Bavinck: What Happened in Christ

The sun of righteousness rose to its zenith in the heavens and shone out over all peoples.

The law and the prophets have been fulfilled and in Christ as their end and goal reached their destiny. . . . He is the truth, the substance in whom all the promises and shadows have been realized. In him all things have been fulfilled. He is the true prophet, priest, and king; the true servant of the Lord, the true expiation, the true sacrifice, the true circumcision, the true Passover, and therefore his church is the true seed of Abraham, the true Israel, the true people of God, the true temple of God, the true Zion and Jerusalem, its spiritual offering, the true religion.

Nothing of the Old Testament is lost in the New, but everything is fulfilled, matured, has reached its full growth, and now, out of the temporary husk, produces the eternal core.

It is not the case that in Israel there was a true temple and sacrifice and priesthood and so on and that all these have now vanished. The converse, rather, is true: of all this Israel only possessed a shadow, but now the substance itself has emerged.

--Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:224; Scripture references omitted
Dane Ortlund

He Must Descend

Bavinck:

If for insignificant, guilty, and impure persons there is to be a possibility of true religion, that is, of genuine fellowship with God, of salvation and eternal life, then God on his part must reestablish the broken bond, again take them into fellowship with him and share his grace with them, regardless of their guilt and corruption.

He, then, must descend from the height of his majesty, seek us out and come to us, take away our guilt and again open the way to his fatherly heart. If God were to wait until we—by our faith, our virtues, and good works of congruity or condignity—had made ourselves worthy, in part or in whole, to receive his favor, the restoration of communion between him and ourselves would never happen, and salvation would forever be out of reach for us.

--Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:204-5

And the Word became flesh . . . --John 1:14
Dane Ortlund

The Wonderful Monergism of Justification

Yes, justification is received with genuine human faith. But listen to Bavinck, in a passage that sounds much like Calvin:

If for insignificant, guilty, and impure persons there is to be a possibility of true religion, that is, of genuine fellowship with God, of salvation and eternal life, then God on his part must reestablish the broken bond, again take them into fellowship with him and share his grace with them, regardless of their guilt and corruption.

He, then, must descend from the height of his majesty, seek us out and come to us, take away our guilt and again open the way to his fatherly heart. If God were to wait until we . . . had made ourselves worthy, in part or in whole, to receive his favor, the restoration of communion between him and ourselves would never happen, and salvation would forever be out of reach for us.

--Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:204-5

Bavinck is giving me a deeper sense of how helpless we really are, how completely lost, until grace reaches down and defiantly rescues us. Hallelujah; what a Savior.
Dane Ortlund