Christ Our Advocate
1
John 2:2 “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours
only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world.”
And
He
(καὶ
αὐτὸς)
The
He
is emphatic: that
same
Jesus:
He
himself.
Propitiation,
in this verse means appeasement or satisfaction. An atoning sacrifice
that Jesus bore in His body for the punishment due us for our sin. In
so doing He propitiated God; satisfied God’s just demand that sin
be punished. Thus, Jesus is both the advocate for sinners (verse 1),
and the sacrifice for their sins.
The
propitiation
(ἱλασμός)
Only
here and 1Jhn. 4:10. From ἱλάσκομαι
to
appease,
to
conciliate
to
one's
self,
which occurs Luke 18:13; Heb. 2:17. The noun means originally an
appeasing
or propitiating,
and passes, through Alexandrine usage, into the sense of the
means
of
appeasing,
as here. The construction is to be particularly noted; for,
in
the
matter
of
περί
our
sins;
the genitive case of that for
which
propitiation is made. In Heb. 2:17, the accusative case, also of the
sins
to be propitiated. In classical usage, on the other hand, the
habitual construction is the accusative direct objective case, of the
person
propitiated. So, in Homer, of the gods. Θεὸν
ἱλάσκεσθαι
is
to
make
a
God
propitious
to one. See Iliad, i., 386, 472. Of men whom one wishes to conciliate
by divine honors after death. So, Herodotus, of Philip of Crotona. His
beauty gained him honors at the hands of the Egestaeans which they
never accorded to anyone else; for they raised a hero-temple over
his grave, and they still propitiate
him
αὐτὸν
ἱλάσκονται
with sacrifices (v., 47). Again, The Parians, having propitiated
Themistocles
Θεμιστοκλέα
ἱλασάμενοι
with
gifts, escaped the visits of the army (viii., 112). The change from
this construction shows, to quote Canon Westcott, that the scriptural
conception of the verb is not that of appeasing one who is angry,
with a personal feeling, against the offender; but of altering the
character of that which, from without, occasions a necessary
alienation, and interposes an inevitable obstacle to fellowship. Such
phrases as 'propitiating God,' and God 'being reconciled' are foreign
to the language of the New Testament. Man
is reconciled (2Cor. 5:18 sqq.; Rom. 5:10 sq.). There is a
propitiation in the matter of the
sin
or of the
sinner.
not
for ours...
Not for us apostles or the Jews only, but also for Gentiles (Eph.
2:11-18; 2Cor. 5:14-21; John 3:16).
for
the sins... This is a generic term, referring not to every single
individual, but to mankind in general. Christ actually paid the
penalty only for those who would repent and believe. A number of
Scriptures indicate that Christ died for the world (John 1:29; 3:16;
6:51; 1Thes. 2:6; Heb. 2:9).
For
the sins of the whole world
(περὶ
ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου)
The
sins
of
(A. V., italicized) should be omitted, as in Revelation, for
the
whole
world.
Compare 1Jhn. 4:14; John 4:42; 7:32. The propitiation is as wide as
the sin (Bengel). If men do not experience its benefit, the fault is
not in its efficacy. Düsterdieck
(cited by Huther) says, The propitiation has its real efficacy for
the whole world; to believers it brings life, to unbelievers' death.
Luther: It is a patent fact that thou too art a part of the whole
world; so that thine heart cannot deceive itself, and think, the Lord
died for Peter and Paul, but not for me. On κόσμου
The
world
(τὸν
κόσμον)
As
in John 1:3, the creation was designated in
its
several
details
by πάντα,
all
things,
so here, creation is regarded in
its
totality,
as an ordered whole. See on Acts 17:24; see on Jas. 3:6. Four words
are used in the New Testament for world:
(1)
γῇ,
land,
ground,
territory,
the
earth,
as distinguished from the heavens. The sense is purely physical.
(2)
οἰκουμένη,
which is a participle, meaning inhabited,
with γῆ,
earth,
understood, and signifies the earth as the
abode
of men, the whole inhabited
world. See on Mat. 24:14; see on Luke 2:1. Also in a physical sense,
though used once of the world to come (Heb. 2:5).
(3)
αἰών,
essentially time,
as the condition under which all created things exist, and the
measure of their existence: a period
of
existence;
a
lifetime;
a
generation;
hence, a long
space
of time; an age,
era,
epoch,
period
of
a
dispensation.
On this primary, physical sense there arises a secondary sense, viz.,
all
that
exists
in
the
world
under
the
conditions
of
time.
From this again develops a more distinctly ethical sense, the
course
and
current
of
this
world's
affairs
compare the expression, the
times,
and this course as corrupted by sin, hence the
evil
world. So, Gal. 1:4; 2Cor. 4:4.
