Redemption, reconciliation, adoption, healing, conquest – all these are ways the Bible talks about the victory Christ won on the cross. That does not, however, mean that penal substitution is just one image of the cross among many, and that we may pick and choose which one we want to emphasize. The Bible’s images of atonement don’t work like that; they are not an all-you-can-preach buffet. Actually, each of the images the Bible uses to describe the atonement finally finds its resolution in the fact that Jesus died in the place of His people. If you trace down the reality that lies behind the images, that is, if you ask enough how and why questions, what you find at the bottom of every single one of them is penal substitution.