John Stott on Propitation

"Who undertakes to do the propitiating? The pagan answer is that we do. We have offended the gods so we must appease them. The Christian answer by contrast is that we cannot placate the the righteous anger of God. We have no means whatever by which to do so. But God in His undeserved love has done for us what we could never do by ourselves. God presented Him as a sacrifice of atonement ... the love, the idea, the purpose, the initiative, the action and the gifts were all God's".

John R W Stott - "BST Series - The Message of Romans" - IVP, Leicester (1994) - (p115).