Speak of Christ as a propitiation, or show what His being said to be a propitiation for sin may imply in it--
1. That He was appointed by God the Father to make an atonement for the sins of men.
2. That He was substituted in the room of sinners, and in suffering and making satisfaction to Divine justice for their sins, represented their persons, and was considered as one with them in the eye of the law.
3. That He condescended to take upon Him all the guilt of His people.
4. That He suffered the punishment which His people deserved on account of their sins.
5. That all who have an interest in His death, and the sacrifice which He offered, are freed from the guilt of sin, and are no more liable to the punishment of it.
6. That by suffering the death threatened in the law for the transgression of it, and satisfying the demands of justice in the room of sinners, He laid the foundation of a throne of grace, to which the most destitute, yea, the most guilty belonging to the fallen race of Adam have free access, and from which God dispenses to them all blessings, without eclipsing the glory of His justice, holiness, and other glorious perfections.
II. Christ’s being set forth as a propitiation, for the benefit of sinners guilty before God, and condemned to everlasting death by His law.
1. Christ may be said to have been set forth to be a propitiation in the purpose and decree of God from eternity.
2. Christ was exhibited as a propitiation in the first gospel promise (Gen_3:15).
3. Christ was set forth as a propitiation in all the types and ceremonies belonging to the Old Testament economy, particularly in the legal sacrifices, all which were typical of that great sacrifice which the Son of God, the promised Messiah, was to offer in the human nature for expiating the guilt of sin.
4. Christ was exhibited as a propitiation in the several prophecies and promises respecting Him that were delivered to the Church under the Old Testament dispensation.
5. Christ was set forth as a propitiation in His incarnation and assumption of the human nature.
6. The Lord Jesus is exhibited, or set forth, as a propitiation in the dispensation of the everlasting gospel: The very design of the gospel is to exhibit a crucified Redeemer to guilty sinners. Hence the preaching of the gospel is called the preaching of the Cross, and the preaching of Christ crucified.
7. Christ is set forth as a propitiation in the sacraments of the New Testament, particularly in the Lord’s Supper.
III. Confirm the doctrine, or show that as Jesus Christ is by the authority and appointment of the great Jehovah set forth to guilty sinners as a propitiation, all to whom the gospel comes, may warrantably claim the benefit of that propitiation in a way of believing. This is abundantly evident from the words of the text; for the gospel is preached by Divine appointment to every creature, and in it Christ is set forth as a propitiation to every sinner that hears it. It is further evident
1. From the types that prefigured Him under the Old Testament economy. The manna which was rained from heaven for nourishing the Israelites in the wilderness (Exo_14:13-16) was a remarkable type of Christ, who is the Bread of Life; is such as a propitiation, for He is said to have given His flesh, namely by offering it as a sacrifice to expiate the guilt of sin, for the life of the world (Joh_6:51); and it was what everyone belonging to the camp of Israel might warrantably gather and apply to his own use (Exo_16:15). The brazen serpent was also a type of Christ, and that was lifted up on a pole for the benefit of all belonging to the congregation of Israel, so that every one of them that had been wounded by the fiery serpents was authorised to look to it in order to his being healed (Num_21:8-9; Joh_3:14-15). The scapegoat was also a remarkable type of Christ, and designed to prefigure the efficacy of His death for procuring the remission of sins to all who believe in Him.
2. That all who hear the gospel may warrantably claim the benefit of the New Testament propitiation spoken of in the text, or trust in the Lord Jesus for the remission of sins, is evident from the similitudes under which Christ and His grace are set forth to us in Scripture (Zec_13:1; Rev_22:2; Isa_25:6; Pro_9:1-5; Mat_22:4).
3. The truth of the doctrine is further evident from the very nature of the gospel, which is not a system of precepts requiring of men obedience to the law of God, to any law whatsoever, as the condition of life, but consists wholly of gracious promises exhibiting life, salvation, and all spiritual blessings freely, as the gift of God to perishing sinners.
4. The same thing is evident from the declared end and design of the gospel, which is that sinners may believe in Christ revealed and exhibited in it (Joh_20:31).
