As we make our way to the end of the Gospel of Mark, we will study how Jesus sets his face toward the cross. He will endure all the steps leading up to the cross and the cross until all is accomplished. Then, we celebrate his glorious resurrection at Easter.
But all this focus on the cross pushes us to ask a big question: What did Jesus accomplish on the cross? And what does it mean for us?
To help us marvel at God’s kindness toward us in Christ, we want to highlight some theological words that capture different aspects of the cross’ significance. The words in this brief series all end with “-TION.”
Today we’ll highlight PROPITIATION (Pro-pitch-ee-ay-shun).
PROPITIATION
Years ago, a theology professor named Dr. Murray Harris asked this series of provoking questions:
What is the most important Book in the universe? The Bible. Which book within the Bible is the most important? Romans. Which chapter in Romans is the most important? Chapter 3. Which paragraph in Romans 3 is the most important? Verses 21-26. Which verse in that paragraph is the most important? Verse 25. Which word in verse 25 is the most important? Propitiation: “. . . whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”
What he’s claiming is that the most important word in the most important verse in the most important paragraph in the most important chapter in the most important book within the most important Book in the universe is PROPITIATION.
How can he say that about a word most of us have never heard of?!?
Well, even though most of us haven’t heard this word, it captures a truth that is vitally precious to the Christian.
Defining Propitiation
Kevin DeYoung helpfully defines propitiation as “the pacifying, placating, or appeasing of God’s wrath.” Simon Kistemaker defines it as a “wrathremoving sacrifice.” Ligon Duncan expounds on these definitions more specifically by showing how it relates to us: “propitiation is the averting the wrath of God by the offering of a gift. It refers to the turning away of the wrath of God as the just judgment of our sin by God’s own provision of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.”
The easiest way to remember the term is that in propitiation God is made pro-us.
SAVED FROM WHAT?
But for God to become “pro-us” means that He was at one time against us. In his helpful book Saved from What?, R.C. Sproul poses the fundamental question: “When we say that Jesus saves, what are we being saved from?” Here’s how he answers:
“What do we need to be saved from? We need to be saved from God—not from kidney stones, not from hurricanes, not from military defeats. What every human being needs to be saved from is God. The last thing in the world the impenitent sinner ever wants to meet on the other side of the grave is God. But the glory of the gospel is that One from whom we need to be saved is the very One who saves us. God in saving us saves us from Himself.”
When we sinned, we aroused the wrath of God. Romans 1:18 states this clearly: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” Because of our sin, we were the enemies of God (Rom. 5:10).
So, ultimately, we needed to be saved from the wrath of God against our sin by a sacrifice.
PUSHBACK ON PROPITIATION
This truth is wildly unpopular with modern critics for two big reasons: 1) People don’t like to talk about the wrath of God—it’s uncomfortable and unpleasant and sounds too “judgy.” 2) People don’t like to talk about the need to appease wrath—it sounds to them like God is made out to be some petty, blood-thirsty pagan deity who must be bought off with a bribe.
So, how can Dr. Murray Harris say that this is the most important concept in the universe while critics claim that it is judgmental and backwards?
THE PRECIOUS TRUTH OF PROPITIATION
Here are a couple of reasons that the critics woefully misunderstand the necessity of propitiation.
First, God’s wrath is not arbitrary. He is not given to mood swings. He is not fickle. On the contrary, he is perfectly just and holy! A judge could not be considered just by letting lawbreakers go free. If someone stole your car, it would be the epitome of injustice for the judge to release that person on the grounds that he doesn’t want to be too judgmental! To behave in this way would be inconsistent with the claim that he is a just judge.
In a much greater way, God cannot set aside his wrath toward our sin and remain just and holy. Wrath is the reverse side of his holiness. So, the big problem in Christianity is that God is perfectly holy and just and our sin is deserving of wrath. How can God be truly just without righteously judging our sin?
Second, the God of the Bible is not appeased by a bribe. He is not holding us by the shirt collar and demanding that we pay up like some kind of cosmic bully. On the contrary, the price that God commands, he pays himself. This is the solution to the big problem. How can God be truly just without righteously judging our sin? He satisfies the just judgment against our sin through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.
Ligon Duncan describes it this way: “Propitiation is not something that we provide to God to get right with him again; it is something that God provides to us so that we may be justly and mercifully forgiven and accepted, and he does this at his own expense through the loving gift of his Son, Jesus Christ. He is, by his own choice and for our sake, priest and sacrifice, mediator, and gift.”
CONCLUSION
So, we are NOT trying to get a capricious God to love us and forgive us by placating Him with a sacrifice we take the initiative to conjure up. No!
Rather, God has taken the initiative toward us in love—even though we have betrayed him and lived in rebellion against him—and provides us with the propitiation we need in Christ. God’s wrath is satisfied, His just character is preserved, and all we know is His undeserved mercy in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ—our Lord, and Savior.
1 John 4:10 summarizes this great doctrine wonderfully when it says:
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.