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Home , Propitiation

THE CROSS AND GOD’S JUSTICE Isaiah 5:16; :24-26

INTRODUCTION I want to continue my plan of preaching on some aspect of the Cross for our Communion Sunday sermons. The reason I want to preach on the Cross is to follow Paul’s example in I Corinthians 2:2 1 Corinthians 2:2 NKJV For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And because the message of the Cross or Christ crucified is the power of God unto salvation according to I Corinthians 1:21-24. Christ and Him crucified is the event that changed the world. It is the only atoning available to God and man. It is essential to our spiritual health to seek to go beneath the surface and plumb the depth of meaning of the Cross. The Cross of Christ is so full of meaning and significance that the Bible has to use several images to reveal its full orb of meaning. This morning I want to focus on the Cross and God’s Justice. I see the connection between the Cross and God’s justice in Romans 3:24-25 Romans 3:24-25 NKJV being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, (25) whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, It says that Christ was set forth as a propitiation…to demonstrate His [God’s] righteousness or justice. The Cross proclaims that God is just to forgive us our sins. The Cross was necessary not only for our salvation, but necessary for God’s justice. The Cross was necessary for God to be God! It was necessary for God to be true to Himself. Let me try to explain that! Let me start by looking the key word ‘propitiation.’

PROPITIATION MEANS THAT THE CROSS AVERTS GOD’S WRATH AWAY FROM US ONTO CHRIST When I was a new Christian I was involved in a small-group Bible study and we would run across this word time to time. I was hard for me to pronounce – propitiation. The teacher taught us guys how to say it. Pro pish

May 5, 2019 Corntassel CP Church Page 1 (like in dish) iation. Propitiation. It is may be hard to pronounce but it’s not that hard to understand. The idea behind propitiation is to offer something that would turn away someone’s wrath. There is a story in the book of Genesis that illustrates this basic idea of the word. The story is found in Genesis 32 and it concerns Esau and Jacob. Jacob had deceived Esau of his birthright and left the country. After 14 years working for Rachael and Leah he came back to Palestine with his family of 12 sons, wives, herds, servants, etc. He was worried about meeting Esau. He knew that Esau was angry at him and may try to kill him. What would he do? He devised a plan to send goats, sheep, cows, donkeys, etc. in three groups ahead of him as presents to Esau. Jacob explains his plan in Genesis 32:20 Genesis 32:20 NKJV For he said, "I will appease him with the present that goes before me, and afterward I will see his face; perhaps he will accept me." The word translated here in English as “appease” is the same Greek word (hilaskomai) translated ‘propitiation’ in the New Testament. Jacob was hoping that his gifts would turn Esau’s wrath away from him. Most husbands understand the basic idea of propitiation. Have you ever said something that offended your wife, that made her mad? Most of us have. One time husband got into an argument with his wife and left for work with her steaming mad at him. On the way home he saw a vendor selling flowers. The thought comes to him that he may avert her anger if he gives her some flowers. He offers the flowers as act of propitiation to her. Averting anger or turning away anger by the offering of a gift is the basic idea of propitiation. The question for us today is, “Do you feel that your sins have offended God?” Do you see that you need to give some gift of avert his anger? You don’t have to give a gift because Jesus is that gift which has already been given to avert God’s anger.

SOME OBJECTIONS TO THIS TEACHING OF PROPITIATION Now this word ‘propitiation’ doesn’t set too well with our modern mind. Even in the main-line churches many don’t want to think of the Cross as God’s means of averting His anger towards sinners. Why? Because they do not see God as angry. God is a God of love, not wrath or judgment. Isn’t He? To think that God has to be pacified or appeased sound too much like a pagan sacrifice to appease their gods. It is a primitive idea. We are more advanced and enlightened to think this way. But there is an infinite difference in Christ as our sacrifice and paganism’s . First and foremost it is God who is making the offering, not us. We are not bringing an offering to God to avert his wrath as

May 5, 2019 Corntassel CP Church Page 2 the pagans would do. It is God himself who “sets forth” Christ as a propitiation in His blood as Romans 3:25 says. This is a huge point and of supreme importance. There is nothing we can bring to God to satisfy His wrath against our sins. Only God can provide the adequate sacrifice. And He did. His only Son, Jesus Christ! God’s wrath is his righteous response to evil. I preached on the wrath of God last month. Our sins and the evil of the world provokes God’s wrath. God is holy and when a holy God responds to evil it is by pouring out his white-hot wrath on it. Our God is a consuming fire, the writer of Hebrews says. Another objection some have to the idea of propitiation is that they would say that it is immoral for God to require an innocent person to take the punishment of a guilty person. But it is not immoral if the person has agreed to be the substitute and be qualified to make the payment. Jesus agreed to be the substitute from the foundation of the world. He was not just an innocent person who God grabbed up off the streets of Jerusalem to go to the Cross. Jesus is the Eternal Son of God , the 2nd Person of the Triune God, who in eternity past was part of the plan of redemption. He was slain from the foundation of the world as John tells us in Revelation 13:8. Others will say that propitiation overshadows the love of God. God is a God of love. The irony is that it is because that God is a God of love that Christ had to be our propitiation. God sending Jesus to be the propitiation for our sins is His supreme act of love. The Apostle John is the one who clearly connects the love of God to this act of propitiation. 1 John 4:10 NKJV In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. God doesn’t love us because Christ died for us. He died for us because he love us. Christ’s death doesn’t dispose God to love us more. No, His death proves He loves us. This great act of love should move us to love Him with all our hearts, mind, and soul. It is interesting that in the Old Testament on the Day of Atonement the High Priest would take the blood of the sacrifice and sprinkle it on the top of the Ark of the . In that Ark was the law of God which condemns all who do not keep it perfectly. On top of that Ark is what is called the ‘.’ On the Mercy Seat was the blood applied for the sins of Israel, to cover them, to remove them, to avert the wrath of God they deserve. The Greek word used to translate the word we use ‘mercy-seat’ is hilaskomai, the same word as in Romans 3:25 and I John 4:10 ‘propitiation.’ Jesus is our mercy-seat. Jesus is our propitiation. His blood satisfies God’s wrath, God’s law, God’s righteousness, God’s justice.

