Discuss Bavinck’s statement: “The obedience of Christ is not only a satisfaction: it is a vicarious satisfaction.”

Vicarious satisfaction is the culmination of the purpose and work of Jesus Christ laying the path of salvation to his elect and providing the Gospel message of hope, faith and love to the world, but especially to the adopted family of God. Bavinck’s main point is that this is the Gospel, that Christ perfectly obeyed God in a way that we could not, that he was sacrificed for us, satisfying God’s divine justice and thus providing eternal life for those who have faith in the covenant promises of God to his people by Jesus Christ alone.

First there must be a sacrifice or the shedding of blood to make atonement for our sins, our transgressions. Within the ordinance of the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16 reveals the vicarious process of laying our sins upon a sacrificial animal, placing the wickedness, disobedience and transgressions of the elect upon the goat to cleanse them before the Lord making them holy and blameless. Isaiah 53: 10 connects the sacrificial atonement to the future coming of the Lord who would be our guilt offering, who’s blood would be shed vicariously in place of ours.
This shedding of blood is the method by which we are redeemed or our debts are paid on our behalf. Satisfaction has been made by redeeming the elect and paying the debt of our sins and our transgressions. Redemption is the second way in which we see Christ’s vicarious satisfaction come to fruition, as Isaiah 53: 5 says, “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.” It is our sin, our debt to pay to God to redeem ourselves from the punishment of his divine justice, but it is Jesus Christ who takes this debt upon himself and makes restitution on our behalf.

That leads us the third view of Christ’s vicarious satisfaction in the expiatory gift of reconciliation given to the elect. Not only does Jesus Christ shed his blood, paying our debt, but he also averts God’s justice and brings about an eternal reconciliation between the created and the Creator. 2 Corinthians 5: 18, 21 says, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ…God made him who had no sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Paul shows us here that through our reconciliation, our sins are removed from our account and God’s justice is expatiated from us and placed on Christ. Though he himself was never sinful, our sins were hung upon the cross in Him, so that we may be reconciled before God as holy and blameless creatures resting in Jesus Christ alone.

Finally, the culmination of the sacrificial blood spilled, which bought and paid for our redemption and which provides an excitatory reconciliation between us and God reaches its apex in the propitiation of God’s righteousness applied to us through the vicarious satisfaction of Jesus Christ. We are not only cleansed of our sin, not only purchased by the ultimate act of sacrifice, but also covered over by the pure blood, covered over by the freedom from debt, covered over by the freedom from divine justice, but ultimately covered over by the righteousness that is Christ’s alone. Again, 2 Corinthians 5: 21 ends with, “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”, which is Christ’s watershed, propitiatory act of salvation for his elect providing vicarious satisfaction and eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ alone.