In our OT lexical study we examined kipper and kopher and demonstrated that the meaning of these words is the propitiation of God’s wrath. The Greek word group of hilaskomai, which is the most used Greek word in the LXX and the NT for the kipper word group, also contains the meaning of appeasing God’s wrath rather than expiating of sin.
Four primary sources were consulted: Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, BDAG (Third Edition), New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Abridged Edition), and Leon Morris’ The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross.
BDAG
BDAG gave definitions of the different cognates but in none of the definitions was the propitiation meaning advocated. For example, in defining hilastarion in Romans 3:25 BDAG states that the translation should be: “whom God set forth as a means of expiation.” The meaning of the statement according to BDAG is: “the initiative taken by God to effect removal of impediments to a relationship with God’s self.” There are no references in BDAG to God’s wrath being propitiated.
I want to repeat Vern Poythress’ warning that lexicons can fail in their primary purpose which is to report “to the professional as accurately as possible the semantic senses within the ancient setting.” He issues a warning in his article in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. The title of the article is “How Have Inclusiveness and Tolerance Affected the Bauer-Dander Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (BDAG)?” Poythress argues that BDAG, Third Edition (Poythress notes that this accommodating translation philosophy was not true of the first and second edition) allowed the desire for political correctness to influence its accuracy in interpreting and translating some loaded words. What BDAG does with “father” and “brother” it has also done with atonement words. BDAG, according to Poythress, yielded to cultural pressure and gave up accuracy.
The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
In the exhaustive treatment of hilastarion, the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament argues against propitiation in favor of expiation. What is admitted is that these words previously had the meaning of propitiation, as in the time of Homer, but later lost this meaning: “The most striking thing about the development of the terms, however, is that words which were originally used to denote man’s action in relation to God cease to be used in this way in the NT and are used instead of God’s action in relation to man.” For example, Friedrich Buchsel wrote for the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament concerning the NT usage of hilasmos in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10: “hilasmos does not imply the propitiation of God.”
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Abridged Edition)
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Abridged Edition) strongly defends the propitiation view of the hilastarion word group. The NIDNTT, formerly titled The NIV Theological Dictionary of New Testament Words, is an abridgment of the multi-volume New International Dictionary of New Testament edited by Colin Brown. In the newer abridgment, editor Verlyn D. Verbrugge acknowledges that he removed some German articles so that this abridgment could present “a thorough evangelical perspective.”
First, NIDNTT confirms that classical Greek and the LXX contained the meaning of propitiation of gods’ or God’s wrath. “The LXX uses hilasmos (10x) to translate derivatives of the Heb. vb. Kipper (piel), to cover over, pacify, propitiate, which describe the process of propitiation.”
Then NIDNTT moves to the NT meaning of the four words in this group. The word hileos is used only twice and does not have the meaning of propitiation.
The next word used in the LXX exhiaskomai is not used in the NT. The next word is hilaskomai. In reference to hilaskomai in Hebrews 2:17, the NIDNTT writes “Heb. 2:17 takes up the cultic ritual of the Day of Atonement ... note the NIV footnote here, ‘and that he might turn aside God’s wrath, taking away the sins of the people.’” The author adds: “While there is no explicit reference to appeasement of an angry deity and God is not said to be the recipient of the atonement when we look at this passage against the wider background of personal relations of Yahweh in the OT or the more specific background of the Day of Atonement ritual, the reason why guilt has to be dealt with lies in the character of God himself, who is angry with our sins and requires a substitute sacrifice.”
The third word, hilasmos, used in the NT is found only in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10. Again, the footnote in the NIV is highlighted: “that Jesus is ‘the one who turns aside God’s wrath.’” The context demands the idea of propitiating God’s wrath: “Jn. does not set out the need for a hilasmos. For him it is self-evident in the light of the character of God and the coming judgment (4:17).”
Lastly, writing about hilasterion in Romans 3:25 NIDNTT asks the question, “What does hilasterion mean here? .... We must not forget that the overall context for Rom. 3:21-25 is 1:18-3:20, which begins: ‘The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness’ (1:18). Somewhere, somehow, that wrath needs to be propitiated, and the apostle affirms that it is through the ‘atoning sacrifice’ of Christ that this indeed takes place.”
NIDNTT provided the most consistent interpretation of the kipper word group in the OT as the propitiation of God’s wrath and the hilasterion word group in the NT also teaches the appeasement of God’s wrath in the penal substitutionary death of Christ.
NIDNTT does not refer to Leon Morris’ work in The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, but the conclusions of NIDNTT are almost identical to Morris’. Of course, Morris is refuting C. H. Dodd’s view of expiation instead of propitiation. Morris notes that Dodd wrote that when hilaskomai renders the Hebrew word for atonement, kipper, it conveys the sense of removing guilt or defilement.[1] Morris proves this wrong by showing the entire word group including hilaskomai, hilasmos, hilastarion, and hileos has the meaning of turning away God’s wrath. Morris concludes after his extensive word studies: “Examination of this word group brought us inevitably into the circle of ideas with kipper, where we have seen reason for postulating a close connection between kipper and kopher, which further strengthens the conclusion that hilaskomai, etc., retain the idea of putting away the divine anger.”[2]
Morris’ conclusion for the atonement words meaning the appeasing of God’s wrath view is an appropriate conclusion for these two posts:
Thus our conviction that hilaskomai and its cognates include as an integral part of their meaning the turning away of wrath rests partly on the examination of the occurrences of these words in the Septuagint, and partly on the fact that, quite apart from the words themselves, there is a formidable body of evidence that the wrath of God was a conception to be reckoned with on the Old Testament view.”[3]
[1] Leon Morris. The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman Publishing, 1965), 137.
[2] Ibid., 156.
[3] Ibid., 160.