Expiation

Guilt is said to be expiated when it is visited with punishment falling on a substitute. Expiation is made for our sins when they are punished not in ourselves but in another who consents to stand in our room. It is that by which reconciliation is effected. Sin is thus said to be "covered" by vicarious satisfaction. The cover or lid of the ark is termed in the LXX. hilasterion, that which covered or shut out the claims and demands of the law against the sins of God's people, whereby he became "propitious" to them. The idea of vicarious expiation runs through the whole Old Testament system of sacrifices. (See [202]PROPITIATION.)

a religious act, by which satisfaction or atonement is made for the commission of some crime, the guilt done away, and the obligation to punishment cancelled. The chief methods of expiation among the Jews were by sacrifices; and it is important always to recollect that the Levitical sacrifices were of an expiatory character;