“Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings.” ― Helen Keller

Everyone will mourn sometime in their life and some will mourn far more than others. Mourning is a fact of life. There are times while going through those difficult moments when we will wonder if God even cares that we hurt. The Bible clearly shows that He absolutely does care about every pain we experience. God is extremely concerned with our tears and pain, but the mourning Jesus speaks of here is the direct result of the realization that we are not what we were created to be.

Jesus is preaching the gospel of the kingdom and the focus of His message is on restoring us back to the way we are supposed to be. Becoming poor in spirit brings us face to face with our transgression, sin and iniquity. This should bring about an honest sense of mourning for our condition or we have not yet understood the depth of our depravity and helplessness.

The realization of our fall from God’s image and complete inability to do anything about our condition should evoke an intense feeling of grief. The words of James 4:9 describe the reaction of someone honestly aware of their condition: “Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.” To this miserable, mourning and weeping human Jesus begs them to come to Him and be comforted.

The concept behind this comfort that Jesus speaks about goes way beyond our human experience with this subject of mourning. It reaches to the very throne and heart of God. The Greek word translated comforted is an interesting word. It means, to call to ones side to help or give aid. It is used of Jesus and the Holy Spirit many times in the Bible. But it is more than just calling us to come to Him. It has a much stronger sense to it as in begging the hurting sinner to come to Him for comfort. And why would Jesus be so intently concerned with a transgressor/sinner coming to Him for comfort? Because there is no one in the universe that is more concerned with helping us than He is and there is absolutely no one else who has the means of fixing our problem as the result of our being so poor in spirit. Besides this, Jesus loves us so much that He allowed Himself to be crucified in order to offer us this comfort.

There is a word God uses to describe this comforting aid Jesus offers a mourning sinner. It is the word often translated in the New Testament as propitiation.

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.” (1 John 2:1, 2)

I love the word propitiation used in this verse to describe the relationship Jesus has with our sins. This is one of the most important words in the Bible. Let me give you the Biblical definition; the means God uses to lavish us sinners with grace and kindness without violating His own judicial righteousness. Jesus is the means God uses to be able to forgive our sin so He is free to restore us back to the way we are supposed to be.

God cannot just ignore human transgression and sin or He would not be judicially righteous. The only way God can completely satisfy His own judicial requirements for our transgression and sin is that every violation has to be punished to the perfect extent of the violation, nothing more and nothing less. Punishment must be executed perfectly. This is what the word propitiation is all about, God punishing every violation of our transgression and sin exactly as they need to be. And as it says, Jesus is the one who was perfectly punished for our sins for He is the propitiation.

The Biblical concept of propitiation is more than punishment and forgiveness though. Propitiation is also what allows God to lavish us with grace and kindness. In fact, this is the reason Jesus was crucified. It wasn’t just to save us from hell. It was so God would be free to lavish us with grace and kindness when He takes us to His future world where righteousness is the way of life.

There is much more going on with the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross than giving humans an escape from hell and forgiveness of sin. The death of Jesus opens the door for God to restore us fallen humans back to the way we were meant to be so He can lavish us with His grace and kindness forever in the heavenly places. That is the essence of propitiation and the cross.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-7

Whenever I am teaching about propitiation in a Bible study my wife will make strawberry shortcake for me to use as an illustration. I take a plate loaded with homemade biscuits and strawberries and hand it to someone in the group. Then I grab a can of whipped cream and start spraying it on the strawberry shortcake asking the group to let me know when I have reached the point of lavishing the whipped cream. They usually stop me when it is about a foot high and starting to fall over. Lavishing is way over the top of what is normal. Way over the top is a great way to describe what propitiation is and allows God to do for us transgressors/sinners.

The beginning of God lavishing us with grace and kindness comes the moment someone responds to the gospel of the kingdom by becoming poor in spirit and then mourning for their bankrupt condition. The belief in God’s promise of the kingdom and His comfort brings with it the most astonishing grace and kindness – He gives the Holy Spirit to live inside us and therefore be a live-in comforter. From that moment on God says we are sealed in Him meaning He will never turn us away. We have His kingdom rule and comfort dwelling inside us permanently therefore there is no condemnation.

Right before Jesus was crucified He told His disciples this wonderful truth:

“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16, 17)

The word translated Helper is the same Greek word translated comforter so this Helper Jesus speaks of is the Holy Spirit. This sheds new light on the comfort Jesus offers those who become poor in spirit and mourn for their condition. The comfort we receive comes from inside, from the Holy Spirit who now abides in us. We no longer surrender and mourn to the Great God and Savior Jesus Christ as He dwells in heaven on the throne. We now bow our heart to the sovereign, righteous comforter who abides inside us. This is the start of God lavishing us with grace and kindness that will go on for all eternity.

The word translated another here in this passage means one exactly the same. Not a copy, but exact in every sense of His being. The Holy Spirit and Jesus are exactly the same without the physical body of Jesus. And Jesus says here that the Holy Spirit will now reside in every one of His followers.

This is such an astonishing truth and promise of God. A transgressor/sinner is comforted to the degree that Jesus now lives inside them. That could only mean our transgression, sin and iniquity have been propitiated to such a degree they no longer interfere with our relationship with God. We truly have peace with God in every possible way. And not only do we have the Comforter living inside us but that same Comforter also is the sovereign, righteous King who now rules from within us.

It is because of the magnitude of what Jesus accomplished on the cross that He is free to beg us to come to Him and be comforted. Once again we see that God’s ways are not our human ways of doing things. Jesus says the way to receive the comfort He offers, which will give us the makarios life, is we must be miserable, mourn and weep for our transgression, sin and iniquity. Only those who know the sorrow of spiritual bankruptcy will experience the comfort of propitiation and the kingdom of God now ruling from within their human heart.   

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