18 December 2007

Why did we need Christmas?

Paul Washer, with a message about the propitiation that Christ came to make for us. Now, that word "propitiation" is big ol' $10 word you won't find at Wal-Mart.

From Truth Matters, whence also comes the video:

Propitiation:
1) relating to an appeasing or expiating, having placating or expiating force, expiatory; a means of appeasing or expiating, a propitiation

1a) used of the cover of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, which was sprinkled with the blood of the expiatory victim on the annual day of atonement (this rite signifying that the life of the people, the loss of which they had merited by their sins, was offered to God in the blood as the life of the victim, and that God by this ceremony was appeased and their sins expiated); hence the lid of expiation, the propitiatory

1b) an expiatory sacrifice

1c) a expiatory victim

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;... Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God has set forth to be a PROPITIATION through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
(Rom 3:21; 24-25)