Fortuitous Bloodshed
Oct 18th, 2006
Priscilla Van Sutphin
Rom 3:25-27 AMP Whom God put forward [before the eyes of all] as a mercy seat and propitiation by His blood [the cleansing and life-giving sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation, to be received] through faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over and ignored former sins without punishment. 26 It was to demonstrate and prove at the present time ( in the now season) that He Himself is righteous and that He justifies and accepts as righteous him who has [true] faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of [our] pride and [our] boasting? It is excluded (banished, ruled out entirely). On what principle? [On the principle] of doing good deeds? No, but on the principle of faith.
Rom 3:25 NIV God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement , through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-
NT:2435 hilasterion (hil-as-tay'-ree-on); neuter of a derivative of NT:2433; an expiatory (place or thing), i.e. (concretely) an atoning victim, or (specially) the lid of the Ark (in the Temple): KJV - mercyseat, propitiation.
Noun
hilasterion NT:2435, akin to A, is regarded as the neuter of an adjective signifying "propitiatory." In the Sept. it is used adjectivally in connection with epithema, "a cover," in Ex 25:17 and 37:6, of the lid of the ark (see MERCY SEAT), but it is used as a noun (without epithema), of locality, in Ex 25:18,19,20,21,22; 31:7; 35:12; 37:7,8,9; Lev 16:2,13, 14,15; Num 7:89, and this is its use in Heb 9:5.
(from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright (c)1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
“I AM the Resurrection and the LIFE, and I have come to speak to you because still there are so many ignorant of the power of the BLOOD I shed for you. I don’t want you to be ignorant beloveds of the power of the cross.
I want you to understand and comprehend with all the saints the height, the depth, the width and length of the LOVE I have for you that you might truly have CONFIDENCE in what I have imparted to you. I want you to know how much I have given you in authority and power that you might go forth with confidence and trust. Trust not in yourselves, but in what I did for you and every other human being who is willing to surrender to My love.
The world is in great need of DEMONSTRATIONS of My love. They are not interested in church. They are interested in LOVE. They need and want to experience something they have not experienced before. They want to KNOW Me, and to EXPERIENCE ME. TASTE and see that the Lord is good is what My word says. How can they taste of ME, if they don’t experience ME ? My love is not just intellectual ascent. I made it MANIFEST when I died on the cross ! I made it manifest when I suffered and was tortured for you. I made it manifest when I AROSE from the dead and seated you then in heavenly places. I made it manifest, every time I laid hands on someone to heal them. Every time that someone experienced forgiveness and love, they understood more than ever the LOVE of the Father.
I came to DESTROY the power of the evil one. I came to set captives free.
I came to DEMONSTRATE My love. So I tell you that when I ask you to do something for Me to demonstrate My love to someone else, it is not a light matter. It’s not a fleeting thought. It’s a commissioning to GO forth and do what I’ve asked in order that MY KINGDOM might be established in the earth. Each token of love, kindness, comfort, encouragement and hope you impart demonstrates MY LOVE.
And the antithesis is also true. If you fail to show kindness, if you get impatient and intolerant, if you demonstrate the opposite of My character, then how can you be salt and light to the world ? How can you demonstrate love if you are busy justifying your intolerance towards others ? You are strangers here ! Do you understand that THIS WORLD IS NOT YOUR HOME ? Your home is in MY HEART. Stop and think what I said when I stated that charity covers a multitude of sins. [ 1 Cor 13].
I AM YOUR COVERING. I AM the mercy seat. I AM the SAVIOR. I AM the HEAD of the church triumphant. My mercy endures forever because of what I have done and because it is My character. And My character is UNCHANGING. I am the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow. I CHANGE NOT. And I AM COMING TO CHANGE MY CHURCH into what I want it to be. I will not stop until it is forever changed.
Understand My love, but also understand My severity. My BLOOD IS NOT TO BE taken for granted. GRACE is abundant towards the CONTRITE in heart. But it is not to be trampled down as if it didn’t COST SOMETHING. My love is beyond what you understand beloveds. Do not judge another. Do not take vengeance into your own hands. Do not do things without seeking MY OPINION. Judgment begins in the house of the Lord, and it is about to be made EVIDENT more than you have ever seen.
