Publican and Pharisee

Pastor Martin addresses the first major error concerning propitiation — paganizing it. He distinguishes the heresy of the enemies of the gospel (who caricature propitiation as capricious appeasement of an angry deity and thus deny God's wrath altogether, holding God is nothing but love) from the error of the friends of the gospel (who pit a loving Christ against an angry Father, missing the Trinitarian unity and failing to see the Father's love as the very source of propitiation). He grounds his answers in Romans 3:21-26, 1 John 1:5, and 1 John 4:9-10.

Using the Westminster Larger Catechism's definition as a teaching framework, Pastor Martin opens up the first three elements of justification: God Himself is its author, His free grace its source, and sinners as sinners (not half-reformed sinners) are its objects. He illustrates with a vivid scenario of a condemned criminal receiving a reprieve and presses the parable of the publican and the Pharisee to show that God justifies the ungodly the moment he casts himself on mercy, not after any reformation.