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Expiation and Propitiation

Also Known As Propitiation · Expiation
Salvation and Liberation

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Two English words divide the field. To expiate is to deal with a thing: the sin is covered, wiped away or purged, and the object of the verb is the offence. To propitiate is to deal with a person: someone is appeased, and the object of the verb is the one who was angry. A single Greek word group in the New Testament has been translated both ways, and which way it is translated decides a good deal. The words in question are hilasterion, which appears in the letter to the Romans where Paul writes that God set Christ forth, and hilasmos, which the first letter of John uses twice. In ordinary Greek outside the Bible the group does mean placating a god or a person. In the Greek of the Septuagint the same group renders the Hebrew verb kipper, whose objects are overwhelmingly sins, persons and holy places rather than God, and the noun hilasterion is what the Septuagint uses for the kapporeth, the cover of the ark, which English bibles call the mercy seat. That double background is the whole of the difficulty. C. H. Dodd argued in the 1930s that the Septuagint usage should govern, so that the New Testament word means expiation, and that reading God as the object imports a pagan idea of appeasement. Leon Morris replied that the wrath of God is a real and frequent subject in both testaments, that Paul introduces the passage in Romans by an argument about wrath, and that removing propitiation removes something the text supplies. The exchange has never been closed, and English translations have gone both ways.

Facts
Disputed
Status Within the Tradition
Genuinely disputed within the tradition 1Tradition: Christianity
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2005) traces how the two readings of the hilask- word group in the New Testament bear directly on rival atonement theories. If the word means expiation, the removal of sin, the models requiring a change in God's own disposition lose their strongest single text, and Christus Victor, recapitulation and moral influence are unaffected by the philological question either way. If it means propitiation, the turning aside of divine wrath, then wrath is genuinely in the biblical account and the penal and satisfaction theories have their central vocabulary underwritten by the text itself. A number of theologians, examining the Greek usage directly, hold that the disjunction is false, since in the text God is presented as the subject supplying the propitiation rather than merely its object, which would make the choice between the two readings less consequential than either camp assumes.
Doctrinal Status Detail
Two English theological terms translate the same Greek word group, hilasterion and hilasmos, found in Romans 3:25 and 1 John 2:2 and 4:10: to expiate is to deal with the offence, the sin is covered or purged, and to propitiate is to deal with a person, someone is appeased. C. H. Dodd argued in the 1930s that the Septuagint's use of the same Greek group to render the Hebrew kipper, whose objects are sins and holy places rather than God, means the New Testament word should be read as expiation; Leon Morris replied that the wrath of God is a real and frequent subject in both testaments and that removing propitiation removes something Paul's argument in Romans supplies. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd revised edition, Cross and Livingstone, eds., Oxford University Press, 2005) records the exchange as never closed, and English Bible translations themselves have gone both ways, propitiation in the Authorised Version and expiation in the Revised Standard Version. 1Tradition: Christianity
Point in Dispute
Whether the hilask- word group in the New Testament means the removal of sin or the turning aside of divine wrath 1Tradition: Christianity
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (2005) sets out the camps on whether the hilask- word group in the New Testament means the removal of sin or the turning aside of divine wrath. C. H. Dodd argued in the 1930s, examining Septuagint usage where the same word group renders the Hebrew kipper and takes sins, persons or holy places as its grammatical object rather than God, that the New Testament sense is expiation, and that reading God as the object imports a pagan idea of appeasement foreign to the text. Leon Morris replied, examining the same New Testament passages, that divine wrath is a real and frequent subject in both testaments, that the argument of Romans introduces the passage by way of wrath specifically, and that removing propitiation removes something the text itself supplies. A third reading takes hilasterion in Romans as the kapporeth, the cover of the ark from the Septuagint's own translation choice, so that Christ is the place where atonement is made rather than its agent or its object; William Tyndale and Martin Luther both followed this third reading in their own translations. Nothing in the Greek settles the question on philology alone, and the English word a translator chooses tends to follow the doctrine already held rather than determine it.
Position Profile
Key Text
1 John 2:2 and 4:10, on Christ as the hilasmos for our sins 2Tradition: Christianity
Key Text
Romans 3:25, where Christ is set forth as a hilasterion 2Tradition: Christianity
Key TextSourced to the subject's own account
Thirty-Nine Articles, article 31, which uses redemption, propitiation and satisfaction of one offering in a single sentence 3Tradition: Anglicanism
Origins
Held By
A live translation and interpretive question within Christian theology generally rather than a position unique to one denomination; how the Greek hilaskesthai word group should be rendered has divided English Bible translations themselves. 1
Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly Note
English versions have gone both ways: propitiation in the Authorised Version, expiation in the Revised Standard Version, and a neutral phrase such as a sacrifice of atonement in several later versions 1Tradition: Christianity
Learn More
One Word Group, Pulling in Two Directions

The philological position can be set out compactly, and it is worth setting out because most of the theological argument is conducted at one remove from it.