REPENT in your hearts and you will be hidden in the shadow of My wings. But cling to your arrogance and you will die. Cast away your vain imaginings. Walk in the Spirit, and put away the carnal man. ”
Rom 8:6-8 NKJV For to be carnally minded is death , but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Heb 9:22-28 AMP [In fact] under the Law almost everything is purified by means of blood, and without the shedding of blood there is neither release from sin and its guilt nor the remission of the due and merited punishment for sins. 23 By such means, therefore, it was necessary for the [earthly] copies of the heavenly things to be purified, but the actual heavenly things themselves [required far] better and nobler sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ (the Messiah) has not entered into a sanctuary made with [human] hands, only a copy and pattern and type of the true one, but [He has entered] into heaven itself, now to appear in the [very] presence of God on our behalf.
25 Nor did He [enter into the heavenly sanctuary to] offer Himself regularly again and again, as the high priest enters the [Holy of] Holies every year with blood not his own. 26 For then would He often have had to suffer [over and over again] since the foundation of the world. But as it now is, He has once for all at the consummation and close of the ages appeared to put away and abolish sin by His sacrifice [of Himself]. 27 And just as it is appointed for [all] men once to die, and after that the [certain] judgment, 28 Even so it is that Christ, having been offered to take upon Himself and bear as a burden the sins of many once and once for all, will appear a second time, not to carry any burden of sin nor to deal with sin, but to bring to full salvation those who are [eagerly, constantly, and patiently] waiting for and expecting Him.
NT:2435 propitiation, propitiate, atonement
A. Verb.
hilaskomai NT:2433 was used amongst the Greeks with the significance "to make the gods propitious, to appease, propitiate," inasmuch as their good will was not conceived as their natural attitude, but something to be earned first. This use of the word is foreign to the Greek Bible, with respect to God whether in the Sept. or in the NT. It is never used of any act whereby man brings God into a favorable attitude or gracious disposition. It is God who is "propitiated" by the vindication of His holy and righteous character, whereby through the provision He has made in the vicarious and expiatory sacrifice of Christ, He has so dealt with sin that He can show mercy to the believing sinner in the removal of his guilt and the remission of his sins.
Thus in Luke 18:13 it signifies "to be propitious" or "merciful to" (with the person as the object of the verb), and in Heb 2:17 "to expiate, to make propitiation for" (the object of the verb being sins); here the RV," to make propitiation" is an important correction of the KJV "to make reconciliation." Through the "propitiatory" sacrifice of Christ, he who believes upon Him is by God's own act delivered from justly deserved wrath, and comes under the covenant of grace. Never is God said to be reconciled, a fact itself indicative that the enmity exists on man's part alone, and that it is man who needs to be reconciled to God, and not God to man. God is always the same and, since He is Himself immutable, His relative attitude does change towards those who change. He can act differently towards those who come to Him by faith, and solely on the ground of the "propitiatory" sacrifice of Christ, not because He has changed, but because He ever acts according to His unchanging righteousness.
The expiatory work of the Cross is therefore the means whereby the barrier which sin interposes between God and man is broken down. By the giving up of His sinless life sacrificially, Christ annuls the power of sin to separate between God and the believer.
In the OT the Hebrew verb kaphar is connected with kopher, "a covering" (see MERCY SEAT), and is used in connection with the burnt offering, e. g., Lev 1:4; 14:20; 16:24, the guilt offering, e. g., Lev 5:16,18, the sin offering, e. g., Lev 4:20,26,31,35, the sin offering and burnt offering together, e. g., Lev 5:10; 9:7, the meal offering and peace offering, e. g., Ezek 45:15,17, as well as in other respects. It is used of the ram offered at the consecration of the high priest, Ex 29:33, and of the blood which God gave upon the altar to make "propitiation" for the souls of the people, and that because "the life of the flesh is in the blood," Lev 17:11, and "it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life" (RV). Man has forfeited his life on account of sin and God has provided the one and only way whereby eternal life could be bestowed, namely, by the voluntary laying down of His life by His Son, under divine retribution. Of this the former sacrifices appointed by God were foreshadowings.
