Jesus Was Like a Sin Sponge
God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. (Romans 3:25 HCSB)
Do you remember SpongeBob? He is a cartoon character that has his own show on Nickelodeon. While he may be a funny character, he is basically a sponge. A sponge like SpongeBob is a marine animal that lives in the ocean. He has a pourous body that is able to soak up water, and nutrients in order to live.
We use a sponge, like SpongeBob in the kitchen. We use sponges to clean up the mess and dirt that comes during cooking or or after bacteria has been left on the surface for a long time. A sponge is used to essentially soak up the bad stuff so that the surface becomes clean.
What does a sponge have to do with Jesus? Jesus acted like a sin sponge on the cross. When He died, He took upon His physical body the entire sin (mess) from our lives and soaked it up in His physical body. After taking all of the sin upon Himself, He died. This is partly what is meant by the word “propitiation” in this verse.
Propitiation technically means “to satisfy God’s wrath”. As Jesus sacrificed His life on the cross, as Jesus took all of the sins of the world and died on the cross, this action satisfied God’s anger against our sins. God looked upon Jesus, then turned when He saw Jesus full of our sins (like a sponge). God stopped His anger on us when He realized that Jesus took our sins upon Himself. This act killed Jesus, and at the same time completed atonement for our separation from God. God accepted this sacrifice.
Then God drained the sponge from all of its mess. This is called the resurrection.
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