Is the Doctrine of Propitiation Really Biblical?

By Jordan A. Hoge

A major component of the penal substitutionary atonement theory is the doctrine of Jesus Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice for sin. The theory of penal substitutionary atonement tells of Jesus’ loving endurance, absorption, and exhaustion the divine wrath of God to provide salvation for those who were deserving of the wrath Jesus bore.[1] The doctrine of propitiation is well understood as a sacrifice that appeases and bears God’s wrath until it is quenched, and the sinner’s position before God changes from deserving God’s wrath to receiving God’s favor.[2] The following paper argues that in order to understand the Biblical doctrine of the atonement, it is necessary to understand that Jesus propitiated God’s holy wrath toward sinners. Though many have rejected the concept of propitiation, insisting that the expiation theory of atonement is the correct understanding and insisting the propitiatory view to be closer to paganism than Biblical Christianity, the following refutation will show that removing the concept of the appeasement of God’s holy wrath from the atonement misses the heart of the gospel message. 

A Historical, Theological Synopsis Regarding Various Theories of Atonement

To understand the doctrine of propitiation as a theological concept, one must first have an accurate comprehension of God’s attitude toward sin. His absolute holiness requires that his attitude toward sin is anger, wrath, indignation, and fury.[3] Because mankind has transgressed the command of God and inherited a nature inclined toward sin in which he continually chooses sin, he stands at enmity with God.[4] As the Apostle Paul has written, the man with his mind set upon his flesh is hostile to God and cannot please God (Rom. 8:7-8). Adam’s rebellion required his eviction from God’s presence and rendered a bilateral hostility for which it is an impossible reality that an unconverted and unrighteous man is able to dwell in the presence of an absolutely holy God. 

At the conclusion of the Eleventh Century, Anselm of Canterbury published Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man) where he argued for what has become known as the Satisfaction Theory of Atonement. Prior to Anselm’s work, the Catholic Church predominantly held to the Ransom Theory of Atonement, a depiction of a great cosmic drama which viewed Jesus’ death as a payment to Satan to purchase the freedom of sinners from their bondage to Satan and his evil forces.[5] Anselm’s Satisfaction Theory corrected the Ransom Theory contending that the ransoming payment was made to God for his satisfaction and not to Satan.[6] Anselm’s theory also proved to be a productive step on which the Reformers would build the theory now recognized as Penal Substitutionary Atonement, the theory for which this present paper addresses. In Cur Deus Homo, Anselm argued that the sin of mankind attempted to steal honor that rightly belonged to God. He wrote, “If no satisfaction is given, the way to regulate sin correctly is none other than to punish it.”[7] Anselm’s theory requires that restitution be made to God on behalf of sin – a price that a mere human could not pay back to God. Thus, if any sin could be pardoned, the only possibility lay in God’s becoming a man and paying the restitution of justice to himself for himself.

The Reformers adopted the major thought of the Satisfaction Theory; moreover, where Anselm understood Jesus’ sacrifice to pay recompense for damages done by dishonoring God, the Reformation era understood the cross as Jesus receiving the penalty for sinners who had broken God’s law.[8] Though the Reformers are by no means credited with discovering the meaning of Penal Substitutionary Atonement, as if there was a new meaning of the atonement a millenia and a half after the cross; rather, they contributed a correction and an expansion upon the true meaning.[9] Calvin, for example, argued that Jesus was condemned by Pontius Pilate to receive the curse of final, inescapable judgement of God for which we were liable.[10] This concept which proposed Jesus’ satisfaction of the wrath of God in the place of sinners by paying the penalty due them corrected the course for a Biblical understanding of the atonement. God the Father, through the sacrifice of his Son, protected his people from the tortures of his own retributive justice by giving his Son as their representative substitute.[11] 

A New Testament Synopsis of Propitiation

Some who desire to remove the concept of the wrath of God from the Bible may suggest that the word propitiation is only seen four times in the New Testament as if the specific word’s infrequent usage changes the exceedingly frequented Scriptural concept in both Old and New Testaments. While the word only appears four times, the doctrine of propitiation occurs everywhere.[12] The Apostle Paul, the Apostle John, and the author of Hebrews give specific attention to the doctrine of propitiation in their New Testament writings. For the purposes of this paper, looking at the specific uses of the word propitiation in the New Testament does prove beneficial for understanding the theological concept.