5. That all who hear the gospel have a sufficient warrant to claim the benefit of the propitiation spoken of in the text, or to apply Christ and the benefits of redemption to their own souls, appears from the many gracious calls and invitations addressed to sinners in the gospel.
6. The peremptory command of God binding it upon all the hearers of the gospel, as their indispensable duty, to believe on the name of His Son, puts the matter beyond all debate (1Jn_3:23).
IV. Practical improvement of the doctrine.
1. The great error of Socinians who deny that Christ died to make an atonement for sin, and satisfy the justice of God in the room of sinners, by suffering the punishment which their sins deserved; or that the sacrifice which He offered was a proper sacrifice.
2. Hence we may learn, that men by nature are in a most wretched and deplorable condition. They are under guilt and wrath, otherwise there would have been no need to offer a propitiatory sacrifice for them.
3. Hence let us take occasion to admire the love of God toward sinners of mankind, manifested in providing such a sacrifice.
4. Hence we may see what was the great end of the Redeemer’s incarnation, and of His taking our nature into a personal union with Himself.
5. Hence we may learn what was the nature, end, and use of all the sacrifices that were offered by Divine appointment under the Old Testament dispensation. They had no merit or efficacy for satisfying the justice of God and appeasing His wrath. They were only typical of that sacrifice which the Messiah was to offer in the fulness of time for these ends.
6. From what has been said we may see that the dispensation of the gospel in purity is a great privilege, an inestimable blessing. (D. Wilson.)
Propitiation through faith in Christ’s blood
I. Christ, a propitiation. Sin draws on the sinner the holy anger of God, although it cannot quench the love of God. And that it could not quench His love is shown by His providing and setting forth as a propitiation His own Son, through whom He can look on us with anger no more, but with complacency. This He has done. It often costs us much, we have often got much to get over in order to let the affection that there is in our heart towards some human being have its way, to help and succour him on account of some waywardness in him. What would not the father or mother of a profligate child give to be able to lavish on the degraded being tokens of affection as freely as they did when they folded him in their arms a happy innocent child, if they felt they could do so without their goodness being abused by him to his own hurt and to their shame, or being regarded by him as a proof that they did not look on his vices with any great detestation or sorrow? What the sacrifice of God’s only-begotten and well-beloved Son involved to Him, we vainly attempt to conceive. “He spared not His own Son, but gave Him up to the death for us all.” Mark that it is not said here that the Saviour has made propitiation, but that He is a propitiation. So speaks also the Apostle John: “He is the propitiation for our sins.” In the Saviour Himself, in the living person of the God-man, is found the ground of pardon and acceptance. The virtue of His obedience and death is centred in His person, and radiates from it.
II. The way in which propitiation is effected. Christ is a propitiation “through faith in His blood.” By His blood and by faith--not faith in His blood--but by His blood, by which He expiated sin, He is a propitiation by faith as the subjective means of appropriation of this propitiation. You must look, on the one hand, to Christ’s sacrificial death, and on the other to faith in Christ, in order to account for the sinner being received into the favour of God and being reconciled to Him.
1. It was by the giving of His holy life in sacrifice that Jesus propitiated God on our behalf, or appeased the wrath, and delivered us from the curse of God due for sin.
2. Christ is only actually and effectually a propitiation to you and to me, if we believe in Him. He is a propitiation only through faith. In this the righteousness of God is also seen. It were unrighteous to justify any but him who believed in Jesus, or for God to be propitiated through Christ on behalf of anyone who did not believe on Christ. For through faith we come into a life-union with the Son of God.
III. Christ, as our propitiation, is set forth by God. That type of Christ of old, which furnishes the name and explains the aspect under which Christ is set forth here, the propitiation, propitiatory, or mercy seat, was hid in the innermost shrine of the dwelling place of God. It was seen by no mortal eye but that of the high priest, and that only when, once a year, he entered with awed spirit behind the veil. But Jesus Christ, the great reality, of which that golden throne of grace was the sign and shadow, is not hidden, but is openly set forth. In word and ordinance He is exhibited.
