–16, 30 — Day of Atonement

On the Day of Atonement the high priest sprinkled blood on the kapporôt, al-pínê ha-kapporôt. V. 30: “on this day atonement shall be made for you, to cleanse you” — passive, God forgives. The blood is a sign, not pressure upon God. This is precisely the model Paul transfers to Christ.

Hebrews 9:5 — hilastêrion = kapporôt in the NT

“And above it the cherubim of glory overshadowing the hilastêrion” — the word here unmistakably means the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. The only other NT passage is Rom 3:25. The identity of usage between Paul and Hebrews supports the LXX reading in Rom 3:25.

Isaiah 46:13; 51:5–8; 56:1 — dikaiosynê as saving faithfulness

“I have brought near my righteousness, it is not far, and my salvation will not delay” (Isa 46:13 LXX). Dikaiosynê is throughout Deutero-Isaiah in parallel with sôtêria — saving faithfulness. When Rom 3:21, 25–26 speaks of dikaiosynê theou, this OT linguistic background is primary and decisive.

Romans 1:17 — revelation of the righteousness of God

“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith…” The word apokalyptetai is parallel to endeixis in 3:25–26: both are language of public showing. Rom 1:17 and 3:25–26 unfold the same fundamental thought: God's saving faithfulness becomes visible in Christ.

Romans 5:8–10 — God demonstrates his love

“God shows (synistêsin) his own love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” The same demonstration-pattern as in 3:25–26: synistêsin = “to set forth, to prove, to show.” God's love and righteousness are publicly displayed in Christ — not juridically produced.

2 Corinthians 5:18–20 — direction of reconciliation

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself”: not “Christ reconciles the world to God,” but “God reconciles the world to himself.” God is subject of reconciliation, the world is object. Exactly the same direction as in Rom 3:25 (proetheto): God acts from himself — not through a penal offering directed at him.

1 John 4:10 — love as the origin of atonement

“Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as hilasmón for our sins.” God is subject of the sending; love is the root; hilasmós is consequence, not precondition. Cf. the entry on 1 John 2:2.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 — the new covenant with forgiveness

“I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.” God promises forgiveness without penal execution upon a substitute. Sozzini has expressly related this to Rom 3:25: the cross is the public manifestation of that very forgiveness promised in the OT.

Objections and Socinian answers

Objection 1: hilastêrion classically meant “appeasement gift,” and so implies the stilling of wrath

The assumption that the classical-pagan range of meaning is decisive for Paul's writing is methodologically false. Paul, a former Pharisee, writes in the linguistic tradition of the Septuagint. There hilastêrion, in 21 of 27 cases, translates the kapporôt. The primary horizon of reference is unambiguous.

Heb 9:5 confirms this sense directly in the NT. Since Rom 3:25 is the only other NT passage, the identity of the line of meaning is methodologically required, so long as no strong counter-grounds are available. They are not.

4 Macc 17:22 is text-critically uncertain and, moreover, stands in the same Septuagintal linguistic field as Rom 3:25 — even there, in so far as the word would have to be read as wrath-stilling at all, it yields no penal-substitutionary theology but a logic of solidarity (the martyrs offer themselves for the people, not in place of them before God).

Even one who rejected the LXX allegory would have to assume, as Sozzini sets out, the narrower hilasmós-sense (atonement as a fact) — and even this is, in the OT system, not a payment to God but the effect of the sacrifice instituted by God. In no case can a penal substitution be deduced from the word.

Objection 2: God's holiness requires atonement, otherwise his righteousness is null

Dikaiosynê theou is, in Pauline and OT usage, primarily “saving covenant faithfulness,” not “penal justice.” Ps 71:15 LXX: “My mouth shall declare your righteousness, your salvation all the day.” Isa 46:13 LXX: “I have brought near my righteousness, it is not far, and my salvation will not delay.” If dikaiosynê is saving faithfulness, then it does not require punishment but salvation — and precisely this happens in Christ.

Rom 3:26 itself resolves the apparent tension differently from how penal substitution claims: “that he might be just and the justifier.” The kai is conjunctive-coexistential: by justifying, he is just. There is no syntactic intermediate step “after punishment has been executed.”

If God needed a penalty against a third party in order to forgive, his pre-Christian forbearance (v. 25b en tê anochê tou theou) would have been unjust. Paul, however, shows: God's forbearance was the expression of his righteousness. This is an explicit refutation of the premise “no forgiveness without punishment.”

The penal-substitution dogmatic is a late-medieval construction (Anselm, Cur Deus homo, 11th c.; verbalised at the Reformation), not an original Pauline theologumenon. The conception that God's righteousness stands “in tension” with his forgiveness, and that Christ resolves the tension through payment, is missing in both OT and NT usage.

Moreover, God in the OT forgives in many places without penal execution on a substitute: David in Ps 51, Manasseh in 2 Chr 33:12–13, the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15). If God can do that without harm to his righteousness, then the premise is false.

Objection 3: The mention of “blood” (en tô haimati autou) surely shows the penal-execution logic clearly

In the Septuagintal cult blood is not a penal means but a sign of cleansing and of covenant. Lev 17:11 spells it out: “the blood is what makes atonement, by the life” — not because the blood pays, but because God has appointed the blood as the ritual bearer. Sozzini argues at length: no one held the blood of a goat on the Day of Atonement to be a payment to God. The logic transfers to the antitype.

En tô haimati autou is instrumental-modal (“by means of, through”), not juridical-substitutive. The blood is the mode in which the public character of the hilastêrion displays itself, not the substance by which God is appeased.

