2. And He («ai adrés). The He is emphatic: that same Jesus: He himself.
The propitiation (iAacuos). Only here and iv. 10. From iAaoKowat to appease, to conciliate to one’s self, which occurs Luke xviii. 13; Heb. ii. 17. The noun means originally an ap- peasing or propitiating, and passes, through Alexandrine usage, into the sense of the means of appeasing, as here. The construct- ion is to be particularly noted ; for, in the matter of (epi) owr sins; the genitive case of that for which propitiation is made. In Heb. ii. 17, the accusative case, also of the sins to be pro- pitiated. In classical usage, on the other hand, the habitual construction is the accusative (direct objective case), of the per- son propitiated. So in Homer, of the gods. Qecdv iAdoxecSau is to make a god propitious to one. See “ Iliad,” i. 386, 472. Of men whom one wishes to conciliate by divine honors after death. So Herodotus, of Philip of Crotona. “ His beauty gained him honors at the hands of the Egestzeans which they never accorded to any one else; for they raised a hero-temple over his grave, and they still propitiate him (abrov iNdcxovtat) with sacrifices” (v.,47). Again, “The Parians, having pro- pitiated Themistocles (Ocwrotoxdéa idacdpevor) with gifts, escaped the visits of the army” (viii., 112). The change from this construction shows, to quote Canon Westcott, “that the scriptural conception of the verb is not that of appeasing one who is angry, with a personal feeling, against the offender; but of altering the character of that which, from without, occasions a necessary alienation, and interposes an inevitable obstacle to fellowship. Such phrases as ‘propitiating God, and God ‘being reconciled’ are foreign to the language of the New Testament. Man is reconciled (2 Cor. v. 18 sqq.; Rom. v. 10 sq.). There is a propitiation in the matter of the sin or of the sinner.”
For the sins of the whole world (crepi ddou Tov Kdcpov). The sins of (A. V., italicised) should be omitted; as in Rev., for the whole world. Compare 1 John iv. 14; John iv. 42; xii. 82. “The propitiation is as wide as the sin” (Bengel).