Oh, but wait. Pastor Myers isn’t questioning the benefits of the active obedience of Christ for sinnners. He’s only defending his Christian liberty. So maybe you can explain what all the fuss is about. Or should I snicker about the naivete of Machen’s dying words?

Perhaps you could demonstrate where Pastor Meyers has said there is hope apart from the active obedience of Christ? Jeff is not questioning the necessity of the active obedience of Christ for salvation, he is questioning one answer given to the manner in which the active obedience of Christ is necessary for salvation and how it is that we sinners benefit from it.

I still don’t think Rollock supports your point since he uses the word merit and makes the case that Christ’s active obedience is what makes his passion efficacious in placating God’s wrath and in “purchasing God’s favor.” For him, Christ’s death does both, and the only way it does so is by Christ’s perfect life. In other words, Rollock is still working within the categories that the language of active and passive obedience work signify.

I also wonder if you would have sent a telegram to correct Machen on his death bed. He wrote to Murray, “the active obedience of Christ, no hope without it.” Would you say, “the active obedience of Christ, plenty of hope without it”?

What I deny is that the active obedience of Christ is imputed to the Christian as if Jesus merited something from God for us. What I repudiate is the idea that Jesus moral achievements are somehow transfered to us. I find nothing in the Scripture to indicate any such thing. Nothing.

I rolled out the Rollock quote because the whole point of his argument was to deny that Jesus’ active obedience merited something for us. That there are two separate “things” that are imputed to us in justification. There’s no other way to read this. Yeah, he uses the word merit, but EXCLUSIVELY to refer to the satisfaction rendered by means of Christ’s death. I don’t really have a problem with that, even though the Bible does not use that language. What I do have a problem with is speaking of the works of Christ during his life in such a way that he is thought to have racked up points to earn God’s favor according to some fictional, still-in-force-after-the-fall, strict-justice covenant of works, and that these merits are then transferred to Christians.

Nobody here ever said that “the passive obedience of Christ is sufficient.” Of course, Jesus needed to be born, live sinlessly, teach flawlessly, etc. in order to be a well-pleasing sacrifice to God. Hurray for Jesus’ “active obedience.” Hurray for his sinless life. But he wasn’t racking up points to satisfy God’s justice and transfer these earned credits to us.

I don’t think marriage helps explains the notion. Yes, the husband and bride are united, but not to become one body. They are still two bodies.

I don’t mean to be so literal, but again, the appeal to union is not nearly as clarifying as some think it is. Which is why I keep asking about how a sinner can be united to a righteous one, whether by being made one body or by being married? The Bible forbids mixed marriages.

Anyway, why do you resist active obedience? Please don’t say because the Bible and the confession don’t say it. What theological, pastoral, liturgical gain do you get from denying active obedience. My hunch is that it props up the Sheperd idea of obedient faith, or in other words, it fights anti-nominianism so that the person with faith needs to be faithful to be saved.

The model for initial union is carried forward in communion. We are put into Christ, and we eat his flesh and his word and drink his blood as our ongoing nourishment. The Spirit enables our initial union and the Spirit enables our ongoing feeding.

I want to resist what seems to be a kind of scale of being assumption in your objection about a sinner’s being in a close relationship with God. God is in a close “relationship” with every human, even those in hell. And Jesus ate with all manner of sinners on earth, had a momma who was a sinner, friends like John and Peter, etc. Jesus is friend to sinners; he becomes our propitiation as we are in him. How would a sinner get Christ’s righteousness outside of Christ anyway?

As for a detailed metaphysical explanation of the nature of the link between believers and Christ, we don’t have all the information we need. I do know:

1. The Spirit is the bond (”The Spirit of Christ”)
2. It does not make us selfsame with the being of God anymore than the Wife becomes the Husband in marriage.
3. It is a living union because the Spirit is living
4. It is not only a spreadsheet union - a bookkeeping union. But even if it were “only” social, it would still be metaphysical if we are inherently relational beings - there is no “mere association” for humans made in the image of a social God.

How can this possibly be denied by men who hold forth as keepers of the Reformed tradition? A second year seminary student can discover that this is the case after a few hours in a good theological library.

