The Active and Passive Obedience of Jesus Christ

The active and passive obedience of Christ deals with the atonement of sin made for God's elect. I simply want to explain these two terms (active obedience of Christ and passive obedience of Christ) and then reflect on them and what they mean for our lives.

However, there is an important element prior to discussing this:

Even though I (and others) distinguish between these two terms; it must be distinctly understood that they cannot be separated. Louis Berkhof in his Systematic Theology (which all Christians should buy and read) says this, "The two (active and passive obedience) accompany each other at every point in the Savior's life. Christ's active and passive obedience should be regarded as complementary parts of the organic whole" (pg 379-380).

Also, I have used three amazing Systematic Theology works that have extremely benefited my own spiritual growth, my ministry and my life. They are as follows:

• Louis Berkhof's Systematic Theology is great. He also has smaller versions called Summary of Christian Doctrine and Manual of Christian Doctrine. Berkhof was a Christian Reformed minister as well as the first president of Calvin Theological Seminary.
• Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology is also wonderful.
• Michael Horton's Systematic Theology is also great

I am greatly indebted to these books for the thoughts that follow. I will cite them as best as possible, when I cite Berkhof, it is from his Systematic Theology.

So sell your washer and possibly dryer and go and purchase these three books, and possibly all five. But don't just purchase them; read them :) 

The Active Obedience of Christ
A short definition by Wayne Grudem is this, "Christ's (active) obedience for us in which He obeyed the requirements of the law in our place and was perfectly obedient to the will of God the Father as our representative" (pg 570).

Many know that Christ has forgiven all the sins of those who are elect. There are some who disagree to this, but I am not going to argue that here. I shall do so later. So Christ has forgiven the sins of those who are elect, but is that all?

If Christ only forgave our sins, wouldn't humanity still be in the condition or state of Adam and Eve before they had done anything good or bad? To maintain fellowship with God, Adam and Eve had to obey God perfectly and not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17). This isn't legalism; legalism is more than simply obeying God. More on that on a different post also.

Therefore, Adam and Eve fell into sin, thus separating themselves and all humanity from pure fellowship with God. Thus, Christ not only had to forgive sin, but "Christ had to live a life of perfect obedience to God in order to earn righteousness for us. He had to obey the whole law for His whole life on our behalf so that the positive merits of His perfect obedience would be counted for us" (Grudem pg 570).

Berkhof says (page 380) that "Christ merits more for the sinners than the forgiveness of sins. According to Galatians 4:4-7 (below)

• they are through Christ set free from the law as the condition of life, 
• they are adopted sons and daughters of God, 
• and as sons and daughters of God, they are also heirs of eternal life."

Galatians 4:4-7 says this:

"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons**. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!' So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir to God."

**the term "sons" here doesn't exclude females; it is an encompassing term including both male and female

The above listed reasons of Christ meriting more for the sinners than the forgiveness of sins, is conditioned primarily on the active obedience of Christ.

God's will for Jesus was completely fulfilled by Jesus as He lived His life in full accordance to the Father's will which ultimately was being completely obedient to the law to fulfill all righteousness.

Paul says in Philippians 3:9 [Holy Bible:English Standard Version] that his goal is that he may be found in Christ,

"and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith..."

What Paul is saying here is that he knows that he needs more than simply the forgiveness of sins from Christ to "clean his slate" so to speak which would make Paul's righteousness a moral neutrality. What Paul expresses is the need for a positive moral righteousness. And this positive moral righteousness cannot come from himself, for he too was affected by the fall (as all humanity was through original sin), but this righteousness comes from Christ. It comes to the Paul then, by his faith as he says, "that which comes through faith in Christ."

And Paul also names it specifically that Christ became our righteousness in 1 Corinthians 1:30

"And because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, our righteousness, and our sanctification and our redemption."

