Penal Satisfaction of Christ's Sacrifice

Introduction: The Value of Precise Terminology

0:03 Since a child of God owes all of his spiritual blessings to Jesus Christ in his redemptive acts on behalf of the sinner, the contemplation of Christ in his person and in his work should never be considered tedious by the child of God. Anyone who finds it boring or tedious penetrate further into the mystery of Christ as to his person and his work, has every reason to question whether or not he is indeed a true child of God. It is just such a contemplation of Christ in the glory of his person and in the perfection of his work that has occupied our minds and hearts for many months of Lord's Day mornings, as in the continuance of our series Here We Stand,

0:58 we contemplate the person and the work of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. We are presently at that point in the unfolding of our studies where our preoccupation is with Christ in the majesty of His offices. His offices as prophet, priest, and king being the framework within which He accomplishes and effects His work of redemption.

1:28 The first office that we are considering is the office of priest. Although we generally speak of the offices in the order of prophet, priest, and king, for good and biblical reasons it is proper to consider him as our priest, our prophet, and our king. Thus far, and I can only touch on these things very briefly by way of review before passing on to the new field of study, Thus far we've established the reality of Christ's priestly office. The Scripture says of Him, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. We've established and tried again and again to refer you to the basic concept of the priestly office. No text being more helpful to that end than Hebrews 5.1. He is taken from men, for men.

2:25 things pertaining to God with reference to sins. And because we have no true priesthood in our day, it is difficult for us to rightly to conceive of the office of a priest. And we need to go back again and again to the Scriptures in order to fix these categories of thought firmly in our minds. The priest was taken from men on behalf of men with reference to God concerning the problem of human sins. And then we saw that the essential function of the priest was a work of sacrifice and intercession. Having given that broad overview, we then moved into the beginnings of a consideration of that first aspect of our Lord's priestly work, namely the work of sacrifice. And we established from the Scriptures that Christ's death was indeed a true sacrifice.

3:23 We establish something of the context of that sacrifice. It was a sacrifice offered up in the midst of the great realities of God as lawgiver and judge and merciful. Man as accountable to God, as sinful and as polluted. And then we move to consider the essence of His sacrifice in the language of Hebrews 7 and 9. It was an offering up of Himself. Our Lord was both the passive sacrifice substitutionary victim. He is the Lamb who bears away the sin of the world, but He is also the active representative priest who offers up Himself. He is what never could be found in the Old Testament. He is both offering and offerer joined in one glorious person. And then with that basic framework, we then pushed yet deeper in our last study,

4:20 attempting to lay hold of the heart of what was actually happening when he offered himself. And I suggested that the major lines of biblical truth can be brought together in the following sentence. In his official office as a high priest, Jesus Christ offered himself in order to, and here's the heart of it, in order to make an objective, vicarious,

4:49 Penal satisfaction for the sins of his people, thereby securing their acceptance with and their access to God. Now do you say, Pastor Martin, that's too involved, that's too complicated, big words, vicarious, substitutionary, satisfaction. I'm just content with what the Bible says, Christ died for our sins. But I ask you, what does that mean?

5:17 Well, he died for our sins. Yes, I know what it says, but what does that mean? Well, it means he died for our sins. Yes, I know that's what the scripture says, but what does that mean? What was there about sin that demanded his death? What was there in his death that resolves the problem of human sin? And the moment you attempt to answer those questions biblically, you will be driven to these or similar terms.

5:45 He died as a sacrifice in order to make an objective, vicarious, penal satisfaction for sin. I remind you of the words of Shed which I quoted months ago when we were dealing with the person of Christ. And because we have so many new folk and visitors amongst us since that time, this is so vital to our spiritual well-being that it bears repetition. Ched, the theologian of another generation, said, The success and enduring influence of any systematic construction of truth depends as much upon exact terminology as upon close thinking itself. If we rightly conceive of something, exact terminology is as essential as precise thinking.

6:40 As one man has said, terms record discoveries. And then Shedd goes on to show that a man may have a clear concept in his head, but if he does not express it in clear terminology that will enable others to grasp the concept with the same clarity, there is a loss of precision. And with that loss of precision comes a loss of appreciation, and with the loss of appreciation will ultimately come a loss of the truth itself.

7:11 and therefore as a pastor who is commissioned in the light of Ephesians 4, so to function that the people of God will not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, I am under solemn obligations to implant in your mind precise terminology that will capture accurate thought. And if you have any concern with accurate thought,

7:37 you must of necessity be concerned with precise terminology. And the price paid for imprecise terminology is indistinct thought, which is the great-grandmother of heresy. And therefore, in an interest to your soul, I press upon you these words, objective, vicarious, penal satisfactions.