The Hebrew verb kipper is the priestly system's word for what a rite accomplishes. Its grammar is instructive. A priest atones for a person, for a house, for the altar or for the sanctuary. God is not the object of the verb. Where a preposition intervenes, the sense is on behalf of or with respect to. This is the observation that carries most of the weight for the expiation reading: in the Hebrew, atoning is something done to the offence or to the place, not something done to God.

The Greek translators of the Septuagint rendered kipper and its relatives with the hilask- word group. In classical and Hellenistic Greek outside the Bible, that group does mean placating: one propitiates a god or a person who is angry. So the group arrives in the New Testament carrying two histories, a Jewish one in which sins are wiped away and a Greek one in which persons are appeased, and the New Testament writers do not stop to say which they mean.

A third possibility complicates the choice further and is not a compromise between the two. The Septuagint uses hilasterion as the noun for the kapporeth, the golden cover of the ark on which the blood was sprinkled on the Day of Atonement, and which English versions call the mercy seat. Read that way, the sentence in Romans is not saying that Christ propitiates or that Christ expiates but that Christ is the place where atonement is made. Tyndale and Luther both took it so.

Nothing in the Greek settles the matter, which is why the dispute is a theological one conducted with philological materials rather than the other way about.

What Turns on the Choice

The choice matters because it decides whether the atonement has to deal with anything in God.

If the word means expiation, then what the cross removes is sin, and the models that require a divine disposition to be changed lose their strongest single text. Penal substitution can still be argued, but not from this word. Christus Victor, recapitulation and moral influence all sit comfortably with expiation, since none of them needs God to be turned from anger.

If the word means propitiation, then wrath is in the account and has to be dealt with rather than explained away, and the models built around penalty and satisfaction have their central vocabulary underwritten. Defenders of that reading are careful to say that divine wrath is not temper or malice but the settled opposition of God to what destroys people, and that a God who is not opposed to such things is not good. Their critics answer that the careful definition is not what the word does in practice, and that the pulpit version is a God who has to be calmed.

Two further points keep the question from being tidy.

The first is that the translation history reads as a record of doctrinal alignment. Propitiation in the Authorised Version, expiation in the Revised Standard Version, and a neutral phrase in several later ones. Readers noticed each time, and the objections raised on each occasion were doctrinal rather than lexical.

The second is that a number of theologians hold that the disjunction is false, and that in the biblical setting the same act does both, since it is God who provides the means by which sin is dealt with. On that reading the objection to propitiation, that it makes God the passive recipient of an offering someone else brings, is answered by the observation that in the text God is the subject of the sentence and not its object. Whether this resolves the question or restates it is itself argued.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Affirmed By

The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, Creeds & Confessions

Article 31 uses redemption, propitiation and satisfaction of one offering in a single sentence, which is one reason the English word carries weight in the argument.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

Argues From

Chatat (The Purification Offering), Rituals

The Greek word group at issue is the Septuagint's rendering of the Hebrew verb kipper, which is the priestly system's own word for what this rite accomplishes.

Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)
The Scapegoat Rite of Yom Kippur, Rituals

The Septuagint uses hilasterion for the kapporeth, the cover of the ark sprinkled with blood on the Day of Atonement, which is why the word in Romans 3:25 can be read as naming a place rather than an action.

Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)

Belongs to Tradition

Christianity, Religions

Related To

Atonement, Doctrines

Not a theory of the atonement but the translation question several of the theories rest on.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Kapparah, Doctrines

The Greek word group at issue is the Septuagint's rendering of the Hebrew root behind kapparah, which is why an argument about a Greek word in Romans is also an argument about a Hebrew verb in Leviticus.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Penal Substitution, Doctrines

If the hilask- word group means expiation, the penal account loses its strongest single text; if it means propitiation, its central vocabulary is underwritten.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source
2. The Holy Bible
Anonymous (multiple authors), Robert Barker, 1611View the Source
3. The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion
Church of England, 1571the holders' own accountView the Source
Open Questions (1 open question)
Does the hilask- word group in the New Testament mean expiation or propitiation?

The group carries two histories. In Greek outside the Bible it means placating a person; in the Septuagint it renders the Hebrew kipper, whose objects are sins, persons and holy places rather than God. C. H. Dodd argued from the second, Leon Morris from the presence of wrath in the argument of Romans, and neither case has displaced the other. English versions have chosen differently in each generation, and the choice usually follows the doctrine already held.

What would resolve this A lexical study covering the whole hilask- group across the Septuagint, the Jewish Greek literature outside it and the papyri, treating the New Testament occurrences last rather than first. The question is whether the Septuagint usage displaced the ordinary Greek sense for these writers or merely sat beside it.
Septuagint studies; New Testament lexicography; Hellenistic Greek philologyF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
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