As for Anthony’s questions, sorry but I need some forensic. I am a sinner and so stand condemned by God’s law. I have doubts about how a just God could adopt a sinner as a son even. So I need to have my account free and clear. Funny how that also works to clear one’s conscience. I know of nothing more pastoral than Machen’s understanding of justification. And I find the appeal to union with Christ to obscure what is so critical — my need to be perfect if I am going to reach a state of blessedness.

Thanks so far to those who have responded.

I am one who is happy with the classic statement of this. But as Boersma points out in his Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross, this is simply the Reformed formulation of something that many Christians have seen, and have talked about differently. I recognize the same truth in Irenaeus. And everyone who sees that Christ’s life was a recapitulation of Israel’s history, and in Him, Israel finally did it right, and the righteousness of that accomplishment is ours through faith, has the substance of the thing.

When I die, if God asks, “Why should I let you into my heaven?” I’ll bow and be silent. Then I’ll hear a voice,
“Father, he’s mine.”

This is closer to reality than a dialogue with the Law of God. Notice the abstraction just there! How about a dialogue with God and Jesus in heaven?

You ask what Machen has missed. He’s missed that Jesus as the Great High Priest, the new Melchizedek, is living. Do you think Jesus talks with his Father in terms of Merit: “Father, YOU OWE ME!”

Rather, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.” -Joh 17:10 And further,
“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17).

He liveth ever to make intercession for us. He stands now at the Right hand of the father, offering his one sacrifice for sin, which is all sufficient.

Machen’s story is one way of getting at something which needs to be said. But,how much does it resonate with people, compare to what the Bible actually says. The Bible meets our judicial/forensic need for cleansing with the Cross/resurrection based justification. But, it does not leave us there. It makes us Sons, by both adoption (legal and familial status) and regeneration (the power to live by the Spirit). What more do we need?

If you live in a universe where law is all consuming and merit is your big issue, if you feel unworthy and condemned, yes, you can hash it through this way. But, its a lot more direct to go to Jesus as your brother and God as your father - not ignoring the need for cleansing, but taking what God offers. That’s the direct route to assurance - look at Jesus. That’s what the Father does. But he also sees us, for the Father Himself Loves you.

Do you believe that?

I resend it becaue it seems everything I send takes 3 days to post, and this is still the same discussion…

Dr. Hart:

While I have preached and supported I-AOC in the past, and am still not against it, I did a long post (buried back in one of the Latitude threads) from lots of Bible passages that gave two or three issues about which I wonder with respect to the Imputation of the Active Obedience:

1. Is there not something odd about going back to the pre-resurrection righteous acts of Christ for something to impute to post resurrection Christians (see: 2 Cor. 5:16, Knowing Christ after the Flesh)

2. In Hebrews there are a number of passages that refer to the present ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, especially in his priestly role as the new Melchizedek. It contrasts the “days of his flesh” with him “living ever to make intercession for us.”

3. If there is righteousness granted to believers (imputed) based upon his ONE ACT of OBEDIENCE, which seems to reference the Cross, then do we need his pre-crucifixion righteousness and merits to be imputed to us in some distinct fashion?

4. I also went through each instance of the Greek word for imputation, and found nothing that would imply the imputation of the pre-resurrection/pre-crucifixion righteous acts of Jesus, OTHER THAN his piety being the basis upon which God granted him what he requested in his prayers (this part was all in Hebrews). So, in one sense, Christ’s own piety and obedience was a basis upon which God granted HIS prayers. If there is any imputation there it is to Jesus himself(?). In looking through the instances of logizomai, I stumbled upon 2 Cor. 5:16, in the context of us being New Creation, in Jesus, and wondered at the statement, that some people who knew christ ‘after the flesh’ were now to know him thus no longer. Now, if that has any connection to the Hebrews usage of “in the days of his flesh” - wouldn’t this imply that what we get from Jesus by way of imputation is:

(A) the effect(s) of his one act of Righteousness (which appears not to be his whole life’s righteousness, but the obedience of/unto the cross)-

Rom 5:16-19 “And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” Not that the pre-cross righteousness of Christ is insignificant - it is pre-requisite to his ‘one act’ of obedience. He gained maturity through what he suffered, up to and through the Cross.

(B) His present vindication - Rom 4:25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and *raised* for our justification.

(C) His on-going priestly intercession.

(D) Our union with him, not only covenantally in ‘organic’ terms by way of the indewlling of the Spirit, but also forensically: Rom 6:9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

(E) Our Death to the Law (of Sin and Death), even the Covenant of Works inso far as it was re-published in the Mosaic law - Rom 7:4 “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” Note here that, of course, the Active Obedience of Christ is, in effect, ‘imputed’ to us, in that through his active obedience, His death could fulfill the Law’s penalty on our behalf. But, the continual focus of the Epistles is upon his Crucifixion as the basis of our justification, and not directly upon his law keeping. Of course, Rom. 7 is notoriously disputed. But, I note that “living in the flesh” and beng bound by “the old way of the written code” not only may apply to us / or to Paul in some pre-conversion way, but applies to Jesus living under the law (though as the immaculate second Adam - though the first Adam was immaculate until he sinned!). Whatever Rom 7 is really about, the power to change from under the law and in the flesh to alive and in the Spirit, comes from Christ’s law fulfillment and his subsstituionary sacrifice for us.

Of course, this is no exhaustive list, just some ideas that spring to mind.

So, what I don’t really understand is what do you brothers mean when you speak of the imputation of the Active Obedience of Jesus Christ? Even if you spell it out in terms of Merit, there does not appear to be any direct imputation of Christ’s pre-cross actions to his post-resurrection disciples (or to Abraham or David, who are the given examples of imputation in Romans 4).

Wondering in Sewickley…

My answer to Machen would be my essay in *The Federal Vision.* In terms of the dialogue, God’s second question would be more like this, “Well, then, did you remain faithful as a priest and mature to the point of undergoing deepsleep and resurrection at the Tree of Knowledge, thereby moving into the new covenant royal phase of existence?” And the answer would be, “No, but Jesus did, and in union with Him I have been given deepsleep and resurrection at the Tree of Knowledge and now rule with Him.”

Remember that Jesus died twice on the cross. First suffering separation from God for three hours to pay for the sins of the world. Then willingly sending forth His Spirit, His first kingly act, which had the immediate effect of converting the representative of Rome who said, “Surely this man was the King, the son-of-God.”

I believe I can marshall about 100 passages in the Bible to show that this is the paradigm. But the conversation is over, for me anyway.

Now, if what I wrote above falls into what you chaps understand by IAO, then fine, I agree with it. But I’m not sure that it’s a matter of “imputation.” I suspect it’s just union with the glorified Jesus.

But that’s just MY take, Darryl.