A Study of Romans 3:21-31
Introduction
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a medical doctor in England who became one of the most sought-after Bible expositors in the 20th century. I have his collection of Bible studies from Romans 3, and he devoted many pages to the verse we are coming to today—Romans 3:25. He said, “We are looking here at one of the most important verses in the whole of Scripture; there is no doubt about that. Somebody has described this as ‘the acropolis of the Bible and of the Christian faith….’ We cannot examine it too closely or too carefully.”
Now, let’s resume our study of Romans, beginning with Romans 3:21, where Paul begins talking about God’s provision for saving us, and we’ll read down to verse 25.
Scripture:
21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.…
The biblical vocabulary might sound foreign to someone who isn’t a believer or who is new to the faith and to the Bible. Some preachers take the approach of avoiding as many of these terms as possible and “dumbing down” their messages. I’ve always thought we need to learn God’s vocabulary and the significance of the words He uses.
I don’t know of any passage in Scripture in which there is a greater concentration of theologically-charged words as in the portion we’ve just read. In the previous episode we looked at the words sin, glory, justified, grace, and redemption.
Now today we come to one of the most important and challenging words in the divine vocabulary. Roman 3:25 says, “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement.”
Those three words—”sacrifice of atonement”—are really from only one word in the Greek, which was the original language of the New Testament. The Greek term is hilasterion. It is typically translated in four different ways in our various versions of the Bible, and that’s what I want to cover in today’s study.
1. Propitiation
The older translations like the King James Version all use the word propitiation. What is propitiation? I once had a child ask me that in church one day just before the service. I think her dad put her up to it to get me all confused before my sermon, and they succeeded. I scrambled to recall the meaning of this term. Propitiation comes from a Latin word meaning “to appease.” The definition of the word propitiation is: “the act of turning away wrath by offering a gift or sacrifice.” Let’s say you’ve done something to make someone very angry with you. You want to make it right, and so you do something sacrificial to appease the person’s anger.
For example, say you’re a high school quarterback who throws an interception and your team loses the game. In the locker room afterward, frustration gets the best of you. You hurl your helmet against the wall, punching a dent through the drywall. Your coach can handle your interception—every quarterback throws one now and then—but the look on his face tells you he is furious at your outburst and the damage you caused.
The next day—Saturday—you go back to the locker room on your own time. You patch the hole, sand it smooth, and repaint the wall. Then you call your coach and tell him you’ve repaired the damage to the wall and now you want to repair the damage to the team. You want to apologize to him and to the entire team before Monday’s practice. Seeing your sincerity and your effort to make things right, his anger is appeased. Your act of repairing the damage and seeking reconciliation would be a propitiation—an action that turns away someone’s displeasure.
But here’s the problem for us: we cannot repair the damage our sin has done against God. No patchwork, no effort, no moral paint job can undo the offense. And so God, in His mercy, presented Christ as our propitiation—the sacrifice that repairs the damage we could never fix.
So the old term propitiation means a sacrificial action aimed at appeasing someone’s wrath. That is the traditional way to define the Greek word hilasterion—propitiation, then means a gift given to turn away wrath.
2. Expiation
If propitiation emphases the turning away of wrath, expiation emphasizes something slightly different. The Revised Standard Version uses the word “expiation.” But what is that? It’s a seldom used English word that means “to remove guilt.” It has more to do with forgiveness than turning away wrath. Imagine a boy named Caleb playing baseball in the backyard. He makes a wild throw and the ball crashes through the neighbor’s window. Expiation would be Caleb replacing the window and repairing the damage. Propitiation would be Caleb going to the neighbor, expressing remorse, apologizing, replacing the window, and getting on good terms again with the neighbor.
In other words, expiation is the removal of guilt. Propitiation involves the turning away of wrath.
3. Sacrifice of Atonement
As we’ve seen, the New International Version, which is the translation I’ve used most of my ministry, renders this Greek word hilasterion as “sacrifice of atonement.” Verse 25 says, God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement. What does the word “atonement” mean? It conveys the idea of reconciliation. Theology professors point out that the word atonement means just what it says: at-one-ment. Two parties who are on differing sides of an issue are reconciled and once again become of one mind. It is the state of being one, of becoming united. The idea is that the feud is ended, and harmony exists where there was once division.
