Page 19 - TH200 Abundant Life A4 Final

The Background of Salvation

Sacrifice

This word means the destruction or surrender of something for the
sake of something else. Theologically, it includes all that Christ did to
provide salvation for us. His sacrifice covers the sins of all mankind. It is
directed to the need created by our guilt. Paul wrote that “Christ loved us
and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God”
(Ephesians 5:2). Nothing is clearer in the New Testament than the use of
sacrificial terms to describe the death of Christ. When the Bible describes
Him as the Lamb of God, says that His blood cleanses from all sin, and
teaches that He died for our sins,
we see truly that Christ’s death was
a real sacrifice for sin (John 1:29;
1 John 1:7–9; 1 Corinthians 15:3). Christ’s one sacrifice

was sufficient to turn
Scripture describes Christ’s
death as for sin, as a bearing away the wrath of
of sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). God God and remove all
made Him a sacrifice for sin
(Isaiah 53:10). He paid the debt barriers between God
we could not pay and blotted out and people.
the past that we could not undo.
He is our sacrifice, for His death is
set forth as an act of perfect self-
giving (Hebrews 9:14; Ephesians 5:2). His one sacrifice was sufficient to
turn away the wrath of God and remove all barriers between God and
people (Hebrews 9:28; 1 Peter 3:18) that interrupt fellowship.

Propitiation
To propitiate is to appease, that is, to satisfy the righteous anger of God
by an atoning sacrifice. The Bible describes Christ as such a propitiation
(Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). We find the idea of God’s anger throughout
the Word of God, but especially in the Old Testament. However, various
texts in the New Testament, such as Romans 1:18, also emphasize God’s
anger. All of these Scriptures stress the seriousness of sin. By the suffering
of Christ in the sinner’s place, God’s anger is propitiated, or appeased, and
as a result, the punishment for sin is not placed on the sinner.

Since some people misunderstand the love of God, they reject the
idea of His anger. We must learn that God’s anger is not like that of

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