CHAPTER IX – Arguments proving the Satisfaction of Christ
CHAPTER IX – Arguments proving the Satisfaction of Christ The second part of the former digression – Arguments to prove the satisfaction of Christ.
I. From Christ bearing our sin, and the punishment for it If Christ took our sins on himself, and God laid them on him in such a way that he was punished for them in our stead, then he satisfied the justice of God for them so that sinners might go free. The consequence of the proposition is apparent, and was proved before. There are three parts to this assumption, to be confirmed severally:
First, Christ took and bore our sins and God laid them on him.
Secondly, he underwent the punishment that was due for them.
Thirdly, he did this in our stead.
First, he took and bore our sins.
You have it in John 1:29, "Who takes away the sin of the world;" 1Pet.
2:24, "Who himself bore our sins in his own body;" Isa. 53:11, "He shall bear their iniquities;" and verse 12, "He bore the sin of many." That God also laid or imposed our sins on him is no less apparent: Isa, 53:6, "The LORD, laid on him the iniquity of us all;" 2Cor. 5:21, "He has made him to be sin for us."
Secondly, he underwent the punishment for our sins In thus doing, our Savior underwent the punishment due to the sins which he bore, and which were laid upon him. Death and the curse of the law contain the whole of the punishment due to sin. Gen. 2:17, "Dying you shall die," is what was threatened. Death was what entered by sin, Rom. 5:12: the word in these passages comprehends all misery due to our transgressions. It is also what is held out in the curse of the law. Deut. 27:26, "Cursed is the
one who does not confirm all the words of this law by doing them." It is unquestionably evident that all evils of punishment are comprised in these two things. Now, in bearing our sins, Jesus Christ underwent both. For "by the grace of God he tasted death," Heb. 2:9; by death he delivered from death, verse 14. He was not "spared, but given up to death for us all," Rom.
8:32. So also he bore the curse of the law: Gal. 3:13, he "was made a curse for us;" and "cursed." And this was done by undergoing the punishment that was in death and curse: for by these "it pleased the LORD to bruise him, and put him to grief," Isa. 53:10. Indeed, "he spared him not," Rom.
8:32, but "condemned sin in his flesh," Rom. 8:3.
Thirdly, he did this in our stead It remains only to show that he did this in our stead, and the whole argument is confirmed.
Now, our Savior himself makes this apparent in Matt. 20:28. He came "to give himself as a ransom for many." The word "for" is the Greek anti
(NT:473). It always supposes a commutation, and a change of one person or thing instead of another, as will be declared afterward. This is so in Matt
2:22 and 1Tim. 2:6. In 1Pet 3:18, "He suffered for us, the just for the unjust;" and Ps. 69:4, "I restored" (or paid) "what I did not take," namely, our debt. In so far as he did that, we are thereby discharged, as in Rom. 8:34 where it is asserted, upon this very ground, that he died in our stead. And so the several parts of this first argument are confirmed.
II. From Christ paying the ransom for our sins as our surety If Jesus Christ paid into his Father's hands a valuable price and ransom for our sins, as our surety, thus discharging the debt that we lay under so that we might go free, then he bore the punishment due to our sins and made satisfaction to the justice of God for them (to pay such a ransom is to make such satisfaction). There are four things to be proved in this assumption, or second proposition:
First, That Christ paid such a price and ransom.
Secondly, That he paid it into the hands of his Father.
Thirdly, That he did it as our surety.
Fourthly, That we might go free.
All which we will prove in order:
First, Christ paid the price and ransom for our sins.
For the first, our Savior himself affirms it in Matt. 20:28. He "came to give his life lutron" (NT:3083) a ransom or price of redemption "for many," also
Mark 10:45. The apostle terms it antilutron (NT:487) in 1Tim. 2:6, a ransom to be accepted in the stead of others. From this we are said to have deliverance "by the ransom-paying of Christ Jesus," Rom. 3:24. "He bought us with a price," 1Cor. 6:20; that price was his own blood, Acts 20:28. It is compared to and exalted above silver and gold in this work of redemption,
1Pet. 1:18. So this first part is most clear and evident.
Secondly, He paid this price into the hands of his Father.