Consider this quotation from the well-known Scottish Reformed theologian Robert Rollock (d. 1588), the first Principal of the University of Edinburgh:

“It may be demanded, Had it not been sufficient for our good, and to the end he might redeem us, if he had only lived well and holily, and not also so to have suffered death for us? I answer, it had not sufficed. For all his most holy and righteous works had not satisfied the justice and wrath of God for our sins, nor merited the mercy of God, reconciliation, righteousness, and life eternal for us. The reason is, for that the justice of God did require for our breach of God’s covenant, that we should be punished with death eternal, according to the condition denounced and annexed to the promise of that covenant. Therefore, no good works of our own, or of any mediator for us, after the breach of that covenant of works, could have satisfied the justice of God, which of necessity after a sort required the punishment and death of the offender, or certainly of some mediator in his stead. If, then, all the good and holy works of the Mediator could not satisfy that wrath and justice of God for sin, it is clear they could not merit any new grace or mercy of God for us.

But you will say, that the good and holy works of Christ our Mediator have wrought some part at least of that satisfaction, whereby God’s justice was appeased for us, and some part of that merit whereby God’s favour was purchased for us? I answer, these works did serve properly for no part of satisfaction or merit for us: for that, to speak properly, the death of Christ and his passion only did satisfy God’s justice, and merited his mercy for us.

If any will yet farther demand, May we not divide the satisfaction and merit of Christ into his doings and sufferings, that we may speak on this manner, Christ by his death and passion hath satisfied God’s justice, and by his good and holy works he hath merited God’s mercy for us, that so satisfaction may be ascribed to his death, and merit to his works; that the righteousness wherewith we are justified before God may be partly the satisfaction which Christ performed by his death for us, partly the merits which he obtained by his works for us? I answer; to speak properly, the satisfaction and merit which is by the passion of Christ only, both was and is our righteousness, or the satisfactory and meritorious death of Christ, or the satisfaction which was by Christ’s death, or the merit of his death, or the obedience of Christ, as being obedient to his Father unto the death, the death also of the cross, to be short, that justice of Christ which he obtained when in his passion he satisfied his Father’s wrath- this is our righteousness. For we may say, that either the death of Christ, or his satisfaction, or his merit, or his obedience, or his righteousness, is imputed unto us for righteousness. For all these are taken for one and the same thing.

But here it may be replied, If the works of Christ cannot properly procure for us any satisfaction nor merit, nor any part of satisfaction or merit, then it may be demanded, What hath been, and what is the use of Christ’s works, or of his active obedience, or of
the obedience of his life? I answer, that the holiness of the person of Christ, and of his natures, divine and human, and of his works, is the very ground or foundation of the satisfaction and merit which we have in the passion of Christ. That is, the excellency and worthiness of that person and of his works did cause that his passion was both satisfactory and meritorious: for if this person which suffered had not been so holy and excellent, as also his life so pure and godly, it is most certain that his passion could neither have satisfied God’s wrath nor merited mercy for us. For which cause the Apostle, (Heb. vii. 26,) speaking of this ground of his meritorious passion of Christ, saith that such an high priest it became us to have, which is holy, blameless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.”

From A Treatise of God’s Effectual Calling, pp. 53-55 in The Select Works
of Robert Rollock, Vol. 1 (Woodrow Society 1849)

Whether you agree with Rollock or even care about the cogency of his argument the point is that he was free as a Reformed theologian hold to the points he makes here:

1) The active obedience of Christ does not acquire merit that is somehow transferred or imputed to us.
2) To speak of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, merit, or obedience is the same as saying the imputation of his passive obedience, that is his act of sacrifice on the cross.
C) Christ’s active obedience (his life) serves as the ground of the passive obedience (his death).
D) The passion of Christ (his death/ passive obedience) is the satisfaction for sins and meritorious ground for our justification.

Fact is, questions of imputation don’t have anything to do with “FV” one way or another. Here is the statement some of us finally, in desperation, put out about what we think, from the Joint FV Statement: (I may add, re: the ongoing conversation, that I wish we had put “Jesus” for “Christ” for the most part.)

Union with Christ and Imputation

We affirm Christ is all in all for us, and that His perfect sinless life, His suffering on the cross, and His glorious resurrection are all credited to us. Christ is the new Adam, obeying God where the first Adam did not obey God. And Christ as the new Israel was baptized as the old Israel was, was tempted for 40 days as Israel was for 40 years, and as the greater Joshua He conquered the land of Canaan in the course of His ministry. This means that through Jesus, on our behalf, Israel has finally obeyed God and has been
accepted by Him. We affirm not only that Christ is our full obedience, but also that through our union with Him we partake of the benefits of His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement at the right hand of God the Father.

We deny that faithfulness to the gospel message requires any par ticular doctrinal formulation of the “imputation of the active obedience of Christ.” What matters is that we confess that our salvation is all of Christ, and not from us.