Bible Reading Part 1, Propitiation — Unknown Speaker

Our gracious God and our Heavenly Father, we approach Thee this afternoon in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank Thee for so many that have come interested in the study of the Word of God.

We thank Thee for each and every one here that looks back to a time in their lives when they were found out that they were born in sin and shaped in iniquity. They found out that their sins were taking them to a lost eternity.

And they had that life-giving look to the cross of Calvary and saw that the Lord Jesus was there bearing their sins. We thank Thee this afternoon that we have the Word of God in our own language. We have the Spirit of God to guide us into all truth.

We pray, Father, that Thou would bless our time together around the Word of God. That we all, from the youngest to the oldest, might glean something, might understand something afresh, might have a greater appreciation for who we are and who our Lord Jesus Christ is, might have a greater appreciation for what all He has done for us and the prospects we have of being with Him throughout all eternity.

We ask that Thou would bless each and every one that is here. We thank Thee for the little assemblies throughout Wisconsin and that Thou has preserved us and that we continue to be lampstands in a very dark place.

We pray, Father, that Thou would bless each and every one that is here. We ask for Thy help now in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, first of all, it is a lot more enjoyable to be at these Bible readings when you're not here, when you're out there.

But I am honored that I was asked to open this Bible reading. And it isn't quite so fearful because there are so many brethren here that really all have to just referee this and make sure that we get done on time.

We are covering this winter, as we know already, the different doctrines of the gospel. And I've listed some of them on the outline. There are other ones that we could have considered and we might at a later date consider.

And I've listed some of those. And that isn't an exhaustive list. There are other things, other doctrines that, as I was looking through the resources that I have, I found out I have too many books because I couldn't get through them all.

And I kept finding things. I quit at 1230 last night. I thought my head is swimming and I want to be able to at least stay awake while I'm opening a Bible reading. So I quit at that time. But I thought it's important.

Why is the study of doctrine important? That's a question I have. And I think I'd like to discuss that a little bit at the opening of the Bible reading. Why are these things important? There's numbers of reasons.

I've listed some, not on yours. Mine has red. That's something that was added after the first outline was made. And if you want a copy of the whole thing, I'm going to give it to Nathan and put it on his site.

You can have the rest of my outline for what it's worth. It's important to understand why we need to study these things. I have been impressed. Most of you know that my family was not in the assembly.

My wife and I both came from Nebraska and were saved in 1971. And didn't know what an assembly was until that time. And so we, over the years, learned things firsthand for ourselves. One of the things I can tell you, we were both involved in a lot of different churches, denominations growing up.

And not a one of them spends any time studying the Word of God that we were associated with. And it is important as a people of God to know what we believe and why we believe it. And again, I hope we can discuss for a short time why it is important to study these things.

Why it is important to know about propitiation and substitution, what we're covering today. One of the things that we all, I think, I hope we all understand is in Ephesians chapter 4. God has given gifted men to the church.

And one of these groups of men are teachers. And that's the church which is his body. Also we have in 1 Timothy chapter 3. We have God as one of the qualifications for elders are that they're apt to teach.

And it is important, not only there are people that understand doctrines, understand truths. But they don't have the ability or the gift to convey that truth. And a teacher has both. He understands the principles, the doctrines, he understands truth.

And he has the ability to convey that. And hopefully we'll convey something here today. We have men in this room that are teachers. So that shouldn't be a problem. And there should be in a Bible reading like this, there's obviously different levels of maturity.

Some of us have been saved a long time and some of us haven't been saved so long. But remember the Lord Jesus said to Peter, feed my sheep, feed my lambs. So it's important that in a Bible reading like this that we're aware that we need to feed everyone.

Everybody needs to gain something from being here. And it's very possible that that can happen. It's important, we're topically studying in these Bible studies this year, we're studying topics. But it's important, and I think most of us in our local assemblies have systematic verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter studies of our Bible.

