Sermon # 2: Propitiation
Or,
“How To Make It So God Isn’t Mad at You Anymore”
One of the great privileges of preaching in Russia was to bring the great good news of the Gospel to those who may not have ever heard! It makes you want to spell it out clearly, plainly, with simplicity. I want to do just that in this series of messages. I want to hit the heart of the gospel...like Edgar Martinez, a sweet, firm stroke that sends the ball flying. The summer preaching was about getting into relationship with people through care and service so we could “bring the Cross across.” But what exactly is the message of the Cross?
To begin with, it is already clearly defined. We don’t have to make something up. In fact, the Apostle Paul gives us a stern warning not to mess with God’s message:
Galatians 1:8
But even though we, or an angel from heaven,
should preach to you a gospel contrary
to that which has been preached to you,
let him be accursed.
Strong words. We’d better not mess this up!
What is the heart of the gospel? What are the main points of this great, good news? What exactly is this wonderful, good, good news?
Peter sums it up with this pithy statement:
1 Peter 3:18
For Christ died for sins once for all,
the righteous for the unrighteous,
to bring you to God.
In this series, we will review seven marvelous things God accomplished for us in the cross. Last week we looked at Redemption, and learned that God has invested himself to pay the ransom for our deliverance from sin. Deliverance from the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and when Christ returns, or we go to be with him, from the very presence of sin.
Today we turn to a very difficult word, Propitiation.
To understand this word, we need to understand some things about the justice and wrath of God.
Popular Conceptions of the Wrath and anger of God:
Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark has a line where he is warning his people about the power of the Lord in relation to the Ark of the Covenant. He warns them about “Old Testament wrath of God type stuff” that could well happen. Sure enough, when the Nazis opened the Ark, the movie depicted God’s wrath coming forth in the form of spirits that at first looked beautiful, then took on the faces of death as they melted the skin and muscle off of the wicked Nazis. Indy Jones and the beautiful girl looked away, they didn’t look upon the ark, and they were spared.
Insurance Companies have a conception of the wrath of God. They put clauses in their policies about “Acts of God,” such as when trees fall on your house, it is struck by lightning, hit by a tornado, swept off its foundation by a hurricane…sounds unpredictable, freaky.
The ancient Greeks conceived of the gods as capricious, unpredictable, unjust, unreasonable. It wouldn’t take much at all to tick them off. The ancient Akkadians thought that the gods sent the worldwide flood upon mankind because the humans were making so much noise with all their parties, that the gods couldn’t get any sleep! They saw the need to appease these gods, to bribe them so as to get on their good side and be let alone. In the popular science fiction series, Star Trek we have a character called “Q” who pretty much toys with the humans as though he were one of these ancient gods.
Here are some hints from our modern age:
Appearing on Signs by the side of the highway… “Jesus is coming….and boy is he ticked!”
“Don’t Make Me come down there!” ---God
Like a dad who hears his sons roughhousing in the basement after being told to settle down. He shouts down the stairs, “I expect it to be quiet! Settle down, now! Don’t make me come down there!”
All of this is interesting, but is the wrath of God a subject we need to be concerned about? I mean, isn’t all of this rather old-fashioned?
In scripture we read of the justice and wrath of God. To understand God’s mercy, we must understand something of his wrath.
Chuck Swindoll has written, “Surely this phrase, ‘the wrath of God’ is greatly misunderstood. Many think, invariably, of some sort of peeved deity, a kind of cosmic, terrible-tempered Mr. Bang, who indulges in violent, uncontrolled displays of temper when human beings do not do what they ought to. But such a concept only reveals the limitations of our understanding. The Bible never deals with the wrath of God that way. According to Scripture, the wrath of God is God’s moral integrity. When man refuses to yield himself to God, he creates certain conditions, not only for himself but for others as well, which God has ordained for harm. It is God who makes evil result in sorrow, heartache, injustice, and despair. It is God’s way of saying to man, “Now look, you must face the truth. You were made for Me. If you decide that you don’t want Me, then you will have to bear the consequences.” The absence of God is destructive to human life. That absence is God’s wrath. And God cannot withhold it. In His moral integrity, He insists that these things should occur as a result of our disobedience. He sets man’s sin and His wrath in the same frame.” (Charles Swindoll, Tale of the Tardy Oxcart, page 324.)
But in our modern age, many people have a very difficult time envisioning a God who is angry. Isn’t he a God of love? Aren’t we past the time when people believe in the fiery wrath of God? In this age of tolerance, how can we even conceive of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God?” Isn’t that a long-gone vestige of a by-gone era? Doesn’t that belong on the ash-heap of ideas?
Many people say, “I can’t believe in a God who sends people to suffer eternally. What kind of loving God is filled with wrath?”
In his article, Preaching Hell in a Tolerant Age, (Leadership Journal, Fall, 1997) Tim Keller points out, “but any loving person is often filled with wrath.” He quotes Becky Pippert’s book, Hope Has Its Reasons. She writes, “Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might with strangers? Far from it…Anger isn’t the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.”
