Trinity Baptist Church

Key Words of the Christian Life

Propitiation: God's Not Angry At You

 

We are studying some of the key words of the Christian life, words that are so significant and so important that to fail to understand them is to fail to understand the message of the Bible. 

 

There are six of them we will take a look at:  Justification, Propitiation, Redemption, Reconciliation, Regeneration and Adoption.  We began with justification last week.  It is that act of God whereby He declares a sinner, while still in his or her sin, not guilty.  It is purely by His grace, made available by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. 

 

Now of the six, I would be willing to guess that propitiation is the most unfamiliar of all. In fact, I will dare say that in all of America there is not one in one hundred people who has actually ever heard the word propitiation before and maybe not one in one thousand who really understands what it means. It is a rare word, a word that is not used in conversation very often at all. 

 

In fact, I ran an internet news search on the word and got a grand total of two hits.  One of them, I am quite confident was a misuse of the word where the author intended to say “propagation” and instead used “propitiation”.  

 

The other was a story from the Asia News Network that was a ten-year follow-up on a tsunami that occurred in the Indian Ocean back in 2004 and the article said,

“Mankind has suffered stupendous natural calamities throughout its existence. The ancient Aryans, for instance, aware of the power of nature, prayed to the Gods of Wind, Fire – and to Varuna, God of the Waters.  Such propitiation was meant to stave off misfortune.”

 

So obviously it is one of those words that is unfamiliar to us, very rarely used in everyday language.  However, when you come to the pages of the New Testament, you discover that the word propitiation is a key word that is used six times in various forms relating to the effects of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

 

 

The definition of the word propitiation is this: to propitiate means to turn away wrath by the offering of a gift. So the article I referenced was correct in its usage.  What the ancients Aryans believed was the devastating effects of storms might be escaped if the gods could be persuaded to withhold their wrath. 

 

They weren’t the only cultures to believe that.  In ancient Greece, the word sometimes was used for pagan religious ceremonies. It was used for the offering of animals for blood sacrifice.

 

It was used for the idea of appeasing an angry god. It was used for the idea of bringing an offering and placing it before an idol because you thought the idol you worshipped was angry at you and you hoped that by giving blood or food, that the anger of the god would be turned away.

 

In fact, in Haiti today the followers of voodoo still practice this. They will sacrifice a chicken and pour its blood out and put it in a saucer. They will put the dead chicken carcass outside the door. It is their way of hoping to appease the god who stands behind voodoo. That is the pagan idea of propitiation.

 

We also may see propitiation on another level. Here is a man who is married. As men are prone to do, he has made a mistake. He has offended his wife. He has said something he shouldn’t have said or done something he shouldn’t have done. Or he has left undone that which he ought to have done.

 

He is on his way home, and depending on his budget, he will stop, either at the flower shop or the candy store or the jewelry store and purchase an offering to take home.

 

He jumps out of the car, goes through the door and before his wife can say a word to him, he presents the gift to her. And she takes it, in a moment of sincere and hopeful worship, he is praying with all his heart the offering has turned away the wrath of his wife. That, my friend, is propitiation and it is a doctrine every husband can understand and has practiced at one time or another.

 

Now, if you want a biblical, non-theological example of propitiation, you could go back to the book of Genesis, to the story of Jacob and Esau. Remember how Jacob cheated Esau out of his inheritance, then ran for his life.

 

 

 

Genesis 32 tells the story of how, after 20 long years, now Jacob wants reconciliation with his brother. He sent a message to Esau saying, “I, Jacob, your brother, am coming to meet you at such and such a time and at such and such a place. Will you come and meet me?”

 

So he sends out messengers with the word and back they come with good news and bad news. The good news is Esau’s coming. The bad news is he’s bringing 400 soldiers with him. Jacob, being a very wise and cunning man, decides that he will offer a gift, hoping to pacify his brother’s wrath.

 

Genesis 32 says he made the following gift: 200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 15 female camels with their young, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys and 10 donkeys. He sent all of those animals on up ahead with these instruction: 

 

“When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong and where are you going and who owns all of these animals in front of you?’ then you are to say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my Lord Esau. He is coming behind us.’ “

 

Why does he do it that way?  He is hopeful the gift will turn away the wrath of his brother. In fact, in his words, “I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead. Later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me.”

