1
John 2:2
2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
NASB
Imagine getting a speeding ticket. You go to court, and after a brief testimony by the officer who wrote the ticket, the judge pronounces you guilty and fines you $100.
But what if, as you are ready to leave, the judge pulls out his checkbook, writes a check, and hands it with your ticket to the clerk? You are guilty and have been convicted and fined, but your penalty has been paid by the judge who convicted you.
That would be unbelievable.
But this is exactly what happened when Christ died on the cross, and was resurrected.
We stood guilty for our sins, but God himself, in the form of Jesus Christ, paid our penalty. We are still guilty, but God sees us as righteous because of the sacrifice He made.
The Greek word for propitiation is from a word often used in Pagan religions. It refers to appeasing the gods. Greek gods were not disposed to kindness to humans, so people believed they had to do things to make the gods happy or bad things would happen to them. To the Greek mind, this was how worship was done. One had to do something to gain the god’s approval.
However, in the New Testament, it has a completely new meaning. It would have seemed very radical to the Greek-speaking people of the day.
The idea of God appeasing himself, so to speak, was a very radical idea then, and to a point it still is today.
When Jesus died on the cross, he reconciled us to God. The idea is never expressed in the New Testament that God is reconciled to us. God has always been in the position of reaching out to man to save him, and that has never changed. It is not God who needs reconciliation, it us who need to be reconciled to God. We were the ones who rebelled against God.
Even so, often in Christian circles, we find the desire to somehow show that we are righteous. We look to find a way to prove that we are good enough for God. This is just a subtle form of pride, because the truth is, we are all sinners and fall short. (Romans 3:23)
Just how bad our condition really is, can be seen in James 2:10, which says if we break just one point of the law, we are guilty of breaking all of the law. From this we can see that we do not have much ground to stand on.
However, God never changes in his attitude towards us. God has always loved us and always will, it is our sins that separate us from God, and not the other way around.
God knows that we are weak in our sinful natures I John 1:8 says that if we say we have no sin, we are deceived and lying. He goes on to say, as we confess our sins, meaning to agree with God, then we will be forgiven and cleansed.
In our sinful natures, we would not even turn to God. Like Adam and Eve, we would hide. This is why God has sought us out. I John 4:10 says “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
We have no room for pride then, because we are all guilty before God. We stand only because God allows us to stand as His righteous children.
Rejoice then, and be glad, because even though we are guilty, God has pardoned us if we believe in Him.
J.I. Packer writes in Concise Theology, “By the giving up of His sinless life sacrificially, Christ annuls the power of sin to separate between God and the believer.”
We are in fellowship with God then, not because of who we are, but because of who Christ is.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.