By Mark W. Christy, PhD
According to 1 John 2:2, Jesus is the “propitiation” for the sins of all believers.[1] By making His atoning sacrifice on the cross, Jesus enabled God to become propitious, or favorable toward His chosen saints. Despite the biblical usage of this term, many find it to be unhelpful because it causes God to appear wrathful. This makes them feel as if pagan sacrificial rites are being invoked and worshippers are somehow being led to propitiate the gods so as to satiate their anger. Since they make this connection, they argue that the cross should never be viewed as an act of propitiation. In response to their contention, this article will demonstrate the error in their thinking and the distortions it creates in the Person of God, and then close with some discussion on the biblically correct understanding of Jesus’ propitiational sacrifice.
Whereas pagan sacrificial rites were performed by worshippers, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was made by the Sacrifice Himself. Before the event played out in redemptive history, God the Father decided in full corporation with God the Son (and God the Holy Spirit) to have God the Son incarnate Himself as a man and go on to sacrifice Himself in obedience to the will of God (cf. Matt 25;34; Eph 1:4; Heb 4:3; Rev 13:8). From heaven, God in His triune glory decided to send Christ who was divinely commissioned to sacrifice Himself. To put this another way, God the Father via God the Son sacrificed Himself. No human worshipper played an active role in the sacrificial act.
Some readily admit that God made His own sacrifice in the atoning work of Christ. For this reason, they object to the idea of propitiation in favor of expiation. God, they argue, has always been favorable to His people; otherwise, He would never have sent Christ. Since He did so as One who is and has always been favorable to humanity, God could not have purposed Christ’s sacrifice to be a means to satisfy His wrath. Rather, God’s intention behind Christ’s atoning work was merely to expiate or atone for the debt caused by sin.
This erroneous view of the cross that reduces it solely to expiation ends up undermining the Person of God. By viewing God as eternally favorable toward sinners despite their sin, God is stripped of His wrath and by extension His holiness. Over and over again the Bible repeatedly testifies to God’s hatred of sin. Without going into a long journey through the plethora of passages that support this, one only has to pay attention to God’s behavior in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve committed the first sin. There, one sees a loving God that nevertheless curses Adam and Eve, removes Himself from their presence, cuts them off from eternal life, and curses them with suffering and death. All of these actions testify to God’s absolute holiness, His hatred of sin, and His wrath to those who pursue it.
At the cross, Jesus satisfied God’s wrath against sinners that originated with Adam and Eve. By sacrificing Himself, Jesus offers the ultimate demonstration of God’s love for His chosen people, because “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). Along with this, God also preserved His holiness because the sin of His people demanded a sacrificial payment. Since sinners would only be capable of presenting blemished and imperfect sacrifices, “Christ…offered Himself without blemish to God” (Heb 9:14).
In conclusion, the cross of Christ testifies to God’s love as well as His holiness. By performing His own sacrifice as God the Son, His wrath caused by sin is propitiated while the sins of His people are expiated. For this reason, “‘true worshipers…worship the Father in spirit and truth’ for there is no longer any sacrifice that needs to be made” (John 4:23).
[1]All Scripture references are taken from NASB1995.