“God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.” Romans 3:25

Going to put another dish in the dishwasher, I noticed something out of place. I don’t know what made me see it, but after getting the idea that something was wrong, I investigated further… only to discover I had been loading dirty dishes into a dishwasher full of clean dishes! The previous load was clean, but not put away. After a day or 2, the cycle of ‘clean and put away’ had been broken.

Trying to figure a way around the problem really had no other solution. Not knowing what dishes were clean or dirty, the only real choice was to run the dishwasher… again. Because there are only 2 of us, we can go a long time without having to run the dishwasher. That means situations like this can sometimes happen. But God is perfect! And because He’s perfect, He doesn’t get a redo.

This verse is rather tricky because it uses the Old Testament word “atonement.” Atonement means ‘to cover.’ Once, when the neighbors were stopping over, I atoned for the dirty floor by brushing it under the rug. It was covered… but not removed! When it came to sin, God had NO choice in the matter of what to do with it. It HAD to be PAID FOR IN FULL. And only Jesus could pay God’s anger.

The real word is ‘propitiate’ and it means to appease, conciliate, pacify or placate. God’s anger and judgment against sin was a matter that HAD to be taken care of. NO dirty dishes allowed! So, God chose the only choice He had. To sacrifice His own Son. Now… “I” have a choice. If I want to be clean before God, I only have 1 path for propitiation. And that is to choose Jesus! And I have. Have you?