Propitiation Has Significance

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:1-2).

John refers here to both the “righteous” life of Christ and his “propitiating” death, which together are the grounds of a believer’s justification (cf. Rom. 3:24–26; 2 Cor. 5:21). It is on these grounds—his sinless life and substitutionary death—that Jesus stands as our “advocate” before the Father.

The word “propitiation” appears only rarely in the New Testament, but at crucial points (e.g., Rom. 3:25). Moreover, the reality expressed in the word “propitiation,” with its profound gospel significance, reverberates throughout the whole Bible. This key term refers to a sacrifice which satisfies the just wrath of God for sin. As it is applied to Christ, we learn that through his death Jesus absorbed the just wrath of God toward us for our sin and thereby opened the way for God’s full favor to be shown to all who believe. This profound change of our situation provided by Christ’s propitiation for our sin produces in our hearts a deep gratitude, a note clearly sounded by John when he says, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us” (1 John 3:1).

How Christ’s propitiation applies to the “sins of the whole world” (2:2) may be explained in three ways: (1) Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient for all, though applicable only to those placing their faith in him; (2) Christ’s sacrifice is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise to bless all the nations of the earth through the Messiah; (3) Christ’s sacrifice is able to save believers from all the world, regardless of ethnicity or past loyalties. What is clear, however, is that John is clearly not arguing for some form of universalism (in which all persons will be saved regardless of their faith) because he says that “whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (5:12).

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