My Utmost for His Highest - October 15 - The Key to the Missionary Message

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. I John 2:2

The key to the missionary message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus. Take any phase of Christ’s work--the healing phase, the saving and sanctifying phase; there is nothing limitless about those. "The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!”— that is limitless (John 1:29). The missionary message is the limitless significance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is one who is soaked in that revelation.

The real key to the missionary’s message is the “remissionary” aspect of Christ’s life, not His kindness, His goodness, or even His revealing of the fatherhood of God to us. “…repentance and remission of sins should be preached…to all nations…” (Luke 24:47). The greatest message of limitless importance is that “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins….” The missionary’s message is not nationalistic, favoring nations or individuals; it is “for the whole world.” When the Holy Spirit comes into me, He does not consider my partialities or preferences; He simply brings me into oneness with the Lord Jesus.

A missionary is someone who is bound by marriage to the stated mission and purpose of his Lord and Master. He is not to proclaim his own point of view, but is only to proclaim “the Lamb of God.” It is easier to belong to a faction that simply tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, and easier to become a devotee of divine healing, or of a special type of sanctification, or of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But Paul did not say, “Woe is me if I do not preach what Christ has done for me,” but, “…woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). And this is the gospel— “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

-- Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)

My Thoughts

Propitiation means that Jesus Christ atones or returned man to a right standing with God. By man sinning, he was sent out from the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:23). Jesus brought us back. He averted God's wrath from man by God Himself presenting Himself (in Jesus Christ) as that which will turn away His righteous wrath against our sin. In Greek mythology, propitiation has the idea of present a gift to the gods, so as to turn away the displeasure of the gods.