There is no doubt that the doctrine of propitation (keep reading for an explanation) has been, and is, abused. Many have attempted to control people's behavior with "fire and brimstone" preaching. But the problem is not with the doctrine itself but with failing to comprehend it. It is not about behavior modification. It is a "putting away of God's anger." The holy God has been rebelled against. His laws and commandments violated. When people avoid mentioning the idea of propitation in relation to the cross of Christ, they are rejecting the holiness of God. They are presenting a god who is not holy. Not to be feared thus no need for Christ. They wish only to speak in terms of God's love. Yet the cross was a demonstration of His righteousness (Ro. 3:21-31). When men attack the concept of God's righteous wrath against sinners, they are showing that they're uncomfortable with His holiness. Leon Morris will explain further on propitiation and George Smeaton on the atonement of Christ.
Propitiation is a means the turning away of of anger; expiation is rather the making of amends for a wrong. Propitiation is a personal word; one propitiates a person. Expiation is an impersonal word; one expiates a sin or a crime. When we are speaking about Christ's atoning work it makes a great deal o difference which meaning we understand. If we speak of expiation our meaning is that there is an impersonal process by which the effects of sin are nullified. we may be ready to think of the process as a remedy for defilement, a means of forgiveness, or a sacrifice that takes sin away, but we resolutely refuse to see any reference to the wrath of God. But if we speak of propitiation we are thinking of a personal process. We are saying that God is angry when people sin and that, if they are to be forgiven, something must be done about that anger. We are saying further that the death of Christ is the means of removing the divine wrath from sinners. The issue is far from being superficial....My quarrel with almost all modern translations is that they do not retain the essential meaning; specifically, they adopt some rendering that glosses over the wrath of God. But this is a very important concept, and it cannot be ignored in any satisfying understanding of the work of Christ.*
a. But here we are met by the latitudinarian tendencies of the age, which take exception to the necessity of the atonement, on the ground that we are to view God only as occupying the paternal relation to mankind. Not a few repudiate from this supposed vantage-ground, which seems to have a foothold in Scripture, all the representations otherwise given of God as a lawgiver and a judge. They will have it, that we are to conceive of God only as a source of goodness, or as a fountain of influences, but not as the sovereign Lord or moral Governor; that His dominion is only that of a Father; that the divine laws wholly differ from human laws sanctioned by threats and punishments; and that, when God does punish in any case, it is as a father, and not as a judge. By such representations, which are partly the speculations of a false philosophy, partly the afterthoughts of men writing in the interest of a tendency, the modern assailants of the necessity of the atonement would change laws into counsels, and punishments into corrections. They would sunder the link between sin and punishment, on which, as will appear in the sequel, all religion and all morals depend; for nothing could appear more detrimental to human welfare than the circulation of the doctrine that men are irresponsible to a judge.
The only thing that entitles this speculation to any weight is, that it professes to have a biblical sanction. Far be it from our thoughts to ignore the Fatherhood of God and the tender relation formed by grace between Him and His children; but when men come into this relationship, which henceforth exempts them from everything properly penal, that is the privilege of saints, not of natural men. It is a gift of grace, not a right of nature nor a universal boon; for all are by nature the children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). It cannot be affirmed that it belongs indiscriminately to all men, unless we obliterate the distinction between converted and unconverted men. But God’s Fatherhood does not exclude His relation as a lawgiver and a judge. We rather affirm,—without entering into a new question foreign to our undertaking,—that the former rests upon the latter.
But the answer to all these modern theories, which are advocated with the avowed purpose of withdrawing the mind from the judicial relations of God, and so impugning the necessity of the atonement, is, that they run counter to the entire scope and spirit of that ancient revelation in which Jesus was nourished up to manhood, and which He expressly declares He did not come to destroy, but to fulfil. Unless men are prepared to make a violent severance between the Old and New Testament, and bring the one into violent collision with the other, to the obvious injury of both, these notions must be set aside as wholly out of keeping with the Old Testament, and as having no warrant in the New. The expressions which describe divine justice as a perfection proper to the Supreme Being, and prompting Him to punish transgressors, are peculiarly emphatic and strong (Gen. 18:25; Ps. 11:5–7; Ps. 97:2; Ps. 50:21). The divine displeasure at sin, and His holy hatred of it, are forcibly delineated as the impelling cause of punishment (Hab. 1:13; Prov. 6:16). When He revealed His name and memorial in all generations, He designated Himself as the God who by no means clears the guilty (Ex. 34:7); and in the immutable law, which is the transcript of His perfections, He is represented as a jealous God, visiting iniquity upon them that hate Him (Ex. 20:5–7). There are passages which show that God is not only extolled by His saints on earth, but by the saints above, for the exercise of punitive justice (Deut. 32:43; Rev. 19:6).
b. It is further urged, in the interest of the same tendency, that the visitations commonly called punishments are only the natural consequences of sin. This would indeed overthrow the necessity of the atonement, and also its possibility; for the atonement involves the bearing of positive punishment in the room of others. But the whole Scriptures, from first to last, are replete with instances of positive punishments. The deluge, the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah; the case of Pharaoh, of Nadab and Abihu, of Korah and his comrades; the expulsion and destruction of the Canaanites; and, in a word, the whole history of God’s transactions with His own people and with other nations, contain the most obvious examples of positive punishments,—not the mere consequences or natural concomitants of a course of conduct. We call these positive punishments rather than arbitrary; which is not so suitable an epithet, nor so applicable.
