Just in case you were in any doubt: everyone is under the power of sin (Romans 3:9). That’s part of the reason why “you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others” (2:1). There is no one who is righteous, Paul insists; all have turned aside, we use our tongues to deceive, our mouths are full of cursing and bitterness, and there is no fear of God in our eyes (3:10-18).

People commonly sum this up by quoting “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). But the sentence is actually longer than that; it runs like this: “there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (3:23-24). The point is not simply that all have sinned; the point is that there is no distinction between one sinner and another, because we all need the redemption that God has provided in Jesus.

And even that isn’t the end of the sentence! It goes on to say that God put Jesus forward as ἱλαστήριον (‘hilasterion;’ 3:25). That’s the Greek word for the mercy seat, the covering of the ark of the covenant (Exodus 25:17). In the Old Testament this is the place where God meets with us (Exodus 25:22), and the place where atonement is made (Leviticus 16:11-14). The NRSV translates the word as ‘sacrifice of atonement,’ and offers an alternative in the footnote of ‘place of atonement.’ The NASB offers the single word ‘propitiation,’ and the CEB gives a longer phrase, ‘the place of sacrifice where mercy is found.’ If you check other translations you’ll see that they all come up with different ways of trying to express the meaning of this term.

You can’t really find fault with their efforts; translating ideas from one language to another is what translations are supposed to do. Yet hilasterion isn’t just a word: it’s part of a complex narrative embedded deeply in the heritage of Israel. The hilasterion is the lid over the Ten Commandments in the Ark of the Covenant; it is the place where forgiveness of sins is established; it is the place where God meets with us. When Paul wrote that God has now set Jesus before us as the hilasterion, he indicated that Jesus is at the very center of the narrative of God’s covenant with us – already 18 centuries deep at the time Paul wrote, and now 20 centuries deeper. By using this key word, Paul meant for us to understand that the reconciliation between us sinners and God has been completely fulfilled in Jesus, and that Jesus has also now become the place where God meets with us.

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Ah Lord Jesus! You are the atonement for all our sins, setting us right with the Father; and you are the place where we come into the very presence of the Almighty: and this is true for us, and for all the world. We give you thanks, and we praise your name forever and ever.