26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
How can God be both just and the justifier at the same time?
and the justifier [present tense]
Not only did God want to be deemed to be just, but He wanted people to see Him as the means of justification; that is, the One who declares that the one who places faith in Jesus as right as He is right.
God had a dilemma; the dilemma was how He was to justify people yet maintain His own consistent absolute righteousness with Himself. If He were to forgive without justice or judgment, then He would violate His own character and standards of being. His answer to this dilemma was the death of Jesus as judgment for the sin of the world. Christ’s sacrifice vindicated His standards of righteousness.
PRINCIPLE:
God justifies Himself by the sacrifice of Jesus for all sins of all time and remains consistent with Himself in doing so.
APPLICATION:
God would sully Himself if He allowed men into His fellowship while doing nothing about the sin problem. God must be both simultaneously loving and just. He removed any scandal from His name by what Christ did on the cross.
The problem with the sin issue is not primarily the sin of man but the perfect righteousness of God. The difficulty is not getting sinful men to an absolutely righteous God, but that God has to resolve the sin issue with Himself. The only way God could resolve this issue was to send His Son to pay for our sins on the cross. In this, God is satisfied (propitiated). The righteous demands of His character are satisfied by the death of Christ for our sins. The cross demonstrates that God is just with Himself in saving man. There is no way that God could abrogate His own righteousness and be true to Himself.
God resolves the conundrum of keeping to His absolute standard of righteousness by offering mercy to the sinner through sacrificing Jesus to pay for the sins of the sinner.