1. There is the Bible, about which such daring opinions nowadays are ventured, and of which, in their secret hearts, many have doubts and sentiments which they would not dare to utter; which many, who read so much that is deleterious, never or rarely open; which many read so carelessly and to so little purpose! My friend, hast thou ever thought that in that Book God has set forth His Son as a propitiation? This is the great end for which it is written.
2. There is the everlasting gospel, which is of small account with many, a weariness, a superfluity, which even in their view might be banished from the sanctuary; or, if it cannot be banished, may be thrust as far as possible into a corner, and its place supplied very pleasantly by something that will soothe and regale the senses and the taste. But oh! see that you are not blind to what is set forth in the garb of His words and thoughts--Jesus Christ the propitiation through faith in His blood. See above all that you do not forget that, though with man’s voice, and in man’s language, and often with much weakness, yet God is really setting forth Christ as a propitiation.
3. In the sacraments God so sets forth His Son. (W. Wilson, M. A.)
Christ the propitiation
I.As set forth by God.
1. The words “set forth” signify “foreordained”; and also “places in public view”; as goods are exposed for sale, or as rewards of victory were exhibited in the Grecian Games. So has God made conspicuous Jesus as the propitiation of sin.
(1) By Divine decree. Christ did not take upon Himself the office of High Priest without being chosen thereunto. But this was not independent of His own choice, for in the volume of the Book it is written of Him, “I delight to do Thy will, O God.”
(2) In His promises before the Advent did not God speak constantly, by verbal and typical promises, to multitudes of holy men the coming of Him who should bruise the serpent’s head, and deliver His people from the power of the curse?
(3) When Christ came God set Him forth by angelic messengers, and by the star in the East. Throughout His life, how constantly did His Father set Him forth! The voice of God was in the voice of John, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” And on the Cross itself, “when it pleased the Father to bruise Him, and put Him to grief,” what an exhibition was there to the eye of Jew and Gentile of the propitiation!
(4) When the Holy Ghost came down on Pentecost! And what have all conversions been since but repeated seals to the same testimony?
(5) In you God has graciously fulfilled the text.
2. What it is that God has so manifestly set forth. The Greek word may mean--
(1) A mercy seat. Now God hath said to the sinner, “Do you desire to meet Me? would you be no longer My enemy? would you receive My blessing? I set forth Christ to you as being the Mercy seat, where I can meet you and you Me.”
(2) A covering; as the mercy seat covered the tables of the law, and so covered that which was the cause of Divine ire, because we had broken His commandment. “Wouldst thou have anything which can cover thy sin from Me, so that I need not be provoked to anger; from you so that you need not tremble? Wouldst thou have a shelter which shall hide altogether thy sins? I set it forth to thee in Jesus. Trust in His blood, and thy sin is covered.”
3. God has set forth Christ before every one of you, in the preaching of the Word, and in the Inspired Book, as dying, that your sins might die; buried, that your iniquities might be buried; risen, that you might rise to newness of life; ascended, that you might ascend to God; received in triumph, that you might be received in triumph too; made to reign, that you might reign in Him; forever loved, forever crowned, that you in Him may be forever loved and forever crowned too.
II. As looked upon by the believer.
1. We may mistake the proper object of faith. We may look on--
(1) Repentance as a grace, indeed, without which there can be no salvation, but an act which may be substituted for faith in the propitiation.
(2) Evidences. Evidences are good as second things, but as first things they are usurpers, and may prove anti-Christs.
(3) God’s promises. I know many Christians who, when they are in distress, take up the Bible to find a promise--a very good plan, if they go to Christ first. There is a man who very much desires an estate, at the same time his heart is smitten with the beauty of some fair heiress. He gets the title deeds of her estate. Well, the title deeds are good, but the estates are not his, though he has got the title deeds. By and by he marries the lady, and everything is his own. Get the heiress and you have got the estate. It is so in Christ; promises are the title deeds of His estates. A man may get the promise and not get Christ, then they will be of no use to him.
