Propitiation (1 John 4:10)

It is possible to describe a person or an action from different perspectives. A man can be a husband, or a son, or a father, or a grandfather at the same time. A politician can be member of Parliament, or a member of the Cabinet, or a member of the Opposition. A battle can be voluntary, a victory, a means of freedom, an end of hope or a stalemate. If we don’t know those other details, then we will not really know what the words man, politician and battle signify. Moving to a far higher subject, what do we mean when we speak of the death of Christ. The phrase by itself tells that he died, but it does not tell us why he died. Did his death have a purpose or was it the end of his intentions?

 

There are different pictures of the death of Jesus in the Bible. It is called a ransom, a reconciliation, a liberation, a victory. Each of the terms ask for clarification. Since they are part of the biblical description of the death of Jesus, we need to know their meanings in order to understand what he went through on the cross. One description that is used only says that he offered an atoning sacrifice, but what does that mean? The word that was used in the past for this translation is propitiation.  

 

What does the term mean?

The word ‘propitiation’ is found outside the Bible as well as in the Bible, and it means the removal of wrath by a suitable gift or offering. Outside the Bible, the word describes sacrifices that were made by worshippers in order to placate a deity that they assumed was angry with them. Inside the Bible, as we can see from this text, it was used to describe what happened to Jesus on the cross, that he appeased the wrath of God. But who was God angry with?

 

What does the verse say about God the Father?

The first detail that we can draw from this verse is that God knew that we needed someone to make propitiation on our behalf. He knew this was the case because he was the offended party in the dispute between us and him. He is a just God who must punish rebellion against his rule. We had offended him by our sins and one of the consequences was that we became the objects of his wrath. Our sins have been described in a twofold way – our original sin through Adam our representative in the garden of Eden and our actual sins. Both our original and actual sins are expression of rebellion. God is angry with us because of our sins and at the moment he is restraining his wrath. But the day will come when the punishment will be inflicted by God and it will be the expression of his wrath. God was aware that we were heading towards this awful experience.

 

The second detail to observe, and we might thing at first that it is very surprising, is that the Bible stresses that this act of propitiation was initiated by God the Father. The apostle John tells us that God sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). God did not make this decision in response to a request from outside of himself. No one on earth requested him to do this, and the residents of heaven (the angels) would not have imagined that this would take place. God, recognising that there was only way by which the propitiation could be made, decided that it would happen, and so he sent his Son.

The third detail to consider is why did God decide that he would send his Son to be the propitiation. There are many reasons why God would do an action. He could do it because it is an expression of his wisdom, or an expression of his power, or an expression of his determination for his human creatures to experience deliverance. No doubt, those reasons are included in why he decided to do what he did, but the reason mentioned by the apostle John is that God did it because he loved us.

 

John was thinking about himself and his readers when said ‘us’. He had met Jesus about sixty years previously, but Jesus had been on earth before John was born. So God the Father had loved John before he was born since he had already sent Jesus. Similarly, Jesus had been born before most of John’s readers had been. Therefore, God the Father had loved them before they were born. What I am saying is that even their own experience told them that the decision by the Father to send the Son to be the propitiation was an expression of love that was not merited by them. It arose from within God before they existed.

 

This pre-existing love of God raises the obvious question as to when he began to love his people. The answer that the Bible gives is that the love of God for his people is eternal. His love can be considered in different ways by us, but it is true to say that if he loves his people in one way he will love them in all ways. I mean that his love for us includes the method of salvation as well as the blessings of salvation. The blessings include election, pardon, adoption, and eternal inheritance, and each expresses a different aspect of the Father’s love. His love also included dealing with the just demands of his wrath, and this was why he sent his Son.

 

What does the verse say about God the Son?

What ideas come to our mind when we think of the response of the Son of God to being sent by his Father? One detail is certain, which is that he would not have objected to being sent by the Father. We know that is the case because there is constant harmony in the Godhead. Therefore he was willing to come.

 

How long was he willing to come? The answer to that question must be that he always was. We should not imagine that a moment came in heaven when the Father surprised his Son by making an unusual request. Instead, the Son had fully shared in all the details of the divine eternal plan.

 

Why was he willing to come? The answer to this question is the same as that to the question concerning why the Father sent him. The Son was willing to come and fulfil the Father’s will because he loved his Father and he loved his people. The will of the Father was the delight of the Son, even as expressed in Psalm 40 and quoted in Hebrews 10:5-7: ‘Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’” Like the Father, the eternal Son had eternal love for his people. They had been a gift to him from the Father, as Jesus stated in his prayer in John 17:6: ‘I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me.’

In what way was he to come? It is possible that the Son of God had appeared on earth during the Old Testament period. A good case can be made for saying that it was the Son who interacted directly with people on special occasions when the divine being called ‘the angel of the Lord’ addressed them. But none of those occasions were the same as the arrival that John has in mind in this text when he says that the Father sent the Son. The sending of the Father involved his Son assuming a human nature into union with his divine person, which took place when he was conceived in the womb of Mary.

