The word propitiation occurs just three times in the Authorised Version of the Bible, yet it is, arguably, the keystone of the doctrine of the Gospel of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Without propitiation there could be no atonement, redemption or justification, and helpless sinners would forever perish under the unmitigated and wholly righteous judgment of God. If the whole work of redemption is a wonderful edifice to the glory of God, then that monument to His grace stands eternally upon the principle of propitiation.
The Significance of Propitiation
A suggested definition of the biblical use of propitiation is, “the means by which the wrath of an offended God is appeased in such a way as to prevent the otherwise inevitable visitation of judgment upon the fallen race of men”. The righteousness of God demands the administration of summary punishment for sin and, without any intervention, that punishment must be immediate and final. God does not, and cannot, either overlook sin or simply postpone judgment for it in the way that we might perhaps put off the correction of a disobedient child. Every divine act must be consistent with the demands of a righteousness which is not according to some Self-designed code or law but which is the very nature of God Himself. Were it not for propitiation, sinners would be unreachable by divine grace and eternally estranged from the love that desires their salvation. How vital, then, is this great truth! It is nothing less than the establishment of a foundation upon which God can demonstrate, without violating His own righteous demands, His love and mercy to a rebellious race which He sees wallowing in the indescribably offensive filth of its own sin. But how can such propitiation be made?
The Source of Propitiation – 1 John 4.10
The hymnwriter summed up the situation well in the words, “How helpless, how hopeless we sinners had been, if He never had loved us till cleansed from our sin!”. Not only was the fallen race of men totally bereft, spiritually and morally, of any acceptable offering to effect propitiation, it was so careless of its condition before God that it engaged in open hostility, rebellion and defiance against Him. Clearly no propitiation would or could ever come from mankind, so whence came it?
“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4.10). Here is the wonderful, mighty source of the propitiation that was needed. It emanated from the heart of God, and He provided what He Himself demanded in order that He could righteously express His love toward fallen man. What worship this should provoke in the hearts of men, especially those of us who are saved by God’s grace!
The first soul-thrilling assurance we can glean from this verse is that, if God Himself provided the propitiation necessary to satisfy His own righteous demands, the propitiation provided must be completely adequate. He alone knew the requirement, and He alone knew the virtues of the propitiation He sent, so we can rest fully upon the adequacy of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, as “the propitiation for our sins”.
Secondly, the verse teaches us that the Lord Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. John is writing to believers in the Lord Jesus, redeemed by His precious blood, and to this select company he writes of the “propitiation for our sins”. Thus the value of the propitiatory work of the Lord Jesus is reckoned to the believer alone and, necessarily, that means the ungodly are outside of the blessed relief from wrath that propitiation has provided for the saints of God.
The Scope of Propitiation – 1 John 2.2
The foregoing sentence might raise the question, “What about the statement in 1 John 2.2 - ‘And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world’ - does that not mean a universal propitiation?” A fair question indeed, and one which is raised because of a rare but singularly inappropriate inclusion by the respected translators of the AV. The correct reading of this verse, based on the recognised original texts is: “And he is the propitiation for our sins; but not for ours alone, but also for the whole world”. It is important to understand the difference in these two renderings. For the believer, the Lord Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, personally and eternally, and He has satisfied the claims of God in relation to our personal guilt with the outcome that we are forever delivered from divine judgment. But that cannot be said of all men irrespective of their attitude to divine things. John does say that Christ is also the propitiation for the whole world, but he does not say for the sins of the whole world. If the AV rendering were correct, then the whole world would be saved, and we know that is not the case. The helpful comment in Vine’s Expository Dictionary is, “The italicised addition in the A.V., “the sins of,” gives a wrong interpretation. What is indicated is that provision is made for the whole world, so that no one is, by Divine pre-determination, excluded from the scope of God’s mercy; the efficacy of the propitiation, however, is made actual for those who believe”. The divinely-provided propitiation has made it possible for God to extend mercy to the whole world, withholding judgment while the claims and invitation of the gospel go forth in grace, but the Lord is the propitiation for the sins only of those who believe.
The Sufficiency of Propitiation – Romans 3.25-26
Whereas the two references to propitiation in John’s first epistle are the same word in the original, and carry the thought of the Lord being the propitiation for our sins, the word used in Romans 3.25 is used also in Hebrews 9.5 where it is translated mercyseat. The purpose of the mercyseat as taught in Exodus 25.22 is, “there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony”. This place of divine communication and fellowship covered the ark and its contents which were the tables of stone, the golden pot of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded. These items testified to Israel’s three great sins in the wilderness which are, in principle at least, reviewed in the first two chapters of the Roman epistle. The tables of stone were a reminder of Israel’s idolatrous and licentious behaviour when Moses was in the mount, behaviour of the type condemned in Romans 1.18-32. The manna was despised by Israel in the same way as the riches of God’s goodness are despised in Romans 2.1-16, and the rod recalls the sin of Korah and his company whose presumptuous ritualism was like that mentioned in Romans 2.17-29.
Just as the mercyseat covered the contents of the ark from the gaze of the downward-looking cherubim (representative of the unswervingly righteous standards of God), so the One whom God has “set forth to be a propitiation” provides the means whereby the three groups of people seen in the first two chapters can have their sins dealt with and put away out of sight. The mercyseat was not the place where expiation for sin was made - that work was all accomplished at the brazen altar - but the blood of the victim was sprinkled on and before the mercyseat to demonstrate that propitiation was complete. Hence the word in this verse is really mercyseat or propitiatory, emphasising that the One who is set forth has finished the work in relation to the sin question, and, having taken humanity into Heaven, He eternally testifies to His own sufficiency as the propitiation for our sins. This is all by (on the ground of) his blood, and appropriated by faith (v.25).
Finally, these verses state twice that the work of propitiation is a declaration of the righteousness of God and has been accomplished so that God might be just and (yet also) the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. The ground upon which God can display His unmerited love and mercy to fallen men is nothing less than the glorious person and sacrificial work of His own beloved Son who is the propitiation for our sins.