The doctrine of the Reformation put forth the view that Christ died to reconcile His Father to us-a statement every way erroneous, confounding the name of relationship in blessing with God in His nature; and teaching, what scripture does not, that Christ's work was to reconcile God to us, to change His mind But others have used this to deny real propitiation and atonement.
"God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." He did not need to have His mind changed. But a righteous and holy God could not pass over sin as nothing, and if God so loved, the Son of man must be lifted up. God was not (as a heathen god) one who had to be propitiated that He might not be against us; but He did require that the righteousness and holiness should be maintained in the universe. I think you will find that the New Testament never says God was propitiated, but you will find Christ was an ἱλασμός for our sins. (1 John.) And that Christ was a priest ἱλάσκεσθαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας. It is not, as in Homer, [Il.á 386] θεον ἱλάσκεσθαι. We have the imperative in Luke 18. "Be gracious."
We have never God for the object of ἱλάσκομαι in the New Testament; but we have sins; and it seems to me to set the point on very clear ground.
I have elsewhere fully shown that to apply ἀνήνεγκε (1 Peter 2:2424Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)) to anything but what was done on the cross is simple ignorance of the use of the word. I add a confirmatory remark here that the three preceding words are in the imperfect, giving them a continuous character—ἀνήνεγκε, the aorist, showing one special act.