Mercy Seat

The act of appeasing another person’s anger by the offering of a gift. The word was often used by the pagans in antiquity, for they thought of their gods as unpredictable beings, liable to become angry with their worshipers for any trifle. When disaster struck, it was often thought that a god was angry and was therefore punishing his worshipers. The remedy was to offer a sacrifice without delay. A well-chosen offering would appease the god and put him in a good mood again. This process was called propitiation.

Understandably, some modern theologians have reacted against using the term in reference to the God of the Bible. They do not see him as one who can be bribed to become favorable, so they reject the whole idea. When they come to the term in the Greek NT, they translate it by “expiation” or some equivalent term that lacks any reference to anger. This is an unjustified avoidance because, in the first place, the Greek term for propitiation occurs in some important biblical passages (Rom 3:25; Heb 2:17; 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10). In the second place, the idea of the wrath of God is found throughout the Bible; it must be taken into account in the way sin is forgiven.