And that's very important to do. Many times in ministry, we can take a verse here, and a verse there, and a verse here, and a verse there, and convey the point we want to make, whether it is exactly we're applying and not interpreting what's being said.

It's important to know the interpretations, know what the Scriptures say, and even portions that we don't go to usually. As some have said, the clean part of our Bible. But it's important for us to know those things, to understand those portions.

And again, we'll hopefully cover some reasons why that is important. One of the complaints I hear, having a lot of children and listening to their complaints, and not just them, other people as well, is, and Peter Orsik was in our assembly numbers of years ago, and first he would have a ministry meeting for the first 20 minutes, and then we would have a conversational Bible study.

And we had the meetings of the assembly was his subject. And one of my questions to him was, in the Bible study, how many verses should we cover in a night? Not that we have a rule, but how many should we cover?

And I can remember his answer, he was kind of treading softly. He said, well, he says, it would depend on where you are, and how is it here? I said, no, no, you just answered the question, I don't want to give you any help.

And he said, well, he said, you know, if you got a letter from someone, and it said, dear John, I don't mean a dear John, dear Richard, dear Richard, you wouldn't sit there and go, dear, I wonder what he means by that.

And I thought, you know, sometimes we do that in our Bible study. So sometimes I have heard that there are, sometimes we have a 30 to 40 minute Bible reading, most of us, I think. And I've heard that sometimes we only get through two and three verses.

That becomes pretty tedious for a new born Christian. I'm not sure they get so much out of something like that. And a lot of times, if somebody has already said something, pretty much the way I would say it, I don't have to repeat it and change a couple of words.

You know, just let it go. That's close enough. You know, move on. So, I'm not going to give you how many verses he said we should get through in a night. Oh, another thing. David Allis one time, we were in Mexico, and he was in Vancouver, commended from two of the assemblies up there.

And he went to the overseers when he was up there, and he said, I've done some figuring, and at our current rate in our Bible study, we will get through the Bible in 288 years. And he said, I don't think I'll live that long.

Defining Propitiation and Its Relationship to Other Doctrines

So, anyway, that's just when you get to stand here, you get to say some things in your Bible. Our subjects today are propitiation and substitution. Propitiation is a New Testament word. It is not in the Old Testament.

A similar word is the word atonement. And I'm sure that we are going to look at both of these words in our study. I have written here, propitiation is the appeasement or averting of God's wrath and justice.

And it is translated wrongly, some have said, by the word expiation in two places. And that is the removal of guilt through the payment of a penalty. And like I said, I looked at a lot of different places and got a lot of good things.

They said it a lot better than I would say it. So I've written down some of their quotations. In general, propitiation has reference to persons. It's speaking of God being satisfied. Expiation has reference to things.

Sin is expiated or is blotted out or put away. But in reality, both propitiation covers both things. And it is a basis. It is the basis. If we understand propitiation, it helps us to understand a lot of other doctrines that we'll be looking at.

It is the basis, I think I said, it is the basis by which God can show mercy. It is a basis of reconciliation. And I have a really hard time staying away from reconciliation because it's really close to reconciliation.

And there's another Bible reading on reconciliation. So I don't want to step on the next person's toes and take their material. It's a basis of forgiveness. It's a basis of justification. And that isn't exhaustive.

It's a basis of a lot of other things. And I don't know if we want to discuss it. I won't right now. But the word propitiation had a meaning for the pagan religions of their time. And I'm sure in reading you can see that it was brought out.

It was to appease their gods in some way. Their gods that they worshipped were always capricious. You never could trust them. You didn't know what made them mad. So they would offer a sacrifice to appease them.

And totally different from what we're talking, biblical propitiation. I have a secretary who is part Japanese and she went back to Japan. And she's not a Christian. And she was amazed at all of the idol worship there.

Every house had, some had multiple altars to differing gods that all had some little offering of food or something there. And she said just hundreds, hundreds of different gods she said that they were worshipping.

And they were making these offers to appease them in some way. I think the way I would like to, I've been asked that somewhere in the middle that we would have a break and stand and sing a song. I think we'll go to about 3 .30 on this subject.

