Profaning The Death Of Christ--Expiation vs. Propitiation

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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So there you have it. One day No Compromise Radio will be all of those. How to think about the death of Christ. I've got to revive this show. I've got to resuscitate this show. One of the ways you could profane the death of Christ is by thinking that it only accomplished, that Jesus only granted expiation on the cross and not propitiation as well.

Expiation and Propitiation in the Atonement

So this goes back to the Dodd controversy. And what happened at Calvary? What is the difference between expiation and propitiation? And did Jesus expiate your sins? Did he achieve propitiation? Did he do one or the other or both?

Or why does it matter? And so let's talk a little bit about definitions. And then we'll see that the right way to think about this matter is, okay, let's do definitions first. Expiation, ex, e-x, out of or from.

So it means like, let's say to exit, to remove something, to take something away. And so you remove sin, you forgive sin. And that's what expiation is. And so we have no problem with that. Go for it. Believe it.

It's true. But what about propitiation? P-R-O-P-I-T-I-A-T-I-O-N. So now we've got pro instead of ex out of or from. Pro is for. R .C. Sproul describes it this way. So propitiation brings about a change in God's attitude so that he moved from being at enmity with us to being for us.

Through the process of propitiation, we are restored into fellowship and favor with him. So back in the day, if you wanted to have a warring party appeased, there was a political party, a military part, a conflict, and you wanted to appease them, the language would be propitiation.

You would want them appeased, propitiated. That's what you would want. They would be mad at you. They would be angry at you. They would be, of course, God wrathful. And so wrath against sinners needs to be propitiated.

The quenching of God's wrath, God's anger assuaged. Now you see why back in translations and in the liberal conservative fights of this last hundred years. Let's just kind of get away from this wrathful God, angry God.

We want more of a kind of a therapeutic God, kind of a mothering God, nurturing. The sharp edges of God's wrath are no fun. So let's have just expiation. God just forgives your sins. And so we don't need propitiation.

That's what the rub was all about. Sproul says expiation is the act that results in the change of God's disposition toward us. It is what Christ did on the cross. And the result of Christ's work of expiation is propitiation.

God's anger is turned away. The distinction is the same as that between the ransom that is paid and the attitude of the one who receives the ransom. So ransom paid. And then after it's paid, how does that person then think and act?

So when you read Sproul's article on this expiation slash propitiation, he talks about placating the wrath of God. And if you're a liberal person, if you are cutting the corners of God's attributes, well, there's no mad God to placate.

There's no anger of God to assuage. And so it's not needed. I mean, to appease God, not needed. Soothe God's countenance, not needed. But what do you do with verses like 1 Thessalonians 1 .10? Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come.

No matter what C .H. Dodd does in 1935 in his book, The Bible and the Greeks, page 82 to 95, discussing expiation over and against propitiation, we still have to deal with the biblical terms. What about propitiation?

So when you see words, and to be technical, hilasterion, when you see that in a Bible, how do they translate it? So some translated expiation, and some translated propitiation. And which one should it be translated?

Which word shall we best translate hilasterion with propitiation or expiation? Does God's wrath need to be appeased? Should satisfaction be given to God? Eastern Bible Dictionary, propitiation is that by which it becomes consistent with his character and government to pardon and bless the sinner.

The Tax Collector, the Mercy Seat, and the Wrath of God

So what about some Bible verses? Luke 18 is a good place to go. So I'm going to turn my Bible here. I don't know if this is NAS or ESV. Let me see. I prefer NAS, but preach from ESV, I know. I know. That's another show.

Luke 18. All right, Luke 18. And we have, oh, let's go to verse nine. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves, that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Okay, that's the context.

It's important with parables to know the situation, to understand the occurrence, to know the purpose for it. He's just given the parable of the persistent widow. And now he says, he meaning Jesus, two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.

But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.

But the one who humbles himself will be exalted. So we've got this word group, hilasterion, word group, and the tax collector says what? He's basically, he can't lift up his eyes to heaven. He's contrite and humble and says, God, be merciful to me, the sinner.

