6.12.26 – The Mercy Seat (Hilasterion), Part 3

Yesterday, I left you with the question: Which one is it? Is it the mercy seat, or is it a specific monument—a specific place referencing a merciful act? Yes. What did Paul mean? In both meanings, the same thing is true.

The whole idea of penal substitution is not a sovereign act first. God designed the mercy seat. The agent has come and meets me here. The emperor forgives a rebel city, and they raise a monument to him. There is no appeasement; it is mercy. It is mercy, and that is what hilasterion carries in either meeting—not a victim offered up to God, but a gift set forth by God, who had already decided on mercy.

We saw this, as I mentioned earlier, at that meeting place in Isaiah 53. Do you remember this word in Hebrew? Paga (to meet, to intercede). In Isaiah 53:6, "the iniquity of us all met on Him"—the servant. The guilt converged on Him, but paga does not actually capture it all, because in verse 12 we see the same word returning: "He made intercession for the transgressors." It met Him. The same word opens the chapter and closes it. Isaiah himself tells you what the meeting place was. It was not wrath poured out. It is intercession—the servant standing between God and the people. So this meeting does not destroy the people. It is a meeting place, the same thing that hilasterion is.

We are not going to make some unsubstantiated claim that Isaiah 53's paga and hilasterion are the same thing. They are different languages. They are different words. I am just building a picture of the work of the Messiah. Look at where each one stands: the servant stands between the guilty and God; the mercy seat stands between God and the people. We have three things: a place—the mercy seat; a monument in Rome; and now a person. Every one of them stands between a sovereign with the right to punish and people with every reason to be afraid, and through that little space comes down, never punishment.

That is what Paul does in Romans 3:25. He takes all of us to this place—the sign, the advocate—and he lays it on Yeshua. God set forth Yeshua, the meeting place, the sign of the pardon. The mercy seat had no voice. The stone monument had no voice. The servant does have a voice, and he speaks mercy. So Jesus, in both senses, is this hilasterion.

Romans 3:25 is the verse that people like to use to prove that Jesus was the blood sacrifice, the propitiation to satisfy the anger of a wrathful God. They say that one verse ends the argument. There it is. But look at it now. At the center, it is not a victim. It is never a victim. It is the place where God meets His people, the servant standing in the gap and reconciling the people who have put their faith—and His faithfulness—before God. The TLV says: "God set forth Yeshua as an atonement, through faith in his blood, to show his righteousness in passing over sins already committed." Mercy. Mercy.

After all our time, we know a little more what atonement means on many levels. What we see is that it moves outward. God provides the meeting place; He declares it as the sign. There is no victim to cool the wrath, no punishment transferred. That is one thing the word hilasterion cannot carry—that is not its meaning. So penal substitution appeals to this verse as a strong proof text, but listen: if Paul had wanted a sacrificial victim absorbing God's wrath, he could have chosen other Greek words—words that existed for that. He did not use them. He used hilasterion—the mercy seat.

So this, unfortunately for all critics, is not your smoking gun. There is a much, much, much more beautiful story being told. Whether Paul even meant it that way or not, God has now revealed a meeting place in two beautiful stories: Jew and Gentile. Is it a mercy seat? Is it a gift from God? It is both. Yeshua is both. He is the place set forth where heaven touches earth and we are received. God put Him there—not as anger, but as a gift.

Happy Preparation Day and Shabbat Shalom!
Alan

Read the article The Mercy Seat