A Sacrifice to Satisfy Divine Justice

Man having sinned, the justice of God, as the supreme Lord, Ruler, and Governor over all, was violated thereby, and his law broken and disannulled. Every sin personally added to the first sin, which was the sin of our nature in Adam, does so far partake of the nature thereof as to have the same consequents with respect to the justice and law of God. In one or both these ways all men had sinned and come short of the glory of God, or were apostatized from the end of their creation, without power, hope, or possibility in themselves for the retrieval thereof. Neither was there any way for our recovery, unless God were propitiated, his justice atoned, and his law repaired or fulfilled. This now was that which in this eternal covenant the Son of God, as he was to be incarnate, did undertake to perform. And this could no otherwise be done but by the obedience and suffering of the nature that had offended; whereby greater glory should redound to God, in the exaltation of the glorious properties of his nature, through their eminent and peculiar exercise, than dishonour could be reflected on him or his rule by sin committed in that nature. This was done by the death and blood-shedding of the Son of God under the sentence and curse of the law.

To this, in this covenant, he voluntarily and of choice gave himself up to the will of God, to undergo the penalty due to sinners, according to the terms and for the ends of the law: for inasmuch as the sufferings of Christ were absolutely from his own will, the obedience of his will therein giving them virtue and efficacy; and seeing he did in them and by them interpose himself between God and sinners, to make atonement and reconciliation for them; and seeing that to this end he offered up himself to the will of God, to do and suffer whatever he required in justice and grace for the accomplishment of the ends of this compact and agreement; which having effected, he would persist to make effectual to those for whom he so undertook all the benefits of his undertaking, by a continual glorious interposition with God on their behalf; he so became the high priest of his people, and offered himself a sacrifice for them.

Adapted from The Priesthood of Christ: Its Necessity and Nature by John Owen