PROPITIATION “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith” (3:25, emphasis added). Or as the ESV rightly has it, God presented Christ “as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (emphasis added). Now what does that mean? We need to pause for a moment and work through this word “propitiation” or “sacrifice of atonement.” Propitiation is that sacrificial act by which God becomes propitious, which doesn’t tell you very much, does it? “Propitious” simply means favorable: to say that propitiation is an act by which God
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