It has been attempted to say, there is no appeasement of wrath with God. The words ἱλάσκεσθαι, ἱλασμός, ἱλαστήριον, all have exactly this sense. They meet the qualities or attributes in God which are necessary, and must be maintained; or He is not God as He is (or not God at all), to maintain what He is, His holiness and righteousness. But He is supreme in love.
No doubt the true love of God in this attracts man by grace, but that is not the meaning of propitiation. I propitiate an offended superior, or render him propitious to me. Does God do that to man? To a horn, as the offended person, was the blood always presented and offered? It is revealed to man that it has been presented to God, and accepted; so that we may come boldly to God through faith in it. But it never was presented to man.
This marks the two parts of propitiation, man's responsibility, and access to God given according to His glory and nature: in the sins borne and put away—the scapegoat, God judging evil according to what man ought to be; and [in] access to God according to what He is. The last specifically characterizes the Christian; but the former was necessary and accomplished for every one that believes: both by the same work of the cross, but each distinct; judicial dealing according to man's responsibility; access to God according to His nature and holiness.
Propitiation, then, meets our sins through grace according to God's holy nature, to which it is presented, and which has been fully glorified in it. It meets the requirements of that nature. Yet it is perfect love to us—love indeed only thus known as wrought between Christ and God alone, the only part we had in it being our sins and the hatred to God which killed Christ. But it does more, being according to God's nature and all that this nature is in every respect. It not only judicially meets what is required by reason of our sins—man's failure in duty and his guilt, but it opens access into the presence of God Himself known in that nature which has been glorified in it.
It is not true therefore that wrath cannot be where there is love. A father full of love may be rightly angry with his child ... ... There is no hatred in God to man assuredly. Yet God is a righteous judge; and God is angry with the wicked every day and ought to be so.
But peace had to be made when there was wrath, and the sovereign love that saves is not the favor which rests on those reconciled (Rom. 5:1). God loved us when we were sinners; He loves us without any change when we are cleansed. But we are cleansed, reconciled.
Glorifying God was the first grand object, and not merely love to us. This was part of the glory no doubt, but not all. It is not simply that God was putting away our sins, but there was a Mediator with Whom He was dealing about sins. God was making Him sin, and dealing with Him in the way of a curse because of it, when He had “offered Himself without spot to God.” Curse and wrath have been executed; and thus peace has been made.
God smelled a sweet savor, the odor of rest, and said, I will no more curse; and this is called “ἱλασμός, ἱλάσκεσθαι, and the mercy-seat ἱλαστήριον in the New Testament. Now these words refer to God. They involve forgiveness and favor, but favor obtained by the sacrifice of Christ presented to God. I do not say love caused, for it was infinite love gave the Son to be the Lamb of propitiation; but that love wrought by a work which maintained the righteousness and holiness of God in forgiving and justifying; and though the word may be used for its effect, it is applied to God in the New Testament, and its meaning is “propitiation,” or “appeasement.” “Reconciling,” which is applied to believers, is a totally different word, καταλλάσσω, καταλλαγή. The ἱλασμός was offered to God, ἱλαστήριον was where the blood was placed on God's throne, and it was God Who was the object of ἱλάσκεσθαι., man of καταλλαγή (1 John 2:2; Rom. 3 25; Heb. 2:17); and as to καταλλάσσω, see Rom. 5:10, 11; 2 Cor. 5:18-21; Col. 1:20, 21.
And it is an unhappy thing, because the effect of the atonement (when wrath would justly come on against us) is to cleanse and reconcile us, to weaken the truth of that righteous wrath, and its being righteously arrested by the precious blood presented to God, and that bearing of sins which makes it righteous in God to justify the ungodly and forgive their sins. Appeasing God, ἱλάσκεσθαι, placare, let the word be what it may, is not changing God, but glorifying and satisfying God's righteous judgment; so that He may say, “When I see the blood, I will pass over.”
I add that, though the priesthood of Christ be now in heaven where He appears in the presence of God for us, yet all His life was in every sense a preparation for it. He had so taken up man that it became God to make Him perfect in that heavenly place through sufferings. He was tempted, He suffered being tempted, that He might succor them that are tempted. Not only so, but He was made like to His brethren in all things, that He might be a merciful and faithful High-priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. And so, in chapter 5 of the same Epistle, comparing Him with the Jewish high-priest, though showing the difference. And it is clear that the priest represented the people before God, confessed their sins on the scape-goat, and went into the sanctuary for them, as Christ has done into the true sanctuary for us. The priesthood of Christ is no doubt for believers; but to deny that He represented men, stood there as man for them before God, and that on the cross (as in Heb. 2:17) as man, alone indeed but for men, is ruinous error. J. N. D.