Propitiation
Encyclopedia
Propitiation is appeasing or making well disposed (from Latin propitiāre, to appease, from propitius, gracious), especially a deity
, thus incurring divine favor or avoiding Divine retribution
.
, propitiation is accomplished through Jesus
Christ
on the cross
in his crucifixion or sacrifice. He is believed to have fulfilled the wrath and indignation of God. The crucifixion or sacrifice of Christ conciliates God, who would otherwise be offended by human sin and would demand penalty for it. The concept of propitiation is associated in some Christian theological systems with indemnity
, imputed righteousness
, and substitutionary atonement
.
Propitiation is translated from the Greek hilasterion, meaning "that which expiates or propitiates" or "the gift which procures propitiation". The word is also used in the New Testament for the place of propitiation, the "mercy seat". Hebrews 9:5. There is frequent similar use of hilasterion in the Septuagint, Exodus 25:18 ff. The mercy seat
was sprinkled with atoning blood on the Day of Atonement
(Leviticus 16:14), representing that the righteous sentence of the Law
had been executed, changing a judgment seat into a mercy seat (Hebrews 9:11-15; compare with "throne of grace" in Hebrews 4:14-16; place of communion, Exodus 25:21-22).
Another Greek word, hilasmos, is used for Christ
as our propitiation. 1 John 2:2; 4:10, and for "atonement" in the septuagint (Leviticus 25:9). The thought in the Old Testament sacrifices and in the New Testament fulfillment, is that Christ completely satisfied the just demands of a holy God for judgment on sin, by his death on the Cross of Calvary
.
God, in view of the cross, is declared righteous in having been able to forgive sins in the Old Testament
period, as well as in being able to justify sinners under the New Covenant
(Romans
3:25,26; cf. Exodus 29:33, note). Propitiation, as hilasmos, it is satisfying the perfect justice of a holy and righteous God; thereby making it possible for him to show complete mercy without compromising his righteousness or justice
, i.e., mercifully covering and paying for sins, as offenses against God to turn away his wrath and to allow for, but not to include, forgiveness. This is the key to understanding limited atonement
explained in 1 John 2:2 - Jesus Christ on the cross atoned for all sins of all who would believe.
The idea of propitiation includes that of expiation as its means, but the word "expiation" has no reference to quenching God’s righteous anger. The difference is that linguistically the object of expiation is sin, not God (that is, sin is removed, not God). Linguistically, one propitiates a person (makes them favorable), and one expiates a problem (removes it). Christ's death was therefore both an expiation and a propitiation. By expiating (removing the problem of) sin God was made propitious (favorable) to us.
The case for translating hilasterion as "expiation" instead of "propitiation" was put forward by C. H. Dodd
in 1935 and at first gained wide support. As a result, hilasterion has been translated as "expiation" in the RSV and other modern versions. Dodd argued that in pagan Greek the translation of hilasterion was indeed to propitiate, but that in the Septuagint (the oldest Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) that kapporeth (Hebrew for "atone") is often translated with words that mean "to cleanse or remove" (Dodd, "The Bible and the Greeks", p 93). This view was challenged by Leon Morris
who argued that because of the focus in the book of Romans on God's wrath, that the concept of hilasterion needed to include the appeasement of God's wrath (Morris, Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, p 155).
Theologians stress the idea of propitiation because it specifically addresses the aspect of the Atonement dealing with God's wrath. Critics of penal substitutionary atonement state that seeing the Atonement as appeasing God is a pagan idea that makes God seem tyrannical (tricken by God?, Eerdmans: 2007). In response to this theologians have traditionally stressed that propitiation should not be understood as appeasing or mollifying God in the sense of a bribe or of it making an angry God love us, because it is God who—both in the Old and New Testaments—provides the propitiation. "I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls" (Lev 17:11). God, out of his love and justice, renders God's self favorable by God's own action.
On this point proponents of penal substitution are virtually unanimous. John Stott
writes that propitiation "does not make God gracious...God does not love us because Christ died for us, Christ died for us because God loves us" (The Cross of Christ, p 174). John Calvin
, quoting Augustine from John's Gospel cx.6, writes, "Our being reconciled by the death of Christ must not be understood as if the Son reconciled us, in order that the Father, then hating, might begin to love us" (Institutes
, II:16:4).
