Christ, Our Propitiation

1 John 2:1,2
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, January 14, 2001
Copyright © 2001, P. G. Mathew

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense–Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 2:1,2

What is the goal of the Christian life? To live as Jesus did. That means we must try not to commit any sin; our goal is nothing but perfection. God tells us, “Be ye holy, for I am holy,” and the Lord Jesus Christ tells us, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” A Christian is always moving toward perfection, which we will arrive at when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.

But when we do sin, the apostle John tells us in 1 John 1:9 that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, a person could look at such a teaching and say, “Let us sin, because we know that God will forgive our sins.” John is opposed to such twisting of the truth because continuing in sin is not the normal Christian life. Once we could only sin, but now we have been born of God and are children of God. We have God’s life and nature in us, as well as God’s Spirit dwelling in us to power and guide us. We also have the light of God’s written word to direct us. All of these factors help us not to sin, and that is why the normal Christian life is not a life of sin.

However, if a Christian commits a sin, he is not to despair. We have an advocate in heaven, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. In our previous study we learned that his advocacy is totally effective because it is based on what he did while he was on earth-his atoning sacrifice in our behalf on the cross of Calvary. It was based on propitiation, in other words, and in this study we want to examine the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

What Is Propitiation?

The phrase “atoning sacrifice” in 1 John 2:2 in the New International Version is an interpretation, not a translation. The Greek word is hilasmos, which the King James Version translates correctly with the word “propitiation.” But what is propitiation? What is this hilasmos that we read about in 1 John 2:2 and also in 1 John 4:10? Most people today are not familiar with this word, which comes to us from the language of ancient religious practices.

There are a number of words that describe our salvation. One is redemption, which comes to us from the world of commerce-of buying and selling. The second word is justification, which comes to us from the world of law and the courts. Then there is propitiation, which comes from the sacrificial system found in the ancient religious world.

In the Greek, the word “to propitiate” is hilaskomai, which means to appease, to placate, to avert, to turn aside the wrath of an offended person by means of a sacrifice. Four things are involved in propitiation: First, there is an offended deity; second, an offending sinner; third, the offense committed; and fourth, the sacrifice which removes the offense and causes the offended person to be gracious to the one who offended him. Salvation, in the Christian sense of the term, requires one very definite type of sacrifice, namely, propitiation. It is directed toward God to turn away his wrath, which is revealed against our offense, that he may be gracious to us.

Throughout the Bible, and especially in 1 John, we find two descriptions of God, two foci on the nature of God. First, in 1 John 1:5, we read that God is light; second, in 1 John 4, we read that God is love. Both of these are important aspects of God’s nature, but of first importance is the truth that God is light. That means God is truth and God is holy and there is no sin in him.

What is sin? Sin is transgression of God’s law. Sin dishonors and offends God. Sin is against God’s person and glory. What is God’s reaction to sin? The Bible clearly tells us the wrath of God is revealed against sinners. “The soul who sins is the one who will die,” we read in Ezekiel 18. “The wages of sin is death,” Paul wrote to the Roman church.

Thus, if sinners are to be saved from God’s wrath, there has to be a propitiatory sacrifice. Propitiation means a sacrifice offered to God to turn his wrath away from a sinner to a substitute. The purpose of it is that God may be gracious to the sinner by forgiving his sins and restoring him to fellowship with God and others.

A Wrathful God

For the past century and a half, the idea of a God who is wrathful and opposes sin and sinners has not been accepted by unbelieving theologians. They readily will choose the conception of God as love but want to forget about the idea that God is holy. The notion of an angry God, they say, is not Christian, but pagan. They say the God of Christianity, in their highly evolved conception of it, is always a loving, nice God. When they translate the Greek word hilasmos, as found in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10, they reject the word “propitiation,” preferring to use the word “expiation,” which has to do with the cancellation of sin, but has nothing to do with a sacrifice offered to God to turn away his wrath.

