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In Romans 3:22-26 Christ is presented as the Redeemer and the propitiation place.
Romans 3:22-24 reveals that we may enjoy and experience Christ as the Redeemer: “Even the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ to all those who believe, for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” These verses show that the believers are justified by God and receive the righteousness of God through the redemption of Christ.
For us to be justified by God means that we are approved by God according to His standard of righteousness. No matter how righteous we may be in ourselves, we cannot be approved by God according to our righteousness. Our righteousness will never justify us before God. We may justify ourselves according to our standard of righteousness, but that does not enable us to be justified by God according to His standard. However, when God justifies us, we are approved by God according to the standard of His righteousness.
The believers are justified by God on the basis of the redemption of Christ. Romans 3:24 speaks of “being justified freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” To redeem is to purchase back at a cost. We originally belonged to God but became lost through sin. The requirements of God’s holiness, righteousness, and glory were so great upon us that it was impossible for us to fulfill them. However, God paid the price for us through Christ, repossessing us at a tremendous cost. Christ died on the cross to redeem us (Gal. 3:13; Titus 2:14; 1 Pet. 2:24; 3:18); His blood obtained eternal redemption for us (1:18-19). Since Christ has paid the price for our sins and in His redemption has fulfilled all of God’s requirements on us, God, because He is just, must justify us freely.
God can justify us because the work of justification is based upon the redemption of Christ. Because God is righteous, He must have a proper ground on which to justify us. Apart from Christ’s redemption, God would not have the ground on which to justify us. For this reason, Christ’s redemption is needed. When the redemption of Christ is applied to us, we are justified. If there were no such redemption, it would be impossible for us to be justified by God. Christ’s redemption is the basis of God’s justification. The redemption of Christ enables us to be justified by God. God is bound by His righteousness to justify us because of the redemption of Christ, which meets all His requirements.
Through the redemption of Christ not only are the believers justified by God, but they also receive Christ as the righteousness of God. Romans 3:22 speaks of “the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ to all those who believe.” Many Christians say incorrectly that they have the righteousness of Christ. Our righteousness is not the righteousness of Christ; it is Christ Himself. Christ Himself as a person, not His attribute of righteousness, has been made the righteousness of God to us (1 Cor. 1:30). Hence, we should declare, “Christ is my righteousness. My righteousness before God is the living person of Christ, not an attribute. The righteous Christ is mine.” God has made Christ, who is the embodiment of God Himself, our righteousness.
The righteousness of God is not only God Himself in His justice and rightness, and it is not only the living person of Christ; it is also we who have been made one with Christ. Second Corinthians 5:21 says that the believers are made the righteousness of God in Christ. This verse does not say that the believers are made righteous; rather, it says that they are made righteousness, the righteousness of God in Christ. We can become the righteousness of God by having Christ wrought into us. Christ is the embodiment of God, and God, as a living person, is righteousness. Therefore, righteousness, God, and Christ are one. The righteousness of God is God Himself. Since this God is embodied in Christ, Christ is the righteousness of God. The living person of Christ as God’s righteousness has been wrought into us, and we have been put into Him (1 Cor. 1:30). We have been mingled together with Christ as one. Thus, we have become the righteousness of God. We must proclaim, “I am the righteousness of God. I have been justified. God is righteousness, and I also am righteous. I am the righteousness of God in Christ. I am what God is. I am fully justified.”
Romans 3 reveals that Christ is not only the Redeemer but also the propitiation place. Romans 3:25 tells us that God set forth Christ “as a propitiation place through faith in His blood, for the demonstrating of His righteousness, in that in His forbearance God passed over the sins that had previously occurred.” To propitiate is to conciliate two parties and make them one. It is to reconcile two parties, one of which has offended the other or has become indebted to the other. Because of this problem or debt, the offended party has a demand upon the offending party, and unless his demand is satisfied, the problem between them cannot be resolved, nor can reconciliation be achieved. When these two parties have been separated and seek to be in oneness, there is the need for propitiation — the need to reconcile one by satisfying the other’s demand.