However, as Barth (and later Moltmann) showed, propitiation and expiation are false categories when applied to the triune God: if God forgives us in and through Christ, then the cost has been borne by God in, as and through Christ. For God to propitiate himself is expiation; because expiation is always self-propitiation as it means the forgiver paying the debt (here, price of the sin) at his own expense. So Bonhoeffer reminded the theological world of the concept of Romans 4: grace is free, but it is not cheap. This is consistent with the use of hilasmos/hilasterion cognates in the NT: for example hilastheti in Luke 18:13, where there is no third party between the tax collector and God, and yet there is ‘propitiation’. (Interestingly, the tax collector “beats his own breast”, as an outward sign of his repentance and so, perhaps, he propitiates himself: bearing wrath (his own) and being made right (“dedikaiomenos”) by God.
as explained by Emanuel Swedenborg
, the concept of propitiation is directly related to personal repentance. "Expiation means the removal of the sins into which man would rush if Jehovah unclothed should be approached. Propitiation means the operation of clemency and grace to prevent man's bringing himself by sin into condemnation; also protection, to prevent him from profaning holiness. This was the signification of the mercy-seat over the ark in the tabernacle." "The pardon of sins, expiation, propitiation, and redemption, are also nothing else than purification from evils and falsities, the implantation of good and truth, and their conjunction, thus regeneration." "As regards "propitiating," this signifies purification from evils and the derivative falsities, or what is the same, their removal; and as "propitiating" and "expiating" have this signification, they also involve the implantation of good and truth, and the conjunction of both by the Lord. That these are involved is because insofar as a man is purified from evils and falsities, so far good and truth are implanted and conjoined by the Lord. Wherefore the one being assumed, the other also is assumed, for the Lord is present with every man with the good of love, because He loves all, and from love wills to conjoin them with Himself, which is effected through the good of love and the truth of faith; but the evils and their falsities which a man appropriates to himself by a life of evil, stand in the way, and hinder the influx. From this it is evident what is meant by propitiation and expiation."
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
, thus incurring divine favor or avoiding Divine retribution
Divine retribution
Divine retribution is supernatural punishment of a person, a group of people, or all humanity by a deity in response to some human action.Many cultures have a story about how a deity exacted punishment on previous inhabitants of their land, causing their doom.An example of divine retribution is the...
.
Christian theology
In Christian theologyChristian theology
- Divisions of Christian theology :There are many methods of categorizing different approaches to Christian theology. For a historical analysis, see the main article on the History of Christian theology.- Sub-disciplines :...
, propitiation is accomplished through Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
on the cross
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
in his crucifixion or sacrifice. He is believed to have fulfilled the wrath and indignation of God. The crucifixion or sacrifice of Christ conciliates God, who would otherwise be offended by human sin and would demand penalty for it. The concept of propitiation is associated in some Christian theological systems with indemnity
Indemnity
An indemnity is a sum paid by A to B by way of compensation for a particular loss suffered by B. The indemnitor may or may not be responsible for the loss suffered by the indemnitee...
, imputed righteousness
Imputed righteousness
Imputed righteousness is a concept in Christian theology that proposes that the "righteousness of Christ ... is imputed to [believers] — that is, treated as if it were theirs through faith." It is on the basis of this "alien"...
, and substitutionary atonement
Substitutionary atonement
Technically speaking, substitutionary atonement is the name given to a number of Christian models of the atonement that all regard Jesus as dying as a substitute for others, "instead of" them...
.
Propitiation is translated from the Greek hilasterion, meaning "that which expiates or propitiates" or "the gift which procures propitiation". The word is also used in the New Testament for the place of propitiation, the "mercy seat". Hebrews 9:5. There is frequent similar use of hilasterion in the Septuagint, Exodus 25:18 ff. The mercy seat
Mercy seat
According to the Bible, the mercy seat was an object which rested upon the Ark of the Covenant, and was connected with the rituals of Yom Kippur; the term also appears in the Pauline Epistles, and has a significance in Christian theology...
was sprinkled with atoning blood on the Day of Atonement
Day of Atonement
Day of Atonement may refer to:*Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement* Day of Atonement , a national day established in 1995 by the Nation of Islam...
