He is the Propitiation for Our Sins

Sunday, February 3, 2008

"He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:2, ESV)

1.To understand propitiation we must first understand what needs to be propitiated. We must understand the wrath of God.

"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." (John 3:36, ESV)

"But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed...for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury." (Romans 2:5,8 ESV)

2.There is this wrath that remains on unbelievers that cannot be done away with except by faith in Jesus. For believers have peace with God.

"but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life." (Romans 5:8-10, ESV)

3.God’s wrath is one way He shows His love to His children.

"What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory" (Romans 9:22-23, ESV)

4.You are children of wrath and dead in your trespasses and sins like the rest of mankind until you receive Christ as your Lord and Savior.

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." (Ephesians 2:1-3, ESV)

5.Jesus is the one who delivers us from the wrath to come by being the propitiation for our sins.

“and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come."

(1 Thessalonians 1:10, ESV)

"For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," (1 Thessalonians 5:9, ESV)

6.Propitiation - Propitiation has God’s wrath as its objects; while denoting the covering and putting away of sin, it also denotes the pacification of God’s wrath.

7.Expiation- Expiation has sin as its object; denotes the covering, putting away or rubbing out of sin so that it no longer constitutes a barrier to friendly fellowship between man and God.

8.“The wrath of God is as personal, and as potent, as his Love; and, just as the bloodshedding of the Lord Jesus was the direct manifesting of his Father’s love toward us, so it was the direct averting of his Father’s wrath against us.” (Jim Packer)

9.God’s Justification of Sinners - " But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:21-26, ESV)

10.Reason for the Incarnation - "Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." (Hebrews 2:17, ESV)

11.Heavenly ministry of Jesus - "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:1-2, ESV))

12.Definition of the Love of God - "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 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." (1 John 4:8-10, ESV)

13.Sin has a price and the wrath of God remains upon all who do not place their faith in Jesus Christ. God has made Jesus “the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

14.Today, if you have not repented of your sins and received Jesus Christ by faith, know that there has been no propitiation for your sins. If you have then know that "we have been justified by faith, [and] we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:1, ESV)