“The benefits which Christ has achieved for us by His great love are so rich that they simply cannot be calculated or estimated at their just value. They comprehend no less than a whole and perfect salvation.
They consist of redemption from the greatest of evils, namely, sin with all its consequences of misery and death, and of the granting of the highest good, namely, the fellowship with God and all its blessings.
Later there will be opportunity to discuss those benefits in detail. But they must be mentioned in passing here if we are to understand the work of Christ in its deep significance.
Among all the benefits which we owe to Christ’s profound humiliation, atonement is the principal one. It is expressed in the New Testament by two words of the original which are variously translated in the English as propitiation, reconciliation, or atonement.
The first word—or, strictly speaking, several words, but of the same root—is found in Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2 and 4:10, and it is a word which originally means to cover and so designates the atonement effected by the sacrifice.
The thought is that the sacrifice, or rather the blood of the sacrifice—for the blood is the seat of life, and when it is poured out and sprinkled it is the atoning element proper—covers the sin (guilt, pollution) of the person making the offer from the face of God, and thus, in consequence of its effect, removes the provocation of God’s wrath.
Because of the pouring out and sprinkling of the blood, in which the life, the soul, of an innocent and unblemished animal is spent, God lays aside His wrath, changes His disposition towards the sinner, forgives his transgression, and admits him again to His presence and fellowship.
And the forgiveness which takes place after the atonement is then so perfect that it can be called a blotting out (Isa. 43:25 and 44:22), a casting behind one’s back (Isa. 38:17), or a casting of the sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19).
The atonement obliterates the sins so completely that it is as if they never were committed. It banishes wrath and causes God’s face to shine upon His people in Fatherly favor and good will.”
–Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God (trans. Henry Zylstra; Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 1909/2019), 338-339.
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