Propitiation is used in the New Testament to describe the pacifying, placating, or appeasing of God’s wrath. The easiest way to remember the term is that in propitiation God is made pro-us. Unlike expiation, propitiation has a relational component to it. Christ’s death not only removed the moral stain of sin; it also removed the personal offense of sin.

There are many biblical ways to describe Christian salvation.

Salvation can be understood ritually as a sacrifice, as the expiation of guilt through the death of Christ on the cross.

Salvation can be understood commercially as redemption, as a payment made through the blood of Christ for the debt we owe because of sin.

Salvation can be understood relationally as reconciliation, as the coming together of estranged parties by means of Christ’s at-one-ment.

Salvation can be understood legally as justification, as the declaration that sins have been forgiven and that the sinner stands blameless before God because of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

There is, of course, more that can be said about salvation. But each description above captures something important about the nature of Christ’s saving work.

And each description holds together because the death of Christ is—not over and above these images, but inherent and essential to these images—a propitiation.

Propitiation is used in the New Testament to describe the pacifying, placating, or appeasing of God’s wrath. The easiest way to remember the term is that in propitiation God is made pro-us. Unlike expiation, propitiation has a relational component to it. Christ’s death not only removed the moral stain of sin; it also removed the personal offense of sin.

The English word propitiation comes from the hilasmos word group in Greek and almost always refers in the ancient world (when applied to God) to appeasing or averting divine anger. The root word is used several times in the New Testament—as hilasmos (1 John 2:2; 4:10), as hilaskomai (Heb. 2:17; Luke 18:13), and as hilasterion (Rom. 3:25; Heb. 9:5). The term is clearly a biblical word and a biblical concept.

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