Penal Satisfaction

*This blog is part of an annual series I do that explores a facet of Christ’s atonement that we remember every Good Friday.

God’s Justice
God, the King, is a great Lawgiver and Judge. His moral law is summarized in the 10 commandments or the Great Commandment. Because He is perfect, His Law is perfect. Because He is eternal, His law is weighty. The penalty of breaking God’s Law was death (Gen 2:15).

Our Injustice
God required of Adam perfect obedience to His Covenant and Law (Gen 2:15). However, Adam broke God’s Law (Gen 3), and as our representative, placed all of mankind under God’s just judgement for sin, which is death. This is why we are spiritually dead and physically dying. Not only do we inherit Adam’s guilt (Ro 5) but we all, daily, in our thoughts, words and deed, break God’s Law—we coopt into sin every day (Ro 3:23; Ro 6:23a). Try as we may to satisfy or meet the Law’s demands, we’ve broken it and in our sinfulness can do nothing worthy of satisfying it (Isa 64:6). As the hymn writer, Augustus Toplady, wrote, “Not the labours of our hands, can fulfill the law’s demands.” As a result, humans are without hope staring down an eternal death sentence.

God’s Justification
While God would have been perfectly just to sentence us to death, in His great kindness He offered His Son to do the work of satisfaction that sinners could not do so that we might be forgiven and know life.

On the Cross Jesus said, “It is finished!” (Jn 19:30). What is ‘it’? What is ‘finished’? ‘It’ refers to Christ’s work of satisfaction and ‘finished’ refers to its completion or being satisfied. Remember, mankind is under God’s just sentence of death because of our lawlessness.

Christ satisfied the Law’s demands by dying a sinner’s death. He ‘fulfilled the Law’s demands.’ He did this positively by living the perfect life (so that His righteousness might be applied to us) but also passively by dying the perfect death. Jesus satisfied or expiated[1] God’s justice.  In theology this is called penal satisfaction or expiation.

This is clearly seen in Mk 10:45, which says Jesus, ‘gave His life as a ransom for many.’ Jesus offered a ransom (payment) to the Father to satisfy divine justice. The old Baptist confession says, ‘[He] has fully satisfied the justice of God.’ (1689.8.5). So perfectly did Jesus’s merits do this that there is an abundance of His merits to share. Another old confession says,  ‘This death of God’s Son is the only and entirely complete sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; it is of infinite value and worth, more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world.’ (Dort 2.3.). The Bible refers to this as ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’ (Eph 2:8–9) or the treasury of Christ. This gift is freely offered to sinners (Ro 6:23b).
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Our Justification
How can we receive these riches so that we may be justified? By repentance and faith or turning and trusting (Mk 1:15). We must call upon the name of the Lord—casting ourselves upon His mercy in faith—in order to be saved. To be saved from the penalty of sin means to be justified (declared just vs. unjust). This we must do by faith (Gal 2:16).  In justification the merit of our sin is credited (or imputed) to Christ’s account; and Christ’s justness is credited to our account. This is called the ‘sweet exchange.,’ the result of which is that we are no longer under the sentence of death and so forgiven to know life!


[1] Expiation means a payment that rescues from a penalty; or removes the guilt of sin through punishment.