8:04 Ah, but someone objects and says, but Pastor Martin, those words are not in the Bible. Granted, those words as such are not in the Bible, but the issue is, do they convey the truth that is in the Bible? The God whom you worship this morning, is He a simple unity? Or is He the God who is one in three and three in one? Or you say, I am a Trinitarian. I worship God as revealed in Scripture, one true and living God.

8:34 But the God who exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I worship the Trinity in unity. I worship the unity in Trinity. Ah, but the word Trinity is not in the Bible. But you answer and say, yes, but that's the only word that expresses the God who is revealed in the Bible, precisely. And the words penal, as such, are not found in the Bible. Or the word penal. The word satisfaction is found twice in the Bible.

9:03 The word vicarious is not found as such in the Bible. The word objective is not found as such. But these words in the history of English theological and biblical thought have captured the essential elements of the biblical teaching, and therefore it is my concern to pass them on to you filled with their rich biblical content to the end that having true concepts of the death of Christ As a true sacrifice, you may have a faith that is settled, and you may be given the ability to defend and to propagate that faith to others whom God will bring into the orbit of your influence. So much then for a fresh justification of what I'm doing. I should say not justification, but the rationale behind it. Now briefly the two words we've covered. When Christ died and authored himself,

Review of Objective and Vicarious

10:01 He was making an objective sacrifice. You remember my illustration? The little boy who was afraid of the bully on the block, and the same boy who was afraid of what he thought were spooks in the trees at night. There was no substantial reality to the spooks. They didn't exist except in his mind. But that block bully, or the bully on the block, had a substantial real existence. When Christ offered Himself a sacrifice for sin,

10:30 It was a real sacrifice. It was an objective activity. He was dealing with the real God in terms of real sin and real guilt and a real curse. He offered up himself as the real God-man, shedding real blood, dying a real death. In other words, if something should have happened,

10:54 seconds after he said, it is finished, and the entire universe of men and angels was blotted out, Christ's sacrifice would still have been there as an objective, substantial reality. It was an objective, real sacrifice. And then it was vicarious. That is, it was a sacrifice effected in the place of others. All of the Old Testament types

11:23 The worshiper would lay his hand upon the head of that which was to be offered, showing that that which was offered was offered in the stead of the worshiper. We have the explicit terms of Scripture. Our sins were laid upon Him. He bears our sin. He carries them up to the tree. And then the little prepositions. He died for us on our behalf in our place.

Explanation of the Word Penal

11:53 So much for that review. Now this morning, two more words form the substance of our study. He offered an objective. He offered a vicarious. He offered a penal satisfaction for sin. Now let me explain the words briefly, and then open up the concept from the Scriptures, and then as time permits, make some application. First of all, then, an explanation of the two words Penal, P-E-N-A-L, and satisfaction. Now the word penal comes from a Latin word which means punishment or possibly a Greek word, a parallel word which means a penalty or a fine. And it has to do with legal punishment for crimes committed. You will hear people talk about the penal code needs to be revised. What do they mean?

12:50 They mean the code by which the courts operate in dealing with criminals. They say the penal code needs revision. That is, the code of conduct with respect to those who break the law and deserve punishment. We talk about penal institutions. More and more they talk about correctional institutions. And that's why it's hard to preach the gospel in our day. People don't know the difference between punishment and correctional.

13:18 But they are to be penal institutions where men are put in punishment for their sins. Not primarily to teach them how not to sin. Not primarily an example to others. But there is punishment. There is criminality involved in breaking the law which demands punishment. That which is penal is not to instruct to prevent future occurrences. But it is punitive. All you kids know this.

13:46 You don't know anything about sports. What happens when playing football, you break one of the rules? Well, the headlinesman or the field judge will enact a what? A penalty. What happens? You are then punished so many yards for breaking the rules. Now, the main purpose of that is not to teach the people in the stands, 10,000 or 20 or 50,000 people that are watching, to teach them a lesson that crime does not pay. No, no.

14:16 The main purpose is somebody broke the rule and is liable to punishment. And the punishment is meted out in terms of the rules of that game, a 5, 10, or 15-yard penalty. That's what happens in hockey. Somebody gets hot-tempered and takes a slug at someone or takes his hockey stick and instead of slapping the puck with it, slaps a guy in the head. He is put in the what? The instruction box? No, what do they call it? It's called the penalty box. Not the instruction box. It's the penalty box.