And we'll take that break and then we'll make some remarks on substitution. And if some brother at that point in time would have a song that would be nice. So I think the way I want to go through these is first of all go through the Old Testament.

What atonement meant. It was connected with the Day of Atonement. It was connected with all of the offerings. The five offerings that I think Joel was covering in Blue River this week. It was covered, it was connected with, again and again you will see it made atonement for them.

Different words that is used in the Old Testament. And then we'll go through the six times the word propitiation or words from the root word is used in the New Testament and I think I've listed those.

There's six of them and it would be good to read that verse, those portions. And then see what we can learn about the word, the doctrine from that particular portion of the word of God. So with that, first of all, why is it important to study doctrine?

It keeps the gospel pure. There's warnings against being carried about with every wind of doctrine. So it keeps the believers mind clear as to what is true. The word doctrine just means teaching, right?

So it's essential that we have a grasp on biblical truth in order that it regards against error.

Isn't that commanded? Wasn't that part of the commission? Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you? 2 Timothy 2 verse 15. Study to show thyself in truth unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

We have to understand it in order to be able to like anybody. We can add to that, it helps us as believers, the assurance that we have, the surety of our salvation if we understand these truths.

All was said to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. So these various doctrines that you can consider from the word of God bring before us aspects of the character of God and of Christ.

And if we are to know Him, if that's the character of eternal life, then it's important that we study these things.

And also take in of our approach to God and our acceptance with God. Many attempts of, many different attempts or ways that men have tried to approach God are out of His terms. 1 Timothy 3, 16 and 17.

I've got to read this, I've got to read this quick. Section 10. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for recruit, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God might be perfect, thoroughly, firmly established.

All good works. So it's to complete us, so that we can be what we're supposed to be. In the study of these, it's kind of said, you said it, but in a different way, I'm going to repeat it myself. But it gives us a greater appreciation of who we are and how important we are to God.

And it adds dignity to our walk. It gives us stability. It establishes us. Knowing these things. And as you pointed out, we're not prostitutes wrote by will of doctrine.

It leads to practical behavior that is acceptable unto the Lord. Paul follows the pattern consistently. He sets out doctrine. And then he brings in the practical implications of them. We need to walk that out in our life.

The book of Ephesians is a classic example. The first three chapters are primarily doctrine, teaching. And then chapters 4, 5, and 6 are very walk worthy of our calling and setting out already.

It's also a matter of being a faithful steward. The obedience of being a steward is something that has been entrusted to us. We ought to know what it is, what has been given to us. It also lets us know that it is not ours.

I have no ability, no right, no authority to tamper with the message that has been given. Because it's not mine. It did not come from me. It has been given by God. So it's a responsible stewardship to present that to others.

And it's untainted, unmixed truth. So I cannot change God's character because I don't want to offend someone. I cannot tell them that they are helpless and ungodly because I don't want to offend them.

Well, am I not offending the very character of God himself? By changing that, I become an unfaithful, in that sense, an unfaithful steward. So it's a matter of stewardship as well. Not only that, we have, as I pointed out, we have teachers given to the church.

We have men apt to teach in the elders of the assembly. But we should have a whole group of younger men that are fitting themselves, that are learning these things. We're not going to last forever. And there's another generation coming on.

We are serving our generation, but there's another generation coming on that we will not be able to serve. But we'll be gone, we'll be home. And so there's young men here that need to know these doctrines and be able to work with them and explain them.

To convince the gainsayer is another reason we need to know these things. When someone says something that's not right, to be able to go to the Word of God and say, that isn't right because of this. And not rely on someone else.

Well, I'll send you to someone else and they can explain it to you. No. You need to know this for yourself, so you can serve your generation that is coming on. They weren't important these years. The Holy Spirit never would have given them to us.

But the Holy Spirit has given them to us. And He's the one that's able to open our mind and understand them in the God Word character. Because He's still the teacher, the main teacher of the Holy Scripture.

