“The work of Christ was to bring in a perfect righteousness. For whom, think you?  For those who had a righteousness? That were a superfluity. Why should he weave a garment for those who were already clothed in scarlet and fine linen?  He had, moreover, to shed his blood. For whom his blood? Wherefore the agony in the garden? Wherefore the cry upon the cross? For the perfect? Surely not, beloved. What need had they of an atonement? Verily, brethren, the fact that Jesus Christ bled for sin upon the cross bears, on its very surface, evidence that he came into the world to save sinners. And then look at God’s end in the whole work. It was to glorify himself, but how could God be glorified by washing spotless souls, and by bringing to everlasting glory by grace those who could have entered heaven by merit? Inasmuch as the plan and design both  aim at laying the greatness of human nature in the dust, and exalting God,  and making his love and his mercy to be magnified, it is implied as a matter  of necessity, that it came to deal with undeserving, ill-deserving sinners,  or else that end and aim never could be accomplished.”

C.H. Spurgeon, “The Friend of Sinners,” June 29, 1862.