(4)
κόσμος,
which follows a similar line of development from the physical to the
ethical sense; meaning (a) ornament,
arrangement,
order
(1Pet. 3:3); (b) the
sum-total
of
the
material
universe
considered
as
a
system
(Mat. 13:35; John 17:5; Acts 17:24; Phlp. 2:15). Compare Plato. He
who is incapable of communion is also incapable of friendship. And
philosophers tell us, Callicles, that communion and friendship and
orderliness and temperance and justice bind together heaven and earth
and gods and men, and that this universe is therefore called Cosmos,
or order, not disorder or misrule (Gorgias, 508). (c) That
universe
as
the
abode
of
man
(John 16:21; 1Jhn. 3:17). (d) The
sum-total
of
humanity
in
the
world;
the
human
race
(John 1:29; 4:42). (e) In the ethical sense, the
sum-total
of
human
life
in
the
ordered
world,
considered
apart
from,
alienated
from,
and
hostile
to
God,
and
of
the
earthly
things
which
seduce
from
God
(John 7:7; 15:18; 17:9, 17:14; 1Cor. 1:20, 1:21; 2Cor. 7:10; Jas.
4:4).
This
word is characteristic of John, and pre-eminently in this last,
ethical sense, in which it is rarely used by the Synoptists, while
John nowhere uses αἰών
of
the moral order. In this latter sense the word is wholly strange to
heathen literature, since the heathen world had no perception of the
opposition between God and sinful man; between the divine order and
the moral disorder introduced and maintained by sin.
see
on John 1:9.
Most
of the world will be eternally condemned to hell to pay for their own
sins, so they could not have been paid for by Christ. The passages
which speak of Christ’s dying for the whole world must be
understood to refer to mankind in general (as in Tit. 2:3-4). World
indicates the sphere, the beings toward whom God seeks reconciliation
and has provided propitiation.
God
has mitigated His wrath on sinners temporarily; by letting them live
and enjoy earthly life. In that sense, Christ has provided a brief,
temporal propitiation for the whole world. But He satisfied fully the
wrath of God eternally only for the elect who believe.
Christ’s
death had unlimited and infinite value because He is Holy God. Thus,
His sacrifice was sufficient to pay the penalty for all the sins of
all whom God brings to faith. But the actual satisfaction and
atonement was made only for those who believe.
The
pardon for sin is offered to the whole world, but received only by
those who believe. There is no other way to be reconciled to God.
MISSIONARY
APPLICATION OF THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT
LET
us now consider the universal and ineradicable wants of man.
Such
a consideration is substantially unaffected by speculation as to the
theory of man’s origin. Whether the first men are to be looked for
by the banks of some icy river feebly shaping their arrowheads of
flint, or in godlike and glorious progenitors beside the streams of
Eden; whether our ancestors were the result of an inconceivably
ancient evolution, or called into existence by a creative act, or
sprung from some lower creature elevated in the fullness of time by a
majestic inspiration, at least, as a matter of fact, man has other
and deeper wants than those of the back and stomach. Man, as he is having five spiritual instincts. How they came to be there, let it be
repeated, is not the question. It is the fact of their existence, not
the mode of their genesis, with which we are now concerned.
(1)
There is almost, if not quite, without exception the instinct which
may be generally described as the instinct of the Divine. In the
wonderful address where St. Paul so fully recognises the influence of
geographical circumstance and of climate, he speaks of God having
made out of one blood every nation of men to seek after their Lord,
if haply at least as might be expected they would feel for Him-like
men in darkness groping towards the light.
(2)
There is the instinct of prayer, the testimony of the soul naturally
Christian. The little child at our knees meets us halfway in the
first touching lessons in the science of prayer. In danger, when the
vessel seems to be sinking in a storm, it is ever as it was in the
days of Jonah, when the mariners cried every man unto his God.
(3)
There is the instinct of immortality, the desire that our conscious
existence should continue beyond death.
"Who
would lose,
Though
full of pain, this intellectual being,
These
thoughts that wander through eternity,
To
perish rather swallow’d up and lost
In
the wide womb of uncreated night?"
(4)
There is the instinct of morality, call it conscience or what we
will. The lowest, most sordid, most materialized languages are never
quite without witness to this nobler instinct. Though such languages
have lien among the poets, yet their wings are as the wings of a dove
that is covered with silver wings and her feathers like gold. The
most impoverished vocabularies have words of moral judgment, good or
bad; of praise or blame, truth and lie; above all, those august words
which recognise a law paramount to all other laws, I must, I ought.
(5)
There is the instinct of sacrifice, which, if not absolutely
universal, is at least all but so-the sense of impurity and
unworthiness, which says by the very fact of bringing a victim,
"I
am not worthy to come alone; may my guilt be transferred to the
representative which I immolate."
