Results for Blind Translation Comparisons 1

Romans 3:25(a)

1. KJV
Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,

2. RSV
God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

3. NASB
whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.

4. NRSV
whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.

5. NET
God publicly displayed him at his death as the mercy seat* accessible through faith.

6. ISV
whom God offered as a place where atonement by the Messiah’s blood would occur through faith.

7. NLT1 (1996)
For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us.

8. NLTse (2004, 2007)
For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.

se = Second Edition

* The word ἱλαστήριον (Jilasthrion) may carry the general sense “place of satisfaction,” referring to the place where God’s wrath toward sin is satisfied. More likely, though, it refers specifically to the “mercy seat,” i.e., the covering of the ark where the blood was sprinkled in the OT ritual on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). This term is used only one other time in the NT: Heb 9:5, where it is rendered “mercy seat.” There it describes the altar in the most holy place (holy of holies). Thus Paul is saying that God displayed Jesus as the “mercy seat,” the place where propitiation was accomplished. See N. S. L. Fryer, “The Meaning and Translation of Hilasterion in Romans 3:25,” EvQ 59 (1987): 99-116, who concludes the term is a neuter accusative substantive best translated “mercy seat” or “propitiatory covering,” and D. P. Bailey, “Jesus As the Mercy Seat: The Semantics and Theology of Paul’s Use of Hilasterion in Romans 3:25” (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 1999), who argues that this is a direct reference to the mercy seat which covered the ark of the covenant.