Church Words 101 - Propitiation

Small children beginning to say their first words is a wonderful milestone for their parents to experience. I have experienced this as my nephew has begun to transition from making noisy sounds to speaking coherent words. This stage is so fun because of the back-and-forth. You tell the child to repeat a word, and you get to experience the moment with them.

What’s interesting about this stage is that the child often has no clue what they are doing. If you tell a child to try and say a compound word like “Firetruck,” odds are, with some practice, they can say it, but comprehending the meaning of the word is another story. This is a natural process that we all go through. We hear words, we say them, and then, finally, we begin to comprehend them.

Theological words are a bit like that as we journey through our spiritual lives. I was fifteen years old when I first heard the word, “Propitiation.” You can imagine my face as the man who was discipling me broke it down syllable by syllable.

PRO-PI-SHEE-AY-SHUN

As I said it back to him, like a baby, I had no clue what it meant. As you are reading this, if you are honest with yourself, you probably don’t know what it means either. And that’s okay! Today we will be taking a dive into this word, discovering what it means, why it matters, and how we can take the concept to heart.

What It Means

According to the Gospel Coalition’s website, propitiation can be defined as, “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 Apostle John was a big fan of this word, or I guess I should say the Greek version of this word. In 1 John 2:2, he writes, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Again, in 1 John 4:10, he 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.”

Propitiation brings to mind a broken relationship between a man or woman and their god or gods. In ancient times people would make sacrifices to appease their gods in order to restore the broken relationship. So, we can basically boil down the concept to four elements: god(s), people, wrath, and sacrifice.

Why It Matters

At this point you might be thinking, this concept makes sense when thinking about ancient, archaic religions, but what does this have to do with Christianity? Surely God isn’t so petty to require some sort of sacrifice to be appeased!

The truth is the Bible actually does speak of all four of these elements. In the beginning, there is God, a Spirit in whom there is absolute perfection in every way imaginable. And out of the kindness of His heart, this good and perfect God created a man and woman in His own image.

The man and woman had a perfect and right relationship with this good God. But our story takes a turn for the worse as they choose to rebel against Him. The man and the woman choose something called, “sin” and have carried it down like a disease to all of mankind.

Many people today don’t think of sin as a big deal. However, the Bible says that God sees it as a huge deal! Our sin separates us from the relationship we were meant to have with Him, and, in fact, it actually invites the wrath of God upon us. Romans 1:18 says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

So, as you can see, unrighteousness in the face of God invites the wrath of God. And if we stopped here, this would be a pretty sad story. It would drive us to despair to think that we are doomed to face God’s wrath forever. Thankfully, this is just where the story gets good.

Seeing men and women in a broken relationship, God chose to make a way for them to regain the relationship they once had with Him. He sent His perfect and blameless Son Jesus Christ to earth. Jesus became a human, one of us, so that he could represent us before God. He lived a perfect life, a life we could never dream of living, and instead of hogging God the Father to himself, he chose to give up his place before God so that we might be welcomed in.

But how? How would Jesus go about giving his perfection away? The answer is in our final element: Sacrifice. You see, all throughout history God had given his people a sacrificial system. This was to remind them that their sin came at a cost, and that cost was the shedding of animal blood. But because people sinned endlessly, these sacrifices were endlessly sacrificed.

That is until Jesus died. When Jesus gave up his life, he was not merely giving us an example to follow. No, something significant happened at the cross. When the perfect person gave up his life, he was giving it away. By his sacrifice, we are now welcomed in by faith, and our relationship with God is restored! Thus, we no longer have to offer sacrifices as God’s wrath has been appeased. (Hebrews 10:18)

Taking it to Heart

In summary, propitiation is the basis by which God is able to forgive us of our sins. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, he has become our propitiation, easing the wrath of God and, by faith, welcoming us into a forgiven state where we can resume the relationship with God we were supposed to enjoy forever.

I’ll never forget the first time I heard this word. I thought it sounded funny, and if I’m honest, I didn’t think it was very significant to my everyday Christian life. I thought it was just another “churchy” word that stuffy religious people debated back and forth. Unfortunately, at times this is true.

But as I have traveled the journey of my Christian life, as I have matured from a spiritual baby to spiritual adulthood, I have been able to see that everything spiritually significant is due to this word. I can now see that propitiation is the basis for the relationship with God I enjoy every day. I now see that I am only able to pray, forgive, and enjoy the fruit of God’s Spirit because of the work Jesus did to become my propitiation.

It is for this reason that this concept is something that should travel down from our heads and into our hearts. Even on ordinary days when our time with God feels lacking, or our prayers seem to hit the ceiling, we can thank God for sending Jesus to restore the relationship we now enjoy.

Today, I challenge you to take some time to reflect on the gospel message. Think about the wisdom of God to put in place a plan that would result in the wrath we deserved being appeased. Reflect on the great love God has for us to put such a plan in place for sinners like us. I pray that even today you would see the depth and the magnitude of God’s love for you.