Expiation means that God has canceled our sin and now there is nothing to worry about, but it is not the same as propitiation. One scholar wrote, “Those who hold to the ‘fire and brimstone’ school of theology, who revel in ideas such as that Christ was made a sacrifice to appease an angry God, or that the cross was a legal transaction in which an innocent victim was made to pay the penalty for the crimes of others as a propitiation of a stern God, find no support in Paul. These notions came into Christian theology by way of the legalistic minds of the medieval churchmen.” We must ask: If Christ’s death on the cross was not propitiation, if this sacrifice was not offered to God to turn away his wrath that he may be gracious to us and forgive us our sins and restore us into his fellowship, if the liberals are right that God is love all the time and never angry at sinners, then what is the need for Christ’s death even as expiation? It is doing nothing to God. Why doesn’t God, being nice and loving, just forgive our sins almost automatically whenever we commit them?

The only problem with these theologians is that these ideas are wrong and unscriptural. When we study the Bible, we discover that the Old Testament alone uses this idea of wrath about 580 times. When we read about the great flood in Genesis, we see that because of the tremendous amount of violence on the earth, God destroyed all but eight people. In Genesis 19 we read about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Again, this happened because of sin. In Exodus we read about the plagues God sent on Egypt. The Old Testament is full of sin and full of the wrath of the Lord being revealed against sin.

But we also find the idea of the wrath of God pervading the New Testament. For instance, in John 3:36 we read, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” In Romans 1:18 we read, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all godlessness and wickedness of men, who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”

In Hebrews 10:30-31 we find another reference to the wrath of God: “For we know him who said, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and in Hebrews 12:28-29 we read, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire.'”

The truth is, God is holy, and we cannot willy-nilly reject the revelation of this perfection of God in favor of another perfection called love. God has a settled opposition to all evil. He is not arbitrary, capricious, or vacillating. It is the nature of God to oppose evil.

The Need for Atonement

In 1 John 1:5 we read, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” Because God is holy, he opposes evil and must punish it. In Psalm 7:11 we read that God is angry at sinners every day. In several places the Bible tells us that all have sinned, for we are born sinners who practice sin. However, it is true that God is also love; therefore, God has a plan to save sinners and not punish them for their sins. We also learn about this in the biblical revelation.

What about the statements, “The soul who sins is the one who will die,” and, “The wages of sin is death”? These are true. To deal with this problem, God provided a suitable substitute to be punished as a representative for sinners. That substitute is God incarnate, Jesus Christ the Righteous One, as we read in 1 John 2:2.

Why did Jesus have to die? The Bible tells us, “Without the shedding of blood”-that is, without a propitiatory blood sacrifice-“there is no forgiveness of sins.” God speaks of this in Leviticus 17:11, saying, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”

Atonement is an interesting Anglo-Saxon word which means “bringing two parties who are enemies into unity through a sacrifice.” In Exodus 11 and 12 we read about such a blood-sacrifice provision. The holy God who opposes and must punish sin was coming upon Egypt at night. But in Exodus 12 he tells his people how they may be spared his judgment by each household taking a lamb, killing it, and applying the blood upon the doorposts and lintel. Then, when he passed by at midnight, the Lord said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt” (Ex. 12:13). That is the divine provision for his people.

In Hebrews 10:4 we read that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. What, then, are we to do? All the blood sacrifices of the Old Testament involve the blood of bulls and goats. How then can sin be atoned for, if the blood of bulls and goats is not adequate?

This is where we must realize that all that blood sacrifice in the Old Testament pointed forward to the perfect substitute, Jesus Christ, the Son of God who became man. He is described by the apostle John as “Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.” It is his blood alone that can atone for our sins. He alone can propitiate God the Father through his perfect and once-for-all sacrifice on the cross.