14:46 He is penalized for his wrongdoing. You see, human suffering can break itself down or can be broken down into three major categories. Calamity, chastisement, and punishment. Here's a man out taking a Sunday afternoon drive. And his left front tire blows and the car goes out of control and he tumbles over down an embankment and is killed. We call the suffering he endured a calamity.

15:16 A calamity. Now perhaps there is a child of God who is in a course of disobedience and his conscience is troubling and some tragedy, some calamity comes into his life and he recognizes it as what? As chastisement. You see, when the purpose for the punishment inflicted or the purpose of the calamity or the hardships The purpose of the suffering is the benefit of the one who suffers. We call that chastisement. But now when a man does wrong and is punished for it, this is legal punishment. He must satisfy the demands of justice by paying the penalty for his crime. Now when we think of the death of Christ, we are not thinking biblically when we conceive of his work of sacrifice...

Explanation of the Word Satisfaction

16:12 If we do not have central to our thinking that his sacrifice was penal, P-E-N-A-L, it had to do with punishment inflicted by God in terms of his holy law. Because his suffering in sacrifice was vicarious, was in the stead of others, and because others were guilty and deserved punishment, Christ receives what they deserve. His sufferings as a sacrifice are penal. Now what about the word satisfaction? Well, this word isn't used in the sense that I'm using it in our terminology today, but as one writer has said, it has the advantage of being precise, comprehensive, and generally accepted. That is, among those who have some knowledge of

17:09 of what the people of God have written concerning this subject through the years. Now the basic idea of satisfaction is full compensation. Full compensation. Let me illustrate. Here's a man who has a debt. And there's the man who is his creditor. Perhaps he's bought a house. And the creditor is the bank, and it says, if you will give us so much money every month,

17:38 then we are willing to cooperate with you in the purchase of this house. We have, as it were, released that much money to you. You will pay it back at such and such a rate. The house at the end of such and such a time will be yours. However, if you fail to meet the terms, then the bank will foreclose. They will move in and take possession of that particular home. Now, as long as the demands of that agreement are being met, the creditor is satisfied. He's satisfied.

18:08 But if there is default to payment, he's not satisfied. And he says, if I am not satisfied, I'll repossess your house. Now, perhaps he has a wealthy relative who will come and put up the money for him. And the moment the money is put in the hand of the bank, they are, what, satisfied. Their claims are met and they allow the man to keep his house. Or it could be he has a wealthy man who's an expert in management. And he goes to the bank and says, look, I want to help out my cousins.

18:38 Now he's defaulted in his payments and I don't have cash to put up. However, I do have some skills you may need. And he says, my field is in the area of management consultation. And they say, wonderful, our place is in a mess. We need somebody to come in here and sort us out from a managerial standpoint. And so the bank graciously agrees to accept in place of the actual dollar for dollar payment, this man's services for six months As a consultant in management. And they say at the end of the six months. Putting in so many hours a week. We will accept that. In lieu of the actual dollars and cents. That your cousin owes us. We will be satisfied. He will be able to maintain possession of his house. Now that's the concept bound up in satisfaction. It means to make a full compensation. Of the demands of the Lord.

19:35 Now put those two things together with reference to the death of Christ as a sacrifice. When Christ offered Himself off a sacrifice to God, what was He doing? He was making an objective, vicarious, penal satisfaction for sin. That is, He was meeting so completely the demands of the law with reference to sin that the law has absolutely

20:06 no more claims upon those for whom He offered that sacrifice in terms of punishment and obligation leading to life or to death. The law as a standard of conduct, as a rule of conduct, is binding upon all men and will be binding upon us through eternity as long as God is God and the creature is the creature. But in terms of the law binding us, saying, This do and thou shalt live, This hail to do and thou shalt die. Jesus Christ has stepped in as the vicar. He has acted in our place. And he has made such full satisfaction to the law of God. That its claims can no longer threaten us with eternal death. Christ has made a penal satisfaction. Now so much for the meaning of the words. Now let me seek to open up.

The Triangle: Nature of the Law, God, and Man

21:05 this aspect of the death of Christ from the Scriptures. And I confess again, I've wrestled with this matter, and I'm not satisfied that I'm doing it the best way, but it's Sunday morning, and I don't have another day or two or three or four to wrestle with it. So such as it is, I share it with you in the hopes that the Spirit of God will take it and make it a means of instruction and blessing. Now, if we're to grasp penal satisfaction,

21:35 There are three related categories of biblical truth that have to be stamped upon our consciousness. You see, God's truth is like a ball of wax. It all hangs together. Penal satisfaction will be nonsense to us if we separate these three things. Now, if I had a blackboard, a big one here, I'd put these three things in a triangular relationship. These three great realities of related biblical truth.