A price must be paid to somebody to deliver someone from captivity. It must be paid to the judge or the jailer, that is, to God or the devil. To say the latter would be the highest blasphemy; Satan was to be conquered, not satisfied. For the former, the Scripture is clear: It was his "wrath" that was on us, John 3:36. It was God who had "shut us all up under sin," Gal. 3:22.
He is the great king to whom the debt is owed, Matt. 28:23-34. He is the only "law-giver, who is able to save and to destroy," James 4:12. No, the ways by which this ransom-paying is expressed in the Scripture abundantly enforces its payment into the hands of his Father. For his death and bloodshedding is said to be prosphora (NT:4376) and thusia (NT:2378), "an oblation and sacrifice," Eph. 5:2; and his soul is said to be a sacrifice or "offering for sin," Isa. 53:10. Now, certainly offerings and sacrifices are to be directed to God alone.
Thirdly, he did this as our surety.
We are assured of this in Heb. 7:22. He was made egguos (NT:1450), a "surety of a better testament;" and, in performance of the duty which lay upon him as such, "he paid what he did not take," Ps. 69:4.
Fourthly, he did this for our freedom.
All of this could not possibly have any other end but that we might go free.
III. From Christ making an atonement and reconciliation To make an atonement for sin, and to reconcile God to sinners, is in effect to make satisfaction to the justice of God for sin, and all that we understand thereby. But Jesus Christ, by his death and oblation, did make an atonement for sin, and did reconcile God to sinners: ergo,
The first proposition is evident in itself; the assumption is confirmed in Rom. 3:24, 25. We are justified freely by the ransom-paying that is in Christ, whom God has set forth to be hilasterion, a propitiation, an atonement, a mercy-seat, a covering of iniquity. And that was done to manifest his justice, declared in going forth and accomplishing that atonement. So likewise in Heb. 2:17 he is said to be a "merciful high priest
… to make reconciliation for the sins of the people," to reconcile God to the people. The meaning of the words is to reconcile God, who was offended with the sins of the people. We are said to "receive" that reconciliation,
Rom. 5:11 (the word katallage is rendered "atonement" in the KJV; in other passages, the same word is rendered "reconciliation," being indeed, the only word used for it in the New Testament). And all this is said to be accomplished by one righteousness or satisfaction, that is of Christ, (the words will not bear that sense in which they are usually rendered, "By the righteousness of one"). And hereby we were delivered from that condemnation from which it was impossible to be delivered otherwise,
Rom. 8:3.
IV. From the Nature of his Priestly Office What the exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ while he was on earth consisted of cannot be rejected nor denied without damnable error. It consisted in this: to bear the punishment due to our sins, to make atonement with God by undergoing his wrath, and reconciling him to sinners by the satisfaction of his justice.
It is most apparent that the exercise of Christ's priestly office consisted in these things. First, from all the types and sacrifices by which it was prefigured; their chief end was propitiation and atonement. Secondly, from the very nature of the sacerdotal office; it was appointed for sacrificing, and Christ had nothing to offer but his own blood through the eternal Spirit.
Thirdly, from diverse, indeed, countless texts of Scripture which affirm the same. It would be too long a work to prosecute these things severally and at large. Therefore I will content myself with one or two places in which all those testimonies are comprised, such as Heb. 9:13, 14, "If the blood of bulls and of goats," etc., "how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God?" etc.
Here the death of Christ is compared to, exalted above, and in the antitype answers the sacrifices of expiation which were made by the blood of bulls and goats. And so it must at least spiritually effect what they carnally accomplished and typically prefigured: namely, deliverance from the guilt of sin by expiation and atonement. For as the life and blood of the sacrifice was accepted in the stead of the offerer who was to die for the breach of the law according to its rigor, so in this sacrifice of Christ his blood was accepted as an atonement and propitiation for us, he being priest, altar, and sacrifice. In Heb. 10:10-12, he is expressly said, in the place of all the old, insufficient, carnal sacrifices which could not make their offerors perfect, to offer up his own body as a sacrifice for sins. He did so for the remission and pardon of sins through that offering of himself, as we see in verse 19. And in the performance of that sacrifice, we also affirm that our Savior underwent the wrath of God which was due to us. I will briefly confirm this because it is questioned by some, and I will confirm it with these following reasons:
First, The punishment due to sin is the wrath of God:
Rom. 1:18, "The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness;" chap.