So in Christian theology, atonement means the work of Christ in restoring humanity’s broken relationship. God offered Jesus Christ as a sacrifice that would reconcile us with Himself, God the Father.
Let’s say that a man loses his temper and snaps at his wife, and that causes a deep chill to come over their relationship. He has hurt her. He has done damage. The next afternoon, he stops at the florist and buys her the most expensive display of flowers he could ever imagine. He also writes a note offering his apology and reaffirming his love to her. She graciously accepts the gift, forgives him, and the marriage is back in working order. The large price he paid for the flowers along with his sincere note would be a sacrifice that puts the two back into a state of being one in spirit and one in love. It would be a sacrifice of atonement.
But no bouquet of flowers can make us one with God, for we are separated from His presence by our faults and failures. We are far short of His glory. That’s when Jesus became a sacrifice of atonement for us.
4. Mercy Seat
So the Greek term Paul throws at us in Romans 3:25, hilasterion, could be translated as propitiation, expiation, sacrifice of atonement, or there is one more option.
The Christian Standard Bible translates the word as mercy seat. It says: “God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood….” It does that because in the Greek Version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, which was produced about 200 years before the birth of Jesus, the translators read in the Old Testament about the golden lid of the ark of the covenant where the blood of the atonement was sprinkled. And that translated that piece of tabernacle furniture as hilasterion.
Let me read you a passage in Hebrews 9 from the New International Version: “Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. 2 A tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand and the table with its consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place. 3 Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, 4 which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. 5 Above the ark were the cherubim of the Glory, overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.”
The word “atonement cover” or “mercy seat” is the same word, hilasterion.
This requires a bit of explaining too. When God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, He wanted to be in the midst of them, and so He gave Moses the plans for a tent—the Tabernacle—in which God’s glory would dwell. The innermost room was the Holy of Holies and the only thing in that room was the Ark of the Covenant, which represented the earthly footstool of the heavenly throne of God. This was an open chest, but it had a lid or covering that was called the mercy seat, or the atonement cover.
Once a year on the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, the High Priest would come into this room and sprinkle the blood of a spotless animal onto the mercy seat. That blood symbolically covered the sins of the nation for another year. It was the place where God’s holiness and human sin met—where judgment was turned aside, and mercy was granted. The mercy seat was, quite literally, the place of atonement.
Paul intentionally draws on this imagery in Romans 3:25. By using the word hilastērion, he is saying that Jesus Himself is the sacrifice whose blood is sprinkled before Almighty God’s throne. He is the place where God’s wrath is satisfied, where the blood is applied, and where sinners find forgiveness. Instead of the blood of animals offered year after year, God presented Christ once for all as the true and final atonement cover—the place where our sins are dealt with and where we are made right with Him forever.
By using the word hilastērion, Paul is saying that Jesus Himself is the true mercy seat—the place where God and sinners meet. His blood is the blood sprinkled. His body is the sacrifice offered. He is both Priest and Offering. And where once the high priest entered yearly with the blood of animals, Christ has entered once for all with His own blood, securing eternal redemption.
And that’s what Romans 3:25 goes on to say: God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood….
So this one word is translated by various translations as:
- Propitiation: Something that turns away wrath.
- Expiation: Something that expunges guilt.
- A Sacrifice of Atonement: Something that brings two hostile sides together.
- Mercy Seat: The place where the blood of a sacrifice was offered for the forgiveness of sin.
Truly all those ideas are bound up in this word. But notice that last part of the sentence: God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood….
As I researched this message I came across a lecture given in 1947 at an InterVarsity event in England. The speaker was Rev. A. M. Stibbs. He pointed out something I had never before known: “The blood of Christ is mentioned in the writings of the New Testament nearly three times as often as the cross of Christ and five times as frequently as the death of Christ. The term “blood” is, in fact, a chief method of reference to the sacrifice of Christ….”
- Romans 5:9 says we are “justified by His blood.”
- Ephesians 1:7 says we “have redemption through His blood.”
- Ephesians 2:13 says we “have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
- Colossians 1:20 says Jesus “made peace through His blood, shed on the cross.”
- 1 Peter 1:2 says we have been “sprinkled with His blood.”