And so, why do we have four writers for the Gospel? Because the Spirit of God took up four different men to give us different aspects of the person of Christ in their writings. And so here it is in our salvation, He's taken up different ways that God has come out and is justifiable in coming out and redeeming.

And who can lay a hand towards the person of God? No one. He has every right.

I would say another reason to study these doctrines is it spontaneously produces worship when we understand these truths.

Well, if there's nothing more, let's move on into... The one we're looking at first here is propitiation. If nothing else, I know now how to spell it without any trouble. Joel, you've been quiet. Would you like to give us your definition of propitiation?

I didn't think you did.

Did you have some scriptures in mind, Brother Rich? Yeah, we can start...

Old Testament Atonement and the Mercy Seat

Well, let's look in the Old Testament first. Not for the word propitiation, it's not there. The word atonement. You were there this morning, we can go to Leviticus 16. There is one time a word is translated atonement in our New Testament, King James.

But it's wrongly translated. It should be reconciliation in Romans 5, verse 11. So, other than that, if you say it's there once, you're right. But it should have been translated reconciliation. Leviticus 16.

You were just speaking. Would you like to briefly take us... Not through all that you said this morning, but... Me? I've run over time. I know.

Just verse 14. The bullock was offered for Aaron, a high priest, as a sin offering, but Lord Jesus did not need a sin offering for himself. And that point is covered by the book of Hebrews. He is himself intrinsically pure and holy.

But for the people, there were two goats for the sin offering. Verse 15. The one goat was killed, and its blood was brought within the veil and sprinkled before and upon the mercy seat. The mercy seat was the covering of the ark.

And that word, mercy seat, is just the word covering. You have it there on the notes. The Negro kapar, or kippur. Just to jog our memories, the Yom Kippur War, back in the day that Israel fought. Israel was attacked on the day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.

That's the word kippur, or kapar, here. So that's the word for mercy seat, the covering. And the blood is sprinkled upon, and before the mercy seat, before the eye of God, the presence of God, the Shekinah, glory, longing, between the two ribbons, looking upon that mercy seat, sprinkled now with blood.

And in the ark are the fables of the law, which man has violated, and has fallen short of the divine standard. But between that and the presence of God, there's the mercy seat sprinkled with blood, and it answers to God.

The blood upon that mercy seat answers to God for an atonement for the people.

So we know that in the Old Testament, all of the day of atonement, the sins of the nation, the uncleanness, I think it says, and the transgressions, and all their sin in verse 16. They were covered. That's what the word means.

They were covered, but just for a year. Another year, they had to do it all over again. And so that's what the word means. It means to cover. There's two other times I think I wrote in the notes. The pitch that was used by Noah to seal the boards of the ark on the inside and the outside, same word.

Atonement or covering. And there was an interesting... When Jacob came back to see Esau, he was worried that Esau was going to take his life. Remember, he sent the herds ahead of him. And it said, I will appease or atone Esau with the presence that goeth before me, and afterward I will see his face.

For in answer he will accept of me. Jacob was putting a covering. He was putting something between his sin, that he took the birthright and the blessing, and Esau's wrath. He was putting something between.

He was trying to put a cover in between so he wouldn't experience Esau's wrath. So that's an Old Testament word. It means to cover, but it's not propitiation. Propitiation is different. We have six times that it's used in the New Testament, although in the King James it isn't necessarily translated that way.

Propitiation, Justice, and the Publican

Let's turn to Luke chapter 18. We'll read verse 9. And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican.

A tax gatherer. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week.

I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes at the heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be... And our Bible says merciful, but the margin says, God be perpetual to me a sinner.

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Okay, now we have the word used first time in the New Testament.

What do we learn from this?

We can ask the question, how can God be merciful to him?

See, when we look at the tabernacle setting, that's where we're going here, where the mercy seat was, within the holiest of all. That mercy seat was on the same level as the grave down at the brazen altar.

