Fully Satisfied

Congratulations! We are now 200 pages into the book. It’s crazy we’ve been reading this book together for 18 weeks, but it has been a blessing to me and I hope it has to you as well.

This was a long chapter, but it was packed with goodness as Packer focused on the heart of the gospel. Packer asserts that at the heart of the gospel is the propitiation of God. Propitiation is a fancy word, but essentially it means that God’s wrath toward sinners and their sin has been pacified or satisfied in so much that God and sinners are no longer enemies, but friends. 

I love this quote from Packer, "The wrath of God is as personal, and potent, as his Love; and, just as the blood-shedding of the Lord Jesus was the direct manifesting of his Father’s love toward us, so it was the direct averting of his Father’s wrath against us" (184).

Many in our day want to make the atonement very general and not personal. They claim Jesus died for a faceless mass of people that would eventually accept his gift of salvation. Jesus taking God’s wrath for sinners and giving his life becomes a vague act where Jesus is essentially gritting his teeth, squinting his eyes, and saying, "I hope this works!"

However, when we understand propitiation, we can’t arrive at these conclusions. If propitiation is an act that fully satisfies God’s wrath then it must be personal. If God’s wrath has been satisfied then those for whom Christ propitiated must no longer be enemies, but be at peace with God. There can’t be a chance that they will still wind up in hell because their personal sins have been paid. There can’t be a chance that Christ could have went to the cross for nothing because he made atonement. 

Packer goes on to say that propitiation was the driving force in Jesus’ life. Jesus came on purpose to satisfy God’s wrath and gather a people for God’s glory. From the first days of his ministry his eyes were fixed on Calvary. He knew why he came and he’d let nothing hinder his mission. 

So much could be said on this subject, but the particular portion that impacted me the most was as Packer talked about propitiation in relation to the destiny of those who reject God. Packer says, [On the cross] "Jesus’ chief sufferings were mental and spiritual, and what was packed into less than four hundred minutes was an eternity of agony—agony such that each minute was an eternity in itself, as mental sufferers know that individual minutes can be" (195). Propitiation means atonement has been made and those who die in their sins as enemies of God face horrors we cannot imagine. In light of this, may we plead with those who are far from him begging them to trust in the beautiful atonement of Jesus.