God’s love for us compels him to be angry when we do harm to ourselves.
Pippert then quotes E.H. Gifford, “Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.’
She concludes: “If I, a flawed narcissistic sinful woman, can feel this much pain and anger over someone’s condition, how much more a morally perfect God who made them? God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.” (Tim Keller, Leadership Journal, Fall, 1997, page 48).
God’s moral integrity is where we get our own sense of justice. God’s anger is measured and appropriate.
Paul instructs us in Colossians 3:5-6 to “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.”
The list of evil activities flowing from man’s earthly nature includes immorality (porneia, “fornication”), impurity (a wider perversion), lust (pathos, “uncontrollable passion”), evil desires (“illicit craving”), and greed (or coveting), which is idolatry (because it seeks satisfaction in things below and not above) Bible Knowledge Commentary, on Col 3:5.
God’s wrath is coming on the world because of these things. And in fact, his wrath is already rests upon these things. Our own sense of moral outrage is a healthy expression of the wrath of God.
Human beings display wrath about injustice. We long for justice in this life, and since we don’t always get it, we hope for divine justice on the evil that is committed. Klebold and Harris walked calmly through Columbine High School, gunning down their classmates and a teacher. We hope that the wrath of God will apply in their case
We often hear sad, sad stories on the news of a person who has committed some horrifying crime. When uncontrollable passion takes over the feelings and actions of a person, someone who has fed his soul on pornography, and allowed himself to be mastered by his illicit craving, he often acts in ways that grab the headlines. We see the story on the evening news, and if we are fully human, our stomachs turn over as they describe the gruesome details of some sexual attack. Serial killer Ted Bundy immersed himself in pornography, which fed his uncontrollable lust. He took the lives of many young women. Our anger and rage is rightfully aroused at these things. That is a godly rage. It comes from a strong sense of moral integrity. This moral integrity is an attribute of God Himself. The way we feel about the immoral violence of a sexual offender—that is the way God feels about all sin.
He is perfectly holy. That means he is separate from sin in every way. The presence of sin before God Almighty offends his very character and nature. He is perfect in love. We all know how willful sin can put out the fires of love. God is perfect in unity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit know nothing of division and discord between themselves. But sin always causes division and discord. The smallest affront has the potential to create a climate where a relationship can become broken beyond repair. Unless forgiveness is granted, early and often, what marriage would last beyond the first few months?
God cannot endure sin. The presence of sin would alter the Holy Union between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God hates sin. He cannot endure it. The way we feel about great sin, this is how God feels about all sin. He is intolerant of all sin.
In the Bible, this intolerance of sin is called the “wrath of God.” But through Christ, God has found a way to satisfy his justice and wrath, and come into a kindly frame of mind toward those who have offended him so.
But what is Propitiation?
The Biblical idea of propitiation has to do with restoring kindly relations between God and man, so that change is produced in the inner disposition of the person who has been offended. It’s not a change in the person who committed the offense; it’s a change in the person who felt the offense. It is a change from judgment and wrath to compassion and forgiveness. But this is not automatic.
I remember seeing a story on TV about a woman whose son had been viciously murdered. The man who did this terrible thing was found guilty and had been in prison for quite some time. Through the help of a mediator, this woman had decided that she wanted to meet this man, and speak to him face to face about her incredible loss. She wanted him to understand how he had damaged her life forever. Even though his crime had caused such terror in her life, she felt that as a part of her recovery, she needed to confront this man. And he, for his part, was willing to meet with her. He needed to take this step to heal his heart as well.
At first, her heart was not at all ready to consider this. But over time, she felt it was important for her to do it. The film cameras followed her into the prison, and allowed us as viewers to take part. As I recall, that day was filled with emotion. There was a short meeting early in the day, where the convict expressed his sorrow for what he had done with sincere words and with tears. She held steady. It weighed heavy on her as he told her of his remorse and sorrow. Later, after a time of separation, her disposition toward him began to change. She no longer saw him as a monster, but as a man who needed to be released from the terrible bondage to the guilt of what he had done. Their visit turned from minutes to hours. She began to see him as a person, and her heart began to reach out to him. She began to have compassion toward this man who needed to be released from the terrible burden of guilt that he carried. And she was inclined to forgive him.
She could have compassionate feelings (be protitiated) to this man because
1. Justice has been fulfilled. The evidence was weighed. He was worthy of condemnation. And there he was in prison. If he were out on the street, free to come and go, she would never have felt this change of heart within herself.
2. He was willing to admit his guilt and was in fact sorry he had ever done the crime. If he had not been willing to admit his sin, her heart would never have been drawn to him in compassion.
This is propitiation. Her inner disposition was changed to kindness toward this man. This grieving mother was propitiated to the man who had murdered her son. Her sense of justice was satisfied. And then her sense of mercy sprang to life.
And God, who has suffered beyond all our comprehension, is propitiated to us as sinners for the same reasons.