May 5, 2019 Corntassel CP Church Page 3 Does seeing Jesus as your mercy-seat cause you to want to humble yourself and hold tight to him in faith? This is what God wants you to do.

THE CROSS WAS NOT ONLY NECESSARY FOR OUR SALVATION, BUT WAS NECESSARY FOR GOD’S JUSTICE One of the ways you can see that even some Bible translators are not comfortable with using the word ‘Propitiation’ to describe what Jesus did for us on the Cross is seen in the way they translate ‘hilaskomai.’ Several of the newer Bible translations don’t use the English word ‘propitiation’ to translate hilaskomai, like the , the RSV, and the (Catholic). They use the word ‘expiation’ rather than ‘propitiation.’ The NIV, NRSV and the NLT use “sacrifice of Atonement” or just ‘sacrifice.’ The question behind this different choices of words is, “What separates us from God? Is it our sin or is it God’s wrath?” Is Christ’s death to remove our sins or to remove God’s wrath? It is both, but the passage in Romans 3 certainly puts the focus on the necessity of the Cross as doing something for God. The Cross was necessary, not only for our redemption, for our salvation, for our forgiveness, is was necessary for God to remain just and be the justifier of the ungodly. Note again in verse 25, “God set forth [Christ] as a propitiation by his blood…to demonstrate His righteousness.” Christ being set forth as a propitiation (to avert the wrath of God) was to demonstrate the righteousness of God or the Justice of God. In our society we have a set of standards which we call the law. When one of these laws is broken we have a judicial system that requires vindication for the crimes committed. We call that justice. A judge cannot look at the evidence, see the person is guilty, and say, “Well, we love you so we are going to let you go scot-free.” No! Our laws state clearly that certain crimes are to be punished by certain penalties if justice is to be served. God’s justice is the same. His justice must be served, if He is to remain righteous and holy. Recall Isaiah 5:16 Isaiah 5:16 HCSB But the LORD of Hosts is exalted by His justice, and the holy God is distinguished by righteousness. God’s justice must be satisfied. The penalty for breaking His laws must be satisfied. The wages of sin is death. Only a sufficient death can satisfy God’s eternal justice for our sins. Jesus gave that sufficient death on the Cross. God is exalted by his justice and distinguished by righteousness in the Cross. The Cross of Christ exalts God’s just and demonstrates His righteousness. “God set forth Christ as a propitiation in His blood…to demonstrate His righteousness.”

May 5, 2019 Corntassel CP Church Page 4 Propitiation is satisfying the justice of God by Christ taking the punishment for our sins on the Cross. God’s offer of forgiveness is valid and legal. Can you appreciate the security you can have in God’s offer of forgiveness because it is not an empty offer or illegal offer from a weak Judge? God’s justice has been satisfied in the death of Christ for you. Receive His offer in confidence that it is a legal offer and just offer.

FAITH IS BEING SATISFIED WITH WHAT SATISFIES GOD’S JUSTICE IN MY BEHALF The final point from this verse is that faith is required to appropriate the benefit of Christ being our propitiation. Look again in Romans 3:25-26 Romans 3:25 NKJV whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith….. (26) to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. “Set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith… that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” What an important point. The benefits of Christ being our propitiation is not actualized in our life unless we put our faith in Christ; unless we have faith in this great event of Christ on the Cross. One definition of faith is that “Faith is being satisfied with what satisfies God’s justice in my behalf!” I first heard this from a Bible teacher when I was in college. The fuller definition of propitiation is “Christ’s death on the Cross is God’s sacrificial offering that satisfies His justice and averts Hiss wrath from us to Christ out of His love for us and to show forth His righteousness in forgiving our sins. To believe in Jesus as our Propitiation is the essential for us because that is the only way to appropriate the benefit of the Cross of Christ in our lives, it is to believe. When God the Father set forth His Son to avert His anger, He did it publically that we might see God’s righteousness being satisfied. Jesus being the propitiation for our sins is important, very important. To you believe this? Let’s get ready then to celebrate the Lord’s Supper to commemorate the Cross of Christ and express our faith in Christ as our propitiation. Amen? Amen!

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