2:5, "The day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;"
Eph. 2:3, "Children of wrath;" John 3:36. But Jesus Christ underwent the punishment due to sin: 2Cor. 5:21, "Made sin for us;" Isa. 53:6, "Iniquity was laid upon him;" 1Pet. 2:24, "He bore our sins in his own body on the tree." Therefore he underwent the wrath of God.
Secondly, The curse of the law is the wrath of God taken passively, Deut 24:20, 21. But Jesus Christ underwent the curse of the law: Gal. 3:13,
"Made a curse for us," the curse that those who are out of Christ lie under, who are "of the works of the law," verse, 10. Therefore he underwent the wrath of God.
Thirdly, The death that sinners are to undergo is the wrath of God.
Jesus Christ tasted of that death which sinners were to undergo for themselves; for he died as "our surety," Heb. 7:22, and in our stead, Matt.
20:28. Hence his fear, Heb. 5:7; agony, Luke 22:44; astonishment and amazement, Mark 14:33; abandonment, Matt. 27:46; sorrow, heaviness, and inexpressible pressures, Matt. 26:37-39.
V. From the necessity of his satisfaction to our faith and consolation No doctrine can be true or agreeable to the gospel which strikes at the root of gospel faith, and plucks away the foundation of all that strong consolation which God is so abundantly willing that we should receive. But such is that which denies the satisfaction made by Christ, which denies his answering the justice and undergoing the wrath of his Father. It makes the poor soul like Noah's dove in its distress, not knowing where to rest the soles of her feet. When a soul is turned out of its self-righteousness, it begins to look abroad, and view the heaven and earth for a resting place. It perceives an ocean, a flood, an inundation of wrath, to cover all the world.
This is the wrath of God revealing itself from heaven against all ungodliness, so that the soul can obtain no rest or abiding. It cannot reach heaven by its own flight, and it is unwilling to fall to hell. If now the Lord
Jesus Christ does not appear as an ark in the midst of the waters, upon whom the floods have fallen, and yet has gotten above them all as a refuge, then alas! What will the soul do? When the flood fell there were many mountains glorious in the eye, far higher than the ark. But yet those mountains were all drowned, while the ark still kept on top of the waters.
Many hills and mountains of self-righteousness and general mercy, appearing at the first view, seem to the soul much higher than Jesus Christ.
But when the flood of wrath once comes and spreads itself, all those mountains are quickly covered. Only the ark, the Lord Jesus Christ, though the flood falls on him also, yet he gets quite above it, and gives safety to those who rest upon him.
Let me now ask any of those poor souls who have been wandering and tossed with the fear of the wrath to come, whether they ever found a resting-place until they came to this: God did not spare his only Son, but gave him up to death for us all; that he made him to be sin for us; that he put all the sins of all the elect into that cup of which he was to drink; that the wrath and flood which they feared fell upon Jesus Christ (though now, as the ark, he is above it), so that if they could get into him they should be safe. The storm has been his, and the safety will be theirs. As all the waters which would have fallen upon those who were in the ark fell upon the ark while they remained dry and safe, so all the wrath that should have fallen upon them fell on Christ. What alone causes their souls to dwell in safety?
Has this not been your bottom, your foundation, your resting-place? If not, I fear you have only rotten bottoms. Now, what would you say if a man should come and pull this ark from under you, and give you an old rotten post to swim on in the flood of wrath? It is too late to tell you that no wrath is due to you; the word of truth and your own consciences have given you other information. You know the "wages of sin is death;" in whomever it is found, he must die. So the soul may well say, "Deprive me of the satisfaction of Christ, and I am bereaved. If he did not fulfill justice, I must; if he did not undergo wrath, I must undergo it to eternity. O rob me not of my only pearl!" Denying the satisfaction of Christ destroys the foundation of faith and comfort.