(Leviticus 16:14), representing that the righteous sentence of the Law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
had been executed, changing a judgment seat into a mercy seat (Hebrews 9:11-15; compare with "throne of grace" in Hebrews 4:14-16; place of communion, Exodus 25:21-22).
Another Greek word, hilasmos, is used for Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
as our propitiation. 1 John 2:2; 4:10, and for "atonement" in the septuagint (Leviticus 25:9). The thought in the Old Testament sacrifices and in the New Testament fulfillment, is that Christ completely satisfied the just demands of a holy God for judgment on sin, by his death on the Cross of Calvary
Crucifixion of Jesus
The crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...
.
God, in view of the cross, is declared righteous in having been able to forgive sins in the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
period, as well as in being able to justify sinners under the New Covenant
New Covenant
The New Covenant is a concept originally derived from the Hebrew Bible. The term "New Covenant" is used in the Bible to refer to an epochal relationship of restoration and peace following a period of trial and judgment...
(Romans
Epistle to the Romans
The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, often shortened to Romans, is the sixth book in the New Testament. Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by the Apostle Paul to explain that Salvation is offered through the Gospel of Jesus Christ...
3:25,26; cf. Exodus 29:33, note). Propitiation, as hilasmos, it is satisfying the perfect justice of a holy and righteous God; thereby making it possible for him to show complete mercy without compromising his righteousness or justice
Justice
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
, i.e., mercifully covering and paying for sins, as offenses against God to turn away his wrath and to allow for, but not to include, forgiveness. This is the key to understanding limited atonement
Limited atonement
Limited atonement is a doctrine in Christian theology which is particularly associated with the Reformed tradition and is one of the five points of Calvinism...
explained in 1 John 2:2 - Jesus Christ on the cross atoned for all sins of all who would believe.
Propitiation and expiation
The Greek word hilasterion is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew kapporeth which refers to the Mercy Seat of the Ark. Hilasterion can be translated as either "propitiation" or "expiation" which then imply different functions of the Mercy Seat. The English dictionary definition of "propitiation" literally means to make favorable and specifically includes the idea of dealing with God’s wrath against sinners. Expiation literally means to make pious and implies either the removal or cleansing of sin.The idea of propitiation includes that of expiation as its means, but the word "expiation" has no reference to quenching God’s righteous anger. The difference is that linguistically the object of expiation is sin, not God (that is, sin is removed, not God). Linguistically, one propitiates a person (makes them favorable), and one expiates a problem (removes it). Christ's death was therefore both an expiation and a propitiation. By expiating (removing the problem of) sin God was made propitious (favorable) to us.
The case for translating hilasterion as "expiation" instead of "propitiation" was put forward by C. H. Dodd
C. H. Dodd
Charles Harold Dodd was a Welsh New Testament scholar and influential Protestant theologian.He is known for promoting "realized eschatology", the belief that Jesus' references to the kingdom of God meant a present reality rather than a future apocalypse.-Life:Dodd was born in Wrexham,...
in 1935 and at first gained wide support. As a result, hilasterion has been translated as "expiation" in the RSV and other modern versions. Dodd argued that in pagan Greek the translation of hilasterion was indeed to propitiate, but that in the Septuagint (the oldest Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) that kapporeth (Hebrew for "atone") is often translated with words that mean "to cleanse or remove" (Dodd, "The Bible and the Greeks", p 93). This view was challenged by Leon Morris
Leon Morris
Leon Lamb Morris was an Australian New Testament scholar.Born in Lithgow, New South Wales, Morris was ordained to the Anglican ministry in 1938. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in England on the subject which became his first major book, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross...
who argued that because of the focus in the book of Romans on God's wrath, that the concept of hilasterion needed to include the appeasement of God's wrath (Morris, Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, p 155).
Theologians stress the idea of propitiation because it specifically addresses the aspect of the Atonement dealing with God's wrath. Critics of penal substitutionary atonement state that seeing the Atonement as appeasing God is a pagan idea that makes God seem tyrannical (tricken by God?, Eerdmans: 2007). In response to this theologians have traditionally stressed that propitiation should not be understood as appeasing or mollifying God in the sense of a bribe or of it making an angry God love us, because it is God who—both in the Old and New Testaments—provides the propitiation. "I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls" (Lev 17:11). God, out of his love and justice, renders God's self favorable by God's own action.