 

It is interesting that when the Greek translators of the Old Testament came to the Genesis 32:14, they use the Greek word for propitiation. 

 

He literally said, “I will propitiate him with these gifts I am bringing.” So to propitiate, whether in secular or theological terms, means to turn away wrath by the offering of a gift.

 

 

But to really understand what it means to us as New Testament believers and how it was used during the days of Jesus Christ, we need to understand the Old Testament background.

 

And to find the best information, you have to go to one of the least familiar books of the Bible, the book of Leviticus. In Leviticus 16 we read the story of the activities of the Day of Atonement. Remember in the Old Testament the Day of Atonement came just once a year.

 

On the Day of Atonement the High Priest would take off his regular clothes and put on a different uniform. He would take a goat and offer it up as a sacrifice. Then he would take the blood of the goat and very carefully go inside the tabernacle into the Holy Place, behind the curtain that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies.

 

Taking the blood of the goat into the Most Holy Place, there he would come to a strange looking box called the Ark of the Covenant. Inside the Ark of the Covenant there was placed a little bit of manna, Aaron’s rod that budded and, most importantly, a copy of the Ten Commandments.  On top of the Ark of the Covenant there was a lid made of pure gold and there was the sculpture of the wings of the cherubim from one side of the ark to the other.

 

And there on the top of that golden lid, the High Priest would take the blood of that goat and he would sprinkle it.  And on that one day of the year called the Day of Atonement, after all the procedure had taken place, God would look down from heaven and atonement, or forgiveness, the covering for sin, would be made.

 

So what does that represent? To understand it, think about it in literal terms.  On every other day of the year, when God looked down from heaven to the Ark of the Covenant, what he saw was the manna, the rod and the Ten Commandments on the inside.

 

Here were reminders of God’s love and provision.  His children were hungry so he fed them.  They needed to know He cared about them, so he provided and God saw all that.  But He also saw the Ten Commandments and there they lay, broken and violated, amidst the goodness and provision and protection of God.  The Ten Commandments stood as a testimony against the sins of the nation of Israel.

 

But on the Day of Atonement when the High Priest would take the blood of the goat and sprinkle it on top of that golden lid, what God saw when He looked down was not the broken law of God but the blood of the sacrifice. And the blood of the sacrifice covered the sin of the people of Israel. And because of that day, for that entire year, the sins of the people of Israel were atoned; they were forgiven, covered by the blood of the sacrifice.

 

 

 

But there was an intentional problem with that system.  It only lasted for a year and it was just the blood of a goat.  Therefore, it was a temporary, reoccurring fix.  We know that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin at all.

 

The only thing the blood of a goat could do was provide temporary appeasement and point to something that would happen later. That is why every year, year after year, the High Priest would go in and do it all over again. There was no permanent forgiveness for sin in the Old Testament system. It only pointed to something else.

 

 

That’s why the death of Jesus was so necessary.  When Jesus Christ died on the cross and shed his blood, He provided a permanent, never-to-be repeated solution to the sin problem. 

 

And one of the key words used to describe the effects of the death of Christ is this word propitiation.  Jesus was the absolute fulfillment of everything that happened on the Day of Atonement. 

 

Listen to Hebrews 2:17

 

Jesus was like the High Priest who brought the blood in. You could literally translate it, “That he might make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

 

Then listen to 1 John 2:2

 

 

 

He was not only the priest sprinkling the blood, He was the blood Itself.  And when Jesus died on the cross, the blood that He shed was like the blood on the mercy seat. It turned away the wrath of God and covered the sin of the people.

 

Put these two passages of scripture together and what you have is a truth like this: Jesus Christ, in his death on the cross, on one hand is like the High Priest who made the sacrifice, who offered the blood on the mercy seat. On the other hand, Jesus Christ is also the sacrifice itself.

 

So Jesus, when he offered himself, was both the High Priest and the sacrifice offered up to God. How could that be? It is not so hard to understand.

