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Propitiation and Forgiveness

According to the ancients.

The ancient peoples, like the Greeks and Romans, understood propitiation as appeasing their many gods. These peoples understood that they needed to change their fickle and immoral gods’ minds so they would do something good for the people whose lives the gods were supposed to govern.

Reading through ancient mythology one year as I homeschooled my children, I saw the ancients’ understanding of propitiation as a “let’s make a deal” philosophy: “I’ll give you what I think you want, my gods, so you will give me what I want.”

Propitiation
hilaskomai
(Strong’s: 2433)

Through the provision He has made in the vicarious and expiatory sacrifice of Christ, He has so dealt with sin that He can show mercy to the believing sinner in the removal of his guilt and the remission of his sins.

He who believes upon Him is by God’s own act delivered from justly deserved wrath and comes under the covenant of grace.

Never is God said to be reconciled…it is man who needs to be reconciled to God and not God to man.

The expiatory work of the Cross is therefore the means whereby the barrier which sin interposes between God and man is broken down.

By the giving up of His sinless life sacrificially, Christ annuls the power of sin to separate between God and the believer.

~Vine’s Expository Dictionary

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For an in-depth look
at the sacrifice of Christ,
prayerfully consider signing up for
Levitical Sacrifices Meditations.

According to the Bible.

In contrast, propitiation in the Word of God (see the box to your left) is never used in the way the ancients understood propitiation.

Unlike the gods of the ancients whose character was flawed and needed to be changed, the God of the Bible is immutable and infallible.

We who worship the one true God do not need to change God’s attitude toward us. From the beginning of time, He has loved us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3) and has planned to give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). Thank You, Lord!

Instead, it is our sin that keeps us from fellowship with the God Who loves us. Our God is not “appeased” by what we offer Him (Isaiah 64:6). His holy and righteous character, found only in His Son, is the sweet aroma that pleases God. Therefore, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Our God offered Himself as the propitiation for our sin (selah!). He opened the door to a Life-giving relationship, inviting us to enter in. We no longer need to be separated from Him if we respond to His invitation.

How does God’s propitiation affect my life?

This is a crucial question for you to ponder: How does God’s forgiveness of your sin affect your life?

When God was taking me through the process of learning how to forgive, He humbled me with this question.

Even though I had been a professing Christian for five years at that time, I had not grasped the reality of the great gulf that had existed between holy God and me.

I had not grasped how God Himself had bridged that gulf through propitiation—through the death of His holy and righteous Son. My Christian life to that point had been more like the ancients’ “let’s make a deal.”

I stood on one side of the bridge, trying to get Him to join me in what I wanted. But He stood on the other side of the bridge, metaphorically speaking, waiting for me to ask Him to carry me across in response to His invitation.

Love is dependent on forgiveness.

A formula can almost be structured from this concept.

The extent to which someone truly loves will be positively correlated to the degree the person is stunned and silenced by the wonder that his huge debt has been canceled.

Perhaps another way to say it is that gratitude for forgiveness is the foundation for other-centered love.

Bold Love
Dr. Dan B. Allender
Dr. Tremper Longman III

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As you read the rest of this article, please consider listening
to the old hymn
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.

The overwhelming emotional and heart-breaking circumstances of my life at that time were such that I was exposed for who I truly am.

While I was suffering so through my heartbreak, believing I could never forgive the offender, Father-God silenced me and changed my questions from “Where are you, God? Why did you let this happen?” to “Who are You, God?”

And so began a season of in-depth study as God led me through His Word, teaching me Who He is and how much He loves me, a sinner who was so far from Him in my heart (Isaiah 29:13).

The first thing I learned is that He is the One Who reconciled me to Himself through providing Christ, His holy and righteous Son, as propitiation for my sin and my sins.

He used the distressing circumstances of my life to help me respond to His invitation to become not only the Savior but also the Lord of my life. I asked Him to carry me to His Life.

Hope for you: Romans 5:1-11.

Be assured that He will use your painful circumstances to establish you firmly in His love for you so you can take the next step in learning how to forgive.

Father-God,

Expose this hurting woman to her “self” in the light of Your holiness.

Assure her that You will deal with the offender in her life on Your timetable, not hers.

Prepare her, Lord, to be a minister of reconciliation as You establish her willing heart in Your love for her.

Carry her to Life in Your Son!

Therefore, I tell you,

her many sins have been forgiven—

for she loved much.

But he who has been

forgiven little loves little.

Then Jesus said to her,

"Your sins are forgiven."