Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
Romans 3:21–26
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (vv. 23–25).
The ransom that Jesus paid to release us from slavery to sin, death, and Satan was His own blood (Mark 10:45; 1 Peter 1:18–19). His death on the cross secured our freedom. Yet we must say more regarding why Jesus had to die, for Scripture says that His death also saves us from the wrath of God (1 Thess. 1:10).
This brings us to the penal satisfaction view of Christ’s death, also known as penal substitutionary atonement, which synthesizes biblical teaching on the justice of God, the grace of God, and the work of the Holy Trinity. First, our Creator is the perfectly righteous Judge who loves justice (Ps. 50:1–6; Isa. 61:8). He has rightly imposed on all those who break His law the penalty of death, both physical death and the eternal death of being cast out of His blessed presence to endure His righteous wrath against sinners (Gen. 2:17; 3:24; Mark 9:47–48; Rom. 6:23; Rev. 20). God cannot deny His own justice because He cannot deny Himself (2 Tim. 2:13), so He must execute His just sentence of death on sinners.
Thanks be to God, our Creator is also exceedingly gracious and merciful, and He has purposed to save some sinners from His own wrath (Ps. 86:5; Rom. 9:1–29). Penal satisfaction explains how He remains just while saving sinners. As we see in today’s passage, God sent His only Son as the propitiation for sinners. By His death as the divine wrath-bearing sacrifice, Jesus propitiated—satisfied and turned away—the wrath of God against those sinners whom He chose for salvation. Christ, representing His people on the cross, paid the debt of punishment that we owe for our sin. Thus, God is both just and the justifier of those who trust in Christ Jesus alone (Rom. 3:21–26). Dr. R.C. Sproul writes that in penal satisfaction, “what is being satisfied is the requirement of God—His justice and righteousness. We have broken His law and incurred His wrath, and He would be completely just to require us to pay the penalty. If someone else offered to pay the penalty, He would not have to accept it, since we are talking about our personal sins against His grace and mercy. Yet He has agreed (and indeed arranged) to accept the death of Christ as satisfaction for our debt.”
Because God is three in one, Christ propitiated the wrath of the triune God. The Son endured God’s punishment according to His humanity, but this was God’s propitiating His own wrath, taking it on Himself, for the Son is God. The God-man paid the price that we owe to the Holy Trinity.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Westminster Confession of Faith 8.4 says that Jesus satisfied God’s wrath as He “endured most grievous torments immediately in his soul, and most painful sufferings in his body.” He did not suffer in His divine nature, but He did suffer in His human nature even as His deity sustained Him and enabled Him to endure divine justice. The Son paid the debt of men by dying as a man, so believers need not fear that they will experience the eternal wrath of God.
For further study
- Isaiah 53:5–6
- John 3:35–36
- 1 Thessalonians 5:9–10
- 1 John 4:10
The bible in a year
- Psalm 119:1–48
- 1 Corinthians 3