In Romans 3:25, Paul explains that God put Jesus forward as a Ἱλαστήριον (hilastērion) to be received by faith. The concept conveyed by hilastērion is rooted in the Old Testament and is best understood as a propitiatory sacrifice that appeases the wrath of God. The strongest case reveals that hilastērion is linked to the “mercy seat” which covered the Ark of the Covenant where Yahweh appeared (Lev. 16:2). Twenty-one of the twenty-seven usages of hilastērion in the LXX refer to the mercy seat within the temple where the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement.[13] After making a sin offering for himself with a bull, Aaron was instructed to take two goats from the people of Israel and sacrifice one of them as a sin offering for the people, and then he was to sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat to atone for the sins of the people (Lev. 16:15).

The way in which the people found their atonement was by means of an atoning sacrifice that would absorb the penalty due them by dying as their substitute.[14] The blood symbolized the life of the animal that was slain as a substitute. God’s people then experienced cleansing because something had shed blood in their place. Instead of requiring the blood of those who had broken the Law, in his grace, God provided a way in which his justice could be satisfied by requiring the blood of another. In Romans 3:25, Paul argues the same theological concept seen in Leviticus 16. Whereas the central focal point in the Old Testament where atonement was accomplished by sprinkling the blood of the substitutionary sin offering on the mercy seat (LXX: hilastērion), the cross of Jesus Christ is the central focal point in the New Testament where atonement was made as God put him forward as a propitiation (hilastērion) to be received by faith (Rom. 3:25).[15]

The Apostle John further reveals the propitiatory work of Jesus in his first epistle. Since the only New Testament occurrences of the word ἱλασμός (hilasmos) are used in 1 John, it is necessary to look to the epistle’s immediate context to understand the John’s meaning.[16] John writes, “And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins…” (1 Jn. 2:1-2, NASB). The context deduces that Jesus as the hilasmos must mean that Jesus’ atoning sacrifice averts God’s wrath toward sin. Since Jesus as the hilasmos is placed in juxtaposition with Jesus as the advocate before God, it only makes sense that Jesus’ atoning sacrifice is the reality by which he pleads for God’s mercy instead of wrath for sinners.[17] His atonement, therefore, is understood to be propitiatory in nature.

The book of Hebrews further reveals the doctrine of propitiation as its author details Jesus’ role as a high priest for his people. The author of Hebrews assumes that divine wrath threatens his listeners in the same way that divine wrath had threatened Moses’ generation (Heb. 3:7-4:14); therefore, his argument reveals the way in which Jesus makes purification for sins.[18] The author argues that the incarnation of the Son of God was necessary in order that the Son could identify with God’s people in order that he might be their representative. If the Son did not become like humans in every way, he could not redeem them in every way.[19] The author’s argument is, because representation requires identification, another sinless creature, ie. an angel, could not stand in the place of humans as a substitute or mediator.[20] “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17, ESV). It is because of the incarnation that propitiation is possible. Because Jesus is the sacrifice that brings about the eternal satisfaction of God’s wrath for sin as well as the high priest who offered the sacrifice, God’s people have assurance that his wrath has been vindicated.

Should Expiation replace Propitiation?

In 1946, a revision of the American Standard Bible was published, known as the Revised Standard Version (RSV). The RSV replaced the English word propitiation with the word expiation in Romans 3:25, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10, and Hebrews 2:17. In each of these verses, the context reveals a propitiatory nature of atonement. These changes made in the RSV may at first appear slight; however, these changes convey a significant theological shift in understanding what happened upon Jesus’ cross. The changes were assuredly influenced by liberal theologians of the early Twentieth Century who advocated for a change in the vocabulary from propitiation to expiation.[21] Many of them refused to acknowledge a God whose attitude is wrathful toward unrepentant sinners. One of the most prominent of these theologians was C. H. Dodd who suggested in his work, The Bible and the Greeks, that the New Testament’s explanation of the atonement is not “be propitiated,” but is rather, “be merciful to me” or “forgive me.”[22] Where most translators and commentators have understood God’s righteous wrath to be propitiated by the blood of Jesus in Romans 3:25, Dodd bluntly suggested, “Most translators and commentators are wrong.”[23] Dodd attempted to argue linguistically from the LXX that the sacrifice of Jesus was not propitiatory; rather, the sacrifice was only expiatory and served to cleanse sinners of their defilement.[24]

What is to be made of the assessments by Dodd and others who have sought for the removal of the propitiatory nature of the atonement? First, it should be noted that by arguing for a propitiatory understanding of the atonement, the expiatory nature of Jesus’ sacrifice should not be diminished. The Biblical understanding of the atonement is not found in favoring one over the other – it is both. These doctrines belong together.[25] At the cross, sinners were expiated – they were cleansed, purified, and their guilt was removed. The expiatory nature, though, only deals with half of what propitiation means.[26] Propitiation deals especially with the satisfaction of the wrath of God. The expiatory aspect by itself fails to answer the question regarding how a holy God is able to forgive sin and how God’s demand for justice was satisfied.[27] 

