Saturday's Old Post: Christ's Active and Passive Obedience and Our Justification

Since I usually don’t have time for blogging on Saturday, I’ve decided to occasionally feature a favorite old post from the archives. This might be the post I like best of all the ones I’ve written in the seven years I’ve been blogging. It was originally posted in July of 2007.

Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness 
My beauty are, my glorious dress….
(Nicolaus Zinzindorf, 1700-1760,
translated by John Wesley, 1703-1791)

Recently, everywhere I look I see the mention of the active and passive obedience of Christ, and what (or whether) both aspects of Christ’s obedience contribute to our justification. The concepts of the active and passive obedience of Christ were included in the last three questions from the Westminster Larger Catechism that I’ve posted, although those particular terms weren’t used. But the ideas are there, with the catechism clearly teaching that both the active and passive obedience of Christ are necessary for the justification of sinners. And one of the books I read and reviewed recently, By Faith Alone, dealt a bit with the active and passive obedience of Christ and whether both are necessary grounds for our justification. So I’ve been thinking about the two kinds of obedience and what they contributed to our justification, and if I’m thinking about it, you know I’m going to write about it.

Passive Obedience
Christ’s passive obedience refers to his bearing the curse of the law for us in his death on the cross. The word passive as used here does not mean that Christ’s sacrificial death was simply something done to him, and that he played no active role in it. (We know that’s not the case, for Jesus tells us clearly in John 10:18 that he laid down his life of his own accord and authority, making him an active participant in his own death.) Rather, the term passive in passive obedience comes to us from the Latin obedentia passiva, in which passiva refers to Christ’s suffering. You’ve seen the pass root used like this elsewhere, as in the term passion used to refer to refer to Christ’s suffering and death.

Christ’s passive obedience—his obedience in bearing the curse of the law for us—is the basis upon which our sins are forgiven. His death was an atoning death, and he was our substitute. Our sins were placed upon Jesus Christ on the cross and he endured the penalty for our sin in our place. This payment of our penalty through Christ’s suffering and death on our behalf is the reason we can be pardoned.

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Round the Sphere Again: Apologetics

Answering Objections
A collection of Common Objections to Christianity from Skeptics answered by Steve Hays. Like, for instance,

How can it be just to send people to hell when they have never had the opportunity to believe in Jesus?

No one goes to hell for disbelieving in Jesus. Disbelief is an aggravating factor. But the hellbound are already lost. Refusing the gospel isn’t what renders them damnable.

In Christian theology, nobody can be saved unless he knows and accepts the gospel. This doesn’t mean nobody can be damned unless he knows and rejects the gospel. Rather, to be lost is the default condition of sinners. To be lost is not a result of spurning the gospel. To the contrary, it’s because sinners are lost in the first place that they desperately need to be saved.

From Monergism.com.

Presuppositional Apologetics
Listen to Dustin Segers and Sye Ten Bruggencate engage two atheists using presuppositional apologetics. The whole thing is 3 hours long, but you’ll get the idea if you listen to the first hour or so. 

The Cross of Christ: Self-Understanding and Self-Giving

This week’s reading from John Stott’s The Cross of Christ for Reading Classics Together at Challies.com is Chapter 11, Self-Understanding and Sefl-Giving. Instead of summarizing the whole chapter, I’ll just highlight a few points from it.

The self-understanding Stott writes of is not self-absorption, but a means to self-giving. The community of the cross will be “marked by sacrifice, service and suffering’ which works itself out in the home, the church, and the world.

The Christian Home
The Christian home should be marked by the self-giving love of the cross, but, says Stott, it is husbands who are particularly singled out. “[T]hey are to love their wives with the love which Christ has for his bride the church.” If our homes were distinguished by self-giving love Christian homes would be be more fulfilling and more solid.

The Church
Those in the church are to love one another.

We have only to remember that our fellow Christian is a “brother [or sister] for whom Christ died,” and we will never disregard, but always seek to serve, their truest and highest welfare. To sin against them would be to sin against Christ.

The World
Christ sends us out into the world.

Mission arises from the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. His birth, by which he identified himself with our humanity, calls us to a similar costly identification with people. His death reminds us that suffering is the key to church growth, since it is the seed that dies which multiplies. And his resurrection gave him the universal lordship that enabled him both to claim that “all authority” was now his and to send his church to disciple the nations.

Next up is chapter 12, Loving Our Enemies.