All the biblical statements argue the existence of positive punishments. Thus, when we read of “the wrath to come” (Matt. 3:7), which does not follow sin immediately, and by mere natural sequence, we have a proof of positive punishment. When we read of forgiveness, what does the term imply but the remission of a certain retributive doom or recompense which is not the mere natural concomitant of sin? Without the idea of positive punishment emanating from the punitive intervention of God, we could not explain, in any adequate sense, the doctrine of retribution; for how could there be a retribution or recompense of reward, if sin were followed by no other consequences than such as are but the natural issues or results of a course of conduct in the direct order of sequence? Does this not properly begin, in the full sense, after the great judgment? The evils which are naturally connected with sin, and which are manifold, are, in truth, of a different sort from the punishments which are inflicted by the intervention of the judge. We do not deny that certain results or consequences flow from sin and may be called a penalty. To give the name of punishments, however, to the natural consequences of sin alone, is a fallacious use of language, and contrary to the dictates of a sound understanding. When men express themselves loosely, they may speak of the connection between conduct and experience. But in the strict and proper use of terms we understand by punishment the suffering which is directly and expressly awarded by the sentence of a judge, not that which follows by the mere law of sequence. Hence, when punishment is justly inflicted, as in the case of the great retribution awarded by the sentence of the just Judge, it is for sin committed or for injury done, by which the moral Governor is aggrieved. It thus differs from the natural effects of sin. It differs, too, from correction or chastisement, which aims at something prospective in connection with one whom we only seek to impress with a salutary fear, or to deter from a wayward course.
c. But the same impugners of the necessity of the atonement take exception to the above-mentioned doctrine at a point still further back: they argue that God cannot be said to be wronged or injured. They maintain that this language can be fitly enough held when it is applied to an earthly monarch, whose authority is hurt by the violation of his laws and by the dishonour done to him, but that the Supreme God is far exalted above wrong or injury. There could not exist two opinions that this is indisputably true, if it were a question of man’s goodness extending to God, or of man’s rebellion tending to the prejudice of God’s essential blessedness; but it is a question of His declarative glory, and of His relation to the world, existing only to bring back to Him a revenue of praise. The rational intelligences, created to be a mirror of His perfections, bring back this revenue of praise by cordial dependence, by the subjection of their will to the will of God, and by being an eye to trace His wisdom and goodness. Certainly, God cannot be deprived by the sinner of anything that is His. But it does not follow that He does not regard those as offenders who rebel against Him. His relation to the creature is violated by sin, and He cannot be an unconcerned spectator of the conduct of His reasonable creatures; and sin is in proportion to the person against whom it is committed. There is such a terrible power in a human will that the creature can form plans and execute purposes which God regards as hateful. He can do something that is opposed to the divine will. He can, however insignificant, insult, offend, and wrong God.
Hence punitive justice, which is an adorable perfection of the divine nature, and worthy of Him who is infinitely perfect, demands satisfaction for sin. It is as eternal and necessary as anything belonging to His self-existing nature. It must be maintained that God punishes sin as a satisfaction which must needs be made to Himself; that He punishes OUT OF LOVE TO HIS OWN JUSTICE, or because the righteous God loveth righteousness (Ps. 11:7),—in other words, that He punishes out of love to Himself. Nor, from the very ground that He is possessed of immaculate justice, can the retribution due to sin be omitted; for of God it may be said that He cannot but punish sin, just as we affirm of Him that He cannot lie. God is thus under obligation to no third party, but to Himself and to His own perfections, to exercise punishment; and He cannot forego or renounce His right to do so unless there be an atonement or vicarious sacrifice. But even then, as we shall show in the sequel, sin is duly punished.*"But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing." (1 Th 5:8–11).
Soli Deo Gloria!
For His Glory,
Fernando
*Morris, Leon. The Atonement. Illinois: IVP, 1983. Print. P. 151-152
*Smeaton, G. (2009). The doctrine of the atonement, As taught by Christ Himself (Second Edition) (31–35). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
*Smeaton, G. (2009). The doctrine of the atonement, As taught by Christ Himself (Second Edition) (31–35). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
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