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In the only other place where the word occurs in the New Testament (Hebrews 9:5) it is rendered "mercy seat."

I. TO THE INSTITUTION OF THE "MERCY SEAT," therefore, we must look, that we may rightly understand the allusion (Exodus 25:17). It is from this description that the appellation is given to Jehovah of the God that "dwelleth between the cherubim," an appellation, therefore, equivalent in import to "the God of mercy," "the God of all grace," "the God of peace": and the position of "the mercy seat" or propitiatory, upon "the ark of the testimony," seems to indicate that His appearing, in this benign character, to commune with guilty creatures, was in full consistency with the claims and sanctions of His perfect law; so that when Jehovah thus manifested Himself. "Mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace embraced each other." All this cannot fail to remind us of Him who received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." It is in Him, as the subject either of promise, of prophecy, of type, or of direct testimony, that God has from the beginning made Himself known to men in the character of "the God of peace." It is "in Him" that He "reconciles sinners to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them."

II. Had nothing more been said of the "mercy seat," we might have been led to conclude that Jehovah appeared there in the exercise of mere mercy, apart from any satisfaction for sin. We must, therefore, connect this description of the mercy seat with THE ACCOUNT GIVEN OF THE MANNER IN WHICH IT WAS TO BE APPROACHED by the worshipper (Leviticus 16:2, 11, 12). It was to be approached with the blood of "atonement" (vers. 6, 30, 34), which was sprinkled on and before "the mercy seat"; and while the sacrificial blood was thus presented, the burning incense was to diffuse its grateful odour, in emblematic testimony of the Divine satisfaction; which is, accordingly, elsewhere expressed in connection with the sacrifice of Christ, and the offerings by which it was typified, by Jehovah's "smelling a sweet savour" (cf. Genesis 8:21 with Ephesians 5:2; Revelation 8:3; and see also Psalm 141:2). The "mercy seat," then, in order to Jehovah's appearing there, consistently with the glory of His name, as the God of grace, must be stained with "the blood of sprinkling," the blood "that maketh atonement for the soul"; and in this is set before us the necessity of the shedding of the blood of Christ, in order to God's being "in Him well-pleased." And, agreeably to this, the Divine declaration "from the excellent glory," of satisfaction in His well-beloved Son, was made in connection with the subject of conference on the holy mount — "the decease which Jesus was to accomplish at Jerusalem."

III. THE PROPER IDEA OF "PROPITIATION" IS, RENDERING THE DIVINE BEING FAVOURABLE.

1. We must, beware, however, of understanding by this anything like the production of a change in the Divine character; as if God required an inducement to be merciful. We ought to conceive of Jehovah as eternally compassionate and merciful. But while God is infinitely and immutably good, He is at the same time infinitely and immutably holy and just and true. Never ought we to speak of Him as acting at one time according to mercy, and at another according to justice. His attributes, though we may speak of them distinctly, are inseparable in their exercise.

2. What, then, is the light in which the idea of atonement places the Divine Being? As a righteous Governor Jehovah is displeased with His guilty creatures; while, at the same time, from the infinite benignity of His nature, He is inclined to forgiveness. But if His government is righteous, its claims, in their full extent, must of necessity be maintained inviolate. The great question, then, on this momentous subject comes to be: In what manner may forgiveness be extended to the guilty, so as to satisfy the claims of justice? The rendering of the Divine Being propitious, in this view, refers, it is obvious, not to the production of love in His character, but simply to the mode of its expression. The inquiry is, How may God express love so as to express at the same time abhorrence of sin; and thus, in "making known the riches of His mercy," to display the inflexibility of justice and the unsullied perfection of holiness? When we say that God is displeased with any of His creatures, we speak of them not as creatures, but as sinners. He hath "no pleasure in the death of the wicked," but He hates sin; and the punishment of it is required both by the glory of His righteousness and by a regard to the general happiness of the intelligent creation, which sin tends directly to destroy. It is in this view that the blessed God is said to be "angry with the wicked every day," to "hate all the workers of iniquity"; to have "revealed from heaven His wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men": and when He forgives iniquity He is, in consistency with such expressions, described as having "His anger turned away." This is propitiation; and it is in Christ Jesus, in virtue of His atoning sacrifice, that God is thus propitious to sinners. The animal sacrifices of the Old Testament, of which the blood (because it was the life) was declared to be "the atonement for the soul," were all intended to prefigure the true "propitiation for sin."

(R. Wardlaw, D. D.)

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KJV: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

WEB: whom God set forth to be an atoning sacrifice, through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness through the passing over of prior sins, in God's forbearance;