Jesus, Our Propitiation - Christ Our Mercy Seat
Bro. Ricky's blog post draws directly from his sermon
“Jesus, Our Propitiation - Christ Our Mercy Seat” so you can keep engaging with
the message all week. Read, reflect, and share it with your small group or
friends.
Jesus Is Our Propitiation: The Word That Changes
Everything
I'll be honest with you — when I first encountered the
word propitiation, I couldn't have spelled it without spell check.
It's a big word. But I want to tell you something: it's one of the most
important words in the entire Bible, and understanding it just might change the
way you see Jesus forever.
This past Sunday, we opened Romans 3:21–31 together, and I
want to walk you through what I believe is one of the most profound truths in
all of Scripture. It's the truth that Jesus is our propitiation — our mercy
seat. And it's not just a theological concept. It's an eternal, life-giving
reality.
A Picture Hidden in the Old Testament
To understand what Jesus accomplished, we have to go back —
all the way back to the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant.
In Exodus 25:17–22, God instructed Moses to build something
remarkable:
"You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold... You
shall make two cherubim of gold... and the cherubim shall stretch out their
wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they shall face one
another... And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above
the mercy seat."
Inside the Ark of the Covenant sat the law of God — the Ten
Commandments. And if any person had approached God directly, measured only by
that law, they would have been found lacking. As Isaiah put it, our
righteousness is like filthy rags.
But God, in His mercy, placed a lid on that ark. A covering.
It was called the mercy seat — and once a year, the high priest would enter the
Holy of Holies and sprinkle the blood of an innocent animal on that covering.
That act of atonement temporarily appeased God's righteous wrath against sin
and allowed humanity to remain in relationship with Him.
Year after year. Blood after blood. It was never finished.
It was never enough.
Until Jesus.
The Moment Everything Changed
I believe we can pinpoint the exact moment when Jesus became
our mercy seat. Look at Matthew 27:50–51:
"And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and
yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two
from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split."
That veil separated the Holy of Holies — the very presence
of God — from the rest of humanity. When Jesus died on the cross, that veil
didn't just tear. It was torn from top to bottom, as if by the hand
of God Himself. The barrier was removed. The gap was closed.
Jesus became the mercy seat. Once and for all.
Hebrews 9:25–26 confirms it: "Not that He
should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every
year with blood of another... but now, once at the end of the ages, He has
appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."
No more annual sacrifices. No more high priest standing in
the gap. Jesus filled that gap completely and permanently.
What Romans 3 Is Telling Us
When Paul writes in Romans 3:25 that God set Jesus
forth "as a propitiation by His blood, through faith," he
is using the same Greek word the Septuagint uses for the mercy seat in Exodus
25. The connection is intentional. The picture in the Old Testament was
pointing forward to the reality in the New Testament.
From Romans 3:21–31, I see several breathtaking truths about
what Jesus accomplished:
The righteousness of God is now revealed — not
through law-keeping, but through faith in Christ. "But now the
righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed" (v. 21).
It is offered to all. Verse 22 says it is
available "to all and on all who believe." And verse
23 reminds us why everyone needs it: "For all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God."
It is given freely. Verse 24 says we are "justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Colossians
2:14 adds that He wiped out "the handwriting of requirements that
was against us... having nailed it to the cross."
There is no room for boasting. Verse 27
asks, "Where is boasting then? It is excluded." We
didn't earn this. We can't. It's all of grace, all of Christ.
Your Debt Has Been Paid
Let me bring this home in the simplest terms I know.
The law of God is like the inside of that ark. When we hold
our lives up to it, we find ourselves guilty. I remember sharing this with a
young man I had in my car one day. He told me he was a pretty good person. I
walked him through just two commandments — "Thou shalt not
steal" and "Thou shalt not murder" —
and by the time we were done, he looked at me wide-eyed and said, "I've
never thought of it that way."
Most of us haven't. We don't think of ourselves as sinners.
We don't think sin is that big a deal. But sin is exactly what separates us
from our Creator.
Here's the good news: Jesus paid your debt. He
stood between the law and the presence of God. He absorbed the wrath we
deserved. He became the covering, the atonement, the mercy seat — so that you
and I could come boldly into the presence of the Father.
If you've never come to Jesus as your savior and Lord — if
you've never accepted His payment for your sin — I want to encourage you to do
that today. Acknowledge that He died in your place, that He rose from the dead,
and by faith receive Him as your Lord and Savior.
The mercy seat is available to you right now. Don't leave
that debt unpaid when Jesus has already settled it.
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