Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to join in with
the reading of the Bible, follow along in the scriptures, I'm
going to begin today's message in the book of Romans chapter
three. Romans chapter three. And what
I'm going to do, I have two messages now that I'm going to preach
here. It's a word study. And the word is propitiation. So this is propitiation part
one. Now, you have to be very careful
about doing word studies. And the reason is, especially
in the Bible, but in any form of literature, any style, because
words mean different things in different contexts. But this
word propitiation pretty much means the same thing the few
times that it's used. Now, the idea behind propitiation
is all through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation because
it has to do with the gospel ground of salvation, the gospel
message, the promise of salvation by the grace of God through the
Lord Jesus Christ and based upon His obedience unto death as the
surety, the substitute, the redeemer, of His people and from which
He gives His people spiritual life and preserves and provides
for them, protects them, and brings them to glory. And that's
all involved in this word propitiation. But the actual word in the King
James Version only appears three times in the English version,
the King James Version of the Bible, and it's a good word,
and it's a word that, even though it only appears three times,
like I said, the idea, the truth behind it, is all the way through
the Scriptures. One of the main issues of the
Gospel. Now, it appears in other forms. in the scripture, and I'm gonna
give you several passages. This is why it's gonna be a two-part
message, because I wanna show you the three passages, beginning
at Romans chapter three, where the word propitiation is actually
translated that way, put down that way. And then I wanna show
you a couple of passages that are related. One, in the New
Testament, where the word is used, but it's translated differently.
And I'll show you that. But propitiation. Let me show
you the context of this beginning in Romans chapter 3 in verse
19. We'll start at verse 19. And
the Apostle Paul, what he's doing is he's inspired by the Holy
Spirit in the book of Romans as he starts out. He began at
Romans chapter 1 in verse 18 bringing in the whole world as being sinful and guilty before
God, deserving of death and hell. We're all sinners. That's what
Paul says. In Romans 3.23, it's probably
a verse that many of you are familiar with. It says, for all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And that's
what he's doing. He's showing that all of us,
by nature, has fallen in Adam. Jew and Gentile now, no difference.
that salvation must be by grace. It cannot be based upon us or
conditioned on us because we'll fail. And so what he did back
in Romans 1, 16 and 17, speaking of the gospel, which involves
the person and the work of Christ, and the work of Christ being
the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel, he begins to show
why we need the righteousness of God. It's because we are sinful. It's because we cannot make ourselves
right with God by our works. That's it. Even our best. Even
people who are trying hard. Now this is what we need to understand. You may be trying hard to be
a good person. And I think you should. I should.
But that's not going to make us right with God. That's not
going to make us righteous in God's sight. That's not going
to save us. Our efforts to be good will not
wash away our sins. Now we sing that in a hymn. You
may sing this at your church. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. You see that? His blood is the only thing that
can wash away our sins. Now that's related to this word
propitiation. So in verse 19, here's what Paul
writes in Romans 3. He says, now we know that what
thing soever the law saith, that's the law of God now, it saith
to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped
and all the world may become guilty before God. Now what does that word guilty
mean? It means subject to God's judgment. And so if I appear
before God and plead my works of the law, what's the judgment
of God going to be? Guilty, condemned, deserving
of death and hell. So he says in verse 20, Therefore,
for that reason, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh
be justified in God's sight, for by the law is the knowledge
of sin. You cannot be justified by your
works, by your law keeping. Why is that? Well, it always
falls short. What is it to be justified? To
be justified means to be forgiven of all my sins. Now listen to
this very carefully. This is important. Not just to
be forgiven. We talk about the mercy of God
and the love of God and the grace of God, which brings forgiveness,
and it does. But to be justified is to be
forgiven of all my sins on a just ground, a right ground. There's
got to be a just ground. There's got to be a satisfaction
to God's law and justice. So to be justified in God's sight,
it means to be forgiven on a just ground. And then it means to
be declared righteous, not guilty in God's sight, again, on a just
ground. Now seal that in your minds.
There's got to be a just ground. God, listen, God cannot love
his people, he cannot show mercy, he cannot show grace, apart from
justice being satisfied. Now that's the key. So he says
in verse 20, therefore by the law is the knowledge of sin,
verse 21. Now he begins with the good news. But now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets." There's a righteousness of God that's made known, manifested,
without the law. That is, without our works. That's what he's talking about.
See, the law must be satisfied, but it cannot be satisfied by
our works. So when he says, without the
law, without our works, and he says, this is what the law showed,
and this is what the prophets preached. And verse 22, even
the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Now that's faithfulness of Jesus
Christ. This righteousness of God comes
by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. What do you mean the
faithfulness of Jesus Christ? Christ before the foundation
of the world agreed to be the surety, the substitute, the redeemer
of God's people and to do for them what they could not do for
themselves and that is bring in perfect righteousness. And
so he says, it's unto all and upon all them that believe for
there is no difference We receive it to ourselves in our minds,
in our hearts, in our consciences by God-given faith. And he says
in verse 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God. We've all missed the mark. That's what he means by that.
