“. . . in our case we were powerless to do anything (Romans 5:6). We could not help ourselves; nor would we even want to do so, left to ourselves. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:7, ‘The sinful mind is hostile to God.’ In our natural state, not one of us would want to be reconciled to God.

The good news of the gospel, though, is that God Himself took the initiative by sending His Son to die in our place to satisfy His justice and absorb His wrath. . .

When Jesus satisfied the justice of God and propitiated the wrath of God, He did all that was required to remove the enmity of God toward us. By His death, He bridged the vast gulf of divine alienation between us and objectively restored us to a position of friendship and favor with God. But again we must keep in mind that it was God, the offended party, who sent His Son to reconcile us to Himself. As Paul wrote in Romans 5:10, ‘When we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son.’ . . .

We ourselves should have been on our faces before God, imploring Him to be reconciled to us. Instead, we see God reconciling us to Himself through the death of His Son, and then appealing to us to receive that reconciliation. What a pure act of grace and mercy on God’s part."

Jerry Bridges, The Gospel for Real Life, 93, 94, 95