July 20, 2025; Sunday Evening Worship

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 63:1-8
• Hymn — O God, You Are My God Alone (63A)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Heidelberg Catechism — Lord's Day 20, Question 53
• Hymn — As the Deer Pants for Flowing Streams (42B)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Sermon
• Hymn — How Deep the Father's Love for Us (#351)
• Benediction

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Sermon Title: Atonement — Imputation, Propitiation, and Expiation

Scripture: Leviticus 16:1-34

I. Imputation

A. The high priest laid both hands on the scapegoat, confessing all the sins of Israel over it, so that the goat "bore all their iniquities" (Leviticus 16:21-22)

B. The key question: does the transfer of sin change the nature of the sacrifice, or only its status before God?

1. Infusion — the transfer actually alters the inner nature of the object, making it visibly tainted and no longer pleasing
2. Imputation — the transfer credits sin to the account of the sacrifice, changing its status (guilty before God) without changing its nature (still spotless and unblemished beneath the "cloak" of sin)

C. This distinction is essential to why the sacrifice remains a pleasing aroma to God even while being judged in the people's place

D. Christ as the fulfillment of imputation

1. God reckons our sin to Christ's account — his status before the Father becomes that of a condemned sinner, though his nature remains perfectly holy
2. Because his nature is not changed, his sacrifice is accepted: his body does not see corruption (Acts 2), and the resurrection is the Father's declaration that the offering was pleasing
3. "It is because Jesus is accounted something he is not by nature that he is judged; it is because he is not by nature what he is accounted as that he is raised"
4. The great exchange: 2 Corinthians 5:21 — he was made sin so that we might become the righteousness of God; Christ takes our cloak of sin, we receive his robe of righteousness

II. Propitiation

A. Two identical male goats are selected (Leviticus 16:5); lots are cast — one goat "for the Lord," one goat "for Azazel" (Leviticus 16:8-9)

1. The two goats represent two sides of one atonement
2. The goat "for the Lord" pictures propitiation; the goat "for Azazel" pictures expiation

B. Definition: propitiation (prefix pro-, "for") is a sacrifice directed toward God — it appeases his wrath and establishes reconciliation between the offerer and God

1. The goat is slaughtered; its blood is sprinkled before the altar; its fat is burned (Leviticus 16:25)
2. The fire represents the outpouring of God's wrath on the sacrifice; the ascending smoke is a pleasing aroma because the unblemished nature of the animal remains intact

C. The doctrine of propitiation is widely rejected today, even within evangelicalism

1. A major denomination altered the hymn In Christ Alone, changing "the wrath of God was satisfied" to "the love of God was satisfied," removing the concept of propitiation
2. The perceived tension: if God is love, how can he also pour out wrath?

D. Scripture unites God's love and his wrath in propitiation rather than setting them against each other

1. 1 John 4:10 — "In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" — the most explicit statement of God's love is inseparable from propitiation
2. John Murray: "The propitiation is the ground upon which the divine love operates and the channel through which it flows in achieving its end"
3. Romans 3 — at the cross, God is simultaneously just (pouring out righteous wrath on the substitute) and justifier (declaring sinners righteous); all his attributes coalesce perfectly
4. God's love is not a sentiment that overlooks sin; it is a holy, just, righteous love expressed through the satisfaction of his own justice

E. Leviticus, rightly understood, may be the most vivid Old Testament display of the love of a holy God for a sinful people, offering them a way into his presence through propitiation

III. Expiation

A. Definition: expiation (prefix ex-, "out of/from") is not an offering directed toward God but the removal of sin away from the sinner — the bearing of the penalty that takes sin away

B. The scapegoat (Leviticus 16:20-22)

1. Aaron lays both hands on the live goat, confessing all Israel's iniquities; the sins are transferred to the goat
2. The goat is sent into the wilderness by a designated man, bearing the people's iniquities to "a remote area" — driven out, not slaughtered

C. The wilderness as the land of curse

1. In Israel's symbolic world, the wilderness represented Sheol — chaos, darkness, death, separation from God's presence
2. Expulsion from the camp was the penalty for the gravest sins — to be "cut off" was to be sent into the land of death
3. The scapegoat takes the place of the sinner: rather than the sinner being expelled from God's presence, the substitute is expelled — evoking the imagery of Eden and east of Eden

D. The fatal limitation of the Day of Atonement: it had to be repeated every year

1. The very next day after Yom Kippur, the daily sacrificial system resumed — a constant reminder that sin still clung to the people
2. The lurgy of Israel's calendar pressed upon them the reality: you are never truly free from sin
3. The brief joy of the Day of Atonement — which inaugurated the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25) — was designed to create a longing for a once-for-all, everlasting atonement

E. Christ as the fulfillment of both propitiation and expiation

1. Hebrews 9:12 — Christ "entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption"
2. At his baptism, Christ identifies with his sinful people; the Spirit then leads him into the wilderness — into the land of Sheol — where he defeats Satan (Matthew 4)
3. At the cross, he is crucified outside the camp (Hebrews 13:12) — he becomes our scapegoat, tasting the curse and being exiled from the presence of God on our behalf
4. With our sins imputed to him, he is both the perfect propitiatory offering (his unblemished nature pleasing to the Father) and the ultimate scapegoat (bearing and removing our sin outside the camp)
5. In him, we enter the fullness of joy in the Year of the Lord's favor that never ends — an everlasting at-one-ment with God