This idea of Christ making propitiatory sacrifice for our sins is further explained if we study the ark of the covenant. In the Old Testament we read that the ark of the covenant was placed in the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle. Inside the ark were the two stone tablets of the Law, the Ten Commandments, which all people have broken. This gold-covered wooden box had a thick, gold cover on top of it, called the hilasterion, or mercy seat (Hebrews 9:5). There were statues of cherubim on both ends of this mercy seat. The cherubim faced each other, and their wings stretched upward and forward, meeting over the ark. God was thought to be dwelling above the ark.

But what is the role of the golden cover, the mercy seat? Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, following strictly divine procedures. He would come into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the sin offerings for his sins and the sins of Israel, dip his hand into the bowl of blood, and sprinkle the blood upon the top and in front of this golden mercy seat.

What was this teaching? That holy God now looks from above the mercy seat, and, seeing the blood of an innocent substitute sprinkled upon the mercy seat, the golden cover of the ark, God is then propitiated and becomes gracious toward us sinners. The sin of man has been fully punished in the substitute, God’s justice is satisfied, and now he, in his love, forgives our sins completely so that we are no longer subject to death because of our sins. In other words, because the innocent substitute died, we now may live. He was punished, so we are not punished. That is why God said in Exodus 12 :13, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you,” meaning that you will be safe and saved from judgment.

All this provision for our sin was made by God himself. He himself gave us the provision of his Son, who offered the blood of his propitiatory sacrifice. So propitiation means a sacrifice offered to God to turn away his wrath from us and put it on a substitute, that God may be gracious to us and forgive us our sins and restore us to fellowship with him.

The Prayer of the Publican

We find this idea of propitiation in the prayer of the publican, as recorded in Luke 18. Remember the story of the publican and Pharisee? These two people went into the temple to pray, and first, the Pharisee prayed. But he was only praying to himself, saying how righteous he was. Then there was the publican, who stood far off and would not even lift his eyes toward heaven. Beating on his breast, he prayed, “Ho Theos,” which means “God,” and the next words were, Hilasthêti moi, which have something to do with propitiation. The Greek word hilasmos means propitiation; hilasterion means propitiatory, and hilaskomai means to propitiate. So when the publican prayed, “Ho Theos, hilasthêti moi,” he was praying, “God, be propitiated with reference to me.” What were the last words of his prayer? “tô hamartôlô,” which means the sinner.

Look again at this prayer in Luke 18:13. What is the first word? God-ho Theos. In other words, this publican was addressing the true God, the God of Israel; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the only true God; the living God. He knew that this God was not only holy but also love. He had some knowledge of God and was coming to God with that understanding, knowing God to be love as well as holy. There would be no point in praying to a God who is not love.

Let me tell you one thing: When you know God, then you will know yourself. That is the first thing. I am not speaking about the notion of “Know thyself.” Yes, we must know ourselves, but we cannot know ourselves as we truly are unless we know God as he truly is. In his light, we see light. This publican knew God as holy, as love, as the true and living, as the infinite and personal God of the covenant. Therefore, he recognized himself as he truly was, a sinner.

So the last word in the publican’s prayer was sinner. We must picture this holy God on top of the ark, and the sinner, the publican, standing way off, and in between was his wonderful prayer: “Be propitiated with reference to me.”

Now, the Pharisee did not see any of these things. He had no consciousness of the true God and therefore he did not have any consciousness of his sin. As I said, only when we really come to know God will we know ourselves as sinners, and only then can we discover that there is a way to be saved.

So the publican prayed, “Hilasthêti moi,” meaning, “Treat me, O God, on the basis of the blood that is sprinkled on the top of the mercy seat.” That is a pretty intelligent prayer. The publican understood that God was thought to be dwelling above the ark and alluded to it in his choice of words, saying, “O God, turn your wrath away from me because of this sprinkled blood and be gracious to me and forgive my sins.”

In the same way, we can visualize that there is God, there is the cross, and underneath we as sinners are praying, “Treat us on the basis of the propitiation. Be gracious to us.”

We are told that the publican’s prayer was effectual, because he went home in a state of justification. In other words, God accepted his prayer on the basis of propitiatory sacrifice, on the basis of blood sprinkled upon the mercy seat, and this man went home, totally forgiven of all his sins. It is not written, but we can understand and draw this conclusion also, that the Pharisee went home just as he came, in a state of condemnation.

