This article speaks to us of the atoning work of Christ. It was the substitutionary suffering and death of the Mediator "for us," as the article says. This is explained under the heading, "That God hath manifested His justice and mercy in Christ."

We have become miserable and fallen creatures, unable to deliver ourselves. Though this is an offense to man and in conflict with the teaching of most religions today, we may not deny this, for if we do so, we can never explain the fullness of which this article gives evidence, the fullness of God's provision for miserable, totally lost creatures. We do not speak here of a helping Savior, but of a complete Savior.

First of all, man is miserable and unable to save himself. Yet it has pleased the Lord to have thoughts of peace. We have heard from Article 17 that God, "seeing that man had thus thrown himself into temporal and eternal death, and made himself wholly miserable, was pleased to seek and comfort him, when he trembling fled from His presence, promising him that He would give His Son." We have heard that His Son came in the flesh, His incarnation (Article 18), and also about the two natures in the One Person, the human as well as the divine. He is Immanuel, God with us. He is the Child which is born and the Son which is given. Now we finally will see why and for what purpose God has given this Son.

We have heard in Article 17 that God promised man that He would give His Son, "who should be made of a woman to bruise the head of the serpent, and would make him happy." Was the only purpose of God in sending His Son to make sinful man happy? No, His first purpose was to glorify His attributes, His virtues. There are two virtues which seem to conflict. How can God who is holy and just and righteous, without violating His justice, show mercy unto those fallen creatures? This is not by any offering or good works or satisfaction from the human side; but the Lord's Provision, His Son, will glorify both virtues.

This article states, "We believe that God, who is perfectly merciful and just, sent His Son." Those two virtues are placed in one sentence in one portion – perfectly merciful and just. God is fully just and fully merciful. He is completely and perfectly merciful and just. We stand here before a riddle.

"Merciful" is, in Dutch, barmhartigheid, which literally means "having a burning heart." This is even more expressive than the English word. God's heart is a burning heart – not in anger, not in order to consume, but in love, in compassion, and with a desire to glorify Himself in the salvation of sinners, in doing well to unworthy ones. It is a word which also implies that there are no reasons in the creature. God's heart is burning in Himself. That has caused the Lord to say, "Who is He that will open the way for Me to show that burning and to manifest that mercy unto sinners?" There was something standing in the way, namely, His justice. God is merciful and just.

Justice says that sin must be punished. It is not as many heretics say, that God has two thrones – a  throne of justice and a throne of mercy. They teach that, in the salvation of sinners, God descended from the throne of justice and climbed upon the throne of mercy. They make a separation of what is one in God. This is not only the error of those who do not want to speak of God's justice but only of the mercy and love and goodness of God; it is also something that you find in every human heart. We can go wrong in the one direction when we only speak about a God of justice and wrath, and not proclaim His mercy; we can also err when we speak of a God who is only merciful. By separating those two virtues, we make two different thrones. Then God would sit only on His throne of justice, but in Christ He would have another throne, the throne of His mercy. God's mercy is not a sort of weakness, as if He could be moved by the misery of sinners. Poor, foolish man, flattering himself, puts himself at ease by a false idea of God's mercy; denying God's justice, or with only a formal confession of it, without embracing it, he clings to God's mercy.

But how does the Lord teach sinners those two virtues? What does that mean, to come to the mercy seat which the Lord has revealed in His Word? There is such a mercy seat. God has manifested His mercy in His beloved Son and the whole Word of God is full of it. Every page, also in the Old Testament, speaks of God's love and mercy revealed in the sending of His Son. "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son" (John 3:16). God so loved sinners, His chosen people, from eternity, that He gave His Son.

There is a mercy seat. Many may speak of justice without mercy or speak of a mercy seat, passing by justice. But the Lord did not deal so in the life of Christ. Let us first consider that. God showed His love and approval to His Son, and said, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. I am fully pleased with this Son, this Servant. I delight in Him. He is the Son of My right hand and He is My beloved Son." However, that did not extinguish His justice, which also was manifested unto His own Son. Christ had to pay and suffer. He had to endure the wrath of God. He had to experi­ence the avenging justice of the Father. "Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow" (Zechariah 13:7). The sword of God's avenging justice came upon Christ. This justice had to be satisfied before the Father's countenance could be lifted up in peace, in delight again, upon His own Son. We see that so clearly on Golgotha where the Father, in His wrath, hid His countenance; where for Christ there was nothing but a sword, nothing but the anger, wrath, and punishment of His Father.

We also read about that in this article. God sent His Son to assume that nature in which the disobedience was committed. Justice says, "Pay Me what you owe Me." But it also says who has to pay. Man has to pay. That payment has to be made in the same nature in which sin has been committed. The incarnation of Christ was necessary because of God's justice, and we must begin there. When the child Jesus was laid in Bethlehem, that was not just the love of God, but it was also the justice of God to Him who had promised, "I come, I delight to do Thy will, Thy law is within My heart." The act of His assuming a human nature was a requisite of God's justice and God's mercy.

Christ bore the punishment of sin by His most bitter sufferings, which began with His early life through circumcision, fleeing to Egypt, living in Nazareth, and continuing through the years. That suffering increased greatly before His death and culminated at the end of His life. That was also God's justice and His mercy ­both were manifested in the suffering and death of Christ. When Christ crept as a worm and no man, it was God's justice which laid Him in the dust of death. It was also God's mercy which caused Him to creep there as a worm and no man in order that sinful dust could be restored into God's favor. When His blood was shed on Golgotha, that was an act of God's justice, a satisfac­tion of God's justice, but it was also God's love. We must always consider both attributes when we view the suffering of the Mediator, His way of passive and active obedience. May the Lord give us eyes of faith to see that.

