Pastor Joel from Right Response Ministries addresses why many go to hell despite Jesus' sacrifice, interpreting 1 John 2:2 to argue against universalism. He defines "propitiation" as a sacrifice satisfying God's wrath, asserting that since people still face punishment for sins like murder and adultery, Jesus did not atone for every individual. Joel concludes that Christ died specifically for the elect, meaning those in hell pay their own penalty for rejecting Christ, thereby upholding divine justice while refuting the idea of unconditional salvation for all humanity. [Automatically generated summary]
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Propitiation: Not Just a Christian Word00:03:52
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Hi, this is Pastor Joel with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to another episode of our show called Questions.
Today's question is as follows If Jesus died for everyone, why do so many still go to hell?
If Jesus died for everyone, why do so many still go to hell?
To flesh the question out a bit more, I've written the following.
If the death of Jesus is not a mere example of sacrificial love, but actual atonement, that is, the finished payment for sin, and if Jesus died for each and every individual, then why do so many people go to eternal suffering in hell?
It would appear as though these individuals, Those who go to hell, their sins are being paid for twice.
Once by Jesus on the cross, and then once by they themselves in an eternity in hell.
Let's look at 1 John 2, verse 2.
1 John 2, verse 2 says this He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.
He being Christ Jesus.
He, Jesus Christ, is the propitiation.
And that's the key word.
We'll come back there in just a moment.
He is the propitiation for our sins, but not our sins only, but the sins of the whole world.
Well, one question we need to ask is who is the R?
O U R. Who's the R in this context?
Well, John is speaking of himself and those that he is writing to.
I would argue.
That the R in the context of 1 John 2 2 is Jews, our sins.
Jesus is the propitiation for our sins.
Me and you, fellow Jews, believing Jews.
Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, but not only ours, but the sins of the whole world.
Meaning universalism?
No, I would say globalism.
Not universalism, meaning that Jesus is the propitiation for each and every individual who has and who will ever live, but rather.
Jesus is the propitiation for the whole world, meaning every tribe, tongue, and language.
Meaning, not that Jesus paid for the sins of every single individual person, but Jesus has purchased by his blood as a propitiation, he has purchased some, those who will believe, from every single nation.
Meaning, Jesus is not just the payment for sins of the Jews.
Praise God.
But Jesus also is the payment for sins for the Gentiles.
The whole world.
For Israel, Brazil, for China, for the US of A. Jesus has died for his elect people who are scattered all over the face of the earth from among every tribe, tongue, and nation.
Now, let's come back to that word propitiation.
The word propitiation is only used a couple of times.
In all the New Testament.
And here we find one case.
Degrees of Punishment for Rejection00:10:15
It actually has pagan roots.
It is not, in terms of origin, a Christian word.
Now, it is a Christian word because the apostles made it a Christian word, and rightfully so.
It's a great word.
But originally, it has pagan roots.
A propitiation would be a pleasing sacrifice, a satiating sacrifice offered by one party to some kind of deity, some kind of God, in order to subside their wrath, satisfy their anger.
So it's used from very primitive and pagan, you know, false.
Religions where there was a God who was always on edge, a God who he could just blow up in a moment with anger, a fragile God, not like our God, who's the same yesterday, today, and forever, who does get angry, but he is slow to anger, right?
No, the pagan gods, they were fragile, they were emotional, they would go back and forth, they were mutable, changing.
And so, what the people would do in many pagan cult religions is they would make some kind of sacrifice to satiate, to subside the wrath of the gods.
Sometimes they would make human sacrifices, like the sacrifices of children to Moloch.
And that's where the word propitiation comes from.
A propitiation is a sacrifice that is successful, that succeeds in satiating the wrath of God.
And that's what Jesus is.
Now, the difference in the case of Christian doctrine and the way that Christians use the word propitiation, the difference is this.
Number one, our God doesn't fly off the handle.
Our God is not overly emotional.
Our God is immutable.
Malachi says this Behold, I am the Lord, I change it not, so that you, the sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
That we're not consumed.
In a moment, by the fierce wrath of God that comes out of nowhere because we suddenly misstepped.
Because why?
Because God is immutable, He is unchanging.
Behold, I changeth not.
God is not a man that He should change His mind.
So, the immutability of God is one difference, but another difference is this in all of these pagan religions, the party that would put forth the propitiation, the sacrifice that satiates the wrath of a God, the party that put forth the propitiation, that would be responsible.
For supplying this propitiation would be man, people, the offenders, the transgressors, the ones who angered the gods.
But in the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is God Himself who puts forward a propitiation to appease His own wrath.
God is angry, but not in a moment, not a haphazard anger, but a slow, burning, white hot wrath that is righteous and just.
And deserved.
And this God who is righteously angry, justly angry at mankind because of our gross sin against him, this God who is angry satisfies his own wrath by putting forward the propitiation himself.
And what is the propitiation?
God the Father puts forward the propitiation, and God the Son is the propitiation.
That's the gospel.
It completely contrasts with any pagan false religion.
And this word, propitiation, is precisely what is used in 1 John 2, verse 2.