So to bring that live animal in, that would have never paid for the death and the sin of the people, the wages of sin and death. So a victim must die. And so out of that brazen altar, there was a victim that died, and his leg was caught.

That victim was put upon that brazen altar, sacrificed. But the high priest took of the blood to show proof, to manifest the death, and he brought it in to the mercy seat and he sprinkled it. Now God is able to come out in propitiation, because underneath, as we've been reading, there's the tables of law.

They have broken them. Every man must kneel and die. Because of a victim, all that's at the brazen altar, the blood being brought in, God comes out. So we learn that man has no ability to bring satisfaction to God's throne.

So what was in the mind of the public in that? As he stands that day, in likely the other court of the temple, far off, what's he thinking of when he says, God be propitious to me, the sinner. Where is he standing?

Where is he standing again? You said it. In the court of the temple. What happened in the court of the temple? Far corner, far off. What happened in the court of the temple? There was the sacrifice that was made and the blood was shed.

The victim's body was burned on the altar. At the hour of prayer, wasn't that the time of the sacrifice? There was the evening sacrifice, the morning and the evening sacrifice. These two men went up to the temple to pray.

So likely at the very time when the sacrifice was being made, this man went up to the temple to pray.

So one man sits there and prays to himself. Accept me because of who I am. Because I do this and this and this and this. And our acceptance is not on who we are. But the other man goes up, recognizing he's a sinner, thus and impossibly.

And he looks at the sacrifice and the blood shed. He's there. And he has, he can claim, he can ask for mercy based on the blood that he sees. Without the shedding of blood, there is no admission. And he sees the blood of the sacrifice.

He's in the temple. So he can ask for mercy or for propitiation. He can ask. And he's basing it not on anything of himself. He's basing it on blood, on the giving of a life, the sacrifice. That's what he's basing it.

And what does the Lord Jesus say? I tell you, this man went to his house just to pray. So he's listening to the Old Testament Scriptures. The life of the flesh is in the blood.

I've given it to you on the altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. So on the basis of that sacrifice, he recognizes that God can be satisfied on his behalf, though he is a sinner.

Is there any way in the wording that it could possibly be God be a covering to be a sinner? He says God, in our translation, says God be merciful to me, a sinner. With the word and its usage, could it be God be a covering to me, a sinner?

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. It really isn't that what propitiation is. We've decided already it's a covering. That was atonement. Atonement was the covering.

Propitiation is more than that. So what is it then? God be propitious to me, a sinner. What is more than atonement? Propitiation is God being satisfied, not just covered, but satisfied with the offering.

And we need to understand sin, and it is rebellion against God. It isn't just a mistake or an error. It is an open or a closed fist rebellion against God. Somebody told this example years ago, and it's so perfect because I've seen it in my children and my grandchildren, and I didn't see it in me because I didn't see me, but a little girl with her dad was at a basketball game, and before it started he said, you see this line here?

Now it's dangerous to be on the court side of this line. Don't be out there. Don't cross that line. You don't have to. Stay on this side of that line because you might get hurt there, so don't cross that line.

And as the game was going on, she wanted to go out. She went down the stairs, and she got to that line, and she looked up at her dad, and she stepped over the line. I could relate other ones with grandkids, but just open fist rebellion against her dad.

Well, that's what sin is against God, and God is angry about that. There is wrath. I didn't know if I put it in there or not, but we could look in the Old Testament, read again and again about the wrath of God with the golden calf, with Phineas and the plagues that came, with Achan and the sin at Jericho.

No. You read about the wrath of God, and in every one of those cases, the wrath of God, there were people that died. A lot of people died of the nation of Israel because God was angry with it because they weren't doing what He told them.

So we have, in propitiation, we have the wrath, the justice of God being satisfied, being completed through the offering of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what does propitiation teach us.

About the character of God? Now, you mentioned in your opening remarks about the concept of pagan gods who are capricious, who have all kinds of whims, and you had to appease them, you had to kind of make them happy and humor them in order to be in with them.