The active obedience in the obeying of the law and the passive obedience in the suffering of God's wrath – that two-fold demand of the law which said, "Do this and thou shalt live," and, "If you don't obey, you are cursed" – was all laid upon Him. All the sins of omission and commission were laid upon Him, and He had to carry them in His passive obedience. When we view Him in His active as well as in His passive obedience, there is also a manifestation of God's mercy and justice. They cannot be separated. We may not speak of the one at the expense of the other. There is God's mercy and justice – also in His suffering and in the shedding of His blood. "Without shedding of blood is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22); God "will by no means clear the guilty" (Exodus 34:7).

In Christ's death we also see God's mercy and justice, because "the soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel 4). Justice required the death of all sinners. All the souls of those who had been given unto Christ were included, and for them He had to die. He was their Substitute. The Father saw these sinners. He saw Adam and all the people which were given unto Christ. He saw them standing in Christ before Him. Therefore Christ had to die. The sword did not just hang above His head but came down upon Him. The Shepherd was slain and the sheep were scattered. There was also mercy, for when Christ died, by His death He merited the power to cause the old nature and the old man to die and sins to be mortified. There was mercy. By His death those two attributes were manifested.

We read further in this article, "God there manifested His justice against His Son, when He laid our iniquities upon Him; and poured forth His mercy and goodness on us." What an exchange! When Christ stood in Gethsemane and said, "If therefore ye seek Me, let these go their way" (John 18:8), then He also said to the Father, "If Thou seekest Me, let these go their way." Then the Father would pour His wrath upon His Son, so that He could pour His mercy upon the people. The form for the Lord's Supper speaks so beautifully about this substitutionary work expressed here in this article, "And laid our iniquities upon Him; and poured forth His mercy and goodness on us." The justice of God does not come again upon God's people, for that justice is satisfied in the suffering and death of the Mediator. For the people of God, everything which comes out of God's hand is mercy; although there can be chastisements and trials, there is never that avenging justice, for that justice is fully satisfied by Christ. For God's people there only remains "mercy and goodness," as we read in this article, "And poured forth His mercy and goodness on us, who were guilty and worthy of damnation, out of mere and perfect love," and that through the suffering and death of His beloved Son.

When God leads a sinner to Christ, he learns to know that God is just and why the Mediator had to come in the manger. It was not only because of God's love, but also because of that sword of justice. He learns to know why Christ had to creep as a worm and no man, and why the Father's countenance was hidden. He learns to know that sword of God's justice in his own life. He not only learns to know it, but God brings him to a bowing under it and to an agreement with it. "I will bear the indignation of the Lord."

By nature we fight against this and do not believe that God is just. Deep down in our hearts we are not in agreement with God and will not become clay in His hand. We try to escape and to change God from being just to being merciful, even with our tears. We do not want Him to do what is good in His sight. That requires grace, and a sinner coming to Christ comes as a bowing sinner, as a sinner agreeing with God, saying, "Thou art just if there is no place for me and if Thou would cast me out, without any salvation for me." But who can tell? Is there still a way? Yes, there is! There is a way of justice and of mercy. The Lord will not lose anything, but He will gain the glorification of His justice and His mercy, which is the beauty in the work of salvation. Both attributes are glorified.

The way in which the sinner is led is a way by which he learns to love both attributes, also God's justice. Such a sinner does not like to be partaker of God's mercy at the expense of God's justice. He wants to be saved in a just way. Therefore he learns to need a Mediator who satisfied justice and in whom mercy can be shown. What beauty! First justice is manifested, but then also mercy is poured out upon guilty and condemnable sinners, "who were worthy of damnation." What was the reason? Only perfect love, loving them with an everlasting love.

Pelagius did not believe in the atoning work of Christ as it is explained in this article. He taught that man had a free will, that Christ was only a good example, and that there was grace available which strengthens our virtues. As far as Christ's atonement is concerned, Pelagius taught it was general for all mankind. Since Christ laid down His life, God could now come down from His throne and be a God of love if man with his free will would accept it. Socinus taught that Christ was an example by His suffering and, by following after Him, man can make himself free from sin.

The Remonstrants believed in an universal redemption for every creature and also in the free will of man. The "Groninger" theologians hated this article and called satisfac­tion of God's justice a blood-theory, not desired by God Himself. The question is: Did Christ do every­thing, or only part of the work, so that man has to do the rest of it? In the views of many, Christ only made salvation possible, but man has to accept this salvation and apply it to himself. But what a poor, comfortless teaching this is. We need a perfect, a complete Savior.

May we be given to preach and to learn to know such a complete Savior. How does He become such a complete Savior? Only in a way in which we learn to know, bow under, and agree with God's justice. Christ will never become for us what He is if there would be no justice. We may be touched by His love and moved by His mercy, but He will never become for us a complete atoning Lamb. Therefore respect this order of God in teaching a sinner. God's justice must be satisfied. In this way room is made for the manifestation of God's mercy. It is God's mercy when we come to the end of all our doings. It is God's mercy when room is made for the manifestation of His mercy, also unto our soul.

"Through Him we might obtain immortality and life eternal." All the benefits: calling, regeneration, faith, justification, sanctification, perseverance, and glorification come through this channel; and they come as manifestations of justice and mercy. Lost, but saved, sinners will sing of that justice and that mercy. Mercy and goodness poured forth upon such unworthy ones will cause them to worship Him who gave His own Son. They will love Him, because He first loved them. Thus all the honor will be given to a triune God. To Him be all the glory. May this also be our confession and our praise.