Couldn't God simply forgive?

The short answer Settled

Not without ceasing to be just. God set Christ forth as a propitiation, a sacrifice that turns away His wrath against sin. Christ's blood met what God's justice requires, so God can declare sinners righteous and still be just. The Father gave the Son because He loved, and the Son gave Himself.

Just, and the justifier

Paul says God set Christ forth "as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed" (Romans 3:25). A propitiation is a sacrifice that turns away God's wrath against sin.

Before Christ came, priests offered animal sacrifices for sin, "offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins" (Hebrews 10:11). So for a long time God was patient. He let sins go by without dealing with them in full. A judge who lets wrongs go and never deals with them is not just, and that left God's righteousness in question. The cross answers it. God did this "that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:26). To justify is to declare righteous. God declares the guilty righteous, and He is still just in doing it, because their sins have been borne.

Picture a judge whose own son stands before him, guilty. If he lets the boy go because he loves him, he is not merciful; he is corrupt. If he passes the full sentence, then steps down from the bench and pays it himself, he is both just and loving.

Saved from wrath

Paul draws out the result: "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him" (Romans 5:8-9). Wrath is what God's justice brings on sin. The blood is why it will not fall on those justified by it. That is what it means for God's justice to be satisfied.

Love, not reluctance

The propitiation is not God's anger overcoming His love. It is His love in action: "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). John says it of Christ Himself too: "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2:2).

And the One who bore the sins was not dragged to the cross. Jesus said of His life, "No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself," and, "This command I have received from My Father" (John 10:18). God set Him forth and God sent Him, and He laid down His life of Himself.

The usual objection

Many people believe a loving God could simply forgive sin, the way a person forgives a debt, with no payment at all. On that view, saying that Christ's blood had to satisfy God's justice makes God harsh. And punishing an innocent man in the place of the guilty would itself be unjust.

Scripture answers both halves. Forgiving with no payment would leave God's justice in question, and Romans 3 says the cross was given to show that He is just. And the One who died was not a stranger seized against his will. The Father sent Him in love, and the Son laid down His life of Himself. The judge did not punish a bystander. He gave His own Son, and the Son gave Himself.

The words behind it