 

There are different ways of considering the journey on which the Son was sent by the Father. We can see how it was a humble road that he went on when he became a man. Paul refers to that aspect in Philippians 2 when he says that the Son made himself of no reputation when he came into the world. Every reference to him in the Gospels reveals a humble person. In addition, we can see how it was a holy road that the Son went on because he never sinned during his journey. He never sinned inwardly, and he never sinned outwardly. In contrast to everyone else on earth, the Son of God lived a perfect human life. Every reference to him in the Gospels reveals a holy person.

 

The Father sent his Son to the womb of Mary, and after his birth in Bethlehem he sent his Son to live in Nazareth for about three decades. There he lived his humble and holy life. It was both part of and preparation for the destination that the Father had in mind when he sent him to be the propitiation for our sins. His perfect life was part of the solution to the lost state of his people. But then the Father led his Son to commence the three years of public ministry, which he did at his baptism. The three years were still part of and preparation for his destination, and during those three years he spoke increasingly about it. He knew that he was going to the cross and that there he would make propitiation for sins.

 

The place of propitiation was at Calvary, especially during the three hours of darkness when he bore the wrath of God against the sins of his people. It was an awful experience for him to see God in a different way, even although he had always known it was coming. Did you ever have the experience in school when your friend turned against you and no longer helped you? It did not mean that he or she had gone out of sight, but it did mean that he or she was no longer there for you. In a far deeper and infinitely more profound way the Son saw the Father who had sent him, who had gone with him even until that day, but now he was there in a different way. He was there in wrath, not against his Son, but in connection to what his Son was doing, paying the penalty. There was no other way for the penalty to be paid but by satisfying the demands of divine justice.

 

There are mysteries about the way that Jesus bore the unbearable punishment. We can imagine a man putting his hand into a fire to pull out his child who had wandered too close to it. But we cannot estimate the pain, either through the intensity of the love that the parent had, or the willingness of the parent to suffer in order to rescue the child. What words can describe them? Yet when the child is found to be free of damage, the parent does not regret the pain. In a greater way, at Calvary we are to focus on the intensity of the love of Jesus and his willingness to suffer, and also to recognise that he does not regret the pain now that his people are undamaged by the wrath.

 

What does the term say about the gospel?

The word ‘gospel’ means good news, and in order for it to be good news there must be a sad and dangerous situation to leave. We know that the gospel is offered to sinners. Often, and correctly, we connect the gospel to the love of God. Yet there is also a sense in which we must see the gospel as dealing with the wrath of God. The unconverted can be forgiven not only because the Father and the Son loved sinners, but also because the Father and the Son were willing to transact about and deal with the wrath of God and the penalty for sin.

 

The gospel says to such that they are to repent of their sins and trust in Jesus. Maybe they think that is too simple a way of dealing with it and that they should be asked to add a few good works to their faith. Such a notion is only an expression of self-righteousness and is one of the sins that caused Jesus to experience the wrath of God. The best place to repent and trust is at Calvary, but it depends on what time you go there. It is better to go after the darkness is past because you will know that the penalty has been paid.

 

What does the term say about his people?

We are constantly told about the value of knowing who we are. If we are Christians today, who are we? We can think of ourselves in the past eternity, and we discover that we were eternally loved by God. Or we can think of ourselves after we were born, growing up as sinners into adolescence and adulthood. We were still loved, but we were also children of wrath, as Paul reminded the Ephesians. Then we can think of ourselves after we came to believe in Jesus. We are still loved, but we are no longer under the wrath of God, because Jesus has paid the penalty. And we can think of ourselves in the future, living with the one who loved us and gave himself for us.

 

In Isaiah 12, God gives a song to his people to sing. It is a song of thanksgiving to the Lord who previously was angry with the believer. The believer knows that God turned his anger away to Someone else, and that instead of divine anger there is divine comfort. The comfort leads to confidence: ‘Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid.’ It also leads to celebration: ‘for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.’

 

Conclusion

Listen again to what John wrote: ‘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.’ He contrasts the love of believers with the love that led to propitiation. The combined love of believers is an awesome amount – years of devoted service, even martyrdom for some. Yet in comparison to what the loving Father sent the loving Son to perform, their love is small. Indeed although they were expressions of love, but because they were imperfect and marred by sin, they were part of the reasons why the Son of God had to suffer in the way that he did.  

 

Who is the God we worship today? How does he react at the moment to the world he has made? He is the God who out of his love sent his eternal Son to bear the divine wrath against sin. He is the God who is angry with sinners because of their sins. How does he respond to any who hear about the actions of his Son and refuse to believe in him? He is not indifferent to that. It is a great sin for a sinner to reject the way of salvation. But no matter how often you may have rejected it previously, you can accept the gospel offer today.