01.02.06 - Propitiation
6. Propitiation: God the Father is completely satisfied with His Son’s work on the cross in dying for all human sin. As a result, sin is no longer an issue as a barrier to salvation in regard to divine justice. For while prior to the cross God in His perfect righteousness could never accept sinful mankind or indeed even abide our presence (a fact that explains His self-imposed temporary “exile” from the earth to the third heaven), after the cross He is pleased to accept anyone and everyone into His family as sons and daughters, anyone, that is, who accepts the work of His Son on their behalf. All divine grace towards human beings after the fall and prior to the cross was given “on credit”, so to speak, in anticipation of what Jesus would do for us on Calvary (cf. Romans 3:26). In effect, while God used to frown on us because of our sins, and so kept His distance, now through the cross of Christ the Father smiles on us, since Jesus has removed those sins forever as an offense as far as salvation is concerned. Indeed, as we shall shortly see, the Greek words which express this biblical teaching put the matter nearly in those precise terms. However, it is traditional for this doctrine to be referred to by the non-Hebrew and Greek derivatives, propitiation, expiation and atonement, each of which call attention to some aspect of this concept of God’s justice being satisfied by the work of Christ towards sin.
Propitiation and expiation, are Latin, atonement English in terms of their derivation. Propitiation comes from pro (“on behalf of”) and peto (“to seek”). Thus the word propitiation in its etymology calls to the mind the idea of Christ seeking forgiveness for us from the Father (and we understand that such forgiveness is based on His death to sin for us). Expiation comes from ex (“completely”) and pio (“to do what is right so as to appease” – from pius, the source of our English word “pious”). Thus the word expiation in its etymology calls to mind the idea of Christ effectively changing the Father’s attitude through acceptable conduct or sacrifice (and we understand that the conduct concerned is His death on our behalf which blotted out our sins). Finally, atonement is in its etymology a purely English construct: “at one -ment”. Thus the word in its etymology expresses the idea of our being “made one” with God (and we understand that the means for this reconciliation is the blood of Christ shed on our behalf). Of course, as can be seen perhaps most especially in the case of the last word but also with the first two to some degree, the actual usage of these words in common and even in theological English has become convoluted to the point where they often result more in confusion than elucidation. For one finds them frequently employed in ways that strain and even sometimes break their already somewhat tenuous etymological connection with the teaching being considered here, which is that God the Father is satisfied in His justice with Christ’s work: the Son’s death for sin, the blood of Christ, has effectively put an end to the obstacle of sin when it comes to salvation. For the Father considers, and justly so, all our sins to have been paid in full by Christ.
It is true that the Greek and Hebrew vocabularies used to teach this concept (of divine justice pleased to accept Jesus’ sacrifice in payment for our sins) approach the issue in different ways, a fact which may explain the inconsistencies in English terminology. For the predominant Hebrew verb used to express propitiation is caphar (ëôø; cf. “Yom Kippur”, the “Day of Atonement”). The key idea of the root behind this word is that of ransoming. Thus, in the analogy, propitiation, expiation or atonement would be the payment of an acceptable ransom sufficient to satisfy, please or appease the demands of divine righteousness, with our sin being the debt which needs to be paid. In other words, just as literal animal blood is the necessary means of ritual propitiation, so the symbolic blood of Christ is the necessary means of actual propitiation. In the former, the payment of ransom for our lives, expiating our sins, is merely represented (in a very graphic way); in the latter the sin for which God’s justice demands our death is truly put away in exchange for a suitable ransom which placates divine righteousness, Christ’s death in place of ours.
