What is Propitiation and Why is it Important?

One important word Bible scholars use about the work of Christ on the cross is “propitiation,” which means “to win back the favor of someone by doing something that pleases them.” Jesus’s death on the cross won back the favor of an angry God. Here are the verses that mention the propitiation of God:

…whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. (Romans 3:25)

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17)

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world…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. (1 John 2:2; 4:10)

The Bible teaches that, somehow, some way, God was propitiated. Does that mean God is an angry old man we have to make offerings to so he won’t be mad at us? Do we have to bribe God into letting us into heaven? To understand the biblical concept of propitiation, we need to understand some basics. 

First, we should ponder the holiness of God. God is perfectly pure and righteous. Sin is the opposite of purity and righteousness, and it cannot be in God’s presence. That means no one who has sinned can be in God’s presence.

Second, we need to recognize the seriousness of our sins. We’ve all sinned (Romans 3:23). We’ve each written our declaration of independence from God by going our own way, doing our own thing, and ignoring what God wants. Sin is open rebellion against God. It can’t be more serious than that.

Third, we must accept the truth of the wrath of God (Romans 1:18). No one likes to talk about our sins, but even less do we like talking about God’s wrath. It is, however, completely logical. God is a holy God. Sin is not compatible with holiness, and so it angers God.

We like this about God when someone wrongs us. If someone steals from you or hurts someone you love, you instinctively know that they’ve angered God and should be punished. Admit it — sometimes you even think you’d enjoy seeing them stand before God with their guilt.

We don’t like it so much when we’re in the wrong. When someone cuts you off in traffic, you want God to hurl a lightning bolt down on them. But if you get a speeding ticket for going five miles over the speed limit, that’s somehow unfair. We have a warped understanding of God’s anger because we think of his anger as being like ours, and our anger is often sinful.

God’s anger isn’t like our anger. It isn’t arbitrary. It isn’t selfish. We sometimes get angry when our pride is wounded or someone offends us. We might even fly off the handle for no reason at all. That’s sinful anger. 

The anger of God is nothing like that. His wrath is a result of his holiness. God hates evil. He gets angry at any evil thing that destroys what he loves. He loves us, and he knows that sin destroys us. So his anger burns against sin. 

We must understand both the holiness of God and the seriousness of our sins. If we only think of sin as a “mistake” instead of open, evil rebellion, or if we think of God as a sweet old man up in heaven who’s full of love and maybe a little out of touch with today’s world, we’ll never understand the cross. But when we do understand both holiness and sin, we can finally comprehend the need for the cross and how earth-shattering it was. We can finally understand propitiation. 

For us to have any kind of relationship with God, his wrath against our sin had to be overcome. There is nothing we can do to be made right with him. We can’t bribe God into forgiveness. We can’t overcome our sins by doing enough good things. 

But — God loves us!

Propitiation shows us how much he loves us. God did it all. That’s what Romans 3:25 above means by the words, “God put forward.” God took the initiative in appeasing his righteous anger against sin. We were stuck in our sin and under God’s wrath, but God’s love for us is so great that he was willing to offer his own Son to appease his wrath.

Was all of this necessary? It wasn’t necessary for God to save anyone at all. It would have been perfectly just for God to allow us to suffer the penalty for our sins. But God loves us, so he provided a way for us. 

If we’re going to overcome God’s wrath, it’s only going to be through his grace. Our sin caused God’s wrath.

His wrath needed to be propitiated. His love did the propitiating. And God himself, in the person of God the Son, gave his life as the propitiation.

When Jesus died, the way opened for our sin and separation from God to be overcome. He didn’t simply declare us to be guilt-free. God’s holiness and our sin were each far too great for that. That would have gone completely against God’s character as a perfectly holy and just God. 

No, our sin had to be punished, and it was. God the Son paid the penalty for us. Jesus stood in our place. The wrath of God against all the sin of all people who had ever lived or would ever live was unleashed on Jesus, and our Savior accepted it all. For you.

God is holy, and sin cannot be in his presence. Jesus paid the penalty for my sin and your sin, and we are freed from it’s curse. God’s wrath against your sin was propitiated, you have been cleansed. And God now sees you not as a sinner but as his child.

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