by Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer
This simple statement announces a most remarkable truth respecting God, that truth which, if kept in mind and especially when sermons are being preached to the unsaved, will avoid a multitude of unfortunate errors. Too often God is presented as one who needs to be softened by the sinner's tears or who must be appealed to be kind and forgiving, whereas Christ in His death has answered every holy demand God could have against the sinner. Therefore, by that death God is rendered kindly disposed. First of all, God loves each unsaved person with an infinite love, and much is achieved when the barriers which unholy men impose are removed leaving God to the unhindered experience of His infinite love. This is propitiation. When it is said that God is propitious, it merely says that nothing hinders the exercise of His infinite love. That the sinner does not soften God by tears or does not have to coax God into a propitious state of mind is most evident. We should take this burden off the unsaved. Let them dare, in simple confidence, to come to One who loves them infinitely.
Since Christ is also the propitiation for our sins, that
is, the Christian's sin, it is equally true that the believer who has sinned is
not required to implore God with prayers of penitent sorrow. If he admits his sin by confession, according
to 1 John 1:9, he is forgiven, cleansed, and restored into fellowship with
God. All believers need to be reminded
of this fact and of the failures of their walk apart from God, and that God
is propitious.
Evangelists when dealing with souls sense the fact that
they reach the place where, unless God does something, no saving
work will be done. At this point too
often some human action is imposed.
Nothing has been
depended upon more than the publican's prayer, "God be merciful to me a
sinner." That this prayer is
wholly outside the point at issue is evident.
In the first place, the publican
was a Jew in covenant relation to God and as such needed restoration to
covenant blessings. Whether any
comparison is to be drawn at this place or not, it will suggest the restoration
of a Christian who has wandered away from God.
The publican did not ask God to be merciful. The translation of this
passage is at fault. He did say,
"God be propitiated to me the sinner." Having left some sacrifice as he entered the temple he, in Old
Testament order, was justified in asking God to be propitious. However, he did not ask God for mercy as the
English text translates it. It should
be remembered that if God could have saved one soul as an act of sovereign
mercy, He could have saved all souls on that basis and the death of Christ
would not have been required. Christ's
death on the cross rendered God propitious to the degree of infinity. Therefore, when men coax God to be merciful,
they are asking Him to be what He has been to the divine limit of giving His Son
to die for sin. To ask God to be
propitious when Christ has rendered Him so, is unbelief and no one is saved by
unbelief. No man is saved by asking God to do
anything. He is rather saved when he believes what God has already done. God is
propitious. g
Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871-1952) trusted Christ alone as Saviour at the age of 6 under the tutelage of his parents during his father's (Thomas Franklin Chafer) first pastorate in Rock Creek, Ohio. Dr. Chafer later served as a church soloist and song leader, pastor, and founder of the Dallas Theological Seminary.