A Propitiation for the Sins of the Whole World?

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. – 1 John 2v1-2

My last blog post before this one focused primarily on the advocacy of Christ in verse 1, as that is the main point of this passage. With that said, I wanted to write this article in order to give a good treatment to verse 2, and some of the theological issues that this verse gets drug into.

Verse 2 states, “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” The whole debate here circles around the nature of Christ’s propitiation for sins and who the “whole world” is. I will be addressing the way that some Arminian theologians use this verse as a “proof text” for their position that Christ died as a sacrifice for the sins of every single individual, ever.

At the outset I will say that I am not addressing any specific person, writings, or teaching; but will be addressing common retorts from the everyday Arminian. I admit that doing such runs the risk of making a straw-man out of their arguments, but I assure you I am giving their arguments a fair representation as I have had many of these conversations with personal friends. I am sure that those of you who have also had such conversations with everyday Arminians will attest to my honesty in this article. If this fact makes you want to stop reading, then please do so.

So, to restate the common Arminian position: Arminian’s believe that Jesus died as a sacrifice for every sin of every single person who ever lives, even for the sins of those who reject Christ, die in their sins, and enter into an eternity in hell under the punishment of God for their sins. I will refrain from making broader theological arguments to refute this position, but will deal strictly with 1 John 2v2, as some Arminians pull this verse out to “prove” their points, saying, “See, it says that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” One of the problems with using this verse to back such a claim is that this verse did not come to us as an isolated statement, but was written in a larger context, and context gives us an understanding of the true meaning of the text. That will be a large portion of this article: context, context, context! We can make any verse say anything we want it to by ripping it from it’s Scriptural context and placing it into ours. But that is not how we deal with Scripture, we take it in it’s own context, not ours.

Propitiation

Let us begin by first dealing with the term, “propitiation,” because that is what 1 John 2v2 is addressing – Christ is a propitiation for sins. If we don’t understand what is meant by this, we will not understand the text. Understanding propitiation is vital in understanding what is meant by the “whole world.”

In Biblical terms, “propitiation” conveys the idea of the offering of a sacrifice in order to satisfy the wrath of God toward sinners. Fundamentally, God’s holy and righteous character demands that he execute justice and wrath on sinners. And fundamentally, we are sinners. Therefore, if we are to be saved, we need a propitiation for our sins to turn away the wrath of God. John tells us that Jesus Christ is that propitiation that we need. Jesus Christ took the sins of his people on himself, becoming a sacrifice for them, such that God’s wrath is averted from the sinner and put upon Christ, thus sinners are saved from the wrath of God.

This idea of propitiation is not a brand new idea that is introduced by Jesus. In many ways, the Old Testament sacrificial system was a system of propitiation in which the animal sacrifices would temporarily propitiate the wrath of God. In this way the old sacrificial system was a foreshadow of what was to come in Christ. The propitiation of Christ is far better than that of the animals, Christ’s is not temporary, it is final.

Furthermore, the sacrificial system of the old covenant accomplished this temporal form of propitiation specifically for the Israelites. But Christ’s propitiation is better in that it is not just for Israel, but for the gentiles, or all nations and ethnicities – in other words, the whole world.

 The Whole World

I hope you see where this is going. In understanding the contextual meaning of propitiation we can see, as has been alluded to, that when John writes of Christ being the propitiation for the whole world, what he means is not just the Jews, but the gentiles as well. In other words, when John says the “whole world,” he is saying “every type (ethnically) of person;” not, “every single individual.” James Montgomery Boice states it thus, “According to this view, what John wishes to say is that Jesus fulfilled the pattern set by the Old Testament sacrifices, but that he did so in such a way that now Gentiles as well as Jews are saved.”

This seems like an obvious understanding. However, there are many people who have a difficult time in understanding how Scripture could use this type of language and meaning. Yet, we do it all the time. For example: I like salsa. I am speaking in general terms. Do I intend to say that I like every single type of salsa in the world? Of course not, because we understand that I am making a generalization. This is a silly example, but I use it to show that we talk this way often. Is Scripture not allowed to do the same?

Additionally, Arminians make an error in using 1 John 2v2 to justify their belief system, for the very nature of propitiation is specific. It is by nature substitutionary and limited in it’s scope. So the only logical way this could be used to say that Christ truly was a propitiation for the whole world is if you are a Universalist, for Christ could not have satisfied the wrath of God for those who will not be saved; but only for those who will. If a person rejects Christ, goes to hell and experiences the wrath of God, then obviously, the wrath of God toward them has not been turned away from them, thus Christ is not their propitiation. At this point the Arminian is inconsistent; and thank God for that.

Context of Jesus as an Advocate

Consider further the context in which we find 1 John 2v2. John is writing this letter to Christians, specifically. He is writing to his “little children” in the faith. The promises that he directs toward his readers here, do not apply to the unbeliever. The pinnacle of verse 1 is that when a believer sins, he has Jesus Christ, the righteous, for his advocate before the Father. Jesus Christ is an advocate for his people, not for unbelievers. This is the context in which verse 2 is written. Therefore, when we understand the “whole world” to mean “every type of person,” then we clearly see that just as Jesus Christ is the advocate for his people only when they sin, so Jesus Christ is the propitiation for his people only, no matter what ethnicity they may be.

An Alternative View

There are some Calvinists who would say that Christ was a propitiation for the world, not in a salvific way, but in a temporal way, in staying the wrath of God for a time, in providing a period of patience, and a time of opportunity for repentance. However, this does not reflect the context of this passage either. Christ is a propitiation in relation to his work as an advocate, which in context is Christ’s advocacy before the throne of God for Christians when they sin. Unbelievers do not have Christ as their advocate, as we’ve stated. Therefore, it does not make sense for John to mean that Christ is the propitiation for an unbeliever in a way that is foreign to the immediate context and flow of thought. And again, propitiation is only something that is for the believer, just as the advocacy of Christ is only for the believer. That is one of the differences between a Christian and a non-Christian (which John has just spent time contrasting the two in chapter 1) – a believer has an advocate, an unbeliever does not – that is the context.

Furthermore, the idea of a temporal propitiation does not jive with the rest of the testimony of Scripture, considering passages like Romans 1 that speaks of the wrath of God being revealed in his giving over unbelievers to their sin. Yes, there is a patience and a forbearance from God toward sinners (common grace), but that it is not propitiation in a final sense. Unrepentant sinners are not having wrath turned away from them (propitiation), but are having it stored up. Consider as well a passage like John 3v36 that tells us the unbeliever has the wrath of God abiding on them. So, for this view to work, you would have to make a distinction between a final wrath and this type of current wrath.

Conclusion

There are many other passages we could easily have brought into this discussion to help us understand what John is saying. But I hope that it has been clearly demonstrated that by the context and the language, we come to the conclusion that the advocacy of Christ is based upon his propitiation that fully realizes what the Old Covenant pointed forward to – a final sacrifice for the sins of God’s people that extends beyond the border of any specific tribe, nation, or tongue.