We've all come short. What is the glory of God? The
glory of God is the person and work of Christ in the context
here. And no matter how good we try
to be, we'll always come short of that. I might say to you today,
I'm gonna love you with all my heart, soul, and mind, and strength,
but I'll fail. And we should try. Now don't get me wrong. We should
try to be the best people we can be. But we're always gonna,
because we're sinners, and because we cannot save ourselves, we
will always fall short of the perfection of righteousness that
can only be found in Christ and so he says even the righteousness
of God which is by faithfulness of Jesus Christ verse 22 unto
all and upon all them that believe there's no difference for all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God and look at
verse 24 being justified freely without a cause unconditionally
by His grace through the redemption the purchase price, redeemed,
redeemed, how I love to proclaim it, redeemed by the blood of
the Lamb that is in Christ Jesus. Now here's where we come to the
word. Verse 25, whom God hath set forth. That word set forth
literally means foreordained. This was the foreordination,
the predestination of God. to seeing Christ into the world
to save his people from their sins. And how does he do it?
Now look at it. Verse 25, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation,
there's the word, propitiation through faith in his blood, to
declare his righteousness for the remission. That is, you've
heard of the Passover. That's what that word means,
passing over. through the passing over of sins that are past, that
is, the sins of the, what he's talking about there is the Old
Testament saints, the believers. They were justified based upon
the propitiation, see, through the forbearance of God, verse
26, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, not
mine, not yours, his, that God might be just and justifier of
him which believeth in Jesus. Now, what is this word propitiation? Now, here's what it is. It has
to do with a sin-bearing sacrifice substitute who brings satisfaction
to God's law and justice that, now listen to this part, that
ensures salvation and acceptance and blessings and eternal life
from God. Christ is the propitiation for
the sins of His people. The just ground upon which God
forgives His people is the blood, the death of Jesus Christ. Why did He need to die? because
the justice of God must be satisfied. The penalty must fit the crime. And what does the Bible tell
us in Romans 6 and verse 23, the first part? The wages of
sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it shall
surely die. Remember what God told Adam in
the Garden of Eden. He said, in the day that you
eat thereof, you shall surely die. Why do we die physically? That's a consequence of sin.
How can we keep from dying eternally in damnation, in hell, which
is a spiritual death, an eternal death? There must be a satisfaction
to God's law and justice. Who can bring that about? Only
one person, the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only
person who has brought satisfaction to God's justice for the sins
of His sheep, of His people, the ones whom God gave to Him
before the foundation of the world and conditioned all of
their salvation upon Him. That's what propitiation is.
Now, let me show you back in the book of Luke. Turn to Luke
chapter 18. In Luke chapter 18, we have a
familiar parable. We normally call it the parable
of the Pharisee and the publican. Christ spoke this parable in
light of self-righteous sinners who were justifying themselves,
claiming to be righteous in God's sight by their works. And it
says in verse nine, this is Luke 18 and verse nine. Now I've preached
on this parable several times, probably a couple of times throughout
the life of this program as we've been on the air. But it says
in verse nine of Luke 18, Christ spoke this parable unto certain
which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised
others. They would say, we're righteous.
Now, let me give you something here to think about. What they
were actually saying would be the equivalent of what many would
say today, well, I'm saved, but these people over here, they're
lost. Now, if you're saved according to the word of God, God's way,
then you can make that claim. And if you look at people who
are unbelievers and say, well, they're not, say, well, they're
not, if they're unbelievers. But in a self-righteous way,
do you say I'm righteous and they're not? If you're saved,
you're saying you're righteous before God. Not by your works
now. We've already established that
in Romans 3. It was by that propitiation that Christ brought about. So
look at the parable. I'm not gonna spend a whole lot
of time on this parable, because like I said, I've preached on
it many times. But look at verse 10. Now he makes his point this
way. He says, two men went up to the
temple to pray. So here's two men seeking to
approach God, seeking to worship God, seeking to be accepted with
God, seeking God to hear them. And one was a Pharisee, the other
a publican. Now, what is a Pharisee? Well,
a Pharisee was a very religious person, a very sincere, dedicated
person. seeking salvation by their work.
What is a publican? A publican was a Jew who betrayed
his own people by collecting taxes from the Jewish people
for the Roman government. And they were known to be swindlers,
skimming off the top, almost like politicians today. They
go into office, poor, and they come out rich. Why? Because they've
made it off the people. So here's a Pharisee, a known
religious pillar of society, and then here's a publican, one
who every, nobody'd say these publicans are saved. Remember,
the Pharisees accused Christ of eating with sinners and publicans,
and he did, because he came to save those who were lost. So it says, verse 11, now this
shows you what a Pharisee is. The Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself, God, I thank thee. And notice that's the first
thing he says now. He's not giving credit to himself
for these things, he's giving credit to God, but look what
he says. I thank thee that I'm not as other men are, extortioners,
unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I thank God that
I'm not like them. And then he says in verse 12,
I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
Now the Pharisee was pleading his works which he gave credit
to God for. But you see, that's just as bad
and sinful and self-righteous as if you would plead your works
without giving God the credit. Because you see, God doesn't
want credit for that. He doesn't make you savable. He doesn't enter into your life
and enable you to make yourself righteous. No, God sent Christ
to be the righteousness of His people. That's the difference.