Propitiation means to make us one with God because there had been a separation between us and God. The problem that kept us from God, that made it impossible for us to have direct fellowship with Him, was our sins. Our sins kept us away from God’s presence and hindered God from coming to us. Therefore, we needed propitiation to appease God’s demands. Christ accomplished this on the cross when He made propitiation for our sins in order to reconcile us to God by satisfying God’s righteous demands on us (Heb. 2:17). On the cross He offered Himself as the propitiatory sacrifice for our sins to solve our problems with God (1 John 2:2; 4:10). In His death He propitiated for us and brought us back to God, making us one with God.
Christ is the One who makes propitiation to God for us, He is the propitiatory sacrifice, and He is also the propitiation place where God can meet with His redeemed people. The propitiation place is typified in Exodus 25:17 by the sin-covering lid on the Ark. The Ark was the place where God met with people. Underneath the lid of the Ark was the law of the Ten Commandments exposing the sinfulness of the people and condemning them; above the lid of the Ark were the two cherubim representing God’s glory and observing every action of the people. The exposing and condemning law signifies the requirements of God’s holiness and His righteousness according to the law, and the observing cherubim signify the requirements of God’s glory according to the expression of God. Unless these requirements were fulfilled and God was satisfied, there was no way for sinners to contact God and for God to communicate with them. However, by the lid of the Ark with the propitiating blood sprinkled on it on the Day of Expiation, the entire situation on the sinner’s side was fully covered. The propitiating blood sprinkled upon the propitiation cover met the requirements of the righteous law and of God’s glory. Therefore, upon this sin-covering lid God could meet with the people who broke His righteous law, and He could do this governmentally without any contradiction to His righteousness, even under the observing of the cherubim that bore His glory and overshadowed the lid of the Ark. Thus, the problem between man and God was appeased, enabling God to forgive and be merciful to man and thereby to give His grace to man. This is a prefigure of Christ as the Lamb of God taking away the sin that caused man to have a problem with God (John 1:29), thus satisfying all the requirements of God’s holiness, righteousness, and glory and appeasing the relationship between man and God. Hence, God could pass over the people’s sins that had previously occurred. Furthermore, in order to show forth His righteousness, God had to do this. This is what is referred to in Romans 3:25.
The Hebrew word for the lid of the Ark is kapporeth, from a root meaning “to cover.” In the Septuagint this word is translated hilasterion, which means “the place of propitiation,” implying to forgive and to give mercy. The word rendered “propitious” in Hebrews 8:12 is the root of hilasterion, and the word rendered “propitiated” in Luke 18:13 is derived from this root. The King James Version adopts the rendering “mercy seat,” referring to the place where God grants mercy to man. In Hebrews 9:5 Paul also used hilasterion for the lid of the Ark. Here, in Romans 3:25, the same word, hilasterion, is used to show that the lid of the Ark signifies Christ as the propitiation place set forth by God.
In addition to hilasterion, two other words derived from the same Greek word as hilasterion are used in the New Testament to show how Christ took away man’s sin to appease the relationship between man and God. One is hilaskomai (Heb. 2:17), which means “to propitiate,” that is, to appease, to reconcile one by satisfying the other’s demand; the other is hilasmos (1 John 2:2; 4:10), which means “that which propitiates,” that is, a propitiatory sacrifice. Christ made propitiation for our sins (Heb. 2:17); hence, He has become that which propitiates, the propitiatory sacrifice, between us and God (1 John 2:2; 4:10), and He has also become the place, as typified by the lid of the Ark (Heb. 9:5), where we enjoy propitiation before God and where God gives grace to us.
Christ as the propitiation place is where God is propitiated regarding the sinfulness of His people and where He takes away the problem between His people and Himself and reconciles them to Himself. Upon this propitiatory cover we have Christ as the propitiation between God and us, that is, the propitiating Christ who offered Himself as a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins to settle the problem between us and God and to reconcile us to God. Furthermore, as the propitiatory cover, Christ is the place where we, the redeemed people, can meet and speak with our righteous, holy, and glorious God, and where we can hear His voice and learn the desire of His heart (Exo. 25:22).
Although many Christians love the Lord Jesus and realize that He is so much to them, they may not know that Christ is the propitiation place, where God can meet with us and where we can contact God. Before we knew of this place, we may have been frightened by the thought of approaching God; however, now we are no longer afraid of Him. Upon Christ as the propitiation place we can meet with God. Because we have such a Christ, we need not be troubled by anything. God’s righteousness does not condemn us. On the contrary, His glory justifies us, and God Himself is happy, knowing that everything between us and Him is in harmony and that we can freely enjoy a mutually satisfying fellowship. Therefore, with Christ as the propitiatory cover, God is satisfied and we are happy; God and man can meet and have fellowship under a mutually satisfying situation.