Heb 9:22 is to be read within the cult: schedon “almost everything is cleansed by blood” — the “almost” breaks any universal validity. The OT law also knows of bloodless atonement (Lev 5:11–13: flour offering in poverty; Num 16:46–50: incense). Heb 9:22 is a description of the cultic system, not a universal doctrine about the conditions of forgiveness. Cf. Hebrews 9:22.

Forgiveness in the OT occurs in many places without blood: Ps 51 (David), 2 Chr 33:12–13 (Manasseh), Matt 18 (the royal creditor remits a debt), Luke 15 (the father of the prodigal son). If forgiveness without blood is possible, then the blood of Christ in Rom 3:25 cannot be the conditio sine qua non of a penal payment. It is the mode of public showing — in the line of the kapporôt, on which blood was sprinkled without God being thereby paid.

Objection 4: “That he might be just and the justifier” surely presupposes the necessity of a penal performance

The premise that righteousness and forgiveness stand in tension is an imported theory, not one raised from the text. The text simply says: eis to einai auton díkaion kai dikaiounta, “that he might be just and the justifier.” The kai connects, it does not split.

If dikaiosynê is saving covenant faithfulness, then being-just and justifying are not two different divine actions that must be balanced against each other but the same act under two aspects: God shows himself faithful in that he saves. There is no tension between them because they are materially the same.

The final clause eis to einai refers grammatically not to any preceding penal performance but to the antecedent act of public showing. God sets Christ forth for the demonstration of his righteousness, so that he may be recognised as one who is just and justifying at the same time. The logic of cognition (demonstration) is primary, not the logic of transaction.

The penal-substitutionary reading runs into theological aporia: if God's righteousness demands a payment of penalty, then God is not sovereign in forgiveness — he is bound to a logic prior to himself. That, however, is incompatible with the biblical picture of a God who forgives by his own authority (Exod 34:6–7).

Objection 5: If Christ is not vicariously punished, what is the point of his death at all?

The alternative “penal execution or meaninglessness” is a false dichotomy. Christ's death is in the NT motivated in many ways, without penal substitution: it shows the love of God (Rom 5:8), conquers the power of death (Heb 2:14–15), seals the new covenant (Matt 26:28; cf. Exod 24:8), consecrates Christ to the heavenly high priesthood (Heb 9:11–14; Heb 5:8–9), calls to discipleship in suffering (1 Pet 2:21), publicly displays the saving covenant faithfulness of God (Rom 3:25–26).

Demonstration is no less weighty than transaction. The cross “shows” not in a weak sense (as if God could equally well have just “spoken”), but in a strong: it is the once-for-all, world-public act in which the saving covenant faithfulness of God becomes visible and irrevocably proclaimed. That is precisely the meaning of endeixis in Paul.

Sozzini reflected at length on the necessity of Christ's death: Christ had to die so that God's promise of the resurrection might become visible in a concrete human being; so that the type of the Day of Atonement might be fulfilled in the antitype; so that the public character of divine forgiveness might be anchored world-historically. These grounds dispense with penal substitution — yet they are theologically dense.

The charge that a demonstrative reading turns Christ's death into “mere example” is a polemical caricature. Exemplarity is only one aspect of the Socinian theology of atonement; alongside it stand consecration, covenant-making, public manifestation of God's righteousness, deliverance from the power of death. A rich, multidimensional theology of salvation, without juridical mechanics.

Theological consequences

Connected verses

The following passages support, deepen or contrast the interpretation set out here:

• Mark 10:45 — a metaphor of liberation (lýtron), not penal payment; the same OT covenant-language logic as Rom 3:25.
• Matthew 26:28 — covenant blood according to Exod 24:8; haima as a covenant sign, not a penal means.
• Hebrews 9:22 — “almost everything is cleansed by blood” — the “almost” breaks any universal penal-execution reading.
• 1 John 2:2 — Hilasmós as atonement sent by God; God is subject, not addressee.
• Hebrews 9:11-14 — Christ as high priest in the heavenly sanctuary; an act of consecration, not penal execution.
• John 3:16 — God gives his Son out of love — not because he had to be paid.

Summary

Romans 3:25–26 displays God as the acting subject of the saving deed. Proetheto is active: God sets Christ forth, publicly, before the whole world. Hilastêrion is, on the OT background, the kapporôt, the place at which God made known his presence and his forgiveness — not a means to his appeasement. The cross is the antitype of that place: there the saving covenant faithfulness of God becomes world-historically visible.

The double phrase eis endeixin tês dikaiosynês autou — “for the demonstration of his righteousness” — is the rhetorical peak. Endeixis means demonstration, public showing, visible proof. Dikaiosynê is saving covenant faithfulness in the OT sense, not penal justice. The point is not penal execution but the manifestation of God's ever-free forgiveness — previously hidden but at work in God's forbearance (páresis), now appearing in the public arena of the world in Christ.

Sozzini, in On Jesus Christ the Saviour (De Iesu Christo Servatore) and the Racovian Catechism, worked out this point with great linguistic precision: the word hilastêrion will not bear the doctrine of satisfaction. Even if one were to reject the kapporôt allegory, nothing more could be deduced from the word alone than that Christ has been set forth by God as a means of the publicly appearing grace. The penal-substitutionary reading is a later theological overlay, not an item of cognition derived from the text itself.

Understood Socinianly, Rom 3:25–26 is a key text of demonstrative soteriology: God is just by justifying. The cross is the world-public, historically anchored manifestation of this one truth: God's forgiveness is the outflow of his faithfulness, not a concession bought by penal execution. What Israel saw hidden above the ark, the world now sees publicly in Christ.