The apostle Paul explains this beautifully in his letter to the Romans. He writes: “It is as a free gift that they [sinners] are being declared righteous by his undeserved kindness through the release by the ransom paid by Christ Jesus. God set him forth as an offering for propitiation through faith in his blood. This was in order to exhibit his own righteousness, because he was forgiving the sins that occurred in the past while God was exercising forbearance; so as to exhibit his own righteousness in this present season, that he might be righteous even when declaring righteous the man that has faith in Jesus.”​—Romans 3:24-26.

6. (a) How were Jehovah’s standards of justice satisfied by Christ’s sacrifice, and what is Jehovah thus willing to do? (b) How can God credit righteousness to the account of a person having faith?

⁶ By his undeserved kindness, Jehovah accepted Jesus’ sacrifice in behalf of Adam’s descendants. (1 Peter 2:24) It was an equivalent, or corresponding, sacrifice seeing that, as a perfect man, Jesus bought back what the perfect man Adam lost. (See Exodus 21:23; 1 Timothy 2:6.) Justice having been satisfied, Jehovah is lovingly willing to “wipe out,” or ‘blot out,’ the sins charged against the account of “the man that has faith in Jesus.” (Isaiah 44:22; Acts 3:19)

By his sacrificial death, he provided the basis whereby Jehovah could credit righteousness to men and women of faith.​—Romans 10:4.

Jew and Gentile alike can be declared righteous only on the basis of faith in Christ’s ransom sacrifice. (Romans 3:22-24, 29, 30)