22:03 The first one is the nature of the law. The second one, the nature of God. And thirdly, the nature of man. The nature of the law, the nature of God, the nature of man. As long as those three things are what they are in the Bible, penal satisfaction is the only way a sinner can ever find acceptance with God. Now, briefly, let me touch upon you.

22:32 What is the nature of the law? Well, the law is the expression of God's will for His creature, and it always has three aspects. It has a commandment, a promise, and a threat. This do, that's the commandment. The promise, thou shalt live. The threat, fail to do, and thou shalt die. Now you see this very clearly in such passages as Leviticus 18.

22:59 So you just don't take my word for it. Those of you familiar with the Bible, I'm sure can think of many instances, but I want to give at least one specimen example. Leviticus 18. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the Lord your God, after the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt ye shall not do. After the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you shall ye not do. Neither shall ye walk in their statutes.

23:29 Mine ordinances shall ye do, and my statutes shall ye keep to walk therein. I am the Lord your God. There's the commandment. Keep my statutes, keep mine ordinances. Verse 5. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and mine ordinances, which if a man do, he shall live in them. There's the promise. Keep my commandments.

23:58 Now the promise, keeping them, ye shall live. Now look at verses 27 and 28. Here's the threat. For all these abominations have the men of the land done that were before you, and the land is defiled, that the land vomits you not out when ye defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. For whosoever shall do any of these abominations, even the souls that do them, shall be cut off.

24:26 And then God goes on to reiterate the commandment. You see the three elements? There is the expression of God's will. This too. There is a promise. Thou shalt live. There is a threat. Thou shalt die. You remember in the book of Deuteronomy how God made this very vivid? In the reiteration of the law, God told Moses, you have one group go over upon Mount Evil. Another group upon Mount Gerizim. This is recorded in Deuteronomy chapters 27 and 28. And you know what they were to do?

24:56 They were to pronounce from these two mountains all of the curses of the law and the people were to say amen. Then all of the blessings of the law to which the people are to give their amen. So the basic concept of the law, the nature of the law is this. It is an expression of the will of God to the creature which has attached to it a promise for obedience, a threat for disobedience.

25:25 Where there is perfect obedience, the law is at rest. It makes no demands but the continuance of that obedience. But the moment the law is broken, it demands satisfaction. The curse of the law must be met and meted out upon people. And as long as the law is broken and its curse has not been meted out, its demands are not satisfied.

God's Holy Nature and the Dilemma of the Gospel

25:54 That's the basic concept of law as given to us in Scripture. And Christ himself can't change that because he said, Think not that I came to destroy the law, I came to fulfill. Nothing in the work of Christ can alter that fixed concept of the nature of the law. The commandment of God, the promise of God, the threat of God. Now add to that the second thing in this triangle. The nature of God.

26:23 Since it is God's law, an expression of His will for His creatures, reflecting His demands, His promises, His threats, what is the God like who makes the commands? What is the God like who makes the threats? What is the God like who makes the promises? Well, the Bible tells us He is absolutely just. In the language of Scripture, He will by no means clear the guilty.

26:47 He is absolutely holy. He is of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity is the language of Scripture. And He is absolutely honest. He cannot and will not lie. Now put these two things together. You see what is happening? There is the law with its commands, its promises and its threats. And here is God. Absolutely holy. Cannot look upon sin with indifference.

27:11 cannot merely bypass sin with impunity. No, no. He's absolutely holy, absolutely just. He will not clear the guilty. If a man's conduct is a breach of the law, then the threats of the law must be meted out upon him. And he's absolutely honest. If he were less than that, then the devil's lie was true. Remember what he told our first parents? Ye shall not surely die.

27:39 There's the threat of God's command, but it's an idle threat. You can even get away with it. Our first parents found God was not giving an idle threat. God never has given an idle threat. So we've got those two things. The law, God, and now the nature of man. And what is the nature of man? Because he's God's creature, he is obligated to the Creator. But he has become a rebel creature because of sin. And the Scripture says his heart is at end.