Then [the guilty party] shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord; [he shall bring] to the priest a ram without blemish from the flock according to the penalty assessed for his guilt offering. Then the priest will make atonement (ëôø) for him before the Lord, and he will be forgiven once and for all for everything he has done to incur guilt. Leviticus 6:6-7
“When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom (Heb. ëôø, noun) for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them. Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give a half shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the Lord. All who cross over, those twenty years old or more, are to give an offering to the Lord. The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less when you make the offering to the Lord to atone for your lives (Heb. ëôø, verb).” Exodus 30:12-15 NIV
Here we see what is even more clear in the Hebrew, namely, the direct connection between paying the ransom price (copher, a noun form of ëôø) and the atonement/propitiation/expiation it achieves (cipper; the piel form of the verb ëôø). In this last case, the money price, which is emphatically stated to be exactly the same for all, represents the blood of Christ, the “coin” of forgiveness, which suffices to satisfy the demands of God’s perfect justice for the forgiveness of all sin. The Greek root employed for teaching the principle of propitiation is directed more towards the effect Christ’s sacrifice has had in changing the Father’s attitude towards us than it is with the removal of sin producing that change of attitude. That is, the Greek vocabulary is concerned more with the work of Christ in the analogy accomplishing the “appeasement” or “mollification” of God’s justice on our behalf. Nevertheless, we can say with certainty that these two ideas are really one, being merely two sides of the exact same coin. That is because of the direct and deliberate connection which the Greek vocabulary makes with its Hebrew counterparts. The solid gold top of the ark of the covenant, often and somewhat misleadingly translated “the mercy seat”, is called in Hebrew the capporet (also from ëôø), and translated into Greek as the hilasterion (ἱλαστήριον; Romans 3:25; Hebrews 9:5; cf. Exodus 25:17-22; Leviticus 16:13 in the Greek Septuagint version). This is place where the blood of the sacrifice was poured out on the Day of Atonement “to make propitiation for the sins” of the whole people (Leviticus 16:34; Hebrews 9:7). Now the ark was a type of Christ, and the cherubim on the cover represented the Father and His court (cf. Exodus 25:22) looking down at the blood on the cover of the ark (which contained representations of the people’s sins: Hebrews 9:4), and being satisfied with the sacrifice. The word hilasterion is analogous in its formation to the Hebrew word capporet in that both words have noun suffixes which may be considered locative (i. e., “place of __”). However, the Greek root hila- (ἱλα-) has to do not with ransom but with joy, and, when specifically attributed to a person, with being joyful or joyfully disposed (cf. English “hilarity”). In other words, the Greek idea focuses on the result of the payment of the ransom, the good favor we now enjoy from the Father in place of the previous hostility toward our sin, rather than focusing on the sin cancelled out by Christ’s blood payment (as in the case of the Hebrew terminology). In other words, while the Hebrew root for propitiation, (ëôø), looks to the means, “ransom”, the Greek root for propitiation, (ἱλα-), looks to the result, “appeasement” (when the ransom is found acceptable). This meaning is evident in all of the Greek vocabulary occurring in the New Testament relating to this concept: Be graciously (lit., “cheerfully” [hilastheti – ἱλάσθητι]) inclined to me, O God, sinner that I am! Luke 18:13 b
God made [Christ] a means of atonement (lit., “appeasement” [hilasterion – ἱλαστήριον]) [achieved] by His blood [and claimed] through faith, to give proof of His justice in leaving unpunished in divine forbearance [all] previously committed sins, so as to prove His justice in the present, namely, so that He would be [shown to be] just [in this] and [justified] in justifying the one who has faith in Jesus. Romans 3:25-26
Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful [hilaron – ἱλαρόν] giver. 2 Corinthians 9:7 NIV For this reason [Jesus] had to be like His brothers in every way, in order to become a merciful and faithful High Priest in the things relating to God in order to propitiate (lit., “appease away” [hilaskesthai – ἱλάσκεσθαι]) the sins of the people. Hebrews 2:17
Sin is the problem which has plagued mankind since the fall. But through propitiation by means of the ransom of Jesus’ blood the Father’s righteous wrath has been forever mollified and appeased. Because of Christ’s atonement, sin no longer holds us in its grasp (we who accept His work have been “redeemed”; see point 7 below); because of our Lord’s act of propitiation, our sins no longer stand in the record against us, implacably demanding a sentence of death (we who believe in Him have been “justified”; see point 8 below); because of Jesus’ work of expiation, the wrath of Holy God towards sin no longer forms an impenetrable barrier separating us from Him in spiritual death (we who have come to Him have been “reconciled” to God; see point 9 below). Who Jesus is and what He did for us on the cross is at the center of everything we believe, of all that we are, and of all that God has ever done and will ever do in the world. The precious blood of Jesus Christ our Savior, His work on the cross in dying spiritually for our sins, has once and for all put an end to the Genesis curse and opened the door to heaven for all who are willing to hear His voice. For while we were helpless and hopeless and doomed (since without the perfect sacrifice for sin having the perfect effect on the One who perfectly judges sin there can be no forgiveness), the Father and His holy justice have now been satisfied by the death of His one and only dear Son, with the aroma of the ransom price paid in His sacrifice on the altar of Calvary’s cross being a sweet savor in His nostrils, well-acceptable to Him and ever able to propitiate Him on our behalf (2 Corinthians 2:14-15; Hebrews 7:27; cf. Genesis 8:21; Exodus 29:18