God began to set forth Christ as the propitiation place at the time that darkness came over the whole land during His crucifixion, when He offered Himself as the unique sacrifice for sin, the reality of the sin offering (Luke 23:44; Heb. 9:26). Then on the third day God resurrected Him; this resurrection was also a part of the process of God’s setting forth of Christ. After the Lord’s resurrection, God received Christ into the heavens and placed Him at His right hand. This receiving and placing are also a part of the setting forth of Christ. God set forth Christ through the entire process of His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, in which He sat down at the right hand of God. This setting forth makes Christ Himself the propitiation place. God placed Christ, set forth Christ, as the propitiation place from the time that Christ shed His blood to the time that He ascended to sit at the right hand of God.
In His ascension Christ is the propitiation place, the propitiation cover, for God to meet with us. In Hebrews 4:16 this place is called the throne of grace. The throne of grace is the cover of the Ark on which Christ sprinkled the blood He shed on the cross for our redemption. Because of the sprinkling of His redeeming blood, the cover of the Ark has become a propitiation cover, a place where God may contact us and where we may enjoy His grace in full.
A crucial phrase in Romans 3:25 is faith in His blood. The verse tells us that it is through faith in His blood that God set forth Christ as a propitiation place. The way to experience Christ as the propitiation place is by faith. We are justified through the redemption of Christ Jesus, that is, through faith in His blood. After offering Himself as the propitiatory sacrifice on the cross, Christ entered the heavenly Holy of Holies with His own blood and offered this blood before God, sprinkling it on the lid of the Ark, the propitiatory cover. For this reason, when we repented and believed in the Lord, we were put upon Christ as the propitiation place and had the deep sense that we were washed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Now whenever we meet with God upon Christ as the propitiation place, we have the sense deep within that we are washed by the blood of Christ. When we look at the redeeming blood on the propitiatory cover, our conscience is at peace. We know that Christ died for us and that the blood, the emblem of His death, has been sprinkled for us on the propitiatory cover to satisfy the requirements of God’s righteousness. This is the propitiatory cover in our experience through faith in His blood.
Through Christ as the propitiation and upon Him as the propitiatory cover, God has been altogether righteous in receiving repentant sinners to Himself. This is to show forth God’s righteousness. On the cross God judged Christ and put Him to death because He took our place as our Substitute. By dying as the propitiatory sacrifice, Christ made the full propitiation on the cross for our sins and fully satisfied the requirements of God’s righteousness. Now God not only can forgive us, but for the sake of His righteousness He must forgive us. By forgiving us God shows forth His righteousness. He makes a declaration to the universe that because He is righteous, He must forgive us of our sins. Because His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, was put to death by Him on the cross on our behalf, He is legally obligated to forgive us. If anyone believes in Christ, according to His righteousness God must be propitiated toward him, forgive him, and receive him.
If the Ark were without the propitiatory cover and a sinner were to come into the Holy of Holies to meet God, God would see the law of the Ten Commandments in the Ark. As a result, the sinner would be condemned, for he has broken the law of God. God would have no way to receive him. If God were to receive a sinner without the propitiatory cover with the blood sprinkled on it, He would make Himself unrighteous. Without the propitiatory cover, God has no way to forgive and receive repentant sinners. Thus, Christ came and died to be not only the sin offering and trespass offering for us, but also the sacrifice for our propitiation before God. God accepted the death of Christ as the propitiatory sacrifice, and God set forth Christ as the propitiation place, which covers the righteous requirement of the law. When we come to God upon Christ as the propitiation place, we and God see neither the requirements of His righteous law nor our sins; instead, we and God see only the redeeming blood on the propitiatory cover. Thus, there is no problem between us and God, and God must forgive us and receive us.
