PROPITIATION is the act of giving a gift to appease the anger of someone we offended. It’s a term the ancient Greeks used when they want to make peace with their gods.
But of course, that’s an old, old story. Today, nobody really cares about Greek deities, well, unless you’re Percy Jackson, but that’s an entirely different story. Nowadays, nobody does propitiation with any of the characters of Mt. Olympus. What we do is we give “peace offerings” with our wives and girlfriends and mothers whenever we do something stupid. That partly explains why the chocolate and flower industry is still very much alive until today.
Interestingly, when Paul described what Jesus did for us on the cross, he said that God sent Him to be a propitiation for us through faith in His blood (Romans 3:25). I know it’s quite a mouthful but in simple terms, it means that Jesus is the offering that appeased the anger of God towards all the sinners of the world. Consequently, we need not spend lots of money to appease God because Jesus already did it. What we need to do is simply hitch a ride with his propitiation offering.
Two major points to clarify: One, God is not angry with us. Jesus took away (appeased) that anger when He volunteered to die in our place. Two, put your trust in Jesus. Get into Jesus’ good books because you owe it to him. That’s the least you can do to show Him you are grateful.
Jojo Agot 