The one doctrine in Romans 3:21-26 that most expresses penal substitution is the doctrine of propitiation. Grudem’s definition makes this point: “Propitiation is a sacrifice that bears the wrath of God against sin and thereby turns God’s wrath into favor.”[1]
Read moreGod bore away our sins in the atonement of Christ
R. Kent Hughes has the following story regarding the conversion of the great 19th-century preacher Charles Simeon - Charles Simeon, one of the greatest preachers of the Church of England, explained his coming to Christ like this: "As I was reading Bishop Wilson on the Lord’s supper, I met with an expression to this effect—“That the Jews knew what they did, when they transferred their sin to the head of their offering.” The thought came into my mind, “What, may I transfer all my guilt to another? Has God provided an Offering for me, that I may lay my sins on His head? Then, God willing, I will not bear them on my own soul one moment longer.” Accordingly I sought to lay my sins upon the sacred head of Jesus". (From Hebrews: an anchor for the soul).
Charles Simeon appropriated what took place on the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16.
Atonement” in Leviticus 16:6 meant to cover Israel’s sins from God’s wrath on the Day of Atonement for one year. The context of Leviticus 16 is the wrath of God poured out on Nadab and Abihu in 10:1-2 for their disobedience to God.
This wrath could be avoided through the substitution of two animals on the Day of Atonement (16:5). The first animal’s blood was shed typifying Christ shedding his blood for the sins of the world. The second animal, the scapegoat bore away God’s wrath showing how Christ bore our deserved punishment.
The first animal sacrifice
Atonement took place when the blood of the first goat was sprinkled on the “mercy seat” (Leviticus 16:14-15). The mercy seat is used in Hebrews 9:5 as the place of atonement in the Old Testament tabernacle. This exact word for propitiation (ἱλαστήριον [hilasterion]) is used only one other time in Romans 3:25 and is translated as “propitiation.” Paul gives the theological significance of the sprinkled on the mercy seat in Romans 3:25: “Whom [Christ] God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” Christ propitiated or satisfied the wrath and justice of God for our sins with his “blood.”. Wayne Grudem wrote: “Propitiation is a sacrifice that bears the wrath of God against sin and thereby turns God’s wrath into favor.”[1]
The second animal sacrifice
The scapegoat in Leviticus 16:22 bore away [נשׂא nasa] the punishment of sins. In Leviticus 7:18, for a guilty Israelite to “bear [נשׂא nasa], his iniquity” meant to be “cut off” or put to death (7:21). But on the Day of Atonement, the scapegoat bore away the wrath of God on the people’s sins for one year. In Isaiah 53:4, 12 Christ bore away [נשׂא nasa], our sins forever in his penal substitutionary death on the cross: “He has poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors: and he bore [נשׂא nasa], the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” The Psalmist rejoiced that our sins have been separated from us as far as the east is from the south (Psalm 103: 12). John the Baptist referred to this great truth when he declared, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). With the songwriter we give praise: “To God be the glory, great things he has done, so loved he the world that he gave us his son, who yielded his life an atonement for sin, and opened the life gate that all may go in.”
[1] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, 575.
Old Testament Lexical Study of The Old Testament Word for Atonement kipper
C. H. Dodd contended that kipper or kopher in the OT and hilaskesthai in the LXX and in the NT meant expiation and the forgiveness of sins. Leon Morris argued that these words meant propitiation or an appeasing of God’s wrath. The overwhelming evidence is the meaning of propitiation of God’s wrath.
N. T. Wright has taken up the mantle of C. H. Dodd in his 2016 The Day The Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus Crucifixion. Throughout his book, Wright disparages the penal subsitutionary death of Christ and the doctrine of propitiation. For example, referring to kapporeth, Wright argues that “older interpretation suggested ‘covering.’ But recent research has challenged this, connecting the Hebrew word with the root kipper, meaning ‘cleanse’ or ‘purge.’…..”there is less, because this context, in and of itself, says nothing about punishment” (p. 328-329). Wright is correct when he writes that “the Hebrew word kapporeth was rendered in the Greek translations of Scripture as hilsasterion.” But then again following the argument of C. H. Dodd, Wright writes “So when Paul writes in Romans 3:25 God put Jesus forth as a hilasterion, he does not mean that God was punishing Jesus for the sins of Israel or the world” (pps. 328 and 330). Just a few other comments from Wright about Romans 3:21-26: “the ‘propitiation’ readings of 3:24-26 are straining” (p. 330). “Paul is not here saying, then, that God has punished former sins, whether of Israel or the Gentiles, certainly not that he has punished them in Jesus. There is no mention here of such a punishment then exhausting the divine wrath” (p. 331).
New Testament Lexical Study of the New Testament Word for Atonement
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.