“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:10
“Propitiation” is defined as “the act of gaining or regaining the favor or goodwill of someone or something: to appease.”
An example for this would be like if a young child went and played at a friend’s house and while they were playing they accidentally broke something there. To show propitiation, the child’s parent would go and talk to the other child’s parent and make amends for what had happened. Maybe they paid the amount of the value of that item, or replaced it with the same thing. What that parent did was take the anger or responsibility off of their child, and dealt with it themselves.
In the book of Philemon, we read the letter that Paul wrote to Philemon and how Paul was trying to reconcile a servant that had left Philemon back to him. Here is what Paul wrote:
“I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds:
Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me:
Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels:
Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel:
But without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly.
For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him forever;
Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord?
If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself.
If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account;” Philemon 1:10-18
In this passage, Paul wrote to be the propitiation between these two men. Paul spoke to Philemon for Onesimus and made peace between the two of them, offering to repay whatever was owed to him, and asked Philemon to receive the servant back as he would have received Paul. He wanted to bring peace back in between the two.
That is what Jesus has done for us, and not just only us, but the entire world, and for everyone who has ever lived on this world. Like the child I used as an example above, we all have broken something. We all have broken the commandments of God, and are truly deserving of punishment. From the sin in the Garden of Eden until this present day, we all are sinners, and have all come short of the glory of God. But Jesus goes before the Father for us, and is our atonement.
“And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” 1 John 2:2
Starting back in the Old Testament, when a person sinned, it was commanded that they bring a sacrifice to be offered up to God. But the blood of those animals didn’t take away the sins of the people. They only covered them for a time. Until the time that Jesus came.
When Jesus came to the Earth, He offered us the power of forgiveness, and died on the cross to be the sacrifice for us. He became the propitiation, the atonement for all of our sins. He took our sins upon Himself at the cross, and offered us forgiveness.
Jesus is the peacemaker between us and the Father; He is the atonement for all of our sins, and without Him, we would all be lost, drowning in our sins. He is the Light, and without Jesus we would all stumble in the dark. Jesus is our propitiation, and it is only through Him can we be saved!
In Christ,
Andrew
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