2. God has set forth Christ to be the propitiation through faith in His blood, and we ought to accept that as being--
(1) An all-sufficient propitiation. We have never got the full idea of Christ till we know that every sin of thought, of word, of deed finds its death.
(2) An immutable propitiation. Our standing before God, when we have believed in Jesus, depends no more upon our frames and feelings than the sun depends upon the clouds and darkness that are here below.
III. As set forth by us and looked upon by God.
1. If in this pulpit Christ be set forth, God will look down upon that Christ set forth, and honour and bless the word. I might preach clear doctrine, but God might never look down upon doctrine, nor upon moral essays, nor upon philosophy. God will not look down on any man’s ministry unless that man sets forth what God sets forth. Then His Word shall not return unto Him void; it shall prosper in the thing whereto He hath sent it.
2. As in the case of the ministry, so you in your pleadings for souls must set forth Christ. Abel’s blood demanded vengeance; Christ’s blood demands pardons and must have it.
3. As in pleading for the souls of others, so in pleading for our own we must set forth the propitiation. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ the propitiation
In the only other place where the word occurs in the New Testament (Heb_9:5) it is rendered “mercy seat.”
I. To the institution of the “mercy seat,” therefore, we must look, that we may rightly understand the allusion (Exo_25:17). It is from this description that the appellation is given to Jehovah of the God that “dwelleth between the cherubim,” an appellation, therefore, equivalent in import to “the God of mercy,” “the God of all grace,” “the God of peace”: and the position of “the mercy seat” or propitiatory, upon “the ark of the testimony,” seems to indicate that His appearing, in this benign character, to commune with guilty creatures, was in full consistency with the claims and sanctions of His perfect law; so that when Jehovah thus manifested Himself. “Mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace embraced each other.” All this cannot fail to remind us of Him who received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” It is in Him, as the subject either of promise, of prophecy, of type, or of direct testimony, that God has from the beginning made Himself known to men in the character of “the God of peace.” It is “in Him” that He “reconciles sinners to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”
II. Had nothing more been said of the “mercy seat,” we might have been led to conclude that Jehovah appeared there in the exercise of mere mercy, apart from any satisfaction for sin. We must, therefore, connect this description of the mercy seat with the account given of the manner in which it was to be approached by the worshipper (Lev_16:2; Lev_16:11-12). It was to be approached with the blood of “atonement” (verses 6, 30, 34), which was sprinkled on and before “the mercy seat”; and while the sacrificial blood was thus presented, the burning incense was to diffuse its grateful odour, in emblematic testimony of the Divine satisfaction; which is, accordingly, elsewhere expressed in connection with the sacrifice of Christ, and the offerings by which it was typified, by Jehovah’s “smelling a sweet savour” (cf. Gen_8:21 with Eph_5:2; Rev_8:3; and see also Psa_141:2)
. The “mercy seat,” then, in order to Jehovah’s appearing there, consistently with the glory of His name, as the God of grace, must be stained with “the blood of sprinkling,” the blood “that maketh atonement for the soul”; and in this is set before us the necessity of the shedding of the blood of Christ, in order to God’s being “in Him well-pleased.” And, agreeably to this, the Divine declaration “from the excellent glory,” of satisfaction in His well-beloved Son, was made in connection with the subject of conference on the holy mount--“the decease which Jesus was to accomplish at Jerusalem.”
III. The proper idea of “propitiation” is, rendering the Divine Being favourable.
1. We must, beware, however, of understanding by this anything like the production of a change in the Divine character; as if God required an inducement to be merciful. We ought to conceive of Jehovah as eternally compassionate and merciful. But while God is infinitely and immutably good, He is at the same time infinitely and immutably holy and just and true. Never ought we to speak of Him as acting at one time according to mercy, and at another according to justice. His attributes, though we may speak of them distinctly, are inseparable in their exercise.
