[BBC List] obedience for you

Fri Jun 8 10:43:38 EAST 2007

The Sufficiency of Christ's Obedience in His Life and Death

By John Piper May 15, 2007 

When we teach that our right standing with God is attained through the
imputation of Christ’s obedience to our account (Romans 5:19; 2 Corinthians
5:21; Romans 4:6, 11; 10:3), does this imply that the work of Christ on the
cross—his final suffering and death—is insufficient for our justification? 

*	Romans 3:24-25: “[They] are justified by his grace as a gift,
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a
propitiation by his blood.”
*	Romans 4:25: “[He] was delivered up for our trespasses and raised
for our justification.”
*	Romans 5:9: “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his
blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”
*	Galatians 2:21: “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if
righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”

To see the answer, we might ask a similar question concerning the
forgiveness of sins. In other words, let us ask: Does the insistence upon
Jesus’ sinless life imply that the work of Christ as the spotless Lamb of
God on the cross is insufficient for the canceling of the debt of our sins?
Our sins being cancelled and forgiven is connected most directly to the
death of Christ. For example: 

*	Colossians 2:13: “[He forgave] by canceling the record of debt that
stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to
the cross.”
*	1 Corinthians 15:3: “I delivered to you as of first importance what
I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the
Scriptures.”
*	Isaiah 53:5: “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed
for our iniquities.”
*	1 Peter 2:24: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.”
*	Revelation 1:5: “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins
by his blood.”
*	1 John 1:7: “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

Is the death of Jesus sufficient to cleanse us from all our sins? Yes, but
only as the climax of a sinless life. The book of Hebrews is most explicit
about the necessity of the Son of God being perfect and without sin so that
he can bear our sins once for all. 

*	Hebrews 4:15: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to
sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been
tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
*	Hebrews 7:27-28: “He has no need, like those high priests, to offer
sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people,
since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. For the law
appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath,
which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect
forever.”
*	Hebrews 2:10: “It was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all
things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of
their salvation perfect through suffering.”
*	Hebrews 5:9: “And being made perfect, he became the source of
eternal salvation to all who obey him.”

So the death of the Son of God is sufficient to cover all our sins as the
climax of a sinless life. This is no disparagement to the cross. It is not
adding to the cross. The New Testament writers saw the death of Christ as
the climax of his life. His whole life was designed to bring him to the
cross (Mark 10:45; John 12:27; Hebrews 2:14). That is why he was born, and
why he lived. To speak of the saving effect of his death was therefore to
speak of his death as the sum and climax of his sinless life. 

Similarly, the final obedience of Christ in his death is sufficient to
justify his people as the climax of a sinless life. It is not likely that
the apostles thought of Jesus’ obedience on the cross as separate from his
obedience leading to the cross. Where would one draw the line between his
life of sinless obedience and the final acts of obedience? Any line would be
artificial. Do we draw it at the point where he submitted to the piercing of
his hands? Or at the point when he submitted to his arrest in the garden? Or
at the point where he endured Judas’ departure from the supper? Or at the
point where he planned his final entry to Jerusalem? Or at the point where
he “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51)? Or at the point of his
baptism where he said, “It is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness”
(Matthew 3:15)? 

It is more likely that when Paul spoke of Jesus’ obedience as the cause of
our justification he meant not merely the final acts of obedience on the
cross, but rather the cross as the climax of his obedient life. This seems
to be the way Paul is thinking in Philippians 2:7-8: “He emptied himself . .
. being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he
humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a
cross.” Notice the sequence of thought: He became a human. That is, he was
found in human form. > He humbled himself. > The way he humbled himself was
by becoming obedient. > This obedience was so complete that it willingly
embraced death. > Even death in the most painful and shameful way—on a
cross. 

What this text shows is that between “being born in the likeness of men” at
one end of his life and “even death on a cross” at the other end of his life
was a life of self-humbling obedience. The fact that it came to its climax
on the cross in the most terrible and glorious way is probably what causes
Paul to speak of the cross as the sum and climax of all his obedience. But
it is very unlikely that Paul would have separated the obedience of the
final hours from the obedience that designed, planned, pursued, and embraced
those final hours. 

Thus when Paul says in Romans 5:18, “One act of righteousness (di’ henos
dikaiōmatos) leads to justification and life,” and when he says in Romans
5:19, “By the one man’s obedience the many will be appointed righteous,”
there is little reason to think he meant to separate the final obedience of
Jesus from the total obedience of Jesus. In Adam’s case, it only took one
sin to completely fail. In Christ’s case, it took an entire life to
completely succeed. That is how their disobedience and obedience correspond
to each other. 

Thus when Paul compares the “one trespass” of Adam to Christ’s “one act of
righteousness” (Romans 5:18), there is no single act in Christ’s life that
corresponds to the eating of the forbidden fruit. Rather, his whole life of
obedience was necessary so that he would not be a second failing Adam. One
single sin would have put him in the category of a failing Adam. But it took
one entire life of obedience to be a successful second Adam. That this
complete life of obedience came to climax in the freely embraced death of
Christ made such an overwhelming impression on his followers that they
looked upon the “cross” or the “death” as the climax and sum of his
obedience, but not separate from his cross-pursuing life. 

So back to our initial question: “Does the doctrine of the imputation of
Christ’s righteousness imply that the cross is insufficient for our right
standing with God?" The answer is no. Just as the perfectly obedient life of
Christ is essential to the death of Christ as a covering for our sin, so the
perfectly obedient life of Christ is essential to the death of Christ as the
supreme act of obedience by which we are appointed righteous in him. The
death of Christ is sufficient for covering our sins as the climax of a
sinless life. And the death of Christ is sufficient for our justification as
the climax of a sinless life. 

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© Desiring God

Thanks.

Charis,

Mike Abendroth

 <http://www.bbcchurch.org> www.bbcchurch.org

Ephesians 3:21 auvtw/| h` do,xa evn th/| evkklhsi,a| 

2 Tim 1:2b  "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord."

"Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician ... Faith is
not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on
Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us;
that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for
our sins.  It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a
sin-bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can
pay no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It
brings us to the cross, … but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.
Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor
the sacrifice; … Our faith does not divide the work of salvation between
itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone saves,
and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing
virtue. It owns the fulness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the work
done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labours and enter
into rest. Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It comes to see
the glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion
without a misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the “It is finished!”
of the Sin-bearer, and says, “Amen.”   

NOT FAITH, BUT CHRIST 

by Horatius Bonar 
(1808-1889) 

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