The Cleansing Blood of Jesus

The publican went home justified, his sin forgiven in its totality. How did this happen? As we said, above the mercy seat, there was a holy God; in the middle there was the blood sprinkled on the mercy seat, and below the publican stood as a sinner who trusted in God and was praying to him, “O God, have mercy upon me, a sinner!” We read about this blood in 1 John 1:7, where John says, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son purifies us from all sin.”

This idea is also found in Romans 3:24-26, wherein we find all three words-justification, redemption, and propitiation. There Paul writes, ” [We] are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement”- the word is hilasterion, propitiation-“through faith in his blood.” You see, this propitiation becomes effectual in our justification, in our salvation, through faith in the blood of Christ. PGM Paul continues, “He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance, he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

So there is a holy God who is also a loving God, and there is the cross upon which the God-provided substitute died. And where do we stand? Under the cross, exercising faith in this Jesus Christ, who is both propitiator and propitiation.

A Holy Yet Merciful God

The biblical theology is that God is holy; therefore, he must necessarily oppose sin. It also tells us that God is light-there is no darkness in him-so he must judge sin and punish the sinner. This is the truth. As we read in Hebrews 10:31, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and Hebrews 12:29 tells us, “For our ‘God is a consuming fire.'”

But the Bible tells us something else about God in Lamentations 3:22. There we find an amazing statement: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

What are we seeing here? God is a consuming fire who must oppose, destroy, burn up, and send every sinner to hell. It is necessity because of his nature. But then we are told we are not consumed. What is the reason? Because the cross has come between us and God, and God has given us faith to call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. We have been propitiated through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. His sacrifice, and his alone, is an adequate sacrifice because God himself provided it.

Why can we be saved only through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? Because no man can be offered up as a sacrifice for another, because every man is a sinner. Even if we could come up with a sinless man, we are not assured that God will accept his substitution for another. God is not required to do so. But even if he did accept the death of another sinless man, a finite man cannot atone the infinite sin of a sinner. All sin against God is infinite. So there is no way even a sinless man can be an atoning sacrifice for a sinner.

But John is not even writing about making atonement for only one man. In 1 John 2:2 he says, “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.” Can you imagine what it would take to be an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world? But God has made just such a provision. That is why the Son had to come and become man. He alone is the adequate and qualified sacrifice, provided by God and so accepted by God.

The Source of Propitiation

We have said that propitiation is a sacrifice offered to God for the purpose of turning away his wrath that is against us so that he may be gracious to us and forgive us our sins. Knowing that we have to have a sacrifice offered to God to turn away his wrath from us, we may begin to think that God is somewhat unwilling to forgive us our sins and that we have to have this forgiveness wrung out of him. That is not true. God has determined to save sinners, and he will do so.

First, then, we want to consider the source of this propitiation. In Genesis 22 we find Abraham and Isaac going to fulfill God’s command that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac to him. On the way, noting a serious omission, the young man Isaac asked his father, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” (v. 7) What was Abraham’s answer? “Jehovah Jireh,” which means, in essence, “The Lord sees and provides.” And in verse 13 we read, “Abraham looked up and then, and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.” The source of this propitiatory sacrifice was God and his love toward sinners. God himself provides us with a propitiatory sacrifice.

In the book of Leviticus we read all about the blood sacrifices God provided for his people-the sin offerings, trespass offerings, burnt offerings, peace offerings, and thanksgiving offerings. In Leviticus 17:11 God told his people, “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar.” Notice, again, the source of this propitiation: God himself was saying, “I have given it to you.” Our God is not unwilling to forgive us. He is quite willing to forgive, so willing that he has given us the means to secure that forgiveness. Once again we see this idea of Jehovah Jireh-God has provided.

In John 3:16 we read, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. . . .” He gave! Again, God is the source of this propitiation.

