Christ's Obedience and the Salvation of the Ungodly

Here is a question for you. What does God in His holiness require as the cause or basis of His forgiveness of sinners? Is it a life of perfect obedience or faith in Jesus Christ? Yes, this is a trick question but an important one. When I first had this question put to me my immediate response was “faith in Jesus Christ.” Now faith in Christ is necessary if one is to receive forgiveness of sins but faith is never presented in Scripture as the cause or the basis of God forgiving us. Faith is the means by which we humbly embrace the person of Jesus Christ, who in the Gospel is presented to us as the savior of sinners. Rather, the reason or cause that God forgives sinners is that a life of perfect obedience has been secured for us by Jesus Christ. It is the entire life of Jesus Christ culminating in his death that comprises the obedience necessary for God in His holiness to forgive and to justify sinners. Without Christ’s obedient life and death there would be no salvation from the guilt, enslaving power of sin and the wrath of God. Yet, the good news is that Christ by his life of obedience has most certainly laid the perfect and unshakable foundation on which God can in justice and mercy extend forgiveness to us. Let’s go a bit deeper.

We often, and rightly so, see that Christ accomplished salvation by his death on the cross. Yet there is a sense in which his death on the cross was the pinnacle of his saving work. In reality, Christ accomplished salvation through his obedience. That is right. It was by the obedience of the Son of God incarnate that this glorious and gracious work of salvation was secured. 

First, the Son's obedience is his willing and loving submission to the mission that the Father gave to him. In this sense, the Son is the ultimate missionary sent from the Father to rescue sinners. He came not to do his will but the will of the Father who sent him (John 4:34; 6:38; 14:31).

Second, the Son's obedience as the incarnate God-man to his Father's mission of saving sinners was through his obedience to the law of God. He who gave the law completely submitted to the Law. He did this in two ways: 1. He obeyed the law's commands, (Gal. 4:5; Matt. 5:17; Rom. 5:19; Heb. 2:10 and 5:8) 2. He endured the law's penalty (Phil. 2:8; Matt. 26:39; John 10:17-18; Gal. 3:13).

In obeying the commands of the law he secured a perfect life of obedience. He did this not for himself but for all those who would come to believe in him and it is for these that he prayed (17:20-21 and 20:29). So in obeying the commandments of the law perfectly he lived the life you could not live and secured a positive record of righteousness for all who would trust in Him. Yet he also obeyed in offering his life up to death to satisfy the demands of the law's penalty or its curse. In doing so he died the death that you deserve and secured the gift of forgiveness of all your sins. So by his obedience, Christ accomplished salvation from sin and its horrible effects for his people.

Sin brings to our lives guilt, Divine judgment or wrath, alienation from God and captivity or bondage. While Christ’s entire life of obedience was necessary to save us from sin and its effects, his rescue of us was particularly accomplished by his death on the cross. The Bible uses four key ideas when it sets before us how his death as obedience is that which secures the rescue or salvation of his people. Much of the following I have taken from John Murray’s classic work Redemption Accomplished and Applied.

Christ’s death was a SACRIFICE that has the guilt of our sin in view.

His death on the cross is God’s gracious way of dealing with the guilt of our sin. Guilt is a legal reality. To be guilty is to deserve the penal consequences of the law as one who has broken the law. The Law demands death for guilt means that one deserves condemnation. Christ’s death was a substitutionary penal death in that He was paying the penalty for the transgressions of others and therein offered perfect satisfaction to Divine justice so that the guilt of sin might be taken away.(Heb. 9:26; 10:16-18; Is. 53:4-6, 10-12; 1 Peter 2:23-25) 

Christ’s death was a PROPITIATION that has the just wrath of God against sin in view. 

Christ's death on the cross was God's gracious way of satisfying the demands of His just wrath. The word that is used in the Bible to describe this aspect of Christ's death is propitiation. To propitiate is to appease, satisfy, or alleviate to enable one to be conciliatory. We must not see this as Christ winning over the favor and forgiveness of a reluctant Father. The propitiation that Christ secured did not make God willing to extend pardon to sinners but rather made it consistent with his character and government now to do so. Rather it is the love of God the Father that was the moving cause of Christ securing this propitiation. What love this is! God was willing to do what was necessary to remain consistent with his righteous nature to forgive sins and accept sinners and this cost him the humiliation and death of his obedient Son.(Rom. 3:25-26; Heb. 2:17; 1 Jo. 2:2 and 4:10). 

