Consider a scenario: I spread false rumors that cost you your job and cause severe pain for your family. You want justice: but I have covered my tracks well, you will get no redress in this life. So you cry out for God to provide some measure of justice after death. And God chuckles and says, “Ah but it’s really all right, after all, for I forgive him.” If God forgives me that easily, we will have a hard time saying God believes in justice.

Now multiply this ten billion times. If God forgives the sins of the world “for nothing,” then God has failed to provide any measure of justice for all who have suffered from the sins of others. Then God is not just.

On the other hand, if God exacts the full measure of punishment we deserve, then we will all go to hell for our sins.

The question, as Paul phrases it (Romans 3:21-26), is this: can God be both just and justifier? That is, can God act to establish justice on behalf of all who have suffered because of the sins of others, and provide forgiveness for all those sinners?

Consider another scenario: two young men, best friends in college, who lose touch after graduation. One becomes a successful attorney and eventually a famous judge; the other drifts through various minor scrapes with the law, and now stands in his old friend’s courtroom, guilty of a serious offense, facing a very large fine.

Everyone supposes the judge will let his college buddy off easy: he will dismiss the charges, or at least greatly reduce the fine. But no: the judge imposes the maximum penalty under the law. Then he gets out his checkbook, and writes a check to cover the full amount.

The atonement is God saying, “I will not pretend you have done nothing wrong. The full penalty for your sins must be paid. But I will pay that penalty myself.”

The child abuse imagery is quite misleading. Jesus on the cross is not a six-year-old being beaten by a bad father. He is the second person of the Trinity, incarnate in our full humanity, God paying our fine, voluntarily taking on the full penalty of all the sins of all the world.