Now, we have a verb there that you can't really tell if you're just reading the English translation. Hilascamite, and it is translated there in the ESV, I think NAS too, be merciful. So when you start looking up this root word, you see in Romans 3 .25 and Hebrews 9 .5, hilasterion, I think the King James there says mercy seat.

When you look at the word in the Old Testament Greek, the Septuagint, when you see LXX, that's Roman numerals for 70, you have the Septuagint called the 70. They translate the Hebrew word for covering.

They translate the word for the lid of the ark of the covenant, Exodus 25 and 30, the Hebrew word kaporeth, to cover. They use this hilasterion word group. It's the mercy seat. And so it's the lid of the ark.

And so what would happen back in the day? The high priest takes the blood of the sacrifice for the people, goes within the veil and sprinkles it on the mercy seat. He makes propitiation. And as I've said on the show many times, I think the best way to visualize it, if you're going to try to be teaching people inside the ark of the covenant, you'd have Aaron's rod, of course, you'd have some manna, and you'd have the 10 commandments.

And so the people would break the commandments and God would look down. Again, this is just the language of accommodation and see that the commandments were broken. The sacrifice, you know, they should die so that sin shall die, but the sacrifice dies instead and the blood's put on the lid or the mercy seat.

And so now God sees the sacrifice. He knows death has been done in place of the sinners and his wrath is appeased. His wrath is placated. God's anger does no longer exist. First John 2, chapter 2, verse 2 and chapter 4, verse 10, talk about Jesus as the propitiation for our sins.

The word is a little different in terms of the ending, but the main root word is halas, halasmas. He's the propitiation. He is the substitute. And so let me just read a couple of these verses. Let me just read one, I guess, Romans 3 .25, as we're working through propitiation.

Whom God, Romans 3 .25, put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. And so God puts forward, I think the NES is probably better where he makes a public display, openly declares this before all to see.

You've got the Ark of the Covenant and where is that? Out in the middle of nowhere, out in the middle of everywhere, you have the Ark of the Covenant behind the scenes. It's veiled and only the high priest can go there.

And so the sacrifice is behind the scenes. But here, Jesus's sacrifice, his propitiatory sacrifice is in public. Everybody can look. This is not for the insiders. This is not a secret club and secret handshakes and inner circles.

This is a big neon sign. The other day we were driving down the street and I saw a large flash, not a flash, a spotlight, not a flashlight, a spotlight. And you could see it spinning around and it was some advertisement for car sales or something.

And the kids were like, look dad. And it seemed like it's pretty close, but it's farther away than what you might imagine. And so here is the spotlight on the death of Christ, a public demonstration of his righteousness.

And he is making appeasement, our satisfaction, propitiatorily. That's my new word. How do you like that? Hebrews 9 .5, and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. But of these things we cannot now speak.

So somebody is offended, somebody is injured and you need to appease them. You need to placate them. You need to turn their disfavor into favor. And it's called propitiation. The tax gatherer, God be merciful to me, the sinner.

Treat me on the basis of the blood sprinkled on the mercy seat. So Jesus propitiates the wrath of God and he forgives sins. That is a difference between expiation, the removal of sins. And we believe that of course, but don't avoid propitiation because propitiation is something that's taught in the Bible.

And we are not afraid of the wrath of God. You need to read Arthur Pink's book, The Attributes of God. There'll be a chapter on the love of God, and there'll be a chapter on the wrath of God. And of course, you know, we tend to favor the love of God more, but can you really pick and choose and say, I like this attribute better than the others?

I don't really like this particular attribute as much. That's not too good to say. I mean, I get it. I understand why we would think it, but to say it, therefore to believe it, there's some sticky wickets there.

Christ Our Advocate, Propitiation, and Go-Between

First John, it says in chapter one, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

My little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have presently an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. So in light of your salvation, you don't want to sin anymore, right?

We don't want to sin anymore, but we do. And we understand that we will sin. So Jesus has paid for our sins as an atoning sacrifice. And now we don't want to sin, but when we do, what do we do? When we sin, what's our options?

What's our recourse? Well, you have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And then it goes on to say in verse two, he is the propitiation for our sins. And of course, we drag chapter two, verse two of first John into the limited, unlimited world of debate.

