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Bible Dictionaries
Propitiation
Charles Buck Theological Dictionary
or A sacrifice offered to God to assuage his wrath, and render him propitious. Among the Jews, there were both ordinary and public sacrifices, as holocausts, &c. offered by way of thanksgiving; and extraordinary ones, offered by persons guilty of any crime, by way of propitiation. The Romish church believe the mass to be a sacrifice of propitiation for the living and the dead. The reformed churches allow of no propitiation, but that one offered by Jesus on the cross, whereby divine justice is appeased, and our sins forgiven, Romans 3:25 . 1 John 2:2 . As it respects the unbloody propitiatory sacrifice of the mass above-mentioned, little need be said to confute such a doctrine. Indeed, it is owned in the church of Rome, that there is no other foundation for the belief of it than an unwritten tradition. There is no hint in the Scripture of Christ's offering his body and blood to his Father at his institution of the eucharist. It is also a manifest contradiction to St. Paul's doctrine, who teaches, that, without shedding of blood, there is no remission; therefore there can be no remission of sins in the mass.
The sacrifice of Christ, according to the same apostle, is not to be repeated. A second oblation would be superfluous; consequently the pretended true and proper sacrifice of the mass must be superfluous and useless. That propitiation made by Jesus Christ is that which atones for and covers our guilt, as the mercy-seat did the tables of the law; or it may be defined thus: "It is the averting the punishment due to any one, by undergoing the penalty in the room of the guilty." Thus Jesus Christ is called the propitiation or atonement, as his complete righteousness appeases his Father, and satisfies his law and justice for all our transgressions.
See ATONEMENT, and books under that article.
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Buck, Charles. Entry for 'Propitiation'. Charles Buck Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/cbd/p/propitiation.html. 1802.