Now that we are upon Christ as the propitiation place, if God does not receive us, God will make Himself unrighteous. Therefore, we may tell God, “You are righteous. You must receive me. Christ, my Savior, died for my sins as my Substitute. He also died as a propitiatory sacrifice for my sins. You have accepted His death, have resurrected Him from among the dead, and have set Him forth as the propitiation place. Now I come to meet You on Christ as my propitiation place, where You must justify me and receive me. You are righteous if You receive me, but You are unrighteous if You do not receive me.” God’s receiving of us based upon Christ as the propitiation place shows forth that God is righteous (1 John 1:9). Through Christ as the propitiation between us and God and upon Christ as the propitiation place, the righteousness of God can be applied to us; that is, God gives us His own righteousness, which is Christ Himself. We receive Christ, who was our Substitute, as our righteousness. Therefore, God has justified us. Now we have both God’s righteousness and His justification. We are justified persons with Christ covering us as our righteousness. This is a great truth.
In summary, in this universe the Lord Jesus has been set forth as the propitiation place, and all sinners may come to meet God upon Him. Where are we today? We are on the propitiation place. We do have a position, a ground to meet with God, and God has the same ground to communicate with us. The law is under the propitiation cover, covered by the propitiating Christ. God’s glory is above us, yet it has no claim against us because we are upon Christ as the propitiation place. The law is under our feet, and the glory of God over our head is satisfied. The law has been silenced; it can no longer speak against us, but the glory of God can rejoice over us with satisfaction. Here we are justified. On Christ as this propitiation cover we are the same as God in His righteousness. God approves us and God justifies us. Here upon the propitiation cover we enjoy God’s full justification.
In Romans 4:25 we see that Christ is the factor of our justification: “Who was delivered for our offenses and was raised for our justification.” This verse first tells us that Christ was delivered up to die on the cross because of our offenses. This means that because we have offenses against God, Christ was delivered on the cross for us in order to satisfy God’s righteous requirements. Since the death of Christ has fulfilled and fully satisfied God’s righteous requirements, we are justified by God through His death (3:24).
Romans 4:25 goes on to say that God raised Him from the dead for our justification. If God had not been satisfied with Christ’s offering for us, how could God have raised Him from the dead? God’s raising Christ is a strong proof that God was satisfied with Christ’s dying for us and that we are justified by God because of Christ’s death. Now God can accept us through Christ.
Suppose that Christ died for us and for our sins and was buried in the tomb but was not resurrected by God. If this were the situation, we could not believe that His death was accepted by God and that it satisfied God’s requirements and fulfilled His desires. However, Christ is not in the tomb. God raised Him up from the dead, and He came back in resurrection. This is a strong proof that God has accepted His death for us, that His death satisfied God’s requirements and fulfilled whatever God wanted Him to do for us. Therefore, the resurrection of Christ is the proof of our justification by God. In Christ, the resurrected One, we are justified.
Christ was raised not only as a proof that God accepted us through Christ but also as the resurrection life for us to live a life justified by God and acceptable to God. The resurrected Christ is in the third heavens at the right hand of God as conclusive evidence that all of God’s requirements have been satisfied and that we have been thoroughly and adequately justified. However, this resurrected Christ is not only in the heavens but also within us to impart life that we may have a life of justification. By believing in Him, we have received Christ as our objective righteousness and are objectively justified before God. We have also received Christ as resurrection life that we can live by this life to have Christ lived out of us as our subjective righteousness; hence, we can be subjectively justified by God. The resurrected Christ enters into us that we may have the subjective justification. This resurrected Christ is living in us to be our life that we may live out a life of righteousness (Col. 1:27b; 3:4a). This is the subjective justification which we obtain through Christ’s life. This subjective justification is our living by the resurrected Christ.
Therefore, justification is not merely a positional matter; it is a dispositional matter. The death of Christ gave us a positional justification, and the resurrected Christ in the heavens is a proof of this. Now the resurrected Christ also lives inside us, living out a life of dispositional justification. Eventually, we are justified both in position and in disposition. We have not only an objective justification but a subjective justification as well. We may now live such a subjective, dispositional justification. Thus, as the factor of our justification, Christ was delivered on the cross because of our offenses in order to satisfy God’s righteous requirements. He then was raised because of our justification as a proof of God’s satisfaction for God to accept us; He was raised also as the resurrected life for us to live a life that can be justified by God and is always acceptable to God. Today Christ in resurrection is our justification.
