justified

RC Sproul in What is Baptism?:

When God justifies us, He declares us just by the remission of sins. Our justification is rooted and grounded in the ministry of Christ, who took our sins upon Himself and satisfied the demands of God's justice through His atoning work. On the one hand, Jesus' death on the cross satisfied the justice of the Father. On the other hand, like the Old Testament scapegoat, to which the sins of the people were ceremonially transferred and which was then sent away into the darkness outside the camp (Lev. 16), Christ became our sin-bearer, our scapegoat, who removed our sins from us to the uttermost. So when baptism is administered, the promise of God to remit our sins and to remove them from us as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12) is signified.