28:08 to God and is not subject to the law of God. So man is the sinner who breaks the law of God continually. None righteous, no not one, none that doeth good. They are all gone out of the way. So when you put man in that context, bound by a law that says, this do, this do and you'll live, this fail to do and you die. And in relationship to a God who is perfectly holy, perfectly just,

28:36 And perfectly trustworthy. What is our dilemma? Do you feel the dilemma to which the gospel addresses itself? How can God continue to be God? The law continue to be law. Man continue to be man. And have anything other than the whole bunch of us paying the wages of sin which is death. Didn't God say the soul that sinned it shall die? Didn't God say the wages of sin is death?

29:06 Did not God say He will by no means clear the guilty? The threats are penal. They are threats of punishment. Not remedial, not corrective, but legal compensation to God the lawgiver. His law has been broken. His law demands punishment. And I have to emphasize that because we've lost it in our generation. There was a time when the penal system reflected the government of God in His dealings with His creatures. No longer is it so. Evolution and humanism have undercut that. There is no longer any concept that if you take a woman's pocketbook, you're a purse snatcher, you are not sick. You are primarily a rebel against law and you deserve punishment. When you shoot a man, when you take life, you have broken the law,

30:04 And until this concept is restored in the church, there is no hope that it will be restored in society. And that's why the death of Christ has become just some kind of a sentimental, undefined, and undefinable expression of some kind of unprincipled affection called the love of God. No, no. Jesus Christ stepped into this real trilogy of

30:32 He stepped into a situation in which the law of God with all of its demands was fully before His eyes, in which the nature of God in all of its inflexible justice and holiness and truth was not only before His eyes, but was part of His very being as the second person of the Godhead. He stepped into a situation in which man's condition as a rebel who had broken the law and deserved judgment And could not be set free without the law's demands being satisfied. Our Lord took all of that very really. Now how in the world do we get out of that dilemma? If the law continues to be the law. God continues to be God. Man continues to be man. The great question is. Will God judge us all with the banishment that is the ultimate end of the curse of the law?

31:31 suffering the pains of death in soul and body forever in the lake of fire? Or is it possible that God will accept a substitute? Is it possible that such a substitute can be found? If found, is it possible that He can so act on our behalf as to have every element of the law's demands, not obscured, not altered, but fully displayed and fully vindicated?

32:01 Can He act in such a way that every facet of the glorious attributes of God cannot only be maintained, but fully displayed? Can He act in such a way that man in all of his need can be fully assessed as possessing that need and not lower or in any way misstate how bad off he is? That's the great problem of the Gospel. And that's where these words now become precious.

Galatians 3:13 Unpacked — Christ Redeeming from the Curse

32:33 When Jesus Christ offered Himself, He offered Himself in order to make a penal satisfaction for the sins of His people. Now let's turn to the Scriptures that set forth this truth in unmistakable language, having set the field by defining the words, by showing that background into which they come to us. Now turn please to Galatians chapter 3 and verse 13. In a context in which the apostle is speaking much about the law, what it can do, what it cannot do, he says in verse 11 or verse 10, For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written,

33:32 Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. A quotation from Deuteronomy 27, 26. The curses that we mentioned earlier. Cursed is everyone that continues not. Well, who among us can say, I've continued in everything that God requires? Is there anyone here so foolish as to say it?

33:57 That you have fully kept the law of God with its spiritual demands, demanding that you love Him with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength throughout all of your days and every moment of every day. Certainly there's no one so spiritually demented as to say that you've kept all of His demands. Well, if you haven't, the curse of the law is upon you. It's upon me. Cursed is everyone that continues not.

34:21 So Paul says, it must be obvious then, if we're ever to find acceptance with God, it must not be on the basis of law-keeping, that no man is justified by the law before God is evident. The righteous shall live by faith, and the law is not of faith, but he that doeth them shall live in them. How then do we get out of this dilemma? Verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. That curse was a real curse upon real people who had broken the real law of God,

34:51 That Christ entered into such a relationship with his people that what he does is done on their behalf. Christ redeems us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Now where does that statement come from? Well you turn back please to Deuteronomy 21. And we are going to examine that for a moment.

Deuteronomy 21 and Why Crucifixion

35:18 Deuteronomy chapter 21. Have you ever asked the question, why did God so order the events of history that Christ would come on the scene at such a time when the government in power would put common criminals to death by crucifixion? Why not some other violent death? Have you ever asked that question? Why crucifixion? As long as it was violent death in which his blood is poured out, In that act of dying, why hanging upon a cross? Well, Deuteronomy 21 answers that question for us. Verse 22. And if a man hath committed a sin worthy of death. Deuteronomy 21, 22. And he be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree. Now notice the order. A man hath committed a crime that demands not instruction...

