Our redemption in Christ does not involve the literal exchange of money.
But it does involve a payment, a price, a cost. And that cost is the presentation of Christ as a propitiation.1See Graham A. Cole, ‘Expiation/Propitiation,’ in in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 489-92.
‘God is both the subject and object of propitiation.’
The Centrepiece
Redemption and propitiation are linked by Paul in Romans 3:23-25 — a passage so important some suggest it forms the centrepiece of the whole Bible:
‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness.’2Comprehensive yet accessible commentary is offered in D. A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (IVP, 2010), 39-74; on propitiation in particular, see Scandalous, 60-66, and Morris, Atonement, 151-176. A fuller treatment is Packer and Dever, In My Place Condemned He Stood, 29-100. The authors argue that penal substitution is the only interpretation of the cross doing full justice to the value and significance of the Savior’s death and passion. For Calvin’s account of Jesus’ death as penal substitutionary atonement, the propitiation of God’s wrath, and the satisfaction of God’s justice, see Institutes 2.16.1-6; Battles ed., 503-11. A useful recent survey across a spectrum of opinion is David Ceri Jones, ‘Evangelicals and the Cross,’ in Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones eds., The Routledge Research Companion to the History of Evangelicalism (Routledge, 39-56). Companion to the History of Evangelicalism, 39-56.
Dealing with sin and all its effects was the purpose of Jesus’ death. Most crucially, his death delivered rebellious humanity from facing and suffering the judgement of God.
What the Word Means
Propitiation is a sacrifice offered to one who is angry, that he may instead be appeased. Propitiation is a deeply personal word. It indicates that our offence against God is deeply personal to him, and us too, for we break his law not by accident, but in our personal choices. Propitiation thus indicates that removal of our debt towards God is not like paying off a traffic fine.
‘Propitiation is the act by which someone (in this case, God) becomes propitious, that is, favorable. Propitiation is the sacrificial act by which someone becomes favorable.’3Carson, Scandalous, 60.
It satisfies or sets aside God’s righteous anger at sin — that holy anger which, from Romans 1:18 onward, Paul argues is directed against sinful human beings whose sins offend him.
Certainly the sin must be cancelled and removed; ‘that is expiation. But the God who has been offended against must be satisfied; that is propitiation. … in the Bible expiation and propitiation hang together.’4Carson, Scandalous, 62-63.
Two distinct things, then, held together. Expiation cancels, sets aside and removes sin itself. Propitiation deals with the One who was offended.
Whose Move Is It?
The action and initiative here is God’s.
It was Christ Jesus ‘whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood’ (Rom 3:25).
By the death of Christ, God achieves what we could not possibly perform ourselves. He resolves his own anger toward our sinfulness by presenting Jesus as a sacrifice for it.
In doing so, God delivered us from his own
‘present rejection, as well as from destruction in his final judgment. It [propitiation] moves us from a position of guilt and inevitable condemnation into acquittal [the declaration of innocence] and friendship with God. By this means we are redeemed — from sin (i.e., guilt), alienation, judgment, and all that goes with them. Redemption focuses primarily on the results of the cross — rescue, liberty, freedom — with the added idea that Jesus’ death pays the price. Propitiation explains both the necessity for that ransom and the nature of the ransom: it is a sacrificial offering to deal with God’s anger at our sin.’5Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom, 127.
‘The Bible pictures God’s standing over against us in both wrath and love.’6Carson, Scandalous, 64.
Propitiation, then, involves the deflecting, turning aside and diversion of God’s anger, through the presentation of a sin offering — Jesus’ own substitutionary blood sacrifice.
The result is atonement. ‘The biblical gospel of atonement is of God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us.’7Stott, The Cross of Christ, 159-60.
Not What the Pagans Meant
There is, however, a
‘fundamental difference between pagan propitiation and Christian propitiation. In pagan propitiation, a human being offers a propitiatory sacrifice to make a god propitious. In Christian propitiation, God the Father sets forth Jesus as the propitiation to make himself propitious; God is both the subject and object of propitiation. God is the one who provides the sacrifice precisely as a way of turning aside his own wrath. God the Father is thus the propitiator and the propitiated, and God the Son is the propitiation.’8Carson, Scandalous, 64-65.
Reflect on that carefully, because it reverses the direction everyone assumes.
In every pagan scheme, the movement runs from below upward: an anxious human tries to buy off a hostile deity. In the Christian gospel, the movement runs from above downward. The offended party provides, at his own cost, the means by which the offence is dealt with.
Nobody has to talk God into being merciful. He supplies the sacrifice himself.
What It Achieves
In this fashion, Christ’s propitiating sacrifice saved sinful men and women from condemnation to punishment by death, as required by God’s law (Rom 6:23; 8:1-4; Gal 3:13; Eph 2:15).
On John the Baptist’s acclamation in John 1:29, ‘Behold the Lamb of God,’ Calvin remarks:
‘The chief office of Christ is explained briefly but clearly. By taking away the sins of the world by the sacrifice of his death, he reconciles men to God. Christ certainly bestows other blessings upon us, but the chief one, on which all the others depend, is that by appeasing the wrath of God he brings it to pass that we are reckoned righteous and pure. … Accordingly John, that he may lead us to Christ, begins with the free pardon of sins which we obtain through him.’9Calvin, The Gospel According to St. John 1-10; trans Parker, 32.
Note Calvin’s ordering. Christ gives many blessings — but this is ‘the chief one, on which all the others depend.’
Atonement by means of propitiation is, then, the epitome of the gospel.
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- 1See Graham A. Cole, ‘Expiation/Propitiation,’ in in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 489-92. ↩︎
- 2Comprehensive yet accessible commentary is offered in D. A. Carson, Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus (IVP, 2010), 39-74; on propitiation in particular, see Scandalous, 60-66, and Morris, Atonement, 151-176. A fuller treatment is Packer and Dever, In My Place Condemned He Stood, 29-100. The authors argue that penal substitution is the only interpretation of the cross doing full justice to the value and significance of the Savior’s death and passion. For Calvin’s account of Jesus’ death as penal substitutionary atonement, the propitiation of God’s wrath, and the satisfaction of God’s justice, see Institutes 2.16.1-6; Battles ed., 503-11. A useful recent survey across a spectrum of opinion is David Ceri Jones, ‘Evangelicals and the Cross,’ in Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones eds., The Routledge Research Companion to the History of Evangelicalism (Routledge, 39-56). Companion to the History of Evangelicalism, 39-56. ↩︎
- 3Carson, Scandalous, 60. ↩︎
- 4Carson, Scandalous, 62-63. ↩︎
- 5Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom, 127. ↩︎
- 6Carson, Scandalous, 64. ↩︎
- 7Stott, The Cross of Christ, 159-60. ↩︎
- 8Carson, Scandalous, 64-65. ↩︎
- 9Calvin, The Gospel According to St. John 1-10; trans Parker, 32. ↩︎