J.I.Packer
The gospel tells us that our Creator has become our Redeemer. It announces that the Son of God has become man 'for us men and our salvation', and has died on the cross to save us from eternal judgment. The basic description of the saving death of Christ in the Bible is as a propitiation, that is as that which quenched God's wrath against us by obliterating our sins from His sight. God's wrath is His righteousness reacting against unrighteousness; it shows itself in retributive justice. But Jesus Christ has shielded us from the nightmare prospect of retributive justice by becoming our representative substitute, in obedience to His Father's will, and receiving the wages of our sin in our place. By this means justice has been done, for the sins of all that will ever be pardoned were judged and punished in the person of God the Son, and it is on this basis that pardoned is now offered to us offenders. Redeeming love and retributive justice join hands, so to speak, at Calvary, for there God showed Himself to be 'just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus'.
From chapter 18 of Knowing God
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