We find this idea of God making provision again in Romans 3:24 and 25, where Paul writes, “And are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement. . . .” It was God the Father who offered his Son as a sacrifice of atonement so that his wrath could be turned away from us and he could be gracious to us and forgive our sins. And in Romans 8:32 we read, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all. . . .” Notice, in Genesis 22, God did spare Abraham’s son Isaac, but in the fullness of time he did not spare his own Son from becoming a propitiatory sacrifice in our behalf.

Paul speaks about this again in 2 Corinthians 5:21, saying, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might in him become the righteousness of God.” And in 1 John 4:10 John writes, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

Never think that God is unwilling to forgive sinners! He is so willing that he himself planned and provided a propitiatory sacrifice in our behalf by sending his own Son as the only adequate propitiation that could turn away his wrath and cause him to be favorable toward us.

This God-provided propitiation is acceptable to God because he himself gave it, and it consists of One who is God/man. We needed a substitute who is infinite and man, both righteous man and righteous God. God gave such a One who is both the priest and the victim, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the acceptable propitiation for our sins. That is why, when we come in the name of Jesus to the Father, the Father receives us.

Thus, Jesus Christ is our propitiator as well as our propitiation. We see that in Hebrews 7:27, where we read, “Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.”

The Necessity of Propitiation

Second, we want to speak about the necessity of propitiation. There is no necessity for a propitiatory sacrifice to be made if God is not interested in saving sinners. God created man upright, but Adam became a sinner, and now all people of the world of all ages are born sinners and practice sin. So if God did not want to save any one, there would be no need for propitiation.

But God does want to save sinners. He has a plan of salvation, which, by necessity, must include propitiation because God is holy.

The Bible tells us God is angry at sinners every day and cannot look upon sin with favor. The Bible tells us sin is contradiction of God. God cannot tolerate sin and he never did; indeed, his whole nature is opposed to wickedness. That is why God must punish sin.

If you do not know much about sin, study the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Then you will have a full understanding of what sin is all about. God is holy and man is sinful. Man cannot atone for his sin and his sin is infinite. Therefore, there is necessity for an atonement and a propitiation, and God has provided for these needs.

Representative Propitiation

Third, this propitiation is representative. In this country we have a representative system of government, in which we elect people to represent our interests and act in our behalf. That is what representatives do.

In 2 Corinthians 5:14 we find a description of the representative propitiation God provided in Jesus Christ. What a glorious passage this is! Paul writes, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all died.”

This is representative propitiation. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, he died in behalf of us, so that God’s justice could be satisfied. God is not asking us to die and go to hell to make atonement for our sins. Jesus Christ died, and experienced hell in our behalf so we don’t have to. Praise God for this representative propitiation!

Sacrificial Propitiation

Fourth, it is a sacrificial propitiation. That means that someone died and spilled his blood as a sacrifice for another. In 1 Corinthians 5:7 Paul tells us, “Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast-as you really are. For Christ, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed.” In John 1:29, John the Baptist recognized the Lord Jesus Christ, saying, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Jesus Christ’s blood was spilled in our behalf, to satisfy God’s justice and turn his wrath away from us. This is sacrificial propitiation.

Substitutionary Propitiation

Fifth, this is also substitutionary propitiation. Christ died, not only as our representative, but also as our substitute. We glory in the vicarious atonement, the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.

In Mark 10:45 Jesus spoke about this aspect of the propitiatory sacrifice he came to make, saying, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Paul spoke about this in 2 Corinthians 5:21, saying, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us”-in behalf of us, as our substitute, in other words.

In the Old Testament the classic passage about the substitutionary propitiation of Christ is found in Isaiah 53. In verses 5-6 we read, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all.” All of this speaks about the substitutionary nature of the propitiation of Jesus Christ. He died as our substitute.

Proof of Propitiation

Sixth, we must ask what the proof of propitiation is. How do we know that God really accepted the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ in our behalf? How do we know that God’s justice was satisfied and his wrath turned away from us because of Christ’s death on the cross?