- 1 Peter 1:19 says we have not been redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold, “but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”
- 1 John 1:7 says, “the blood of Jesus…purifies us from all sin.”
- Revelation 1:5 says Jesus “loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood.”
- Revelation 5:9 says, “You were slain and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
But there is one book in the New Testament that speaks of the blood of Jesus Christ more than any other, and that is the book of Hebrews.
- Hebrews 9:12 says, “He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
- Hebrews 9:14 says, “The blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, [will] cleanse our consciences…”
- Hebrews 10:19 says we have “confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus.”
- Hebrews 13:12 says, “And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through His own blood.”
- Hebrews 13:20 says, “The God of Peace…through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep.”
So here in Romans 3, Paul summarizes all that and he goes on to say: God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—
I confess that the last half of this verse is a bit of a challenge. What does Paul mean when he says that God, in His forbearance, “left the sins committed beforehand unpunished”? Paul is referring to the entire era before the cross, when God genuinely forgave people even though the atoning sacrifice of Christ had not yet occurred in history. Think of the Old Testament saints—Moses with his outbursts of temper; Joseph’s brothers with their cruelty; Noah with his drunkenness; Elijah with his collapse of spirit; Aaron with the golden calf; Samson with his immorality; David with his adultery and murder; Jonah with his rebellion; and Manasseh with his idolatry. All of them came to God with repentant hearts, and God forgave them. But chronologically speaking, the blood of Christ had not yet been shed.
This raises the question: If “the wages of sin is death,” and if “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness,” how could God pardon sinners before Calvary? The answer is that the cross was always the center of God’s redemptive plan. God forgave in advance because He knew that the full and final payment for sin would be made by His Son. Christ’s sacrifice is retroactive as well as proactive—it covers those who lived before the cross and those who live after it.
The New Bible Commentary explains it this way: “God has, in the past, ‘passed over,’ failed to punish with full severity the sins of his people. He has justified people like Abraham and David without extracting the full penalty for their sins. That penalty has now been paid by Christ on the cross, revealing God to be just both in his passing over of those sins committed beforehand and in his justification of sinners at the present time.”
Dr. A. M. Stibbs, whom I quoted earlier, said, “This one act in history of the death of Jesus – the offering of His body, and the shedding of His blood – is of such value that it avails to reconcile all things unto God and to perfect for ever those whom it sanctifies. Such is the value in eternity of the Lamb slain. This one offering has an all-sufficient efficacy to cover the sins passed over before Christ came, and to cleanse completely all those who are being brought in until the Church is complete.”
Verse 26 goes on to say: He [God] did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Theologian Charles Hodge said, “The death of Christ is the ground on which God pardoned the sins of the saints under the old dispensation, as well as those of believers under the new. There has never been but one plan of salvation.”
And there has been only one method for being saved—by grace through faith. Paul is going to expound on this in the next chapter, Romans 4, by using the example of Abraham. But for now he is simply setting forth the principle. Look at the remaining verses in the chapter:
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.
As we step back from this dense and beautiful vocabulary—from propitiation and expiation, from the atonement cover and the mercy seat—Paul’s point becomes unmistakably clear: God has done for us in Christ what we could never do for ourselves.
We cannot turn away God’s wrath.
We cannot remove our own guilt.
We cannot reconcile ourselves to a holy God.
We cannot sprinkle our own blood on the mercy seat.
But God presented Christ.
God provided the sacrifice.
God set forth the atonement.
God applied the blood.
And we receive it by faith.
The verses I quoted earlier says that the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God,
- Justifies us
- Redeems us
- Brings us near Him
- Gives us peace with Him
- Frees us from sin
- Purifies us from sin
- Cleanses us from sin
- Cleanses our consciouses
- Makes us holy
- Purchases us for God
- Obtains eternal life for us
- Opens the way for us to enter the Most Holy Place and stand in God’s presence.
One of my favorite hymn stanzas is the second verse of Isacc Watts’ great hymn, “Join All the Glorious Names.” It says:
Jesus, my great High Priest
Offered His blood and died;
My guilty soul now needs
No sacrifice beside.
His powerful blood,
Did once atone,
And now it pleads
Before the Throne.