Justice as well as Mercy

If we owe somebody twenty dollars, the debt can be forgiven, but justice is not satisfied unless we completely pay the debt. I can remember that as a boy I often used to break the window of my next- door neighbor. He would sometimes say, “Forget it.” But somehow or other I never just wanted to be let off. So I would go to my piggy bank and take out my savings in order to pay for the broken window. We do not just want to be let offby God. We have a sense of our own dignity too, and we want in some way to pay the debt which we owe to God, though we are unable to pay it. However, the debt is to be paid, if justice as well as mercy are to be satisfied. That’s why God had to become man.