"Propitiation" in 1 John

Last time we looked at "propitiation" in Romans; the other New Testament writing that uses that word is 1 John, in the King James translation, where it is used in two places:

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.(1 John 2:2)

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

Why exactly do we care about the original meaning of the word? Well, it has been a key part of many peoples' understanding of God, and of Christ's work. And when people talk about what Christ has done, and how God sees us -- most of the words don't need much explanation, but "propitiation" does. In fact, when it came time for King James' translators to render it into English -- basically, they didn't render it in English. "Propitiation" is fairly close to the Latin word "propitiatio" that was used in the old Latin Bibles, which had been in common use for over a millenium. As far as helping us understand what the author meant, it might as well have still been Greek. So back to the Greek we go, just to see how they used that word, and trace it from there. 

The original Greek word in 1 John is used only in those two places -- there is nowhere else in the New Testament that uses the same original word. As for the same word in the Old Testament, it was used only once in the Septuagint (LXX) Greek translation, which is usually rendered into English something like this:

But there is forgiveness with you, therefore you are feared. (Psalm 130:4 according to KJV/AV chapters and verses; different chapter/verse numbers apply to this passage in the LXX)

So how do we trace its meaning and its usage back in that day? In the original writers' day, did "propitiation" have anything to do with our modern theological meaning of "appeasing wrath" or "satisfying justice"?

One way to build our understanding is by looking at related words in the same family of words. Here is the Greek word in English characters, along with some words in the same word family:

hilasmos - the word in question: wrath appeasement? satisfying justice? forgiveness?
hilasterion - the word we saw in the last post: mercy seat or atonement cover
hilaros - cheerful, willing, prompt to do something, joyous

For another perspective, we could look at how the early church translated it into Latin: that should reflect how the early church understood the original meaning. But here we come right back to our "English" word propitiation, or propitiatio in Latin. Does it seem like we're running in circles? King James' translators basically left that one in Latin, and later theologians have followed suit, and so going to the Latin translation didn't help us much. But here, when we check the word family, we have a related word that is nearly familiar:

propitius: (Latin) favorable, gracious

That one has a directly-derived English word:

propitious: (English) favorably disposed, benevolent; being of good omen, auspicious; tending to favor; advantageous.

The related words that I can find seem to be about goodwill and forgiveness.

Q. How does "propitious" mean "benevolent" and "propitiate" mean "to appease wrath"?
A. I'm not convinced that it does -- or that it did, when it was originally written.

Or as John was saying:

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.(1 John 2:2)

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

According to John, propitiation was something done out of love rather than wrath. (I am not here questioning whether God is angry with sin; I'm questioning whether that's what the word "propitiation" is talking about.) If the related words tend to be about benevolence and goodwill, and the context states it is an act of love, and two different ancient translations picked words related to forgiveness or benevolence for it -- then maybe it means something more along the lines of forgiveness, mercy, benevolence, and grace. If that proved more accurate, then we would get renderings more like: 

And he is the mercy for our sins, not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the grace for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

I know there is more study to be done -- and there may be better English words to use -- but I wonder very much if this is more in keeping with what the original word meant.