Question: I am starting to see why I would need a Mediator between God and me. But what do you mean by Him making satisfaction for my sins?
Satisfaction means to perfectly satisfy divine justice, that is, to make complete payment so that God’s justice is satisfied or appeased. In His passive and active obedience Christ gave perfect and complete satisfaction to the justice of God. That’s why He said He came “to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). He died in the place of many as the payment of the price to set them free from what they deserved.
Why would God’s justice need to be satisfied?
Sadly, no, they do not. The clear teachings of the Bible have little effect on their hearts. By nature we are prone to think God is like us. We want to hear only about God’s love but ignore His righteousness. But the sinner experiences something of God’s justice when God begins to work in his heart. For the first time in his life he does not excuse himself by looking at other people or outward circumstances. He sees into his own heart by the light of God’s Spirit and compares himself with God’s holy law. He experiences that no man shall be justified by that law, and says, “I am guilty. I really do deserve to go to hell forever.” God’s justice becomes solemnly real. In this way the sinner realizes that he needs a righteousness he does not have.
Doesn’t that drive men to despair?
It drives them to despair of themselves. It cuts off their hopes of saving themselves or making themselves worthy of heaven. No amount of prayer and good works can compensate God for our sins. All our prayers and works are stained by sin. It would be like trying to get out of debt by taking on more debt to pay the bills.
But it does not lead them to absolute despair. Instead it moves them to begin casting about for some hope outside of themselves. They cannot make satisfaction to God by their own obedience, so they look for someone else who can make satisfaction for them. By faith they look to Jesus Christ, whose passive and active obedience satisfies God’s just demands on men.
What is Christ’s passive and active obedience? How does it make satisfaction?