Thought Quotient

This may sound like a ‘five dollar word’, but after reading the fourth paragraph below, we realize its meaning is worth a lot more than that…

PROPITIATION (pro-pish’i-a’shun). This is one of the semi-technical Biblical words which designate the Atonement, q.v. The English word “propitiation” is of Latin derivation, and signifies an objective “provision” for “pity,” or mercy. This accurately translates the Greek word hilasterion (Rom. 3:25; Heb. 9:5. In Luke 18:13 and Heb. 2:17 a similar verb is used, and in I John 2:2; 4:10 a similar noun). Hilasterion in turn translates the Hebrew kipporeth, mercy seat, or the objective place of mercy, often referred to in the Pentateuch.

The NT committee of translators substituted “expiation” for “propitiation” in Romans 3:25 in the RSV, specifically because they would not admit an objective element in the atonement. (See the testimony of Rev. Joseph Bayly in S. S. Times for June 4, 1946, p. 194.) Although few English readers recognize the difference, “expiation” is more suggestive of a mere votive offering to gain favor, and substituting it for “propitiation” in Romans 3:25 opens the way to interpret that passage as though the atonement were a persuasive inducement offered to man, and not to God. In this translation both the lexicography of the word and the hermeneutics of the passage are violated. (See the significance of the noun ending “-terion” in A. T. Robertson’s large Grammar, pp. 154, 157, 157n; and in Goodwin and Gulick Greek Grammar, p. 829.)

That the meaning of hilasterion (propitiation) in Romans 3:25 is “an objective provision for mercy,” is borne out by the context. In vs. 24 we are said to be “justified by the apolytrosis (’liberation procured by the payment of a ransom’ [Thayer]) which is in Christ Jesus.” This can only mean that our account, as sinners, before a holy God, is objectively settled. In vs. 26, this “propitiation … by His [Christ’s] blood,” his “vindication of His [God’s] righteousness,” is said to be directed to the purpose “that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” In other words, the propitiation by the blood of Christ vindicates God’s holy character as He justifies the sinner.

Without the propitiation, God would be saying, “Sin may be ignored.” With the propitiation in the blood of Christ, God is saying “This is what your sin cost me, and I bore it in my Son, as I justified you.”

In the OT ritual the climax of all is the sprinkling of blood on the “mercy seat” in the holy of holies on the day of atonement. How eminently appropriate that the LXX translators should use for this word “provision for (or place of) mercy,” hilasterion, with which Paul later set forth the objective significance of the atonement of Christ! - James Oliver Buswell, Jr.

Tags: Theology

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