Question: Lev. 16 &c. Does the Hebrew distinguish “atonement” and “propitiation”? Are there two different words? What distinction does the chapter present? It is known that ἱλασμὸς in the N. T. is translated “propitiation,” and in the Septuagint answers to “atonement.”
Answer: The Hebrew word Kaphar (for the question) means to atone, or make atonement. So it is regularly; and Dent. 32:43, Isa. 47:11, Ezek. 16:63; 43:20; 45:15, 17, 20, are the same in substance, though the effect in some cases is meant, as pacified, purged, forgiven, merciful, &c. “Propitiate” would be just as good a rendering as “atone”; and no other word regularly expresses either but the one. There is however a real distinction definitely drawn in the chapter, not between atonement and propitiation, but between propitiation and substitution typified in Jehovah’s lot and the scapegoat. The error which has so often been exposed in these pages is limiting propitiation exclusively to the use made of the blood by Aaron in the sanctuary. That theory necessarily involves the frightful error of denying that the offering of the slain victim is any part of the propitiation for our sins. What a slight on Christ’s sufferings! For this monstrous theory is that propitiation was made “in heaven, and after death,” thus nullifying forever that great work of God by Christ’s blood and death on the cross, and making it altogether dependent on another work “after death and in heaven,” instead of the type met before God in heaven by what Christ suffered on earth. “You hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh (not when He was out of His body) through death” (not after death and in heaven). Assuredly to be “reconciled” is grounded on propitiation, and presupposes it; but the truth is that Christ fully reconciled us in the body of His flesh through death. The ghostly work after death and in heaven is a ghastly fable, and calls for abhorrence.