ATONEMENT

New American Standard Bible (2020) Chapter 4

1 JOHN 4:7-12

PROPITIATION: G2434 (see G2435 used in Ro. 3:25 and G2433 used in Hebrews 2:17)

Propitiation is a profound theological concept that describes how Jesus Christ addresses the fundamental problem of human sin and God’s righteous anger. Generally, to propitiate means to appease someone’s anger, and in theological terms, it relates specifically to Jesus’ atonement1. Unlike human anger, God’s anger is not an irrational outburst, but “the settled opposition of his holy nature to everything that is evil”2.

“The cross is the ultimate demonstration of propitiation,” where Jesus becomes “the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” This means that Jesus’ death on the cross put away God’s wrath against his people once and for all2. Christ entered the holy place “through His own blood,” obtaining “eternal redemption” – a sacrifice far superior to the “blood of goats and calves” (Heb 9:11–14). Through this sacrificial act, we have been “sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time,” effectively taking away the old system of sacrifices to establish a new covenant (Heb 10:1–14).

On the cross, Jesus offers Himself as the recipient of God’s wrath in our place, taking upon Himself the divine punishment we deserve by allowing the Father to pour out His wrath directly on Him2. What makes this uniquely Christian is that unlike pagan appeasement where humans try to change a deity’s attitude, in biblical propitiation, God Himself performs the act of propitiation through Christ. Moreover, this act stems from God’s love, which “provided the way for satisfying His own wrath”2. The change is not in God’s love, but in His wrath—through Christ’s vicarious atonement, God’s righteousness no longer requires Him to apply wrath to sinners. This allows God to “satisfy His love and justify sinners while still being true to His holy nature”2. As Paul succinctly puts it, God is now “both just and justified.”