(1)
Thus then man seeks after God. Philosophy unaided does not succeed in
finding Him. The theistic systems marshal their syllogisms; they
prove, but do not convince. The pantheistic systems glitter before
man’s eye; but when he grasps them in his feverish hand, and
brushes off the mystic gold dust from the moth’s wings, a death’s
head mocks him. St. John has found the essence of the whole question,
stripped from it all its plausible disguises, and characterizes
Mahommedan and Judaistic Deism in a few words. Nay, the philosophical
deism of Christian countries comes within the scope of his terrible
proposition. Deo erexit Voltairius,
was the philosopher’s inscription over the porch of a church; but
Voltaire had not in any true sense a God to whom he could dedicate
it. For St. John tells us-whosoever denieth the son, the same hath
not the Father. Other words there are in his Second Epistle whose
full import seems to have been generally overlooked, but which are of
solemn significance to those who go out from the camp of Christianity
with the idea of finding a more refined morality and a more ethereal
spiritualism. Whosoever goeth forward and abideth not in the doctrine
of Christ; whosoever writes progress on his standard, and goes
forward beyond the lines of Christ, loses natural as well as
supernatural religion-he hath not God.
(2)
Man wants to pray. Poor disinherited child, what master of requests
shall he find? Who shall interpret his broken language to God, God’s
infinite language to him?
(3)
Man yearns for the assurance of immortal life. This can best be given
by one specimen of manhood risen from the grave, one traveler come
back from the undiscovered bourne with the breath of eternity on His
cheek and its light in His eye; one like Jonah, Himself the living
sign and proof that He has been down in the great deeps.
(4)
Man needs a morality to instruct and elevate conscience. Such a
morality must possess these characteristics. It must be
authoritative, resting upon an absolute will; its teacher must say,
not I think, or I conclude, but-verily, verily I say unto you. It
must be unmixed with baser and more questionable elements. It must be
pervasive, laying the strong grasp of its purity on the whole domain
of thought and feeling as well as of action. It must be exemplified.
It must present to us a series of pictures, of object lessons in
which we may see it illustrated. Finally, this morality must be
spiritual. It must come to man, not like the Jewish Talmud with its
seventy thousand precepts which few indeed can ever learn, but with a
compendious and condensed, yet all-embracing brevity-with words that
are spirit and life.
(5)
As man knows duty more thoroughly, the instinct of sacrifice will
speak with an ever-increasing intensity. My heart is overwhelmed by
the infinite purity of this law. Lead me to the rock that is higher
than I; let me find God and be reconciled to Him. When the old Latin
spoke of propitiation he thought of something which brought near
prope; his
inner thought was-let God come near to me, that I may be near to God.
These five ultimate spiritual wants, these five ineradicable
spiritual instincts, He must meet, of whom a master of spiritual
truth like St. John can say with his plenitude of insight-He is the
propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the
whole world.
We
shall better understand the fullness of St. John’s thought if we
proceed to consider that this fitness in Christ for meeting the
spiritual wants of humanity is exclusive.
Three
great religions of the world are more or less missionary. Hinduism,
which embraces at least a hundred and ninety millions of souls, is
certainly not in any sense missionary. For Hinduism transplanted from
its ancient shrines and local superstitions dies like a flower
without roots. But Judaism at times has strung itself to a kind of
exertion almost inconsistent with its leading idea. The very word
proselyte attests the unnatural fervour to which it had worked itself
up in our Lord’s time. The Pharisee was a missionary sent out by
pride and consecrated by self-will. Ye compass sea and land to make
one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him tenfold more the
child of hell than yourselves. Buddhism has had enormous missionary
success from one point of view. Not long ago it was said that it
outnumbered Christendom. But it is to be observed that it finds
adherents among people of only one type of thought and character.
Outside these races it is and must ever be, non-existent. We may
except the fanciful perversion of a few idle people in London,
Calcutta, or Ceylon, captivated for a season or two by the light of
Asia. We may except also a very few more remarkable cases where the
esoteric principle of Buddhism commends itself to certain profound
thinkers stricken with the dreary disease of modern sentiment.
Mohammedanism has also, in a limited degree, proved itself a
missionary religion, not only by the sword. In British India it
counts millions of adherents, and it is still making some progress in
India. In other ages whole Christian populations but belonging to
heretical and debased forms of Christianity have gone over to
Mohammedanism. Let us be just to it. It once elevated the pagan
Arabs. Even now it elevates the Negro above his fetich. But it must
ever remain a religion for stationary races, with its sterile God and
its poor literality, the dead book pressing upon it with a weight of
lead. Its merits are these-it inculcates a lofty, if sterile, Theism;
it fulfills the pledge conveyed in the word Moslem, by inspiring a
calm, if frigid, resignation to destiny; it teaches the duty of
prayer with a strange impressiveness. But whole realms of thought and
feeling are crushed out by its bloody and lustful grasp. It is
without purity, without tenderness, and without humility.
