The Heart of the Gospel

Scripture focus

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 2:2 KJV

At a glance

Summary of the chapter

Packer opens by describing how ancient pagan religion treated the gods' anger as something to be managed through offerings — a transactional, even manipulative, relationship with capricious powers. He is careful to show that the Bible's God is nothing like this: not arbitrary, not needing to be bribed, yet still, genuinely, one whose holiness responds to sin with real wrath.

The key difference, Packer argues, is that in Scripture God himself provides the means of propitiation rather than being placated by human effort. He traces three central New Testament passages — Christ's blood put forward as a propitiation in Romans, his role as a merciful high priest making propitiation in Hebrews, and John's direct statement that Christ himself is the propitiation for sin — to show this is not an incidental theme but the gospel's central claim.

He also distinguishes propitiation carefully from the narrower idea of expiation. Expiation covers only the removal or cancellation of sin; propitiation includes that but adds the turning aside of God's just wrath against it. Losing that distinction, Packer warns, quietly empties the cross of its full meaning — reducing it to a moral example rather than the place where God's own justice against sin was satisfied.

Key points

• Pagan religion treats divine anger as something to be manipulated through offerings; Scripture presents something categorically different.
• God's wrath against sin is real, but in the gospel God himself provides the means of propitiation rather than demanding it from us.
• Romans, Hebrews and 1 John each independently present Christ's death as a propitiation for sin.
• Propitiation is broader than expiation: it includes the removal of sin and the turning aside of God's just wrath against it.
• Losing the idea of propitiation quietly reduces the cross to a moral example rather than an act that satisfies divine justice.

Related Scripture

• Romans 3:25
• Hebrews 2:17
• 1 John 4:10
• 1 John 2:2

For reflection and discussion

1. How does understanding propitiation change the way you think about what actually happened at the cross?
2. Why does it matter that God himself provides the propitiation, rather than it being wrung from him by human effort?
3. What is lost, practically, when the cross is treated only as a moral example rather than as satisfying God's justice?