Now that we have the context, the meaning of the word, we should understand that a propitiation is a sacrifice that succeeds in satiating the wrath of God.
So now, with that definition in mind, think of 1 John 2, verse 2.
He, being Jesus, Is a propitiation, that is the sacrifice put forward by God to God that succeeds in satisfying fully the wrath of God.
Jesus is that.
He is that propitiation, the succeeding sacrifice, the sufficient payment, the atonement that ultimately covers the penalty and satisfies God.
And his justice and subsides his wrath.
That's what Jesus is a propitiation for our sins and the sins of the whole world.
If the whole world in this context meant universalism, each and every individual, then no one could go to hell.
Why?
Because Jesus is a propitiation.
He is the pleasing sacrifice that succeeds in satisfying the justice of God, in subsiding.
The wrath of God.
If Jesus, as this propitiation, was put forward by God the Father to God the Father on behalf of each and every individual, then God's wrath for all sinners would be satisfied.
Now, some might object at this point and say, well, okay, yeah, Jesus died for everyone's sins and he paid and atoned for everyone's sin, but you still have to receive that gift.
My question would be this if you choose to reject.
The payment, the atonement that Jesus provides, is that a sin?
And if that is a sin, your choice to reject the propitiation of Christ, well, was Christ a propitiation for the sin of rejecting his propitiation?
And you might say, well, no.
Well, then logically, what you're ultimately saying at this point is that the only sin anyone ever goes to hell for is the sin of rejecting Christ.
But the Bible teaches in Revelation and elsewhere that cowards go to hell, that adulterers go to hell, that blasphemers go to hell, and that Sins in an ethereal sense are not what are going to be punished in hell.
The sin of perversion will not be punished in hell.
Perverts will be punished in hell.
It's not the sin of murder that will be punished in hell.
It will be murderers punished in hell.
And it's not just going to be a bunch of people being punished in hell for their rejection of Christ.
They will be punished in hell chiefly for their rejection of Christ, but also they will be punished for their individual sins on this earth besides merely rejecting Christ.
This is why there are certain degrees of punishment.
Jesus even says as he's Pronouncing woes on certain Jewish cities.
He says, Woe to you, this city and that city, because it'll be worse for you on the final day, the day of judgment, than it was for Sodom or for Gomorrah.
Why?
Because if the miracles that have been performed in you, these Jewish cities, if those kinds of miracles were performed in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented long ago.
So there are degrees of punishment due to degrees of revelation of Christ.
Because the more that Christ is revealed, the stronger the rejection might be, the higher degree of rejection.
Of that revelation, there might be, and therefore a greater punishment.
But it is not merely the rejection, the sin of rejecting Christ and his atonement, that people ultimately are punished for in hell.
It is also all their other sins.
Those in hell, we see from Scripture, they are not just punished for rejecting Jesus.
They are punished for rejecting Jesus and every other breach of God's law.
They are punished for their lies.
They are punished for their murder.
They are punished for their adultery.
They are punished for all these things for their theft, for their coveting, for everything that they've done, for their cowardice.
Cowards will go to the lake of fire.
So, people in hell are ultimately suffering under God's just wrath for their sin, and not just their sin of rejecting Jesus, but the other sins they've committed as well.
Meaning what?
Those other sins that they've committed were not atoned for by Jesus.
They can't have been.
Why?
Because, catch this, almost done.
The reason why Jesus cannot have died for the sins of each and every individual, knowing that many individuals will die and go.
To hell, the reason why Jesus cannot have paid for their sins is simply this because God is just.
God is just.
And as a just judge, God cannot and will not exact double penalty for a singular crime.
He will not punish the same crime twice.
It's not just.
It's not fair.
And God will not do it because God is just.
The wages of sin is death.
Jesus died under the wrath of God at Calvary for all who would be united to him through faith.
The reason why Christians don't go to hell and suffer eternal death is because Jesus died in our place.
And if Jesus died in the place of everyone, then ultimately, if anyone went to hell, God would be punishing that person twice.
Double payment.
Once, Once punishing their sins in Jesus on the cross, and then twice a second time punishing them in hell for eternity.
Double Payment or Paid in Full00:01:40
And God is just.
Each man will pay what he owes.
It's either been paid in full already by Christ, or you yourself will pay over the course of eternity in hell.
Jesus is not the propitiation of each and every individual's sins.
The propitiation being the sacrifice that worked, the sufficient payment and atonement.
Jesus is not the propitiation for our sins, aka Christians, and the sins of the whole world, aka each and every individual unbeliever.
If you read the text like that, then you have to be a universalist.
No one goes to hell.
Or you have to be a blasphemer who says that there is not justice with God.
But if you read the text correctly, Jesus is a propitiation.
He satisfies fully the wrath of God towards sin for our sins, but not only our sins, the whole world.
And you read it as our, not Christians and then the whole world, each and every individual, universalism, but our sins, Jews and the whole world, global, the elect from among every tribe, tongue, and nation.
Well, then all of a sudden, wouldn't you know it, the Bible starts to make sense.
Thanks for tuning in.
Thanks so much for listening.
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