2. What, then, is the light in which the idea of atonement places the Divine Being? As a righteous Governor Jehovah is displeased with His guilty creatures; while, at the same time, from the infinite benignity of His nature, He is inclined to forgiveness. But if His government is righteous, its claims, in their full extent, must of necessity be maintained inviolate. The great question, then, on this momentous subject comes to be: In what manner may forgiveness be extended to the guilty, so as to satisfy the claims of justice? The rendering of the Divine Being propitious, in this view, refers, it is obvious, not to the production of love in His character, but simply to the mode of its expression. The inquiry is, How may God express love so as to express at the same time abhorrence of sin; and thus, in “making known the riches of His mercy,” to display the inflexibility of justice and the unsullied perfection of holiness? When we say that God is displeased with any of His creatures, we speak of them not as creatures, but as sinners. He hath “no pleasure in the death of the wicked,” but He hates sin; and the punishment of it is required both by the glory of His righteousness and by a regard to the general happiness of the intelligent creation, which sin tends directly to destroy. It is in this view that the blessed God is said to be “angry with the wicked every day,” to “hate all the workers of iniquity”; to have “revealed from heaven His wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men”: and when He forgives iniquity He is, in consistency with such expressions, described as having “His anger turned away.” This is propitiation; and it is in Christ Jesus, in virtue of His atoning sacrifice, that God is thus propitious to sinners. The animal sacrifices of the Old Testament, of which the blood (because it was the life) was declared to be “the atonement for the soul,” were all intended to prefigure the true “propitiation for sin.” (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
The history of God’s relations with human sin
I.Antecedently to the death of Christ, the sins of men were passed over in the forbearance of God, i.e., God suffered them to go by unavenged. He “winked at the times of ignorance.” So far was this strange toleration carried, that the very justice of the Divine Judge came in some danger, and were there no judgment to come, men really could not affirm that the world was ruled on principles of perfect righteousness. In the providence of the world vengeance limps but tardily in the footsteps of crime; while, not to speak of the impenitent who go unpunished, what shall we say of pre-Christian penitents who asked pardon for their sins, yet found no expiation for them? The blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. The Divine policy was to leg sin pass, neither avenged nor atoned for, leaving still an open reckoning.
II. At last God cleared His clouded administration and vindicated His righteousness (verse 25). He held forth to public gaze an expiation of sin which did satisfy justice and demonstrate the severe impartial rectitude of the Divine judgments. The death of Jesus Christ is “set forth” as a public act done by God Himself for the illustration of His own justice. The word “propitiation” (or propitiatory) may either mean a victim offered in sacrifice for the recovery of Divine favour, or it may refer to the golden lid of the ark in the holy of holies, where God sat enthroned and propitious because on it was yearly sprinkled the blood of an atoning sacrifice. The death of Christ is in either case the one Sacrifice through which the sins of the world have been expiated and God has been enabled to extend favour to His guilty creatures. And this solemn and unparalleled act is at the same time the most impressive exhibition of the Divine vengeance against sin. Rather than that sins passed over so long should go altogether unavenged, God offered His Son for their expiation. By this He has cut off from men the temptation to misconstrue His earlier toleration of sins, or His unwillingness to forgive them. He did pretermit sin in His forbearance; but it was only because He had purposed in His heart one day to offer for it a satisfaction such as this. For this He could hold His peace through long centuries under injurious suspicion, because He knew that one day the awful Cross of His own Son would silence every cavil and give to the universe emphatic demonstration that He is a just God, who will by no means clear the guilty.
III. Let us look at the bearing of Christ’s death on “this present season.” The same public satisfaction for sin is adequate to justify God in forgiving sin now (verse 26). Before His attitude to sin was one of forbearance. More than that it could not be, because no proper satisfaction for sin had as yet been offered. But now, since Christ has died, God has no need to “wink at” sin, and pass it by. He no longer holds out to penitents as He used to do a hope that it will one day become possible for Him to blot their sins. For He is now able to deal finally and effectually with sin. Justice has received all the satisfaction it needs or can ask for. No shade of suspicion, whether of feebleness or of injustice, can rest upon the Divine character, in acquitting at once any man for whose guilt Christ has made complete atonement. Now, therefore, God is in a position, not to pretermit sins only, but to remit them; not to promise forgiveness merely, but to confer it. This new attitude it is worth while to trace out in detail.
