Theological term
Satisfaction
12 sermons · All terms
The Cross and the Crown of Christ, Part 1
Psalm 22 is the suffering Messiah speaking in his own voice — a depth of self-disclosure that the prophet Isaiah 53 approaches but does not match. This sermon works through the first two of three laments in verses 1–11: Christ's desolation under judicial desertion by the Father, and the reproach heaped upon him by his enemies. The cry of dereliction is neither a rupture in the Trinity nor a dissolution of the hypostatic union, but a penal desertion in which the Father withdraws his favorable countenance from the one who has been made sin as mediator. Throughout each lament Christ models the pattern of honest complaint before God followed by confident recourse to the Father's holiness, covenant faithfulness, and sovereign purpose — a pattern the church is called to imitate in its own far lesser sufferings.
The Atonement at Gibeah
The atonement made at Gibeah — where seven descendants of Saul were executed to satisfy the blood-guilt incurred by Saul's slaughter of the Gibeonites — is expounded as a typological anticipation of penal substitutionary atonement. David's inquiry of God, the Gibeonites' insistence that no silver or gold could ransom a murderer (Numbers 35:33), and the hanging of the seven men before the Lord all illustrate that atonement is the satisfaction of divine justice through blood. The sermon argues that Rizpah's grief beside the bodies of her sons is a solemn, sin-cursed scene designed to strip away abstraction and force the reader to feel the horror of what atonement costs. Only when the gore of Gibeah is taken seriously does Golgotha regain its proper weight: Christ, the greater Son of David, stood in the place of his people to quench the wrath of God and secure the covenant safety of all whom the Father gave him.
The Depths of Sin and the Riches of Grace
Psalm 130 moves from the depths of spiritual distress to the heights of pardoning grace, and this exposition traces that movement through three divisions: the psalmist's cry of distress (vv. 1–2), his recognition of divine justice and divine forgiveness (vv. 3–4), and his patient exhortation to all Israel (vv. 5–8). The sermon establishes that the believer's remaining corruption should drive him not to silence but to earnest prayer, since the only remedy for sin is the grace of God. The justice of God is never mitigated in the gospel: at the cross, strict justice was satisfied upon Christ as substitute and curse-bearer, so that God is simultaneously just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. The sermon closes with an appeal both to the struggling believer — do not make peace with remaining sin, but cry out to God — and to the unconverted, for whom the same abundant redemption is freely available in Christ.
The Burnt Offering
Leviticus 1 presents the burnt offering as the paradigmatic Old Covenant sacrifice, establishing the pattern of how sinful man may approach a holy God. The chapter addresses the costliness of sacrifice, the worshiper's heart disposition, the laying on of hands as substitutionary transference, and the meaning of atonement as the satisfaction of divine justice. The New Testament interprets this system typologically: the male without blemish, the substitutionary slaughter, and the sweet aroma of acceptance all prefigure the penal substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Believers are called to read the Old Testament as a Christ-centered book and to worship God only in the manner He has prescribed.
The Resurrection and Justification
Romans 4:25 declares that Christ 'was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification' — a verse Charles Hodge called a comprehensive statement of the gospel and Matthew Poole called an abridgment of the whole. The sermon works through two inseparable redemptive realities: the substitutionary, particular atonement accomplished in Christ's death, and the five-fold testimony of the resurrection to the validity of that work. The central application is that a robust grasp of justification by faith alone — the imputation of Christ's righteousness received through faith — is the irreplaceable foundation for Christian stability, comfort, and peace with God.
The Resurrection and Justification by Faith
Romans 4:25 presents what the commentators Matthew Poole and Charles Hodge each called an abridgment or comprehensive statement of the whole gospel: Christ was delivered up because of our offenses and raised because of our justification. The sermon works through both halves of this verse to show that the death of Christ was a substitutionary, propitiatory sacrifice satisfying divine justice on behalf of the elect, and that his bodily resurrection is the Father's public declaration that the sacrifice was accepted and justification secured. Four theological connections between resurrection and justification are drawn out: the resurrection declares Christ to be the Son of God with power, testifies that his sacrifice was accepted, confirms that satisfaction was rendered, and demonstrates that redemption was fully accomplished. The sermon closes at Romans 5:1 with the fruit of the whole discussion — peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ — applied to those who once stood condemned as ungodly offenders.