36:15 Not primarily exemplary conduct for others. Didactic. No, no. He has committed a crime that is worthy of death. There is to be penal satisfaction made to the law by this man's death. God who said thou shalt do no murder instituted many forms, not many forms, but many reasons for capital punishment.

36:44 God says human life is to be taken for certain crimes. Now here's a man who committed such a crime. He's been put to death, but after he is put to death, he is hung up on a tree. He's either impaled or he's strung up as a public display to teach what lesson? Look. His body shall not remain all night upon the tree. Thou shalt surely bury him the same day, for he that is hanged

37:14 is a curse of God. You see, placing the dead man who died a just death, who died for his crimes, placing him upon a tree as a public display, was to vindicate the death. Why was he killed? Because he broke the law of God, and having broken the law of God, It is to be manifested that he died under the curse of God. And putting him upon that tree was the living monument that such a man went to death under the demands of law. And that law tracked him down. Law took its vengeance. Law took his life. Now the apostle says Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Being made a

38:12 that his death was curse-bearing? How do we know his death was not simply the end of a good man in a wicked generation? How do we know that his death was not simply the result of his all misconceived notions about his mission? Dear ones, listen, you begin to have a conscience that gets caught in that triangle. The law demands obedience. I have not rendered obedience.

38:41 I am guilty and God is true and the law must have its due. I shall be damned and I am helpless. You get caught in that triangle and you start asking the question, what did Christ do to settle that? How do I know that this is not just some religious notion that there is a relationship between His death and my guilt and my liability to the curse of the law? Here is the answer.

39:11 that God would make it evident to the whole universe that Christ's death was not the death of a martyr. It wasn't the death of a demented religious leader. It wasn't the death that was the epitome of self-sacrifice, divorced from these great issues. God so ordered human history, and God so overruled in all of the circumstances

39:35 That in the book of Acts we read, the rulers were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel for ordained to come to pass. And Almighty God ordered His death in the very circumstances in which a government was in power that put common criminals to death by crucifixion. Why? That He could display to the universe that His Son died a death of curse-faring. It was a curse.

40:06 commands of law, backed up by all the veracity and truth of the character of God, broke upon the head of the Son of God. Therefore, those cries to which we often refer from this pulpit, they were not the cries of the emotion of the hour. They were not the cries of exaggeration because of a tender spirit. When he cried, my God, my God,

40:36 If it ever came from heaven in words would have been, I have abandoned you because of your curse bearing. For the curse of the broken law is death, and the essence of death is abandonment by God. Christ then bears our curse. He drinks into His own holy soul as He offers Himself up to God, both priest and victim.

41:06 He drinks into His own soul all of the curse of the law due to the sins of His people. And it is not true to say one drop of His blood would have been sufficient to save the elect or save worlds. The Father exacted not one farthing more than was demanded. Therefore, every measure of His agony, every measure of His torment, every measure of His woe upon the cross,

41:35 was the demand of law, and it was not until the last farting was paid, and the frown went off from the creditor's face, and seeing his smile he cried, It is finished into thy hands, no longer, O God, but Father. I commend my spirit.

42:02 The filial intimacy of Father and Son again restored. The curse bearing gone. Our sins paid for. He does not expire in weakness, but He yields up His Spirit in holy trial. Into Thy hands I relinquish My Spirit. That's the teaching of Galatians 3.13. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. How?

The Infinite Worth of the God-Man's Death

42:33 Not by somehow coercing God to relinquish the curse and say, O God, have pity. Men are born sinners and they can't help but sin. The curse is a bit too stringent. The demands of the law are a bit... No, no. Christ did not redeem us from the curse of the law by altering that curse. Nor by altering anything in the character of God, which is a moral impossibility. How did He redeem us from its curse?

43:03 by bearing the exact equivalent for His people. Oh, but you say, Pastor, how can it be that the sufferings of a few hours can be payment for the agonies that the damned should feel in hell forever, and that I would have felt if He did not die for me? Listen, that was the death of no ordinary man. It was the death of the God-man. And though the agony and the death were the agony and death of the human nature,

43:32 It was the agony and death of the God-man. And as we said when we were dealing with the two natures in the one person, there is the virtue, what the old theologians called the communion of natures. Without mixing them, there is the virtue of the deity that gives weight and worth to the actings of the humanity. And so the Scripture says the church is purchased with the blood of God. Acts 20 and 28.

