Romans 3:25

Romans 3:25
Have you ever broken an item belonging to someone else? You can apologize and be forgiven and in some cases provide a repair or substitute, but the broken item cannot be unbroken. When we break our relationship with God through sin, the damage encompasses much more than we realize. Our sin interferes with our ability to communicate with God, it damages who we are at the core of God's creation, it destroys our hope of spending eternity in joy with God, it confuses our relationships with other humans and with the rest of God's creation. As the consequences of our sin begins to unfold we may (if we're smart) wholeheartedly regret the sin and try to repair the damage. But as humans we are simply incapable of doing so. Christ as propitiation deals with some of that damage: not just forgiveness for our sin, but also repairing the broken relationship with God. We could repent a million times for each sin without even approaching the solution offered to us freely by Christ. Don't try on your own to repair or substitute for the damage caused by your sin. Only God can do that.