Monday 5/16/2022

Happy Monday everyone, I pray you had a great day in God's house yesterday. This week I would like to look at some of the passages I will be preaching on this upcoming Sunday (the 22nd). Think of it as a warm up to the message.

Romans 3: 
21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

There is a lot of good stuff in those few verses. Because this is a "blog" and not a book or novel, I will only focus on one "idea" found in these passages. The idea (or word) is that of "propitiation." This word is not used in our society. I would venture to say that most people do not know exactly what it means, yet are able get an understanding from the context of what Paul is saying in vs. 25. 
Simply put, The word propitiation carries the basic idea of appeasement or satisfaction, specifically toward God. Propitiation is a two-part act that involves appeasing the wrath of an offended person and then being reconciled to him. When Paul says that Christ is our propitiation, he is saying that through Christ's death and resurrection, Christ settled our debt before the Lord. Our sin separated us from God, a holy, perfect God can not be in the presence of sin-but Christ, having taken on our sin, declared us "not guilty" before the Lord. Thus, Christ is our propitiation. We are reconciled to God, or reunited with God because of the death and resurrection of Christ.