Well, look at the publican, verse 13. And the publican, standing
afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven,
but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Now that phrase, be merciful,
is the same word or form of that word, propitiation. Many times
when you see the word mercy or merciful, it's simply speaking
of the compassion of God towards His people in Christ. But here
it's propitiation. And it goes back to the Old Testament
analogy in the tabernacle, in the temple of the mercy seat. Over in the book of Exodus, chapter
25, where Moses was given by God instructions on how to make
the Ark of the Covenant. You remember how he set up the
tabernacle, and in the tabernacle you had three courts. You had
the outer court, where you had the brazen altar, where the sacrifice
was made. Then you had the holy place,
where you had the table of showbread, the golden candlestick, the washbasin. and that's where the priest did,
only the priest of Levi could go in there and do their business. And then the innermost chamber
that was divided by a veil, and it was called the holiest of
all. And inside that holiest of all was the Ark of the Covenant
covered by a lid called the mercy seat. And over in Exodus 25,
it says here in verse 21, this is Exodus 25, verse 21. God told
Moses, thou shalt put the mercy seed. It was a lid made of gold
and that put that above, thou shalt put the mercy seat above
upon the ark and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that
I shall give thee." That was the law. And he says in verse
22, there I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee
from above the mercy seat from between the two cherubims which
are upon the ark of the testimony of all things which I will give
thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. God said,
I will accept you, I will commune with you above the ark, above
the mercy seat. Now you remember what had to
happen? For that high priest, when he went in, he went in one
time a year, the day of atonement. And what did he bring with him?
He brought with him the blood of the sacrifice. And he sprinkled
that blood on the mercy seat and all around. And that was
the idea of propitiation. Satisfaction. And back over in
the parable, Luke 18, where the publican in verse 13, he said,
God be merciful. You could translate it this way,
God be propitious. In other words, the publican
understood something that a lot of people today do not understand.
He understood that in order for God to have mercy upon him, in
order for God to love him, in order for God to be gracious,
compassionate, to accept him, to save him, God's law and justice
had to be satisfied by a suitable, God-appointed, and willing substitute
who would sacrifice himself unto death to satisfy justice and
bring forth a perfect righteousness that would enable God to be both
a just God and a Savior, just and justified. And Christ said
in that parable, in verse 14 of Luke 18, He said, I tell you,
this man, this publican, went down to his house justified rather
than the other. For everyone that exalteth himself
shall be abased and he that humbles himself shall be exalted. Propitiation
is so important. It's the ground of the salvation
of God's people. And back over in Romans 3, where
I started, you'll notice back there again, look at it again.
Verse 25 of Romans 3. Whom God hath foreordained, set
forth. He had preordained this. You
see, Christ is the Lamb slain, and the people that He died for,
their names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the
foundation of the world. Paul spoke of this in 2 Timothy
chapter 1 when he spoke of a salvation that was given us, given to God's
people in Christ Jesus before the world began. This is no afterthought. This is no plan B. The Bible
doesn't teach that throughout the Old Testament, God tried
to save people in different ways and it failed, so he finally
come up with a way that worked. No, there has always been one
way of salvation. And that was set forth right
after the fall, after Adam fell. And God came to him, which was
a pre-incarnate visitation of Christ. And he said in Genesis
3.15, he told Adam, he said, I'm sending to you a perfect
God-man. And this was the seed of woman. And that was Christ. And he's
going, Satan will bruise his, will not kill him. He's going
to bruise Satan's head. He's going to deal a death blow
to Satan. But Satan will bruise his heel. He's going to be wounded
and he would die, but he would not stay dead. He would come
out of that grave, risen from the dead. But over in Genesis
chapter three and verse 21, remember Adam and Eve had put fig leaf
aprons to cover their nakedness. Now, nakedness in the Bible is
a picture of being without a righteousness, being guilty, being justly condemned. And the fig leaf aprons that
Adam and Eve made represents the works of man trying to cover
that nakedness. Doesn't work. God removed the
fig leaf aprons. And in Genesis 3, 21, it says,
he slew an animal and made coats of skin. What was God showing? That in order for salvation to
come to sinners, justice had to be satisfied. The death of
a suitable, God-appointed, willing, and able substitute. And who
is the only one who is suitable, and God-appointed, and able,
and willing? Christ. In other words, you need
a propitiation. And the only way that propitiation
comes about is by the death of Christ for his people. And out
of that comes the perfect righteousness, which God accepts, that enables
him to be both a just God and a savior. As Romans 3 put it,
just and justifier. That's what propitiation is all
about. And I'm gonna show you two other
verses where the word is actually used, but the concept is the
gospel. The only ground of salvation,
of justification for sinners, is that propitiation which Christ
accomplished by himself as the representative, the surety, and
the substitute of his people. And He's the only one who accomplished
that. He is the propitiation for our sins. I hope you'll join
us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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today and may the Lord be with you.