Tag: Atonement

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Judgment Seat or Mercy Seat?

1 John 2

1My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

(1 John 2:1-2, NASB)

The Daily DAVEotional

In the first chapter of John’s first epistle, he shared a number of important principles regarding sin and experiencing fellowship with God. I wrote about that in my blog post, “Walking in the Light Simplified”.

Immediately following that passage, John says that our aim as believers should be to avoid sinning. But we also know that in our fallen humanity, we will inevitably still sin. In the first chapter, he outlined the importance of confessing our sin in order to maintain fellowship with God.

In this section, John stresses the fact that when we do sin (and we WILL sin) we have an Advocate in the person of Jesus Christ.

The picture here is of a defense attorney who pleads our case before the judge, the Father.

Jesus is uniquely qualified to be our advocate because He alone is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world.

What exactly does that mean?

If you’re unfamiliar with the word “propitiation”, it may be because the NIV and NLT, two of the most popular translations used today, don’t include this word in their translation of this passage. Instead, these versions translate the passage to say that Jesus is “the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

It’s certainly true that Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world, but there’s an element of truth that John is communicating that is missed as a result of omitting the word “propitiation” from the translation.

The word “propitiation” means to appease wrath. The idea is that God is so just and holy, that sin is an infinite offense against God’s character. God’s righteous anger demands that sin be punished.

When it says that Jesus is the propitiation for sin, what it means is that Jesus, through His death on the cross, satisfied the payment that was required for sin. Hence, God’s wrath is appeased or satisfied.

Jesus is more than an atoning sacrifice for sins. He is the propitiation for sin. His death not only atones for sin, but it turns away God’s wrath so that no more punishment is required.

The Greek word for propitiation is “hilasterion” which is the same word for the Old Testament Hebrew word “mercy seat”.

The mercy seat was the cover of the Ark of the Covenant and was the place where the yearly blood sacrifice was made by the high priest. This sacrifice occurred only once a year in the Holy of Holies. On either side of the lid (or mercy seat) were two cherubim (angelic beings). They were facing each other and looked down at the lid.

Inside the ark were placed three significant artifacts: manna, representing the Jewish people’s rejection of God’s provision; Aaron’s rod, which represented man’s rejection of God’s leadership; and the broken pieces of the Ten Commandments, representing man’s rejection of God’s holiness.

When the cherub of Righteousness looked down on the symbols in the ark, it saw all the evidences of man’s rejection of God. When the cherub of Justice looked down, it saw that man was no longer like God’s righteousness and pronounced the death penalty on man. But on the Day of Atonement, the cherub of Justice looked down at the blood sacrifice covering on the lid and said, “I’m satisfied because the death penalty has been paid.” Similarly, Righteousness looked down and was no longer offended because the evidence of man’s sin was covered up and could not be seen.

Jesus’ death on the cross transforms the judgment seat, representing the judgment and punishment we deserve, into a mercy seat, representing the fact that His shed blood through His death on the cross, provides a covering for our sin. Atonement is made, once and for all, and therefore, there is no longer any punishment reserved for those who have placed their trust in Jesus.

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Reflection

What difference does it make to know that Jesus’ death and shed blood has appeased God’s wrath towards your sin?

What is your view and understanding of the holiness of God? Does it seem appropriate to you that God, in His infinite justice, must punish sin? Why or why not?

Is the lid of the ark of the covenant a judgment seat or a mercy seat for you? What is keeping you from putting your full trust in Jesus to cover your sins so that you experience God’s mercy instead of justice?

 

Photo of Ark of Covenant provided from the following website under Creative Commons License 4.0

https://skfb.ly/6TpDB

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What Makes Good Friday “Good”?

Given that it’s Good Friday, I dug up this post from the past, essentially asking the question, “what’s so good about Good Friday?”

Dave Lowe's avatarThe Lowedown

When you think of the full Easter story, it seems the good part is on Sunday, when Jesus is resurrected.
Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash

Have you ever wondered why Christians refer to the Friday before Easter as Good Friday? I never quite understood that myself growing up as a kid even though I went to church and heard the Easter story every year.

Think about the Easter story as a movie. The good part is at the end, when Jesus comes out of the tomb, resurrected! It seems to me that Friday is bad, at least if you’re looking at Jesus as a hero figure. On Friday, he’s dead. How is that good?

To answer that, I want to first ask a different question. Why did Jesus have to die? To put it another way, what was the purpose of Jesus’s death?

It’s an honest question…

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The Significance of the Torn Veil

Mark 15

33At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

35When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”

36One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.

37With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

38The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

40Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. 41In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there. (Mark 15:33-41, NIV)

The Daily DAVEotional

Mark 15 documents the climactic struggle of Jesus on the cross. Jesus shouts out something in Hebrew and those who are watching assume that He’s appealing to Elijah to save Him.

Jesus breathes His last breath before succumbing to the brutal effects of crucifixion, a torturous method of execution that is designed to slowly suffocate its victims.

And then comes verse 38. It’s so easy to gloss over because before this verse you have people standing around wondering if Jesus is appealing to Elijah and then immediately after this verse the focus shifts back to a centurion who had witnessed Jesus’s ordeal and who concludes that, “surely this man was the Son of God!”

So what’s the deal with verse 38? It seems so out of place to mention that the veil in the temple was torn in two right in the midst of describing Jesus’s death on the cross. It’s almost like the subliminal message that briefly interrupts the flow of the video you’re watching. If you’re not paying attention, you hardly notice it.

Yet this verse is extremely significant. If you’re familiar with the importance of the temple to Jewish religious life, the significance of this verse is probably evident. But if you’re not familiar with the role the temple played in the lives of the Israelites, let me give you some information that may shed new light on this passage.

The temple was THE center of religious life for the Israelites because it represented the very dwelling place of God. The temple was where Jews brought their sacrifices as an act of worship to God.

Inside the temple was a section called the Holy Place, which was separated by another room called the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies contained only one item, the Ark of the Covenant. The Holy of Holies was a room that could only be entered once per year, on Yom Kippur, by the high priest, who would enter the room and sprinkle the blood of an unblemished sacrifice on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant in order to atone for the sins of the people.

The Holy of Holies was separated by a large thick veil, a curtain that created a barrier between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The significance of this veil cannot be underscored. It represented the idea that God is holy and man is not and therefore, God is not accessible to man because of his sin.

Yet immediately upon Jesus’s death on the cross, this tiny, easy to overlook verse says that this veil was torn in two, giving access to the very presence of God. The text specifically says the veil was torn from top to bottom, which is no accident. The symbolism is clear – the veil was torn by God Himself, giving access to His presence that was previously unavailable.

The heart of the gospel message is this: Jesus died on a cross, atoning for the sins of the world and giving sinful humanity access to Holy God. We no longer need to make yearly sacrifices because of the sacrifice Jesus has already made on our behalf.

We have two possible responses. We can respond like the centurion, who recognized Jesus is the Son of God, or we can respond like the religious leaders, who took the torn veil, sewed it up and reattached it, thus ignoring the sacrifice that Jesus had made.

Reflection

What is your response to the death of Jesus and the tearing of the veil? Are you more like the centurion, who recognized Jesus as the Son of God? Or are you more like the Jewish religious leaders who preferred to dismiss Jesus’s sacrifice in favor of their former way of life?

What are the veils (barriers) that you put up in your life that keep you from entering into the presence of God? 

For more details about the layout of the temple click here.

 

Photo by Nikola Bikar on Unsplash