The resurrection is proof that God has accepted the propitiatory sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore, God has justified us, adopted us, and is sanctifying us. God has forgiven us all our sins, blotting them out so that now we can have fellowship with him and with one another.

In Old Testament times, how did people know that God had accepted the sacrifices of the high priest after he had gone into the innermost Most Holy Place and sprinkled the blood upon the altar? After performing his duties, the priest would come out to the people and bless the people. In Numbers 6:22-26 we read,

The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons: ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”‘”

Do you see the blessing? The wrath was turned away, God was appeased, and now God was gracious to his people and blesses them.

In the same way, after his resurrection, Jesus Christ came to the disciples and said to them, “Peace be unto you.” He had made his propitiatory sacrifice in our behalf and God the Father had accepted it. So Jesus could say, as he says to us today, “Peace be unto you. All your sins are forgiven. You are justified, forgiven, sanctified, adopted into the family of God. Now you have fellowship with the Father and the Son.” This is how we know that this propitiatory sacrifice has been accepted. Our sins are blotted out and we have peace with God.

Even now this propitiatory sacrifice is working. In 1 John 2:2 we read, “He is the atoning sacrifice.” It is not “He was” but “He is.” Yes, we are justified and we cannot be justified again. But we need this propitiation all the time for sanctification and cleansing from sin.

Thus, that is why we can tell you that if you have a sin problem, if you have committed a sin, you must not despair. We have an advocate with the Father in heaven, Jesus Christ, whose advocacy is based on what he did on earth. He made propitiation for our sins, and now God’s wrath is turned away and he is gracious toward us. He has justified us, adopted us, blotted out our sins and removed our guilt. He will continue to cleanse us from all unrighteousness until the day we die.

Effectual Propitiation

Seventh, we must ask how effectual this propitiation is. This one sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ the Righteous One is efficacious eternally. We are going to spend eternity with God and the reason for our being in the presence of God is the efficacious propitiation of Jesus Christ.

Additionally, this sacrifice is eternally efficacious not only for our sins, but, as we read in verse 2, “for the sins of the whole world.” That tells us the whole world is sinful. We believe in the universality of sin; therefore, the whole world needs salvation. This one sacrifice of Jesus Christ is efficacious not only for our salvation, but also for the salvation of the whole world.

I assure you, there are no multiple saviors. In 1 John 4:14 we read, “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” Does this mean that every person in the whole world will be saved? No. Some people believe that, but that is not what the Bible teaches. So the term, “the salvation of the whole world,” must be limited by two factors: first, by divine design or divine election; and, second, by human response, meaning that all people are not saved automatically, but only those who believe in Jesus Christ. These two factors limit the application of Christ’s salvation. Yes, his sacrifice is sufficient for the salvation of everyone, if we want to say that. But it is efficient only for the salvation of God’s elect, all who will truly repent and respond to him in faith.

Remember in Exodus 11 and 12 God tells the Israelites to take one lamb for each family? And then in Leviticus 16 we read that on the day of atonement, the priest offers an animal for the sin of the whole nation. But finally, in John 1:29, we are told, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

In Christ, then, the promise of God to Abraham was fulfilled. What was the promise? “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Jesus told his disciples, “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” That is why I was drawn and that is why you are drawn. We are drawn from various tribes, various languages, and various geographical distributions. Praise be to God, someone evangelized us, preaching the gospel; faith comes by hearing, and that is why we are here. Praise God for his marvelous grace!

Conclusion

As we said earlier, it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, for “our ‘God is a consuming fire.'” But we are also told, “Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed. For his compassions never fail; they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.”

May God help us to understand the wonder of this God-ordained propitiation offered by his Son for our salvation!

God saves everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. What, then, must we do to be saved? We must put our trust in this propitiation and propitiator, Jesus Christ the Righteous One. Only through him are our sins are blotted out and we are given eternal life. What boon comes to us based on this propitiation!