44:01 The Scripture says it was the Lord of glory who was crucified. And because He was an infinite being, He could get infinite worth to the suffering of a few hours. A worth that forever puts to silence the demands of God's holy law. There is another great text. We don't have time to go into it. It's Colossians 2 and verse 14, but the imagery is very vivid. I shall just touch upon it in passing.

Colossians 2:14 — Nailing the Bond to the Cross

44:29 where the apostle talks about Jesus Christ taking away the handwritten bond that was against us and nailing it to its cross. Now there's a problem in the language of this text. It's difficult to know precisely the various strands of emphasis, but one thing is clear. Look at it. Colossians 2.14 Christ blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, and how did He do it?

44:59 He nailed it to its cross. Here was the bond, the law of God with all its demands and all of its threats held in our hands. There we are, indicted. We're subpoenaed and all of the accusations are there. We've got to appear in the court of God. This is what we've done. Christ comes and takes that out of the hand of His people. And as He were, attaches all of the bonds with all of the threats.

45:27 And all of the death that is theirs. And he marches up to his cross. And when he is impaled upon the cross. And the wrath of God breaks upon him. All that was demanded is fully met in the death of the Son of God. Death and the curse were in our couple. Christ was full for thee. But thou hast drained the last dark drop. Tis empty now for me.

45:58 once your conscience begins to feel the weight of that great trilogy of realities, God, the law, and what you are, there is no resting place but in a penal satisfaction for sin. Because if God is just, and Jesus Christ took every single indictment against me and bore it to His cross, and the Father dealt with Him in the full light of every indictment, Almighty God will never haul me into court to give an account for the crimes that were paid by my substitute, the Lord Jesus. Penal satisfaction, O child of God, think of it. The law of the immutable God is now on my side. Think of it. The law demands my release because payment has been made in full by my substitute.

John Owen on the Soul as Noah's Dove

46:56 Those who say, well, the old Puritans were dry as dust and Owen's too heavy, you can't read him. I'm going to read a few paragraphs from Owen that ought to make you shout if you have an ounce of the grace of God in your soul. He says concerning this penal satisfaction, the following is beautiful imagery. And I thought I'd prostituted trying to give it to you in my own language, so I'm going to read it. The death that sinners are to undergo is the wrath of God.

47:24 Jesus Christ did taste of that death which sinners for themselves were to undergo, for He died as our surety. And then Owen goes on to say, The doctrine cannot be true or agreeable to the Gospel, but strikes at the root of Gospel faith and plucks away the foundation of that strong consolation which God is so abundantly willing we should receive. But such is that of denying the satisfaction made by Christ,

47:54 answering to the justice and undergoing the wrath of the Father. He says, take away the idea that in the sacrifice of Christ there was penal satisfaction and you undercut the confidence of a Christian. And now here's the imagery. It makes the poor soul like Noah's dove. Remember the dove that was sent out from the ark to see if it could find a place upon which to rest and then Noah would know that the waters were abating. Listen to the imagery, it's beautiful.

48:20 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 hath turned out of its self-righteousness and begins to look abroad and view the heaven and earth for a resting place and perceives an ocean, a flood, an inundation of wrath to cover all the world, wrath of God revealing itself from heaven against all ungodliness so that it can obtain no rest nor abiding place.

48:51 Heaven it cannot reach by its own wings, and to hell it is unwilling to fall. If now the Lord Jesus Christ do not appear as the ark in the midst of the waters, upon whom the floods have fallen, and yet who has gotten above them all for a refuge, alas, what shall the soul do? Isn't the image beautiful? What shall the soul do? It's like the bird that goes out from Noah's ark.

49:16 And it looks for resting place. Fly to heaven, it cannot. Sink to hell, it cannot. If there is no ark upon which the deluge is beat, and yet within which life is preserved, what shall 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 the top of the waters.

49:42 Many appearing hills and mountains of self-righteousness and general mercy 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 fall on Him also, yet He gets above it quite and gives safety to all that rest upon Him.

50:09 Let me now ask any of these poor souls who have ever 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 spared not His only Son, but gave Him up to death for us all, made Him to be sin for us, put all the sins of all the elect into that cup which He was to drink, That the wrath and flood which they feared did fall upon Jesus Christ. Though now as the ark is born above it. The storm has been His. And the safety shall be theirs. Oh dear people that's the gospel. That's the gospel. It's not a gospel that Christ died for our sins. Undefined and undefinable. He made penal satisfies.

