Series: Romans
Title: Christ a Propitiation
Text: Romans 3: 25
Date: July 8, 2018
Place: SGBC, NJ
Romans 3:25: Whom God
hath set forth to be a
propitiation through faith in his blood,…
The word “propitiation” is the mercy seat. The mercy seat was the same dimensions as the
ark of the testimony. It exactly covered
the law which was in the ark. It was upon
the mercy seat that the high priest sprinkled the blood of the lamb on the day
of atonement. It was there at the mercy
seat where God promised to meet with his people.
Exodus 25:17: And thou shalt make a mercy seat (a
propitiation) of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall
be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. 18 And
thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt
thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 And make one cherub on
the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy
seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. 20 And the cherubims
shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with
their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the
mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be. 21 And thou shalt put the mercy
seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I
shall give thee. [the law of God] 22 And 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.
ON THE DAY OF ATONEMENT
The
spotless lamb was brought—a picture of Christ Jesus the spotless, just Substitute
provided by God. In type, the sin of the
children of Israel was transferred to the lamb—a picture of Christ being made
sin and bearing all the iniquity of his people.
Then justice slew the lamb instead of the children of Israel—a type of
Christ crucified in place of all God’s elect.
Then the high priest, by himself, took the blood of lamb into the
holiest of holies—a picture of Christ our High Priest entering God’s presence
with his own blood. The high priest sprinkled
the blood upon the mercy seat—propitiation. God said, “And 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.”
The propitiation
is the sacrifice by which God’s wrath is appeased. It is the sacrifice by which
God’s injured honor, due to sinner’s breaking his law, is vindicated. In that
one sacrifice justice has been satisfied and God’s law upheld. Atonement—at-one-ment between God and his people—has
been made. God is propitiated.
Sinner, do
you ask, “How can I come before God? Where will God meet with me, the sinner?” God says, “There, I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat.” And who is
that mercy seat? Who is that
propitiation?
Proposition: In our
text, God declares he has provided a propitiation in the person of Christ, his
dear Son.
WHO PROVIDED THE PROPITIATION
Romans 3:25: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation…
The very God who was offended, the very God
whose law we broke, the very God who was angered at the dishonor shown him by
his chosen people, is the God who provided the propitiation! Concerning his
people we read,
1 John
4:9: In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent
his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10: Herein
is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our
sins.
God’s love
for his elect is eternal and immutable. He
never hated those he everlastingly loves in Christ. God always loved his elect.
His love never changes. He does not love today and hate tomorrow nor hate today
and love tomorrow. God’s love never varies. It never increases and never
diminishes.
So Christ
has not, by his sacrifice and death, procured the love and favor of God toward
us. It was the love of God who sent Christ who is the propitiation for the sins
of God’s elect people. And by Christ’s
sin-atoning sacrifice at Calvary, Christ removed all the obstacles between God
and his people.
Therefore,
seeing that God himself provided the propitiation, it must be safe to believe
God’s word. Seeing God who we offended
provided his own Son to propitiate God for the sins of his people then we know
that God really will meet with a sinner and commune with a sinner in Christ the
propitiation. If the one I offended provided his Son to be a propitiation and
God declares Christ is the only one in whom he will meet with a sinner then I
should come to God through faith in Christ.
WHEN DID GOD SET HIM FORTH?
Romans 3: 25: Whom God hath set forth to
be a propitiation
The
margin says whom God “foreordained.” God
ordained Christ a propitiation before the world was made. In God’s eternal purpose and decree, God the
Father chose and ordained his Son, Christ our Lord, a propitiation for the sins
of God’s elect. Before as yet Adam sinned and plunged all God’s elect into sin
and death, God had already ordained his Son, a propitiation for our sins.
Then God set Christ forth a propitiation in
the promises of the Old Testament. Way
back in the garden in Genesis 3: 15, God set Christ forth as the woman’s seed
who God promised would bruise the serpents head. God set him forth in all the types, shadows,
and sacrifices of the law. We saw Christ typified as the High Priest, the Lamb,
and the Mercy Seat. Likewise, in the
prophets, God set Christ forth a propitiation. Isaiah 53 is concerning Christ
our propitiation.
Micah 5:
2: But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that
is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old,
from everlasting.
Proverbs
8:23 [Christ our Wisdom says] I was set up from everlasting, from the
beginning, or ever the earth was.
Of
course, God set Christ forth in our nature in the incarnation when the Son of
God took flesh like unto his brethren.
He was manifest in his life of obedience as our Surety, in his sacrifice
upon the cursed tree and in the preaching of the gospel. At the appointed hour, God sets Christ forth a
propitiation in the hearts of his people.
