This week we’re enjoying Christ as the propitiation place – one of the many truths in the Bible that has not been yet fully discovered & enjoyed by the Lord’s people. In Romans 3:24-25 it says:
Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation place through faith in His blood, for the demonstrating of His righteousness….
Here it says that God set forth Christ as a propitiation place – what is this “propitiation place”? In Exodus 25:22 the Bible says:
And there I will meet with you, and I will speak to you from above the expiation cover, from between the two cherubim which are upon the Ark of the Testimony….
In the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle / the temple there was the ark of the covenant, and upon the ark was a lid/cover of massive gold (signifying God’s nature). There, on this lid, the Bible says, God meets with man (in the Old Testament, God met with the High Priest once a year, in the day of Expiation / Atonement) – there God speaks to man.
On this lid there were two cherubim, which typify God’s glory, observing us and watching us. Under the lid, there was the Law of God (the tablets of the law), which typify God’s holy and righteous requirements on man. Here, upon the ark, on this lid, God said He will meet with man.
When the High Priest came into the Holy of Holies to meet with God, he sprinkled the blood of the sacrifices upon the lid and then God would speak to him – when we come to meet with God, we are under the sprinkling of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and God can speak to us!
Here, in this place – in the propitiation place, in Christ, we can meet with God! Christ fulfilled all the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory, and His blood opened a way for us to enter into a relationship and constant contact with God!
But coming back to the main point – God has set forth Christ as a propitiation place – when did this happen? Well, starting from the Lord’s crucifixion, especially from when God began to judge Christ on the cross for our sins, God set Christ forth as the propitiation place.
Then also through His death (as the unique offering for sin and as the reality of the sin offering) and resurrection (His offering was accepted by God, and God raised Christ from the dead), God continued this process of setting Christ forth as the propitiation place.
The consummation of this process is Christ’s ascension and seating at the right hand of God – He accomplished all things, and He sat down! God set forth Christ through the process of His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension – to be the propitiation place, where God can meet with man!
Now because of the sprinkling of Christ’s redeeming blood, the cover of the Ark has become a propitiation cover, a place where God may contact us and we may enjoy His grace in full! And this place, called the propitiation place, is Christ, who is in our spirit! Hallelujah, we can meet God in Christ as our propitiation place, even as the throne of grace – in our spirit!