The Resurrection and Justification
Romans 4:25 is, as Matthew Poole observed, 'an abridgment of the whole gospel' — binding Christ's penal death for specific offenses to His bodily resurrection for the justification of those who believe. The sermon expounds the redemptive purpose of both events: the Father delivered up the Son to satisfy divine justice for the sins of the elect, and raised Him to testify that the sacrifice was accepted, that satisfaction was rendered, and that redemption was accomplished. Against the moral-exemplary reduction of the atonement, the sermon insists on substitution, propitiation, and particular redemption as the irreducible ground of peace with God. Hearers are called to look away from every incapacity of their own — as Abraham did — and to rest entirely on the one who was delivered up for offenses and raised for justification.
Of Christ the Mediator 2 (2LCF 8)
The person and work of Christ as Mediator, as confessed in chapter 8 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, is the most central locus in all of Christian theology — to be wrong here is damnable. This session surveys paragraphs 3 through 10 of that chapter, tracing Christ's anointing and suitability for office, the active and passive obedience by which He fully satisfied divine justice, the retrospective application of His redemption to the elect of all ages under the old covenant, the communication of idioms in His two natures, and the effectual application of salvation to His people by His Spirit and Word. The threefold office of prophet, priest, and king supplies precisely what the elect need in their ignorance, alienation, and inability — and no other mediator may share or transfer any part of that office.
The Riches and the Poverty of Christ
Second Corinthians 8:9 presents the incarnation of the eternal Son as the supreme theological ground for Christian generosity: though he was rich in essential deity, Christ became poor by addition — taking on humanity — that his people through his poverty might become rich. The sermon exposits the riches of Christ in his divine nature and the poverty of Christ in his state of humiliation, drawing on the Chalcedonian definition of the hypostatic union as articulated in the 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter 8. Doctrinal appropriation of Christology is shown to be the indispensable spring of practical Christian living, including sacrificial giving, mortification of sin, and love within the home.
A Tomb for a Testimony
Why was Jesus buried? The burial of Christ, recorded by all four evangelists and confessed in the Apostles' Creed, is far more than narrative filler between the cross and the empty tomb. This exposition of Luke 23:50–56 argues that the burial of Jesus is a historic apologetic for the Christian faith: it proves the reality of the incarnation, illustrates the full depth of his humiliation, certifies that his atoning death was genuine, and serves as the necessary prerequisite for the bodily resurrection. Because Christ sanctified the grave by lying in it, believers may face death and burial without fear, assured that the penalty for sin has been discharged and that bodily resurrection awaits them as it awaited him.
The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus
John 18:1–11 records the betrayal and arrest of Jesus, yet John's Gospel frames the scene not primarily as a display of suffering but as a revelation of divine glory. The great I AM steps forward to meet his captors, causes a detachment of soldiers to fall to the ground by the mere utterance of his name, and willingly drinks the cup of God's wrath — not as a victim, but as the covenant mediator and surety who executes the eternal decree of the Father. The sermon calls hearers to resist a narcissistic reading of the passion narratives and instead to bow in worship before the obedient Son of God, whose vicarious, substitutionary death is the sole ground of the sinner's justification.
The Basis for the Believer's Forgiveness
What is the basis upon which God forgives the believer's sins? This sermon works through a chain of Old and New Testament texts — from the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15 through Isaiah 53, Matthew 26, Romans 4, Ephesians 1, Hebrews 7, and Revelation 5 — to establish that the sole ground of the believer's forgiveness is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, not the believer's own act of forgiving others. The fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer ('forgive us our debts') presupposes this finished, objective atonement; forgiving others is its fruit and sign, not its cause. The sermon closes at the Lord's Supper with a call to trust Christ alone and a doxological meditation on penal substitution as the basis of every pardon God grants.