Christ’s death was a RECONCILIATION that has the alienation of God due to our sin in view.

Reconciliation has been accomplished. Indeed, God was working in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The phrase "reconciling...to himself" points to the fact that God was the offended party. He does not need to be reconciled to us rather we need to be reconciled to him because our sin is an affront to his holiness and majesty. Our sin has put us in the category of being God's enemies. So to be reconciled to God is to have our sin, which is the cause of this enmity on God's holy part removed, and to be restored to Him in peace. Another way of stating this is that God does not need for us to forgive him. Yet we have a huge need for him to forgive us. So we are reconciled to him not him to us (2 Cor. 5:18-20; Rom. 5:6-11; Eph. 2:16; Col. 1:21). 

The death of Christ was REDEMPTION that has our bondage to captivity in view.

The idea of redemption is that of deliverance that is secured by a cost or price. Our sin results in a multiform kind of bondage. We are not truly free. Jesus said: "If the Son sets you free you will be free indeed." John 8:36

The price or cost paid to deliver us from the captivity sin carries with it over our lives was the sacrificial death of Christ. In doing this he secured redemption for his people. Matt. 20:29

Christ by his death redeemed his people from the curse of the Law (Gal. 3:10-13).

Christ redeemed his people from the obligation to keep the ceremonial law (Gal. 4:4-5; 325-26). 

Christ by his death redeemed his people from the works of the law. He redeemed us from the necessity of keeping the law as a condition of justification with God. We do not have to keep the law to secure a righteous record before God (Gal. 2:21; Rom. 3:20-24).

Christ by his death redeemed his people from sin. By his death as a ransom price paid he redeemed us from the guilt of sin. Certainly, if Christ by his sacrifice satisfied the justice of God and thus paid the penalty of our sin, his sacrifice has freed us or redeemed us from the guilt of sin. This is closely connected with his freeing us from the necessity of keeping the law to secure acceptance with God. This comes to us in the gift of forgiveness of our sins (the removal of our guilt) and justification by faith (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:15)

By Christ's death as a ransom paid he delivers his people from the power of sin. In Christ, we have been set free from the dominion or kingdom of sin. When Christ died on the cross there is a sense in which all those he represented died with him. In so doing he freed his people from the enslaving power of sin.(1 Pet. 2:24; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; 1 Pet. 1:18-19; Tit. 2:14) 

 By Christ's death as a ransom paid he delivers his people from captivity to the devil. This did not happen by Christ paying a ransom price to the devil. God owed the devil nothing. Rather Christ's death broke the hold that death and the devil had on the human race (John 12:31; Col. 2:14-15; 1Joh. 3:8; Heb. 2:14-15).At the cross God indeed judges the world and as such the devil loses his hold on the world. He still roams about to tempt and accuse believers and to blind the lost but his power over those who flee to Christ trusting in his obedient life and death has been broken. We are now engaged in conflict against him and are no longer subjects of his rule for Christ by the ransom price he paid to satisfy divine justice redeemed us from the dark powers of the devil.

Christ's obedience accomplished salvation. There is something definitive about His saving work. He did more than make salvation possible. By his obedient life and obedient death, he made a definite sacrifice for sinners and paid the penalty in full and thereby satisfied Divine justice. In doing this Christ definitively propitiated the wrath of God aimed at sin. It was God the Father that put Christ forward as this propitiatory sacrifice. God in Christ appeased and removed his just wrath against sin. Thus God reconciled the world to himself in the death of His Son. This was accomplished and now the offer of reconciliation is freely made to all who would respond in faith.

In summary, Christ's death was a definite ransom priced paid to secure deliverance from the multiform captivity that sin places us under the curse of the law, the ceremonial law, the works of the law, the bondage to sin's guilt, the bondage to sin's power and the captivity to the devil. 

Of course, Christ's obedience reaches its fullness in his death on the cross. The obedient life and death of Jesus Christ is the historical work of God's sovereign grace in the salvation of sinners. So, Christ has secured salvation by his obedient life and death culminating in his glorious resurrection. His resurrection was his vindication by the Father and hence the believer's justification (Romans 5:25) and without his resurrection, there would be no secured forgiveness and hence eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:12-17). Yet, without his obedient life, his death would not be effectual in securing our salvation. The Power of the Cross is the power of the virtue of the God-man's obedient life climaxing in his obedience to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8)! Oh, how precious should his obedience to the Father be to us and oh, how glorious is his cross!