The apostle Peter summed all this up by saying to those born of the
Spirit that Christ “verily was
foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last
times for you.” (1 Pet 1: 20)
The point
I want you to get is that the Lord Jesus Christ was not “plan B” with God. God
the Father set forth Christ a propitiation from before the foundation of the
world. God elected a people he would save and God foreordained Christ a propitiation
for our sins. It means God knew the end
from the beginning. God has been in full
sovereign control since the beginning of time. The fall of Adam’s race was no
surprise to God. Before sin entered God
had already foreordained the propitiation for sin. The crucifixion of Christ by the hands of
wicked men was the fulfillment of what God ordained before the world was made. In God’s eternal purpose there has always
only been one Propitiation, Christ Jesus the Lord. Isaac Watts wrote:
“Christ be my first elect
he said
Then chose our souls in Christ our Head
Before he gave the mountains birth
Or laid foundations for the earth
Thus did eternal love begin
To raise us up from death and sin
Our characters were then decreed
Blameless in him, a holy seed.”
A PROPITIATION BY HIS BLOOD
Romans 3: 25: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation…in his blood,
This is the main point. Christ propitiated God by shedding his own
life’s blood unto death.
Hebrews 9: 11:
But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and
more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this
building; 12: Neither by the
blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the
holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
God’s holy law was broken by Adam and all his
elect sinned in him.
Romans 5: 12: Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into
the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that [in
Adam] all have sinned:
Then to
show us that we all really sinned in Adam when he sinned, and that we were all
really made sin by Adam’s disobedience, the Holy Spirit declares that God will
not impute sin unless a man has been made sin by a prior act under the law.
Romans 5: 13: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not
imputed when there is no law.
Words
have meaning. We do not have the luxury
of defining words as we please. The
Greek Lexicon declares that “if I reckon [or
impute] that my bank book has $25 in it, it has $25 in it. Otherwise I am
deceiving myself. This word refers to facts not suppositions.” Right here in verse 13, the Holy Spirit declares
that God will not impute sin where a man has not first been made sin under law.
Romans 5: 14:
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not
sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression,…
How could
God be just to impute sin to men who did not break a known law after the
similitude of Adam? The reason God
imputed sin to men and death reigned between Adam and Moses, even though they
did not have a known law to break after the similitude of Adam, is because in
Adam all really and truly have sinned. (Ro 5: 12-13) That is the point of
verses 13-14. We were made sin by one man’s disobedience. Therefore, God justly
imputed sin to us because it was fact. He is telling us the reason God imputed
sin to us is because in Adam all have
sinned.
Brethren,
I would never make this statement to you if I had not studied it very
diligently throughout the scriptures and by looking up the definitions of these
important words. When the definition
says that imputation does not deal in suppositions, it means God did not
suppose or treat Adam “as if” he had sinned when Adam broke his law. Nor did
God treat all Adam’s race “as if” we sinned in Adam. When the definition says imputation deals in facts
it means God imputed sin to Adam because he was made sin by a prior act under
the law. The prior act was Adam, himself, sinned. So God imputed sin to us
because “all have sinned” in Adam
(Rom 5: 12) Adam made us sin by his disobedience just as scripture says. Therefore, because we were made sin by that
prior act under the law, God justly imputed sin to us.
Thankfully,
Romans 5: 14 says that Adam “is the
figure of him that was to come.” Adam
typified Christ in that Christ is the legal and seminal head of his people just
as Adam was of his. When the definition of imputation says imputation does not
deal in suppositions, it means God did not impute sin to Christ and treat
Christ “as if” he were sin. God would not impute sin to Christ until “he hath made him sin for us, who knew no
sin.” When the Greek Lexicon says imputation
deals in fact it means when “he hath made
him sin for us, who knew no sin” then and only then did God impute sin to
Christ when he was “numbered with the
transgressors; and he bare the sin of
many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (2 Cor 5:21; Is 53: 12)
It does
not mean Christ was corrupted or himself became a sinner. Christ himself knew no sin: he was not
conceived in sin, he did no sin nor would he commit sin. The Psalms are clear
that even while Christ bore the sin of his people and cried “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”,
he vindicated God as pouring out his wrath justly when he said “But thou art holy…but I am a worm, and no
man.” (Ps 22: 1-6) By calling himself a “worm” our Redeemer was owning the
sin and shame of his people to be his own. But at the same time, in perfect
faith and holiness of heart, Christ never ceased looking to, crying unto and
waiting upon God his Father to justify him when the work was finished according
to his Father’s covenant promise. (Is 50: 6-9)
We see it in the same Psalm when Christ said, “But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope
when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou
art my God from my mother’s belly. Be
not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.” (Ps 22:
9-11) So Christ fulfilled the positive righteousness of the law in perfect holy
faith as he fulfilled the negative righteousness of the law by bearing the
death of separation from God which is the wages of sin. (2 Thess 1: 9) No, in no way did Christ become a rebellious,
God-hating, law-breaker. In no way was he corrupted in his nature. Perish the
thought! Sin was not infused into Christ.
