Propitiation Romans 3:25-26 1-5-08
Today Lord willing we’re going to talk for a little while about “propitiation”
1st of all let me tell us just exactly what “propitiation” is. It’s a big bible word that means, ~ the act of appeasing the wrath of God by offering an appropriate sacrifice,
In other words, Jesus Christ is the only Sacrifice that God will except in order to pay for our sins, and satisfies Gods demand for an acceptable means of removing His wrath toward lost sinners, Jesus Christ and the shedding of His precious Blood as the one and only satisfying payment on our behalf.
Romans 3:25-26 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
And we find in 1 John 2:2 “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
And in 1 John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
Ø Here are some facts about this great doctrine and pillar of our faith.
1st of all Propitiation Satisfies God’s Justice:
propitiation means a covering for the sins of men and carries the idea of complete satisfaction for our offenses. In our society we have a set of standards, which we call the law of the land.
When one of these laws is broken we have a judicial system that requires vindication for the crimes committed, and that we refer to as justice. A judge cannot look at the evidence, and realize that 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.
And like wise God’s justice is the same, only He treats all sin and sinners alike. God’s justice must be vindicated. The penalty for breaking His laws must be satisfied, and death is that penalty which God’s justice demands.
Romans 6:23 23For the wages of sin is death; --
And Gods justice will accept no other. As guilty lawbreakers we cannot do anything to correct our wrong, and because God does love us He wants to declare us forgiven and free from the penalty of our sin, but He cannot do so unless the demands of justice are met.
What we need to realize is that our Great God is Holy and because He is Holy He cannot tolerate sin, there will be no sinners in heaven, now all that will be there were lost sinners before we were saved, but because the Lord Jesus paid our sin debt and we gladly received Him as our Lord and Savior, He became the propitiation for our sins and at that time we’ll be spotless from all sin. But until then we need to ask God to forgive us of our daily sins, not to save us again.
There are sins of omission, and there are sins of commission.
Solomon said in Proverbs 24:9 The thought of foolishness is sin:
James said in James 4:17 therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
Jesus told His disciples in LK.11: as He gave them the model prayer,
LK. 11: 1- 4 And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. 2And he said unto them, “When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. 3Give us day by day our daily bread. 4And forgive us our sins;-- ”
And let me remind us that the Apostle Paul said twice in Romans 7: that it was sin that dwelt in him.
Rom.7: 17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me-
Rom.7: 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
You and I will have problems with our sinful nature as long as we remain in these natural bodies.
1 Corinthians 15: 57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We still have this old Adamic nature and will have until we receive our glorified bodies.
We are at this present time sinners saved by grace, make no mistake dear heart just because we’re saved don’t mean that we never sin.
All of us still sin, but the damming sin has been removed from us because Jesus is our propitiation.
The bible still says that the wages of sin is death and so there must be death. It is that death that is under consideration in this matter of propitiation. According to Romans 3:25 it was God who provided propitiation, and that propitiation was through nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Leviticus 16. In the Old Testament, the word propitiation is used in the sense of atonement. It has to do with the act of getting rid of sin that has come between God and man.
In Leviticus 16 we read the instructions for the annual Day of Atonement. After Aaron the 1st high priest took care of his personal sin, two goats came into consideration: one for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. You might say that one was for the Lord and the other was for the people. It is this goat that was for the Lord that has to do with propitiation.
Leviticus 16:15-19. 15Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat: 16And he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness.
17And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth in to make an atonement in the holy place, until he come out, and have made an atonement for himself, and for his household, and for all the congregation of Israel. 18And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the LORD, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about. 19And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.
And so Aaron took the blood and sprinkled it upon the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat. But below that lid or the mercy seat was the box that contained the Ten Commandments, which were representative of all the Law. This Law condemned the people.
Remember that without the mercy seat, this box was an Ark of Judgment. It judged the people as sinners and guilty. These tablets reveled that the people had violated the commands of God.
But on the Day of Atonement the High Priest stood before God’s judgment representing the people, sprinkling the sacrificial blood on the mercy seat. The blood came between the violated law and the violators, the people of Israel.
This is a beautiful picture of the blood of Jesus Christ, which was offered for us.
There was God in perfect righteousness and holiness before a sinful humanity.
In his sin man stood condemned. God’s justice required it. But the blood of Jesus satisfied the just requirements of God’s holy law which mankind broke, His Blood paid the penalty for man, and there by removed the guilt and penalty for sin which had separated a Holy God and sinful man.
Isaiah explained it perfectly in Isaiah 53:10-11 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul and offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.”
When God saw the travail of Jesus Christ on Calvary He was satisfied – that is, the requirements that His justice demanded were fully satisfied.
2nd cor.5: 21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
JEHOVAH made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin,” and “expressed his love toward us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died in our place.” God’s justice demanded death, and Jesus died that death for us.
In Romans 3:25, Paul said that God set forth Jesus Christ to be propitiation through faith in his blood,
We’ve all heard it said from time to time that God sent Jesus to die because He loved us, and He certainly did that.
But that’s not the only reason God sent Jesus to die. Verse 25 says that He sent Him to be a propitiation “to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.”
Some might think of God’s punishment of sin as a deterrent against further sinning. We might even think of hell in that way, as though hell is a place we don’t want to go and therefore should cause us to get right with God.
And there certainly is truth in that, but that is not the primary purposes of punishment and hell. The primary reason is so God will be glorified in the universe that he created.
It had always been in the foreknowledge of God that He would one day send Jesus to pay the sin debt, it was not a last minute idea, God has a plan and His plan is exactly on track.
1 Peter 1: 20-21 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 21Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. The cross was just as clear to Him before it happened as it is now after it happened.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior of all mankind, O.T. and N.T both.
Every animal sacrifice that was ever offered was a picture and type of The Lamb of God that was to come,
God placed all mankinds sin on His Only Begotten Son. from Adam to the last one to be saved in the Tribulation.
Did you ever think about it? God could have demonstrated His righteousness another way, He could have punished sin on the spot and still be rightous, but in His infinite wisdom He demonstrated that not only could He be righteous, but that He could be merciful to us as well.
But dear heart He could not be merciful to us unless the penalty for our sins was paid. As Jesus bore the guilt of our sins alone, God the Father poured out on Jesus the fury of his wrath.
For us Jesus became the object of the intense hatred of sin and vengeance against sin, which God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world.
God had not forgiven our sin and treat it as though nothing had ever happened. He forgave our sins because His righteous anger had been satisfied for the entire world to see on Calvary. Sin was paid for, not condoned, and sin was paid for by the righteousness of God.
Jesus Christ is the propitiation of our sins.
