propitiation

[jckstraw72]

so when it says Christ is our propitiation for sins how do we explain that without it meaning His sacrifice is appeasing to God, since we don't believe that God had this great wrath that needed to be appeased? i looked up propitiate and it says it means to placate or appease basically. im trying to respond to a friend from a Reformed background who is hung up on our differences in understanding of redemption. thanks ya'll.

for instance 1 John 2:2 ... and John 3:36 while we're at it.

[buzuxi02]

The greek hilasmos (propitiation) means reconcilliation. Reconcilliation is a better translation for this word as found in 1 Jn 2.2, 4.10.

In Jn 3.36 two conditions are being contrasted , "He who believes in the Son of Man" and "He who does not". This is the same parellel as in Rom 1.17-18. In those verses "The righteous of God is revealed" is contrasted with (v18) "For the wrath of God is revealed".

The wrath of God basically means the judgment of God. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life but he who does not , has not life but the wrath(Judgement) of God.

In Rom 1.17 the Fathers saw a parallel with Habakuk 2.4. Blessed Theophylact says, "God's righteousness saves us, not our own."
St John Chrysostom writes, "And having said from "faith to faith" he sends the hearers back to the dispensations of God which took place in the OT... And bringing in Habakuk... he is speaking of the life to come."

On Rom 1.18 it says ,"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and Unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness". St John Chrysostom interprets this "wrath of God coming from heaven" in the following manner, "And yet even now this often occurs as in famines and pestilences and wars, for just as with the individual all in common are punished. What then shall be the new thing? That the chastisement will be greater and common to all, and not by the same rules. For now indeed what takes place is for correction, but then for punishment."

[ClementofRome]

so when it says Christ is our propitiation for sins how do we explain that without it meaning His sacrifice is appeasing to God, since we don't believe that God had this great wrath that needed to be appeased? i looked up propitiate and it says it means to placate or appease basically. im trying to respond to a friend from a Reformed background who is hung up on our differences in understanding of redemption. thanks ya'll.

for instance 1 John 2:2 ... and John 3:36 while we're at it.

I have had this same question....esp. since the same word is being used in Lev. 16 with reference to yom kippur and the sacrifice of the two lambs. One lamb receives the punishment and the other is driven away, it seems. If Paul is drawing upon Lev 16 in his use of hilastarion in Rom 3.....the parallel is striking.

[tekiahteruah]

Well, I mean, I think it's somewhat indisputable that the biblical writers do use the sacrificial metaphor (even in the sense of the scapegoat that takes on our punishment for us) in their explanations of Jesus's mission. The thing is that one has to take this along with the other models that the biblical writers use. Most people who hold to substitutionary atonement read the Bible like this: when they see a comment about Jesus that refers to him taking the punishment for us, they take it literally, but when they see a comment about Jesus's death that uses a different model/metaphor, they take it figuratively. Why? This is the problem with sola scriptura: everyone comes to the Bible with their own ready-made methods of interpretation.