THE SATISFACTION OF GOD

Singer/Songwriter Chris Christian wrote a song in the 1970’s that came to my mind this week as I was studying for this mornings message. The lyrics for the refrain go like this:

I was bought with a price, paid in full with one sacrifice,

And along with it there came a warranty no one else could make;

And there’s a chance that if we wait we might find out that it’s too late,

And that’s one chance I’m never gonna take.

Satisfaction guaranteed...

I was reminded of this song, which I dearly loved back in my high school years (so maybe it was written in the 1980’s?), not because it was theologically sound, but because it spoke of satisfaction. The idea of satisfaction has changed over the years. This above mentioned song is a take on commercials that promised that the consumer would be completely satisfied with the product they purchased. And the song writer was pointing out that the only true satisfaction in life is found in having a right relationship with Jesus Christ.

But as we think about satisfaction in relationship to the cross, it is a whole different topic altogether. It is more closely related the early years of our nation when an individual who had been insulted or offended in someway could demand satisfaction. In many instances this was a challenge to a duel. One of the most famous duels in our nation occurred between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. This duel ended both of the political careers, as well as Hamilton’s life.

The idea of satisfaction has changed over the years. This above mentioned song is a take on commercials that promised that the consumer would be completely satisfied with the product they purchased. And the song writer was pointing out that the only true satisfaction in life is found in having a right relationship with Jesus Christ. But as we think about satisfaction in relationship to the cross, it is a whole different topic altogether.

When there is a call for this type of satisfaction, it is always the offended party who has the right to demand satisfaction. From an eternal perspective, God is the one who has the right to seek for satisfaction. And the act of propitiation is the means by which He was satisfied.

Please take your Bible and turn to This morning as we continue in our series titled IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CROSS we are going to consider The Satisfaction of God. As we do so we will look at the irreconcilable differences between God and man which produced the demand for satisfaction or propitiation. Further we will look at who is the object of satisfaction, the process of satisfaction, and the satisfier.

Let’s read our passage together.

THE IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GOD AND MAN

We could summarize the irreconcilable difference between God and man with one three letter word — sin! As Isaiah once wrote:

Isaiah 59:2 NASB95PARA

But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

The Bible uses various words for sin, and we are not going to look at them all today. But the most common N.T. term for sin, hamartia, simply means to miss the mark. The other day I went over to Joe Sanford’s and shot some of his hand guns. And there was one gun in particular in which I missed the target every time — it was old western style revolver. That was an example of hamartia — missing the mark. I was aiming at the target but I missed it. We can sin by trying to do the right thing, and yet ending up getting in wrong. We might be tempted to say that is no big deal — but for the Holy God, the Creator of the World, it is a big deal.

Of course there are other terms for sin that refer to actual rebellion such as the term translated transgression or trespass. This is a deliberate violation of God’s law. The Apostle Paul wrote about this type of deliberate offense against God in various ways in :

Ungodliness and unrighteous of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness

Though they knew God they did not honor Him as God

Exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of (created things)

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than Creator

They exchanged what is natural for what is unnatural

In our day and age we have become very casual in our attitude about sin. We don’t seem to really understand just how great of an offense our sin is against God. John Stott wrote:

The Cross of Christ The Gravity of Sin

The emphasis of Scripture, however, is on the godless self-centeredness of sin. Every sin is a breach of what Jesus called “the first and great commandment,” not just by failing to love God with all our being but by actively refusing to acknowledge and obey him as our Creator and Lord.

When we sin we fail to both love God and to acknowledge and obey Him.

Modern society has gone to great lengths to do away with the concept of sin. Rather they refer to various sins as being diseases or perhaps crimes against society. But Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote:

Sin is not a thing, it is not a substance. It is the condition of a human being, it is the condition of a soul. You cannot separate sin from persons, so when God deals with sin He has to deal with persons, and when He deals with persons He has to deal with sin.

Until a person comes to understand just how sinful they are they will never see the need for the cross of Christ. John Stott wrote:

The Cross of Christ God’s Holiness and Wrath

When, on the other hand, we have glimpsed the blinding glory of the holiness of God and have been so convicted of our sin by the Holy Spirit that we tremble before God and acknowledge what we are, namely “hell-deserving sinners,” then and only then does the necessity of the cross appear so obvious that we are astonished we never saw it before.

Let’s now turn our attention to the object of satisfaction.

THE OBJECT OF SATISFACTION

Theologians have argued for centuries as regards to who is the object of satisfaction — in other words the person or thing to whom satisfaction is made. Here are some of the proposed arguments:

Satisfying the devil — Those who held this ancient view considered the cross as a divine transaction with the devil. This view traces back to Origen, a second century theologian. Whether knowingly or not C.S. Lewis put forward this idea in his classic children’s book, THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE. In that book the lion, Aslan (who was the Christ figure), had to die as a sacrifice to satisfy the deep magic of the White Witch.

Nowhere in the Bible does it ever teach anything of the kind

Satisfying the law — () Ambrose, a 4th century theologian defended this view.

Romans 8:3–4 NASB95PARA

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

There is an element of truth in this view in the Christ did fulfill the law of God in all of its fulness. Stott notes: “The sixteenth-century Reformers developed this further. They rightly emphasized that Jesus Christ’s personal submission to the law was indispensable to our rescue from its condemnation. They also taught that his submission took two forms, his perfect obedience to it in his life and his bearing of its penalty in his death. They called the first his “active” and the second his “passive” obedience.”

