“Scripture teaches that God does all things for His own sake (Prov. 16:4; Rom. 11:36). The final ground and ultimate purpose, also of Christ’s incarnation and satisfaction, cannot lie in a creature, in the salvation of the sinner, but has to lie in God Himself.
For His own sake, He sent His Son into the world as an expiation for our sins that His attributes and perfections might thus be manifested. And indeed, there is no fact that so powerfully brings those perfections of God to the fore as Christ’s incarnation and satisfaction.
Not just one attribute is brilliantly illumined by these events but all of them together: His wisdom, grace, love, mercy, long-suffering, righteousness, holiness, power, and so on.
Although as a rule we hear mention only of God’s grace and justice, the other attributes may not be forgotten either. Christ in His own person, word, and work is the supremely perfect, comprehensive revelation of God: His servant, His image, His Son. He has made known to us the Father.
If God wanted to reveal Himself in His consummate glory, then the creation and re-creation, Christ’s incarnation and satisfaction, were necessary. His perfections were already made manifest in creation, but they were much more richly and superbly displayed in the re-creation.”
–Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 3:371.
