R.C. Sproul

And we sit down and speculate as to what the significance of the man's art represents.

And then I give my opinion and you give your opinion.

We all sit around and speculate on it.

The best way to settle the controversy is to do what?

Ask the artist, what did you mean by this?

And some of them, you know, existentialists say, hey, I paint it, you interpret it.

I meant whatever you want me to mean, that kind of thing.

Fortunately, Jesus wasn't an existentialist.

And when Jesus explains his agenda, when he is talking in the first person and communicating to his hearers what he is about at the center of his teaching is this.

I'm doing this not for myself, but for you to redeem, to ransom, to save.

When we talk technically about the atonement, there are two words, propitiation and expiation.

Those are strange words indeed.

Well, let's look at them.

Expiation, one prefix, ex-, and propitiation.

The word expiation obviously means something out of or from, right?

We know what the prefix ex means.

Now, the word expiation means to remove something, to take something away.

And in biblical terms, it has to do with taking away guilt.

removing guilt by way of paying a ransom or offering an atonement and to pay the penalty for something.

So the act of expiation removes the problem by paying for it, either by paying a penalty, paying a ransom, making a sacrifice in order to satisfy some demand.