Why Call Christ The Propitiation?

I trust that you prayed the LORD's prayer again this day. The fifth petition (Matt. 6:12) speaks about forgiveness. Most of us still pray it in its old English form:

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. 

But search as you will and you will not find that prayer anywhere in any of the translations of the Bible. So where'd we get that anyway? All the major translations (ESV,ASV,NASV,NRSV,KJV, NJ) read: our debts . . . our debtors. Not a single one has the word trespasses. How then did we get started with trespasses rather than debts? The answer: The Tyndale Bible (1526), a translation followed by the Book of Common Prayer (1549).  But all the English translations from the King James Version (1611) onward followed the Greek text to translate this petition as Forgive us our debts.

Let's take a look at the idea of debt and forgiveness of debts. 

In the third chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans we read about the insurmountable debt we all have piled up before God. Quoting Psalm 14:1-3, Paul writes,

"None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." - Rom 3:10-12 ESV

I recently counseled with a lady who said that she owed something like $40,000 in credit card debt. She said she was trying to pay it off, but did not have the means. Because of the insurmountable interest, reaching as high as 29%, her debt keeps growing and growing each month even though she tries to pay it down as best she can. This frightening reality has trapped many who rely upon credit cards. It is the dreadful manner by which the banks behind those cards make so much. And it is all quite legal.

This compares to what the Bible points toward. We simply cannot and never will be able to pay our debts to God. Our accounts are not and cannot be reconciled. The debt continues to mount daily.

But here comes Jesus Christ to redeem us. The image is that of paying a ransom to set hostages or prisoners free. Paul also calls him the propitiation.

(we) are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 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. - Rom 3:24-25 ESV

No one ever uses that strange word propitiation any longer and it cannot be understood without some background from the Old Testament.

God commanded His people to create the Ark of the Covenant during the time of the Exodus from Egypt to the Holy Land (Exodus 25:10-28). Within the Ark they placed the golden pot of manna, Aaron’s almond rod, and the tables of stone inscribed with the ten commandments. The lid on top of the ark was called the “Mercy-seat” (propitiation). The ark was placed in that inner room of the traveling tabernacle, called the “Holy of holies.”

Symbolically, the Mercy-seat (propitiation) concealed  from the Lord’s view the commandments of the law. Looking down upon the Mercy-seat He could not see, if you will, the commandments the people had broken. Each year, on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:1-34; 23:23-32), the high priest entered the Holy of holies and sprinkled blood on the Mercy-seat. The blood of the sacrifice covered over their sins and indicated that mercy and forgiveness were available because of the death of the animal.

The Ark of the Covenant 

The writer to the Hebrews explains what this ritual pointed forward to. He points out that the way to the holy places, into the presence of God, was blocked. That is a symbol or a parable, a picture-story, for this present age. According to this parable all the sacrifices and gifts ultimately did not and could not pay the debt we and all men owe to God (Hebrews 9:1-10). They only pointed forward.

But now Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, has come as both the high priest and the sacrifice. He is the unblemished (Deut. 17:1) Lamb of God (John 1:29) whose blood was shed once and for all mankind (Romans 6:10). So the time of sacrifices came to an end and Christ has become the Mercy-seat (propitiation) for all as Paul said. 

Christ Jesus, 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. - Rom 3:25 ESV

 So we may confidently pray in faith, "Forgive us our debts . . . " 

But what follows from that? More on that tomorrow.

Our Daily Prayer: Thy Will Be Done

It disturbs me to realize that my will is often opposed to God's will. Even the great Apostle Paul wrote in deepest humility about this fact as he said,

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? - Rom 7:15-24 ESV

Find it to be a law? Always? Captive to the law of sin in my members? How can this be?

There are those among us Christians who claim to have conquered sin. They claim to be holy. Among Protestants this movement and set of convictions can be traced back over a hundred years to John Wesley, founder of Methodism, who called for Christian perfection. When you examine the teachings of holiness churches today it is not unusual to see statements such as these:

We believe In the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a holy life.

Likewise among Roman Catholics there is still the cult of saints, the belief that some Christians have attained to such Christian perfection in their walk with Christ that they may be called holy and without sin. They are the heroes of faith, if you will. Thus it is appropriate to ask these heroes to help us, assuming that they have special influence with the heavenly Father. And for their sakes, the Father intervenes, sometimes in a miraculous manner, bypassing the usual laws of nature.

Both ways of thinking are quite dangerous ways of approaching the Christian life. More needs to be said about these dangers another time.

For today we return to the LORD's prayer,

Our Father in heaven . . . Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven? 

Are we also not praying that He fill us with His Spirit and grant us the power and strength to submit our wills to His in all things? Are we not praying that He empower us to be holy, even as He is holy? And does He not hear our prayers? Indeed we are and indeed He does answer prayer. Do the so-called Catholic saints know what we do not? Do the holiness Christians have insights that we have overlooked?

Return to what Paul says to us: "I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand." This is what Paul means by the flesh that still dwelled within him and dwells within each of us even after the Holy Spirit has come to make His home within and give us a new birth in Christ Jesus (John 3:3-6). The Spirit empowers us to say yes! to Christ and to His sacrifice for us, but . . . the flesh remains. And within that sinful flesh there is ever the desire to reject the will of God and seek my own instead. Paul warns about this as he writes,

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. - Gal 6:7-9 ESV

We hear that Word. We ponder it in our prayers. And we strive to do good, believing that sowing to the Spirit will ultimately reap eternal life. But, but, but we fail again and again.

At that point it is ever and always important to remember that our good is good only because God is gracious and merciful in Christ, for none of our good is, in the strict sense of the term ever good! Even our so-called good deeds are infected by the imperfection of our sinful flesh. So Paul reminds us when he says,

"For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what  I keep on doing." 

This is why the entire life of us Christians is hidden in Christ, as Paul says,

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. - Col 3:3 ESV

And this is why we flee again and again to the truth given to us in Christ as taught by John,

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. - 1Jo 2:1-2 ESV

John knew himself. He knew us. Through his writing the Spirit warns that the flesh remains and that we will not be perfected until Christ returns to grant us a new body like His (Phil. 3:20-21). Hidden fleshly desires, ambitions and unbelief remain within even the most dedicated. Aware of the power of this law of sin that ever wages war with our reborn life in Christ, we return each and every day to our Baptism and to the wonder of what that means. Each day we remember that Christ and Christ alone is the complete and full atonement for all of our sins (1 John 2:1-2). When He died and was buried, we were buried with Him. And so we are certain that we who died with Him will be united with Him in the resurrection from the dead. In that faith we rise again each day to give battle to the sin that remains within us and in the world around us. And in that faith we find confidence, victory and hope in this day, as Paul also teaches,

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. - Rom 8:1-2 ESV

Begin each day then in peace and hope. Put your life into the hands of Jesus and live that day in the joy of your Baptism and under the guiding of His Spirit within. Tomorrow is in His hands.