Step 4: God

God is merciful, and therefore doesn’t want to punish us.

This is because  “ . . . God is love” (1 John 4:8). And He says, “ . . . I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3).

But the same Bible which tells us that God loves us, also tells us that God is just and therefore must punish sin. He says “. . . (I) will by no means clear the guilty . . .” (Exodus 34:7). And “. . . the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4).

We have a problem. God solved this problem for us in the Person of Jesus Christ.