VI. From his being made sin for us, and bruised for our iniquities Another argument we may take from a few particular passages of Scripture which I will produce:
First, 2Cor. 5:21, "He made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." "He made him to be sin for us." How could that be? Are not the next words, "He
knew no sin?" Was he not a Lamb without blemish and without spot?
Doubtless "he did no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth." What then is this, "God made him to be sin?" It cannot be that God made him sinful, or a sinner by any inherent sin. That will not stand with the justice of God nor with the holiness of the person of our Redeemer. What is it, then? "He made him to be sin who knew no sin?" Why clearly, by dispensation and consent, he laid to his charge what he was not guilty of. He charged upon him and imputed to him all the sins of all the elect, and proceeded against him accordingly. He stood as our surety, really charged with the whole debt, and he was to pay the last penny, as a surety is to do if it is required of him.
Though he did not borrow the money, nor owe one penny of what is in the obligation, yet if he is sued to an execution, he must pay it all. The Lord
Christ (if I may so say) was sued by his Father's justice to an execution, in answer to which he underwent all that was due to sin, which we proved before is death, wrath, and curse.
Objection 1: The Son is punished despite pleasing the Father.
Exception is taken, "That God was always well pleased with his Son; he testified it again and again from heaven. How then could he lay his wrath upon him?"
ANSWER: It is true he was always well pleased with him; yet it "pleased him to bruise him and put him to grief." He was always well pleased with the holiness of his person, the excellence and perfectness of his righteousness, and the sweetness of his obedience. But he was displeased with the sins that were charged on him, and therefore it pleased him to bruise and put to grief the one with whom he was always well pleased.
Objection 2: The Elect are not punished for their sin.
Nor does this exception have any more value: "That Christ underwent no more than the elect lay under; but they did not lay under wrath and the punishment due to sin."
ANSWER: This proposition is most false, and there is no truth in the assumption; for
First, Christ underwent not only that wrath (taking it passively) which the elect were under, but also that wrath which they should have undergone had he not borne it for them: he "delivered them from the wrath to come."
Secondly, The elect, in their several generations, lie under all the wrath of God with regard to merit and procurement, though not with regard to actual endurance; and they lie under his wrath with regard to guilt, but not present punishment. So that, notwithstanding these exceptions, it stands firm that "he was made sin for us, who knew no sin."
Isa. 53:5, "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." This passage was mentioned before. I will add some small enlargements that help to reveal the meaning of the words. "The chastisement of our peace was upon him;" that is, he was chastised or punished so that we might have peace, so that we might go free. Our sins were the cause of his wounding, and our iniquities were the cause of his being bruised. All our sins were laid upon him, as in verse 6. That is, he
"bore our sins," in Peter's interpretation.
179 He bore our sins not, as some think, by declaring that we were never truly sinful, but by being wounded for them, bruised for them, undergoing the chastisement due to them. This burden consisted in death, wrath, and curse, thus making his soul an offering for sin. "He bore our sins." Some say this means he declared that we have an eternal righteousness in God because of his eternal purpose to do us good. But is this to interpret Scripture, or to corrupt the word of God?
Ask the word what it means by Christ's bearing of sin. It will tell you it means his being "stricken" for our transgressions, Isa. 53:8, his being "cut off" for our sins, Dan. 9:26. Nor does the expression "bearing sins" have any other meaning in the Word: Lev. 5:1, "If anyone hears an oath, and does not testify concerning it, then he will bear his iniquity." What is that? Does it mean he will declare himself or others to be free from sin? No, undoubtedly not. It means he will undergo the punishment due to sin, as our
Savior did in bearing our iniquities. The one who would cheat a believer of this foundation must be a cunning gamester indeed.
I will not urge or produce more arguments or texts on this subject, though the cause itself will sustain many. I have proceeded as far as the nature of a digression will bear. Neither will I undertake, at this time, to answer objections to the contrary. I do not intend a full discussion of the
satisfaction of Christ, which would cause me to search for, draw out, and confute all objections to the contrary. And for those which gave rise to this discourse, I dare not produce them. Otherwise I would be unable to restrain the conjectures of men that I purposely framed such weak objections so that I might obtain an easy conquest over a man of straw of my own erection.
They were so weak and have so little force to slash as fundamental a truth as what we maintain that I will end this argument here.