Theological glossary · FaithLogic

Expiation

The removal, cleansing, or covering of sin so that it no longer stands between God and the sinner.

Latin expiare, 'to atone for, purge'; the object is sin, not God.

Hebrews 1:3 ('made purification for sins'); Hebrews 9:14; 1 John 1:7, 9; the Day of Atonement imagery of Leviticus 16.

Proposed by C. H. Dodd as the whole meaning of hilastērion; now generally seen as one side of it, alongside propitiation.

Sin is really dealt with, not merely pardoned by decree; the defilement is cleansed.

The debate is whether expiation exhausts the meaning of the atonement's Godward terms or is complemented by propitiation.

Open in the glossary for related terms and the doctrines this concept appears in.