 

In the Old Testament it is the blood of bulls and goats.  In the New Testament it is the eternal blood of Jesus Christ which has eternal value and eternal effectiveness in the eyes of Almighty God.

 

So when Jesus hung on the cross, you remember the moment when in great agony and great pain he cried out to God, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And in that moment something we don’t fully understand happened. In that moment all the wrath of God was poured out. It was as if the sewer pit of hell were emptied on Jesus.

 

He became sin for us and all of your sin and all of my sin and the sins of the whole world were poured out on Jesus and in that moment God turned his face away from his only begotten son. In that moment, Jesus took the wrath of God for us.

 

Let me give you three truths to summarize the effects of propitiation.

 

1. Because Jesus Christ died, God’s justice is now satisfied.

 

2. Because Jesus Christ died, God’s wrath has now been turned away. The price for sin has been paid.

 

3. Because Jesus Christ died, God’s mercy is now freely available to anyone who wants it.

 

 

I close with four implications for your life and mine. 

 

The doctrine of propitiation is a

 

 

So many people live in cowering fear. They live in fear that God is angry, trying to hurt them, to get even with them. You hear people say to pray for the opposite of what you want, because God always gives you the opposite of what you pray for.

 

What a perversion of the character of God. The doctrine of propitiation teaches us that what ought to be a judgment seat has now through the blood of Jesus been turned into a mercy seat. And what ought to be a throne of judgment has now, for the believer, become a throne of grace.

 

That is why Hebrews says, “That he might be a merciful High Priest.” Now we see God’s essential character—that he is merciful and gracious toward us on the basis of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross.

 

Just as the blood must be sprinkled in the Old Testament, even so must the literal, physical blood of Christ be shed on the cross. Don’t believe the people who say that in these modern days we can’t talk about the blood of Christ.

 

That comes from people who are ashamed of what the New Testament says. For the blood of Christ is in the Bible. If you take out the blood of Christ, you’ve taken out the gospel of Christ.

 

 

Since Christ bore the full weight of God’s wrath, we now enjoy the full blessing of God’s mercy. If you are a Christian and you are living with a guilt complex because you think God hates you, how little you understand of the cross of Christ. The table of the Lord is God’s final proof that he is not angry at you. He loves you and is merciful towards you. His wrath has been turned away.

 

 

For those who reject Christ, there is nowhere else to turn. By that I simply mean the gift of Christ is so great, his sacrifice so magnificent, his death so awesome in its benefits, that if you decide to go someplace else, what you will find is there is no place else to go.

 

If you turn from the cross and go back into the world, or if you think you can do it on your own and save yourself, if you turn from Jesus Christ, you will discover there is no place else to go.

There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.

 

Over 200 years ago there was a man in England by the name of William Cowper. He is a man who was of nervous disposition. All the biographers talk about that. He struggled with nervous problems and depression.

 

It looks from reading his story that he suffered from what we would call a form of manic depression, given to some great difficulty in his life. At one point in his life, by his own testimony, he was depressed, upset and fearful that he was under the wrath of God.   

 

He said, “I flung myself into a chair by the window and there saw the Bible on the table by the chair. I opened it up and my eyes fell on Romans 3:25, which says of Christ, “Whom God has made a propitiation through faith in his blood.”

 

William Cowper said, “Then and there, I realized what Christ’s blood had accomplished and I realized the effects of his atonement for me. I realized God was willing to justify me and then and there I trusted Jesus Christ and a great burden was lifted from my soul.”  Looking back on that day, William Cowper wrote a hymn several years later that is in our hymnbook today. “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stain.”

 

I wonder if you have ever been plunged beneath the flood of the blood of Jesus Christ? God’s Son has made propitiation.

He has turned away the wrath of God. He shed his blood and what was a place of judgment is now a mercy seat for people like you and like me.

 

I urge you right now in the name of Jesus Christ, to run to the cross. Cling to the bloody cross of Golgotha and there you will find that your sins are forgiven and you will find the forgiveness that you seek. God help you to run to the cross and cling to Jesus today.

 

Let’s pray