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I. JUSTIFICATION.

1. Negatively is not declaring just —

(1) By proof that sins so called were no sins; they are as abominable as ever.

(2) By proof that sins in the accusation were never committed; all are proved and confirmed.

(3) By proof that such sins do not involve the sinner in guilt and condemnation; wrath is revealed against them to the uttermost.

2. Positively. It is a declaring just, while pardoning, by proof that the necessities arising in the case, for the maintenance of law and exhibition of justice, are satisfactorily met by other means than the culprit's punishment. Pardon is not slovenly and careless mercy, and it does not come through the hushing up or cloaking under of the sinner's sin.

II. IS A FREELY GRACIOUS ACT AND GIFT.

1. It is not purchased by the offender.

2. It is not procured by any means that recompense the Pardoner.

3. It is not constrained in Him by any interested motive; He has no peril from the guilty or gain from the pardoned.

4. It is not begrudged, delayed, sold, or bartered.

III. COMES THROUGH CHRIST'S REDEMPTION, or paying of a price.

1. Not to conciliate Satan or sin.

2. Not to conciliate God in His manner of feeling towards us.

3. Not to give to the Pardoner an equivalent in value for the pardon.

4. But paying down His own life, as that which the Kingly Judge required, ere as a Kingly Father He could permit His willing mercy to flow — a payment which has all the effect, and something of the nature, of a ransom price paid for a lawful captive.

IV. THE REDEMPTION IS EFFECTED BY THE SETTING FORTH OF CHRIST A PROPITIATION (ver. 25). Christ is set forth —

1. In His Divinity, as all in all, and all-sufficient.

2. In His humanity, as one with us in nature, sympathy, and devotion to us.

3. In His spotless purity and innocence, as owing nothing to justice, and having a precious life to give.

4. In His propitiatory work, as being sacrificed, as accepted of God, as exalted where the redemption in Him affects all the Divine counsels and administrations. His propitiation does not appease any ill-will or thirst for vengeance in God, for none existed; it meets those requirements that justice dictated. Thus God is not made propitious in His feelings; but being already propitious in Himself, He can now be propitious in His Kingly actions.

V. THIS PROPITIATION IS EFFECTUAL TOWARDS AND UPON US, THROUGH FAITH IN CHRIST'S BLOOD.

1. That blood is the central thing in the propitiatory work; for the blood is the life, and in it that life was poured forth which was accepted in the place of our forfeited life.

2. That shed blood is the basis of the promise of pardon.

3. Faith that it has been shed, shed for me, and that it does acceptably propitiate, brings to me the pardon for which it provides.

VI. THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF THE PROPITIATION IS THE DECLARATION OF GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS.

1. To show while He pardons that He was in earnest in His condemnation of sin and sentence of death, and that He has unexceptionable grounds for pardoning sin.

2. To make such exhibition of His justice that sin may not seem to be encouraged or winked at.

3. To justify His seeming leniency in the long suffering and pardon shown towards sinners in the past, before Christ. To declare in all time present and to come, that while He justifies He is just.

(W. Griffiths.)

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KJV: Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

WEB: being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;