This proves that
@JonC never troubles to read posts, or, if he does, either does not understand them or deliberately misconstrues them.
Sin must be punished, but God, in His mercy, has found a way to do so and yet be merciful to sinners.
'Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed.' And the way they do that is by Penal Substitution.
I am heartily sick of these discussions, which have been going on for over ten years. Here is something I posted on the previous thread (or was it the previous previous thread?) which does not appear to have been understood:
'Now we know that whatever the law says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become guilty before God.'
OK, so what does the law say?
Numbers 15:27-28.
'And if a person sins unintentionally, then he shall bring a female goat in its first year as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for the person who sins unintentionally, when he sins unintentionally before the LORD, to make atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him.'
So someone who sins unintentionally acknowledged his sin by bring a sacrifice, thereby also acknowledging that
'without the shedding of blood there is no remission' (Heb. 9:22). And the priest would offer the sacrifice and the sinner would be forgiven.
But how about someone who sins intentionally or with a high hand?
Numbers 15:30-31.
'But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach upon the LORD, and he shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the LORD, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him.'
It doesn't sound too good for us, does it? Yet a man like David, who had committed sins for which the law gave no atonement, could go directly to God, without the mediation of a priest and receive forgiveness, as we see in Psalm 51. Yet he too understood the need for atonement:
'Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow' (v.7). Hyssop, of course is a plant, and a bunch of it was used to daub the doorposts of the Israelites on the day of the Passover so that God would pass over them (Exodus 12:22-23). So David was pleading to be washed in the blood of the Lamb. Being a prophet, he foresaw the Lamb of God who would suffer and die to take away the sin of the world, and rise again to become KIng of heaven and our great High Priest (Acts 2:22-36).
So of course God forgives, but in order to be both
'just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus,' the Lord Jesus had to make propitiation for our sins on the cross. So great is this salvation that God has wrought in Christ, and so far superior is it to that of the old covenant, that it embraces even those who have sinned presumptuously.
'..... And by Him, everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses'