P ropitiation does not come free. There is a price to be paid to appease God. A holy righteous God who has been offended demands justice or He would not be just. The system for propitiation / atonement had been laid out by God in the Old Testament. Moses was commanded by God to instruct the High Priest: “Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat.” [Leviticus 16:15] God demands that blood be shed as the price of propitiation. The animal sacrifices by themselves were not able to atone for the people’s sins. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” [Hebrews 10:4]. The system of sacrifices in the Old Testament with blood of animals shed, were a foreshadowing [Hebrews 10:1] of God’s foreordained ultimate means of atonement for His people: “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God” [Hebrews 10:12]. The Lord Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world [John 1:29] by the shedding of His precious blood on the Cross of Calvary [Ephesians 1:7].
LESSON
Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.
THOUGHT
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things … but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. – 1 Peter 1:18-19
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