Thus,
then, we come back again with a truer insight to the exclusive
fitness of Christ to meet the wants of mankind.
Others
besides the Incarnate Lord have obtained from a portion of their
fellow men some measure of passionate enthusiasm. Each people have a
hero during this life, call him demigod, or what we will. But such
men are idolized by one race alone. The very qualities which procure
them an apotheosis are precisely those which prove how narrow the
type is which they represent; how far they are from speaking to all
humanity. A national type is a narrow and exclusive type.
No
European, unless effeminated and enfeebled, could really love an
Asiatic Messiah. But Christ is loved everywhere. No race or kindred
is exempt from the sweet contagion produced by the universal appeal
of the universal Saviour. From all languages spoken by the lips of
man, hymns of adoration are offered to Him. We read in England the
Confessions of St. Augustine. Those words still quiver with the
emotions of penitence and praise; still breathe the breath of life.
Those ardent affections, those yearnings of personal love to Christ,
which filled the heart of Augustine fifteen centuries ago, under the
blue sky of Africa, touch us even now under this grey heaven in the
fierce hurry of our modern life. But they have in them equally the
possibility of touching the Shanar of Tinnevelly, the Negro-even the
Bushman, or the native of Tierra del Fuego. By a homage of such
diversity and such extent we recognise a universal Saviour for the
universal wants of universal man, the fitting propitiation for the
whole world.
Towards
the close of this Epistle St. John oracularly utters three great
canons of universal Christian consciousness-we know, we know, we
know. Of these three canons the second is-we know that we are from
God, and the world lieth wholly in the wicked one. A characteristic
Johannic exaggeration! some critic has exclaimed; yet surely even in
Christian lands where men lie outside the influences of the Divine
society, we have only to read the Police reports to justify the
Apostle. In columns of travels, again, in the pages of Darwin and
Baker, from missionary records in places where the earth is full of
darkness and cruel habitations, we are told of deeds of lust and
blood which almost make us blush to bear the same form with creatures
so degraded. Yet the very same missionary records bear witness that
in every race which the Gospel proclamation has reached, however low
it may be placed in the scale of the ethnologist; deep under the
ruins of the fall are the spiritual instincts, the affections which
have for their object the infinite God, and for their career the
illimitable ages. The shadow of sin is broad indeed. But in the
evening light of God’s love the shadow of the cross is projected
further still into the infinite beyond. Missionary success is
therefore sure, if it be slow. The reason is given by St. John. He is
the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the
whole world.
If
God extends mercies to a sinning believer - and the believer does not
reap the full consequences of his failure in his personal experience
- that fact is not due to the merits of that believer himself. On the
contrary, the grace obtained through the advocacy of Christ is to be
traced, like all of God’s grace, to His all-sufficient sacrifice on
the cross. Should any sinning believer wonder on what grounds he
might secure God’s mercy after he has failed, the answer is found
in this verse. So adequate is Jesus Christ as God’s atoning
Sacrifice
that the efficacy of His work extends not
merely to the sins
of Christians themselves, but
also
to the
sins of the whole world.
In saying this, John was clearly affirming the view that Christ
genuinely died for everyone (cf. 2Cor. 5:14-15, 5:19; Heb. 2:9). This
does not mean, of course, that everyone will be saved. It means
rather that anyone who hears the gospel can
be saved if he so desires (Rev. 22:17). In context, however, John’s
point is to remind his readers of the magnificent scope of Christ’s
atoning sacrifice in order to assure them that His advocacy as the
Righteous One on their behalf is fully consistent with God’s
holiness.
In
recent times there has been much scholarly discussion of the Greek
word hilasmos,
which the NIV renders as atoning Sacrifice. (The word occurs in the
NT only here and in 1Jhn. 4:10.) Some say the term is not the
placating of God’s wrath against sin, but rather is an expiation or
cleansing of sin itself. But the linguistic evidence for this
interpretation is not persuasive. The view has been capably discussed
and refuted by Leon Morris in The
Apostolic Preaching of the Cross
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1965, pp. 125-85).
God’s
wrath against sin may not be a concept congenial to the modern mind,
but it is thoroughly biblical. Hilasmos
could be fittingly rendered propitiation (cf. the noun hilastērion,
propitiation, in Rom. 3:25 and the verb hilaskomai,
to propitiate, in Luke 18:13 and Heb. 2:17). The Cross has indeed
propitiated satisfied God and has met His righteous demands so
thoroughly that His grace and mercy are abundantly available to both
saved and unsaved alike.