51:03 to all the demands of the law of his Father. And having made that satisfaction, if I can in the imagery that Owen sets forth, if I can be found in him, then I know that wrath broke upon me in the person of my substitute. The wrath was saved. as surely as the heavens in that day were finally emptied of their reign, and the sun shone again, and the ark was borne above the waves of the deluge. So the Lord Jesus bore the wrath of God, and His resurrection was the monumental witness that that wrath did not float Him or sink Him down to hell, but He floated above it. His cry, It is finished!

Application: Taking the Trilogy Seriously

51:53 was no mere poetic statement. It was, as it were, the declaration of the moral universe of the court of heaven made through the lips of the Son of God. And I tell you, you bring near your death day. You ask yourself, if I knew I was to die in three minutes, and I was going to stand before the judge of the universe whose eyes are as a flame of fire, who will by no means clear the guilty, Who knows the thoughts and the intents of the heart? And my conscience and the Word of God sharpening it tell me that I violated His law thousands of times every day of my life. And if God is God and the wages of sin is death, the law must be satisfied. I tell you, you start taking those issues seriously and you'll find no rest. No rest! Until you rest in a doctrine of Christ's sacrifice that brings within its orbit these words.

52:50 Penal. Satisfaction. Sin. May God grant that if you're not in Christ, you'll start taking seriously that trilogy of realities that hold you in today. You may be within them and insensitive to it, but within them you are. God's law has claims upon you because you're His creature. Almighty God will not lie in the soul that sin should.

53:21 You are a sinner. The law, God, and human sin, they hold you in this morning. There's no way to avoid the anger of God but to get into Him who bore that anger on behalf of an innumerable company whom no man can remember out of every kindred tribe and tongue and nation. Oh, dear person, are you in Christ today? You children, your sinless, are just as heinous in God's sight as the sins of fifty-year-old men and women. Your sins deserve divine wrath, as you learn in your catechism. What does every sin deserve? Every sin deserves the wrath and curse of God. Thank God there is a refuge. A refuge in the sacrifice of one who made an objective, vicarious, penal satisfaction for sin that I might have access to

54:18 And acceptance with the God of the universe. Oh my dear friend are you in Christ this morning? Where are your sins? Are they still upon you? Waiting for God to break his wrath upon your head? Or have your sins been transferred to Christ? And you're born to safety because you're in the ark. May God help you to face that question with judgment and honesty.

54:46 You give yourself no rest until you can say, I am in Christ and therefore being in Christ, there is therefore now no condemnation. Hallelujah, what a Savior. And in the words of Flavel who closes every sermon on the person and work of Christ, Blessed be God for Jesus Christ. Oh, can you say that this morning? Blessed be God

55:16 For Jesus Christ. If you've got something more than empty religion. If you've got something more than a bunch of notions floating in your head. Can you say. Blessed be God. For Jesus Christ. Who made a penal satisfaction. For my sins.

Closing Prayer

55:46 Our Father, though many of us can confess with thanksgiving our confidence that Jesus Christ has borne our sins, we are nonetheless ashamed of the sins that caused His agony. And though we know no measure of our tears or grief can atone for the least of our sins, we are nonetheless ashamed and grieved

56:17 That we should have caused Him such grief. How we bless You for the infinite wisdom that contrived such a way of deliverance. We thank You, O God, that You are just and yet wonder of wonders, the justifier of those who are in Christ. We admire and worship You this morning for the wisdom that could ever have conceived such

56:45 a glorious plan of redemption, that the offended God should come to the creature in the person of His own dear Son. We thank You, Lord Jesus, for Your willingness to tread that path that none other could tread. We praise You for Your willingness to bear the Father's abandonment. We thank You, Lord, for Your willingness to taste death for us.

57:16 O Lord Jesus, bind our hearts to you with cords of deeper love and firmer faith and more resolute resolve that we shall regard ourselves as your purchased possessions, gladly acknowledging that we are not our own, that we have been bought with a price. Have mercy upon the boys and girls and men and women in this building today. who treat lightly their sins. Lord, make them like that dove that was sent out from Noah's ark. Make them restless. May they find no place of rest as they contemplate the magnitude of their sins and the certainty of the day of judgment. O God, may not the proclamation of Christ in their hearing today be as so much idle talk to them. May it be the power of God unto their salvation. O God, seal Your Word.

58:14 To the end that sinners may be brought to bow at the feet of the Savior. Receive our thanks for these rich mercies. Receive our praise for so great a Savior and for so great salvation. Hear our prayer. Dismiss us with your blessing resting upon us. We ask through our Lord Jesus Christ.