Romans 3:21-26

Anyone who’s had a sibling, or has when they were a child, interacted on a school playground with other children, has either done this, or had it done to them: Kid A hurts Kid B, the one they’re playing with, either physically, or emotionally with nasty and forbidden language. As the hurt and offended child cries, the offender in a desperate attempt to satisfy and calm the offended for the foul deed, offers their own arm, “Don’t tell Mom/Dad! Here, you can hit me instead!”

The main point is that the indignation and anger of the offended child is spent so that the offender doesn’t have to face the Big Judge (Mom or Dad). In a small, sad and imperfect way, this vividly captures something of our topic today, which is that Jesus the innocent, stepped in and took the hit due us. As our substitute, Jesus’ vicarious, atoning death on the cross, in His own blood shed, propitiated, or satisfied and calmed the just wrath of our rightly offended God. In doing this, Jesus also in His body expiated, or bore away from us, the cause of of God’s offense – even our sins. As a result there is simply nothing to tell Dad! It’s as if no offensive wrong had taken place at all!

What is Propitiation? Propitiation is the biblical doctrine embodying the concept that the death of Christ fully satisfied the demands of a righteous God in respect to judgment upon the sinner. Thus God’s wrath and indignation at our wrongdoing is pacified.