Expiation refers to the removal, cleansing, and covering of sin's guilt and defilement. Where propitiation emphasizes the satisfaction of God's righteous wrath toward the sinner, expiation focuses on what happens to the sin itself — it is blotted out, washed away, covered over. In the Old Testament, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) illustrates expiation vividly: one goat was slain (propitiation), the other bore the sins of the people into the wilderness (expiation — the scapegoat, Lev. 16:21–22). In Christ, both realities converge: He absorbs the divine wrath against sin (propitiation) and simultaneously carries sin away so it cannot be charged against the redeemed (expiation). The blood of Christ does not merely cover sin like a legal fiction — it removes it. "As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us" (Ps 103:12).
EXPI'ATION, n. [Latin expiatio.] The act of atoning for a crime; the act of making satisfaction for an offense, by which the guilt is done away, and the offender is no longer liable to punishment. Expiation is made by sacrifice, penance, or other means. Among the pagans, expiations were performed by sacrifices or lustrations. Among Christians, the only real expiation for sin is the atonement of Christ — the offering of His body and blood as a sacrifice to divine justice. No human merit or suffering constitutes expiation; it is the exclusive work of the Mediator.
A significant theological debate rages over how to translate the Greek hilasmos (1 John 2:2; 4:10) and hilastērion (Rom 3:25) — as propitiation (satisfying God's wrath) or merely expiation (removing sin). Liberal translators favor "expiation" to sidestep the idea that God has wrath to be satisfied — preferring a God who cleanses sin without being offended by it. But this is a false choice: Scripture presents both realities together, and gutting propitiation from the atonement leaves no coherent reason for the cross. Sin must be punished; Christ bore the punishment (propitiation) and took the sin away (expiation). Neither half of the atonement can stand without the other. A theology of expiation without propitiation produces a therapeutic gospel — sin is a problem to be solved, not a crime to be judged.
• Leviticus 16:21–22 — The scapegoat bore the iniquities of Israel into the wilderness — a picture of expiation, sin carried far away.
• Psalm 103:12 — "As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us."
• 1 John 2:2 — "He is the propitiation [hilasmos] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world."
• Romans 3:25 — "Whom God put forward as a propitiation [hilastērion] by His blood, to be received by faith."
• Isaiah 53:6 — "The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."