1. Justice has been served. Sin has been condemned. The penalty has been handed down. God does not simply ‘overlook it.’ He doesn’t pretend that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ A death sentence has been handed down.
But here’s the twist. God himself, out of his incredible love, took care of the penalty himself. He sent his son Jesus to pay for the crime. And in doing so, Jesus satisfied God’s unwavering sense of justice.
Romans 3:23-25 says,
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 and are justified freely by his grace
through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.
God’s anger was covered over because of what Jesus did.
1 John 2: 1 & 2
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.
But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense
—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins,
and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. [1]
Jesus voluntarily sacrificed himself to satisfy the judgment of God’s holiness against the crime of our sin. Jesus endured death and hell itself to pay the price. Ephesians says as part of his saving work, that he descended into hell itself. He suffered excruciating, eternal pain.
Tim Keller wrote in his article on hell and judgment,
“Unless we come to grips with this terrible doctrine (of eternal judgment), we will never even begin to understand the depths of what Jesus did for us on the cross. His body was being destroyed in the worst possible way, but that was a fleabite compared to what was happening to his soul. When he cried out that his God had forsaken him, he was experiencing hell itself.
“If a mild acquaintance denounces you and rejects you—that hurts. If a good friend does the same—the hurt’s far worse. However, if your spouse walks out on you, saying ‘I never want to see you again,’ that is far more devastating still. The longer, deeper, and more intimate the relationship, the more torturous is any separation.
“But the Son’s relationship with the Father was beginning-less and infinitely greater than the most intimate and passionate human relationship. When Jesus was cut off from God, he went into the deepest pit and most powerful furnace, beyond all imagining. And he did it voluntarily, for us.”
(Tim Keller, “Preaching Hell in A Tolerant Age” Leadership Journal, Fall, 1997).
2. We must admit that we are guilty, and that we are so sorry for the pain we have brought to the heart of God. Though we may never have murdered anyone, or committed a crime worthy of the evening news, we ourselves, in our common, ordinary human failings have offended the moral integrity of God himself.
We admit that God was right to feel anger, rage or even malice against us. We deserved that. Any other frame of mind would not have been appropriate for God to still be God.
Isaiah was a mighty prophet of God. He wrote the most incredible descriptions of God and his love that we find anywhere in the Bible. But when he saw the Lord, high and lifted up, and heard the voices proclaiming the absolute holiness of God, he cried,
“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” Isaiah 6:5.
Just one look upon the holiness of God convinced Isaiah that he was in deep trouble. He felt ruined. “This vision of God’s majesty, holiness, and glory made Isaiah realize that he was a sinner.”
“Isaiah had pronounced woes (threats of judgment) on the nation (Isa. 5:8-23), but now by saying Woe to me! (cf. 24:16) he realized he was subject to judgment. This was because he was unclean. When seen next to the purity of God’s holiness, the impurity of human sin is all the more evident. The prophet’s unclean lips probably symbolized his attitudes and actions as well as his words, for a person’s words reflect his thinking and relate to his actions.” (Bible Knowledge Commentary, Isaiah 6:5)
We need to come to the place of heart-felt repentance. Like this man in a story that Jesus told in Luke 18.
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ (Literally, “be propitiated to me!” )
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” [2]
We must come to the place of repentance. This frees God to have mercy on us.
What must we do?
1. Believe on the Son of God
John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” [3]
How do I make it so God isn’t angry at me anymore? Believe on the Son. Receive him as Savior and Lord. God’s wrath was poured out on Jesus upon the cross. God is no longer angry at our sinfulness. Kindly relations have been restored because of what Jesus did.
At Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, where Tim Keller serves, the congregation is invited to take part in question and answer sessions after the morning sermon. One Sunday after a message on the wrath and judgment of God, a young college student said, “I’ve gone to church all my life, but I don’t think I can believe in a God like this.” Her tone was more sad than defiant, but her willingness to stay and talk showed that her mind was open.
An older businesswoman said, “Well, I’m not much of a church-goer, and I’m in some shock now. I always disliked the very idea of hell, but I never thought about it as a measure of what God was willing to endure in order to love me.”
Then a mature Christian made a connection to Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus in John 11. “The text tells us that Jesus wept,” he said, “yet he was also extremely angry at evil. That’s helped me. He is not just an angry God or a weeping, loving God—he’s both. He doesn’t only judge evil, but he also takes the hell and judgment himself for us on the cross.”
The second woman nodded, “Yes. I always thought hell told me how angry God was with us, but I didn’t know it also told me how much he was willing to suffer and weep for us. I never knew how hell told me about Jesus’ love. It’s very moving.” (Keller, ibid).
And that is what God has done within himself for us. He looks upon the guilty sinner with kindness and mercy. He does not wish to punish. He wishes to forgive. And because of what Jesus has done, in paying the debt in full, God is no longer angry at me for my sin. Instead, he looks upon me with kindness. All of his requirements for judgment were taken out on Jesus. And you and I can walk free, rejoicing in forgiveness.