But because God will not impute sin where one has not been made sin
under law by a prior act, whether we understand how or not, scripture is clear
that the prior act was “he hath made him
sin for us, who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in
him.” (2 Cor 5:21)
Someone
will object that God made Christ sin by imputing the sin of his people to
Christ. But if definitions mean anything then that simply cannot be according
to every true definition and true use of imputation. It runs contrary to the
use of imputation in every form of the word throughout the scriptures.
Imputation is charging someone with the fact of what they are, not supposing
them to be something they are not. If a
bad motive is imputed to someone whose motive is honest, it is a false charge. But imputing a bad motive to someone does not
make the person have a bad motive. Imputation,
when done justly, is reckoning to one what is fact. That is simply the definition of imputation
and it is the scriptural use.
Oh, what
good news this is for the believer! Since
God does not deal in suppositions, God is not treating the believer “as if” we
are righteous or “as if” we do not have sin. When the definition says
imputation deals in fact it means through faith in Christ, God imputes
righteousness unto the believer because Christ really made God’s elect
righteous by his obedience. That is exactly what the scripture says. Likewise, it means God will not impute sin to
us because by the finished work of Christ we have no sin to impute. Again, that is exactly what scripture
says. “And ye know that he was manifested to put away our sins; and in him is
no sin.” (1 Jn 1: 5)
Brethren,
we simply do not have the luxury of making words mean what we want them to mean. Words mean what they mean. Bless God, imputation is the imputing of what
a man has been made by a prior act. Christ
came to manifest the strict, unyielding, unbending righteousness of God. In order to manifest the righteousness God,
God could not and would not deal in supposition, pretending “as if.” Rather, God dealt in fact, manifesting that
he is the God of all the earth who only does right!
We broke
God’s law in Adam and God’s offended justice had to be satisfied because God is
just. Therefore, God cannot arbitrarily
put away sin and discharge the sinner of his guilt apart from the blood of his
Son upon the cross. A holy and just God demands satisfaction for sin
before he can receive sinners into fellowship with himself. Therefore, he declares that “without shedding of blood there is no
remission for sin.”
So only
by Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice can God be just and yet justify the ungodly. But by the blood of Christ our propitiation
the Holy Lord God is both, “a Just God and a Savior!” Christ’s sacrifice has upheld
God’s holy law. And Christ’s blood has satisfied justice for each one for whom
he died making us justified by God our Justifier!
Now, oh
how I love to think on this! Now, that same justice means God must and shall be
merciful to all for whom Christ died. The wrath of God, nor any of the effects
of his wrath, can ever fall upon those for whom Christ is the propitiation. So
in the blood of Christ propitiation has been made.
I love
the picture God drew for us in the old tabernacle. The mercy seat in the
holiest of holies was the exact size to cover the law of God inside the ark. Christ said, “Thy law is in my heart. I came to do thy will, o God!” By his
submission and obedience to the law, Christ perfectly fulfilled every
requirement of the law’s righteousness to its exact size. By voluntarily
submitting himself to the curse of the law in the stead of his people, Christ
fully satisfied the demands of the law’s justice. “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” (Ro 5:19)
Hebrews 9:25: Nor yet that he should offer himself often,
as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of
others; 26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the
world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared TO PUT AWAY SIN BY
THE SACRIFICE OF HIMSELF. 27 And as it is appointed unto men ONCE to die, but
after this the judgment: 28 So Christ was ONCE offered to BEAR THE SINS OF MANY;
and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time WITHOUT SIN unto
salvation.
1 John 2:
1: My little children, these
things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2: And HE IS THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS: and not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world.
THROUGH FAITH IN HIS BLOOD
Romans 5: 25: Whom God hath set forth to
be a propitiation through faith in his blood,…
You and I need Christ—we need to believe on
Christ—because we are guilty sinners and God is holy and will by no means clear
the guilty.
Therefore, the only way God will meet with
us, the only way holy God can meet
with us, and commune with us, is by us coming to him in the one and only
propitiation that he has provided, the only and only propitiation wherein he
will meet with us, his own Son.
If you
are to be saved from the guilt of sin and the curse of the law, you must
renounce all self-worth and all self-righteousness and trust Christ as your
only propitiation. Christ is the propitiation
for sinners of every kind but only for those who come to God by him—through faith in him! Remember, what
Christ said of the publican:
Luke
18:13: 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
[propitious] to me a sinner. 14: I tell you, this man went down to his house justified…
Jeremiah
50:20: In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the iniquity of Israel
shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they
shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve.
Amen!