Did Jesus die for the sins of everybody or the sins of just the elect? And then we kind of rob at this verse of its original meaning. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Now, certainly you don't believe in universalism. You don't believe that Jesus paid for the sins and assuaged the wrath of God for Judas. Now, do you for Jezebel for Goliath? And I know what you're going to say, because our next show next Friday is going to deal with this as well regarding the atonement.

And is it limited or unlimited? Doesn't everybody limit the atonement? You say, well, they didn't believe. Isn't that a sin? Isn't that a forgivable sin? Isn't that a sin that Jesus pays for as a substitute of Calvary?

I sure hope it is. But here we have, he's the propitiation for our sins, not only for ours, but also the sins of the whole world. In other words, not just the Jews, but the Gentiles as well. When you look at John 3, 16, we have an illustration of the love of God, the origination of the love of God in eternity past, sending the son, his incarnation, his entire mission, his death, burial and resurrection, his ascension, it's all planned out by the Father's love.

That's the origination. That's the initiatory, the initiator of this is God the Father. Of course, with the Son and the Spirit, we've got to think Trinitarianly, I understand that. And then all of a sudden you say to yourself, okay, who is the world?

And, you know, I think God loves humanity. And let's give you a little illustration of who these people might be, the world in John chapter four with the Samaritan woman. Did you get that? The Samaritan woman at the well.

And she realizes that this is truly the Savior of the world. She's not in New England, in Concord or Lexington at some church where they're teaching Unitarian Universalism. She doesn't think that at all.

That's not where she's going. Savior of the world has nothing to do with Universalism. It has everything to do with how great God is because go all the way back to Genesis chapter 12, go all the way back to Genesis 315.

You've got Jesus, the Savior, who's going to save all kinds of people. And for one being a German, I'm glad at least half German, I'm glad for that. Because I don't, I'm not Jewish, that as far as I know.

So we have Jesus makes propitiation, not just for our sins, the Jews, but also for the sins of the whole world make propitiation. I mean, I don't like if my wife is mad at me, I do something dumb or sinful.

And she responds with displeasure. I want to try to rectify that as soon as possible to think that God has displeasure, a righteous anger. It's more than displeasure, isn't it? It's a righteous anger, because we've broken his laws.

And then we have Jesus who steps in between. And, and of course, it's all planned out with love. We talked about this, you know, several weeks ago with the love of the Father and the love of the Son, but we have the Son, and he offers himself in our place.

That's pretty amazing, that he would be the sacrifice that he's the high priest, and he's the sacrifice. Normally, the high priest would have a sacrifice that they would offer, but he is the sacrifice.

And he is the mediator. That's why when we have all these words for Jesus, it just works out so wonderfully when it comes to praise, he mediates, he advocates, he arbitrates, right back in Job, Job chapter nine, we need a go between.

If I only had a go between, then things will work out. Let's see if I can find the verse here, Job chapter nine. And we look through Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts and the letter to the Jobs. Okay, couldn't quite find that that way.

So we try Job. Oh, he's loathing his life, disaster brings sudden death, stays are swifter than a runner, washing myself with snow, my clothes will abhor me. God's not a man as I am that I might answer him that we should come to trial together.

How can I how can I deal with God? He's not like me. Can't just go to a trial together and get this sorted out. There is no arbiter between us. Now the sub note here, the little note in the SV says, Oh, that there Oh, would that there be, or Oh, that there were an arbiter between us who might lay his hands on both of us.

Oh, if I just had a go between, and we know his name is the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So when you think about the atonement, the biblical way to think about it, the right way to think about it, the way to make sure you think about it, so you don't profane the sacrifice of God is to say that Jesus Christ died.

And he was granted to me expiation, the removal of my sins away out from, and then he also propitiated the wrath of God, he satisfied the wrath of God. And so God has no claim on me anymore, because Jesus is my substitute.

He's my arbiter. He's my, my go between. And he is the God man. That's why he has to be God to be of infinite value for a sacrifice and of man so he can be the go between, between God and man. My name is Mike Avendroth.

This is No Compromise Radio. Thanks for listening. Www no compromise.

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