So how does that differ from sacrifice being required, the death of a victim being required, and not in order that the sinner is acceptable with God or can approach God. What does it teach us about the character of God?

Does it go with the Scripture, or does it go something like he doesn't want sacrifice, he wants mercy? So these pagans are trying to appease God with their sacrifices.

They were trying to appease their gods, not God. And there's a difference. Yeah, there's a difference.

But the publican, does it have to do with love and mercy? That God is gracious? And even though the publican, he was unfair because God was cold, and the other, the Pharisee,.

He didn't understand the holiness.

And all he could have for his mercy. Well, he saw who he really was, the publican did.

He saw he was a sinner, so there had to be a way that God could show his mercy. So, propitiation is that God accepts the blood of Christ.

It's the complete and satisfying sacrifice that the demands of His justice are met in the blood of Christ. And now with those demands.

For His justice met, He can pour out mercy the way He sees it. So he had to have,.

So it wasn't just faith. He saw what he was. He saw he was a sinner not deserving of anything, and there was no grounds for him to have any justice at all. He saw. Right, all that's good. What you're saying about the man himself is fine, but I want to get at what is the teaching about the character of God?

You're mentioning the word justice. Good. What do we learn about God in this situation? His justice needs to be satisfied.

So God is holy, and He must have His sin. So in order for Him to be just,.

There has to be a means whereby He is satisfied. Well, we'll come to it later in Romans. Yes. We perhaps should just bring it in here now. Apart from propitiation, there would be no salvation. There would be no blessing, no possibility.

And you mentioned sinning against God. So that shuts us out from God. Absolutely. And justice demands it. I mean, you can't just go to the center and say, well, we'll just forget about it. We won't press charges.

God can't do that. Where does justice come from? It's part of God's character. And that's unalterable and eternal.

I still haven't heard the word of love for righteousness. Well, that's the next step. Right. It would not be right. That's what they're saying.

It would not be right for God to dismiss charges without satisfaction. And that shuts us out from any salvation. We've said that propitiation is not appeasing God. Right. Because we can do nothing that's going to remove the barrier.

And so here is the love of God. We mentioned the love. Herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. So God in wondrous love and mercy has provided a way getting to what Gene is saying, so that He can righteously, justly bless us.

And there was no way apart from propitiation. So, I hope we can get that before we go home. It thrills my soul. The whole world was sunk in ruin and there was no way of remedy. Because man could not do anything.

The only way the situation could be changed was if God devised a way to come out toward us. And that's what propitiation can do. And I'll make a statement, maybe for its shock value, but think about it.

Propitiation alone saved Noah. But propitiation makes everyone savable.

Is there a truth to that statement? Anyway, the words written might be saved. Character of God is absolutely holy. That's what God is intrinsically in Himself. When God acts, He must act in a way that is compatible with His holiness.

The Bible calls that righteousness. And when God acts righteously, He's been true to His character. When a sinner sins against God, God's righteousness demands that that sinner must die. That death must take place.

But in propitiation, a death does take place. And God's righteousness is vindicated. God's righteousness is upheld by the death of that victim. So that the one who has sinned, now righteously, can have a standing before God.

Because His justice is satisfied, His character is upheld, and His righteousness is on the beach.

And a lot of these other doctrines that I was speaking of can come into play. Because propitiation, God is satisfied. Let's go to Romans chapter 3. Just while we're going, we'll just say that it follows up with what William and what you want to outline brought out from Leviticus 16.

All of the first activity was the blood in the holy place. God had to be satisfied first before He went out and took care of.

The people's need when they escaped.

Romans chapter 3, we'll read at verse 21. There are a whole lot of our words here, of our doctrines in these verses. So just kind of note them. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe.

For there is no difference for all of sin if it comes short of the glory of God. Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith, and it's probably better by His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remissions of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, His righteousness, that He might be just, righteous, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

We could spend the rest of the time on this section, but we're not going to. We will stay with our word propitiation. Now just explain that the sins of the past, so that all of our younger folks would catch that.