Stott went on to say that we need to be wary of “likening God’s moral laws to his physical laws and then declare them equally inflexible … The real reason why disobedience of God’s moral laws brings condemnation is not that God is their prisoner, but that He is their creator.”

Satisfying God’s honor and justice — This view traces back to Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century (around the time of Robin Hood to put it into perspective). This view was more related to the logic of Aristotle than biblical revelation. Anselm defined sin as “not rendering to God what is His due.” Which certainly is a sin, but it falls short of being a full definition of sin.

On the positive side Anselm dealt with the gravity of sin. God forgiving the sinner is incomparable to our forgiving others who offend us. That is because you and I are imperfect and in constant need of forgiveness ourselves. Whereas God is perfect in every way, and has never needed anyone's forgiveness.

Perhaps the greatest problem with Anselm’s view is the equating of God to a feudal overlord who demands honor and punishes dishonor.

The Reformers also emphasized this truth. Calvin wrote: “there is a perpetual and irreconcilable disagreement between righteousness and unrighteousness” (2.16.3). It was necessary therefore for Christ “to undergo the severity of God’s vengeance, to appease his wrath and satisfy his just judgment.”

Stott finds a shared limitation in all of the above views: “The limitation they share is that, unless they are very carefully stated, they represent God as being subordinate to something outside and above himself which controls his actions, to which he is accountable, and from which he cannot free himself.”

God satisfying Himself — This view teaches that it is God Himself, in His inner being who needs to be satisfied, and not something external to Himself. Atonement is necessary because it arises from withing God Himself.

At the cross God satisfied Himself, by means of Himself. God put forward Jesus as our propitiation ( ESV). Jesus, the One who is fully God and yet fully man, paid the price for our atonement by His substitutionary death. God satisfied God.

Let’s turn our attent from the theories about who was to be satisfied, to the process of satisfaction. Look with me at our text as it is in the ESV on the screen:

English Standard Version Chapter 3

24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Romans 3:23–26 ESV

for 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. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:24–26 ESV

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. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

THE PROCESS OF SATISFACTION

Propitiation is an ancient word that is intrinsically linked to this idea of satisfaction that we have been dealing with this morning. The Puritan John Owens wrote that there four things which are essential elements in any propitiation:

An offense to be taken away

A person offended who needs to be pacified

An offending person; a person guilty of the offense

A sacrifice or some other means of making atonement for the offense

The marvelous thing about this — that which boggles my mind every time I read this passage in Romans is that the offended party is the One who paid for the offense. You and I, if we are believers in Christ Jesus, did not pay the price for our own offense. The Eternal Son of God did.

If a person does not come to saving faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ then they will pay the price for the offense, for the wages of sin is death - eternal separation from God — eternal damnation. Sentenced to spend eternity in Hell (and we are not talking about that place in Michigan!).

Our text tells us that God was very active in this process of propitiation — whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation; or as the ESV puts it — whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood.

The cross of Christ is cherished by believers because “it twas on the old cross Jesus suffered and died to pardon and sanctify me!”

The cross of Christ is the perfect example of the holy love of God. Sometimes I hear people talk about the holiness of God and love of God as if they are separate things. But my belief is that you cannot separate them from one another. At the cross God poured out His great wrath on His Beloved Son in whom He was well pleased. This was a demonstration of His holy wrath. And it was simultaneously a demonstration of His love. As Stuart Townend expressed it:

HOW DEEP THE FATHER’S LOVE FOR US

How deep the Father’s love for us, How vast beyond all measure, That He should give His only Son To make a wretch His treasure. How great the pain of searing loss - The Father turns His face away, As wounds which mar the Chosen One Bring many sons to glory.

Behold the man upon a cross, My sin upon His shoulders; Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice Call out among the scoffers. It was my sin that held Him there Until it was accomplished; His dying breath has brought me life - I know that it is finished.

I will not boast in anything, No gifts, no power, no wisdom; But I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection. Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer; But this I know with all my heart - His wounds have paid my ransom.

Let’s turn our attention now to the satisfier — I believe that I probably coined that term, seeing spellcheck argued with me about it!

THE SATISFIER

Christ Jesus is the satisfier of the wrath of God. In the O.T. sacrificial system the death of bulls and goats were merely a pacifier of the wrath of God. They deferred the payment of the debt of sin until the true Lamb of God would be sacrificed and satisfy God’s wrath once and for all.

The question that you need to ask yourself is if your sins were covered by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? The Apostle Paul once wrote:

Romans 10:9–13 CSB

If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame, since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Have you called on the name of the Lord? If you have not then I invite you to do so today. Believer, this same chapter speaks to your responsibility to proclaim the good news of the Gospel with others.

Romans 10:14–17 NKJV

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Believer, do you have beautiful feet?

The Cross of Christ The Holy Love of God

Beneath the cross of Jesus

I fain would take my stand—

The shadow of a mighty rock

Within a weary land.…

O safe and happy shelter!

O refuge tried and sweet!

O trysting-place, where heaven’s love

And heaven’s justice meet!