Romans 3: 25,26 (NET) — “God publicly displayed him at his death as the mercy seat accessible through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness, because God in his forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed. This was also to demonstrate his righteousness in the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who lives because of Jesus’ faithfulness.”
God’s justice means God upholds the consequences of a decision. It is expressed in the law of sowing and reaping. His justice is never suspended or set aside anymore that one could say that God becomes other than Who He is.
All that Jesus endured in His suffering and death was “for us” or “on our behalf” only in the sense that we were “in Him” or “with Him”. On account of that union and His eternal nature, the death He endure with us in Him “satisfied” justice, that is, the full consequence of sin — death, eternal separation from God.
Through Him and in union with Him we did, if fact, experience the wages of sin in full — we died an eternal death. However, that oneness was so complete that, lo and behold, we also rose with Him. His indestructible life — the only spiritual life there is, now became our life — a life death could not hold on to, eternal life.
Hence, God is perfectly “just and the justifier of the one who lives because of Jesus’ faithfulness.”