The Bible reveals the need for the removal of sin and the need for the satisfaction of God’s justice. The Scriptures, especially Romans 1:18-3:20, reveal God’s rule over his creation as its divine Judge. As a just judge, there is a penalty due to all of the unrighteous who have rebelled against God’s law.[28] For a judge to be just, he cannot simply ignore crimes by withholding criminal sentences. Therefore, to suggest that Romans 3:25 is about the expiation of sin without Jesus’ means as the propitiation is Biblically inaccurate. The following verse insists, “It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26, ESV). If the nature of Jesus’ sacrifice is not propitiatory, satisfying the justice of God as the One upon whom justice was served, Romans 3:26 is out of place and does not make any sense. The only way in which Romans 3:26 can be sensibly understood is if Jesus’ death satisfied God’s righteous judgement according to the Law in the place of those who were condemned as unrighteous by the Law. 

Though many liberal scholars attempt to remove a God who is wrathful towards the unrepentant from the pages of Scripture, an honest study of both the Old and New Testaments will not allow for His removal. Not only did Jesus’ death provide the removal of guilt, but it also satisfied the wrath of God for all who would be justified by faith in him. Therefore, to have a proper understanding of the atonement means to recognize both aspects of its expiatory and propitiatory nature, and to remove the propitiatory aspect of the atonement from passages such as Romans 3:25, Hebrews 2:17, 1 John 2:2, and 1 John 4:10 is to remove the truest meaning of what Jesus accomplished upon the cross. 

Is Propitiation Paganistic and Abusive?

Instead of arguing linguistically, many other scholars have attempted to remove the propitiatory nature of the atonement by arguing theologically that God’s wrath did not need to be appeased by the death of Jesus. In his popular book The Lost Message of Jesus, Steve Chalke claims, “The fact is that the cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse – a vengeful Father punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed… If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil.”[29] Chalke’s assessment holds that Jesus’ death was a symbol of love, but Chalke rejects the view that God’s righteous justice was satisfied by the cross, and Chalke is not alone in holding this view. 

The prominent New Testament scholar N. T. Wright also denounces the view of Jesus’ propitiatory sacrifice in his book The Day the Revolution Began, claiming that Western Christians have paganized their soteriology by substituting the idea of “God killing Jesus to satisfy his wrath” for what Wright claims are more genuinely Biblical notions.[30] Wright argues that a propitiatory understanding of a “bullying deity who has to be appeased, to have his way with someone even if it isn’t the right person fits uncomfortably well with the way many human authority figures actually behave,” and that it is impossible to rescue someone from the scars of an abusive upbringing by telling them that their abuser is remarkably similar with the God who also abused his Son when he didn’t deserve it.[31] 

What is to be made of these claims that depict God the Father as an angry, vindictive abuser whose Son gets in the way of his revenge against humanity? Let it be known that this misunderstood depiction of God is an unbiblical representation of the character of God and what he has accomplished in the death of Jesus. The God of the Bible is nothing like bloodthirsty, ancient pagan deities because he is not essentially full of wrath; rather, he is stirred to anger in the presence of sin because of his righteousness, and his law requires that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).[32] He is not temperamental – he doesn’t unpredictably fly off the handle in his wrath; rather, his wrath is consistent with his hatred of sin.[33] For example, if someone claims to love and honor the sanctity of a marriage, he will naturally hate extramarital affairs. Truly loving the former requires a hatred toward the latter. Because God loves his righteous decrees, he naturally hates unrighteousness and rebellion. Therefore, God’s wrath is not like the wrath of a vindictive pagan deity or a temperamental abuser, for it is consistently and theologically necessary for God’s holy character to be wrathful toward unrighteousness.

Further, the sacrificial offering of Jesus which propitiated the wrath of God was not a bribe payment for sin. When men made sacrifices to appease pagan deities, they did so by making a sizable offer to produce their desired, sizable, results.[34] This manipulative scheme is the heartbeat of pagan sacrifice – it is nothing more than a commercialistic transaction that hopes to buy off the deity’s displeasure.[35] The appeasement of the wrath of the Christian God is nothing like the manipulative commercialism and bribery of pagan deities.

Christian propitiation is different in that it is initiated by God as a means of his grace to satisfy his own righteous requirements.[36] The work of propitiation was initiated and accomplished by God just as Paul revealed in Romans 3:25 writing, “whom God put forth as a propitiation…” The propitiation of Jesus was an act of God to satisfy the wrath of God, and it was accomplished through the second person of the Trinity who walked in perfect obedience as a real, flesh and blood, man. 