On this point proponents of penal substitution are virtually unanimous. John Stott
John Stott
John Robert Walmsley Stott CBE was an English Christian leader and Anglican cleric who was noted as a leader of the worldwide Evangelical movement. He was one of the principal authors of the Lausanne Covenant in 1974...
writes that propitiation "does not make God gracious...God does not love us because Christ died for us, Christ died for us because God loves us" (The Cross of Christ, p 174). John Calvin
John Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...
, quoting Augustine from John's Gospel cx.6, writes, "Our being reconciled by the death of Christ must not be understood as if the Son reconciled us, in order that the Father, then hating, might begin to love us" (Institutes
Institutes of the Christian Religion
The Institutes of the Christian Religion is John Calvin's seminal work on Protestant systematic theology...
, II:16:4).
However, as Barth (and later Moltmann) showed, propitiation and expiation are false categories when applied to the triune God: if God forgives us in and through Christ, then the cost has been borne by God in, as and through Christ. For God to propitiate himself is expiation; because expiation is always self-propitiation as it means the forgiver paying the debt (here, price of the sin) at his own expense. So Bonhoeffer reminded the theological world of the concept of Romans 4: grace is free, but it is not cheap. This is consistent with the use of hilasmos/hilasterion cognates in the NT: for example hilastheti in Luke 18:13, where there is no third party between the tax collector and God, and yet there is ‘propitiation’. (Interestingly, the tax collector “beats his own breast”, as an outward sign of his repentance and so, perhaps, he propitiates himself: bearing wrath (his own) and being made right (“dedikaiomenos”) by God.
New Church (Emanuel Swedenborg)
According to the doctrine of The New ChurchThe New Church
The New Church is the name for a New religious movement developed from the writings of the Swedish scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg . Swedenborg claimed to have received a new revelation from Jesus Christ through continuous heavenly visions which he experienced over a period of at least...
as explained by Emanuel Swedenborg
Emanuel Swedenborg
was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, and theologian. He has been termed a Christian mystic by some sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica online version, and the Encyclopedia of Religion , which starts its article with the description that he was a "Swedish scientist and mystic." Others...
, the concept of propitiation is directly related to personal repentance. "Expiation means the removal of the sins into which man would rush if Jehovah unclothed should be approached. Propitiation means the operation of clemency and grace to prevent man's bringing himself by sin into condemnation; also protection, to prevent him from profaning holiness. This was the signification of the mercy-seat over the ark in the tabernacle." "The pardon of sins, expiation, propitiation, and redemption, are also nothing else than purification from evils and falsities, the implantation of good and truth, and their conjunction, thus regeneration." "As regards "propitiating," this signifies purification from evils and the derivative falsities, or what is the same, their removal; and as "propitiating" and "expiating" have this signification, they also involve the implantation of good and truth, and the conjunction of both by the Lord. That these are involved is because insofar as a man is purified from evils and falsities, so far good and truth are implanted and conjoined by the Lord. Wherefore the one being assumed, the other also is assumed, for the Lord is present with every man with the good of love, because He loves all, and from love wills to conjoin them with Himself, which is effected through the good of love and the truth of faith; but the evils and their falsities which a man appropriates to himself by a life of evil, stand in the way, and hinder the influx. From this it is evident what is meant by propitiation and expiation."
See also
- Atonement in Christianity
- Atonement in JudaismAtonement in JudaismAtonement in Judaism is the process of causing a transgression to be forgiven or pardoned.- In Rabbinic Judaism :In Rabbinic Judaism, atonement is achieved through some combination of*repentance*Temple service Atonement in Judaism is the process of causing a transgression to be forgiven or...
- Justification (theology)Justification (theology)Rising out of the Protestant Reformation, Justification is the chief article of faith describing God's act of declaring or making a sinner righteous through Christ's atoning sacrifice....
- Penal substitutionPenal substitutionPenal substitution is a theory of the atonement within Christian theology, developed with the Reformed tradition. It argues that Christ, by his own sacrificial choice, was punished in the place of sinners , thus satisfying the demands of justice so God can justly forgive the sins...
- Substitutionary atonementSubstitutionary atonementTechnically speaking, substitutionary atonement is the name given to a number of Christian models of the atonement that all regard Jesus as dying as a substitute for others, "instead of" them...