1. This propitiation having been amply adequate to vindicate Divine justice, Christ’s death becomes obviously our redemption; i.e., it serves as a ransom, an offering in consideration of which we who were held in custody as sentenced prisoners of justice may now go free. The Son of Man has given His life as a ransom price in the stead of many; and that atoning ransom being adequate, we have “redemption through His blood--even the forgiveness of sins.” So that it is so far from being unjust in God to acquit those for whom Christ’s death is pleaded, that it would be plainly unjust to do anything else. The Deliverer has paid the price of blood for forfeited lives of guilty men; and Justice herself will now fling wide open her prison gates, tear across her handwriting of condemnation, and proclaim the ransomed to be justified from sin. This St. Paul terms “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (verse 24).
2. On the ground of this redemption, such a justifying must be entirely gratuitous (verse 24). It must be so, because it is obviously independent of any action of men’s own. It manifested the judicial impartiality and uprightness of the Lawgiver; but it was done at the bidding of love for the condemned, and its issue is free, unstinted grace to the undeserving. God must be just; but He chose this way of manifesting His justice, that through it He might also manifest mercy; and mercy rejoiceth over judgment.
3. A way of being justified which is so entirely gratuitous must be impartial and catholic. It is offered on such easy terms, because on no harder terms could helpless and condemned men receive it. Heathen or Jew, there is no distinction between men (verse 22) such as could limit a gratuitous righteousness to one set of them rather than to another. All of them alike sinned; therefore they must be justified on a ground which cuts away every distinction of better or worse among them, of more deserving or less deserving. A righteousness which is given away gratuitously must be meant for all.
4. Yes, to all who will trust in it (verse 26). For our justification is limited to faith, and that just because it is limited to the work of Christ. Our faith is the natural counterpart to Christ’s atonement; it is our response to His sacrifice; it is our acceptance of God’s terms. God offers to justify us, but He does so only because Christ has propitiated for our sins. If we accept His offer, we consent to be justified on that same ground of Christ’s propitiation, for nothing else is offered. The very terms on which God historically vindicated His justice and wrought redemption tie us down and limit us to such faith as rests on Christ as the instrument of our justification. (J. Oswald Dykes, D. D.)
Through faith In His blood.--
The blood of Christ
Listen, apart from all argument, to what Christ says of it, and think, Is it possible that all this can mean no more than what men say who do not believe in its atoning power, as shed for us? They will sink deeper in your minds, if studied in God’s Word. But look at this barest outline of them. They will be the meditation and praise and thanksgiving of eternity; and in all eternity we shall long to thank more and more for them, when our whole being will be thanksgiving and love. “We were far off [from God], but were made nigh [to Him] by the Blood of Christ” (Eph_2:13); “we were justified by His blood” (Rom_5:9); “He suffered, that He might sanctify us by His blood” (Heb_13:12); “we have,” as a continual possession, “redemption through His blood, the remission of sins” (Eph_1:7); “the blood of Christ who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, purifieth our consciences from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb_9:14); “the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin” (1Jn_1:7); “we have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ” (1Pe_1:18-19); “He has purchased the Church with His own blood” (Act_20:28); “God made peace through the blood of His Cross, through Him, as to the things on earth, and the things in heaven” (Col_1:20): “Christ, by His own blood, entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb_9:12). “We,” too, ever since “have boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through His flesh” (Heb_10:19-20). We are “elect, according to the foreknowledge of God, in sanctification of the spirit, unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1Pe_1:2). “We are come to Jesus, the Mediator of the new Covenant, and the blood of sprinkling which speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Heb_12:22-24). And when the beloved disciple saw heaven opened, he saw “the Faithful and True, the Word of God, clothed with a vesture dyed with blood” (Rev_19:13), and he heard the new song of those who sang, “Thou wast slain and didst purchase us to God by Thy blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev_5:9); and he heard that they had “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev_7:14), and had “overcome the accuser by the blood of the Lamb” (Rev_12:11). And St. John’s doxology is, “To Him who loveth us and hath washed us from our sins in His own blood, to Him be glory and might forever and ever. Amen” (Rev_1:5). (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