This is altogether different from the logic proposed by Chalke and Wright as a vindictive father who took out his anger on a son who got in his way. Instead, it is the gift of loving grace of a God who sacrificed his Son in the place of his rebellious children. Jesus was willing and obedient to lay down his life as a propitiation in the place of those who had in various ways tried their own hand at propitiating God but failed. As Stott has noted, “God does not love us because Christ died for us; Christ died for us because God loved us. If it is God’s wrath which needed to be propitiated, it is God’s love which did the propitiating.”[37] The Biblical approach to Jesus’ propitiatory work actually turns out to be just the opposite of paganistic and abusive – it is the perfect display of love and grace of the God who initiated and accomplished salvation for his people. This love and grace is the heartbeat of Biblical propitiation. 

In conclusion, the theory which most accurately represents the Biblical teachings on the atonement is the penal substitutionary view. When rebellious sinners deserved his wrath, God provided a way for the penalty of his wrath, death, to be absorbed and extinguished upon himself in their place as their substitute. Moreover, at the center of the penal substitutionary theory is the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus which appeased God’s wrath toward sinners. To reject the propitiatory concept of the atonement by suggesting that God is not wrathful and does not need to be appeased is inconsistent with the teachings of Scripture. If one rejects the propitiatory nature of the atonement, he is rejecting the heart of the gospel message itself because he is disregarding God’s greatest act of grace in his initiative to sacrifice himself in the place of sinners and to satisfy his righteous judgement as the One who is just and the One who justifies sinners (Rom. 3:26). The concept of propitiation, then, goes further than the concept of expiation. The Biblical portrayal of the atonement does reveal that repentant sinners are cleansed and forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus, and it also reveals the extent to which God went in providing for the propitiatory sacrifice that satisfied the requirements of his Law. In the wake of many attempts to remove the propitiatory concept of the atonement, honest Christians ought to always acknowledge the propitiatory nature of the atonement as theologically faithful to the Biblical gospel. Anything less diminishes what God has accomplished by putting Jesus forward as a propitiation to be received by faith.

[1]J. I. Packer, “What Did the Cross Achieve?” 9Marks Journal (August 2019), 31.

[2]Wayne Grudem, Bible Doctrine: Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith. Edited by Jeff Purswell. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999, 254.

[3]Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley. Reformed Systematic Theology: Man and Christ. Vol. 2. Wheaton: Crossway, 2020, 452.

[4]“Baptist Faith and Message 2000,” https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/#iii-man

[5]Millard Erickson. Christian Theology. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013, 724.

[6]Ibid., 727.

[7]Anselm of Canterbury, The Major Works Including Monologion, Proslogion, and Why God Became Man. Oxford World’s Classics. Edited by Brian Davies and G. R. Evans. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998, 284.

[8]J. I. Packer, “What Did the Cross Achieve?”, 9. 

[9]Sheeran, Sean. “Did Calvin Popularize Penal Substitution?,” The Gospel Coalition, 21 09 2018. https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/did-calvin-popularize-penal-substitution/

[10]Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008. Calvin’s Institutes, 328. 

[11]J. I. Packer, Knowing God. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973, 189.

[12]Ibid., 190.

[13]Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996, 232.

[14]Mark Dever and Michael Lawrence. It Is Well: Expositions on Substitutionary Atonement. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010, 41.

[15]Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, 236. 

[16]Kruse, Colin G. The Letters of John. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000, 73.

[17]Ibid. 

[18]Craig R. Koester, Hebrews, The Anchor Bible. New York: Doubleday, 2001, 241.

[19]Stephen J. Wellum, Christ Alone: The Uniqueness of Jesus as Savior. Edited by Matthew Barrett. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017, 119. 

[20]Ibid.

[21]R. Albert. Mohler, Christ-Centered Exposition: Exalting Jesus in Hebrews. Edited by David Platt, Daniel L. Akin, and Tony Merida. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2017, 38.

[22]Dodd, C. H. The Bible and the Greeks. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935, 93-94. 

[23]Ibid., 94.

[24]John Stott, The Cross of Christ. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1986, 170.

[25]Ibid., 175.

[26]J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 182.

[27]R. Albert. Mohler, Christ-Centered Exposition: Exalting Jesus in Hebrews., 38. 

[28]J. I. Packer, “What Did the Cross Achieve?”, 35.

[29]Steve Chalke and Alan Mann, The Lost Message of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003, 182-183.

[30]N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’ Crucifixion. San Francisco: HarperOne Publishing, 2016, 147.

[31]Ibid., N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, 43-44.

[32]Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011, 499.

[33]John Stott, The Cross of Christ, 173.

[34]J. I. Packer, Knowing God, 180.

[35]Ibid.

[36]John Stott, The Cross of Christ, 173.

[37]Ibid., 174.