And even more explicitly in Romans 5:19

"For as by the one man's  disobedience [Adam] 

the many were made sinners [all humanity], 

so by one man's obedience [Jesus Christ] 

the many [the elect] will be made righteous"

By His active obedience, Christ carried His people beyond the point of remaining in a neutral moral state, that of Adam before the fall, and gave the elect, a claim to everlasting life with Him.

There was a sect or group of people in Jesus' day who continually questioned Jesus on living up to the standards of the law. They were known as the Pharisees. They were the ones who thought in order to gain salvation; they, themselves had to keep the law perfectly. However, since all humanity has fell into sin; they failed time and time again. But Jesus, since He was both fully divine and fully human; was able to fulfill all righteousness by obeying the law perfectly.

Berkhof continues naming some more Bible passages which help in this definition:

• Through Christ the righteousness of faith is substituted for the righteousness of the law

"For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes" --Romans 10:3-4

• By the work of Christ, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us

"For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." --Romans 8:3-4

• And we are made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus 

"For our sake He [God the Father] made Him [God the Son] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." --2 Corinthians 5:21

For other passages; see the following:

Matthew 3:15; 5:17-18; John 15:10; Galatians 4:4-7; Hebrews 10:7-9

So basically, the active obedience of Christ can be summarized this way:

• It shows us how Christ fulfilled the law perfectly
• This perfect fulfillment of the law established Christ's righteousness by being sinless
• And this righteousness is given to us.

The Passive Obedience of Christ
A short definition by Wayne Grudem again is this, "Christ's sufferings for us, in which He took the penalty due for our sins and as a result died for our sins" (pg 570). So in addition to obeying the law perfectly (active obedience) for His whole life on our behalf, Christ also took on Himself the sufferings necessary to pay the penalty for our sins.

Grudem breaks this section down into several parts (pg 571-594) and with such a small space here with that amount of great work done by Grudem; it is all the more reason to go out and buy his book and enjoy the read for yourself :) I will do my best to summarize.

The term "passive" comes from the Latin term "passio" which means "passion" or "suffering". Therefore, the passive obedience of Christ deals with the suffering that Christ went through in His whole life and in His death on the cross.

Suffering for His Whole Life:
If we take the suffering of Christ paying for our sins in a broad sense; we can conclude that this suffering in His body and soul was throughout His entire life. Christ, the Son of God, entered the fallen world through taking on the form of a human and being found in appearance as a man (Philippians 2:5-8). Some sufferings that Jesus went through on this earth are as follows:

• His temptations in the wilderness by Satan (Matthew 4:1-11)
• He also suffered in growing to maturity (Hebrews 5:8)
• Like stated above; there was not only the Pharisees who opposed His ministry and life, there were many other Jewish leaders who also opposed Him (Hebrews 12:3-4)
• He experienced grief when a close friend died, Lazarus (John 11:35)
• And the prediction of Isaiah was that the Messiah would be a "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3)

Suffering on the Cross:
As Christ's time drew to a close on this earth; He became even more sorrowful. He told His disciples this, "My soul is very sorrowful, even to death" (Matthew 26:38). On the cross; Jesus' sufferings for us reached a climax, for it was there that He bore the penalty for our sin and died in our place. Grudem points out that Scripture explains four different aspects of the pain that Jesus experienced:

(1) Physical Pain and Death

"Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh..."

(1 Peter 4:1)

(2) The Pain of Bearing Sin

"He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree..."
(1 Peter 2:24)

"For Christ also suffered once for sins..."
(1 Peter 3:18)

(3) Abandonment

Peter denies knowing Jesus three times
(John 18:15-27)

Jesus' betrayal by Judas
(John 18:1-11)

"And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?' which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
(Mark 15:34)

(4) Bearing the Wrath of God

"He is the propitiation for our sins..."

(1 John 2:2)

Therefore, the passive obedience of Christ does not mean that He wasn't active in it; it simply means the "passion" or the sufferings that came upon Him in His entire life and especially at His death.

This can be summed up by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53.

"For He grew up before Him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; 

He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, 

and no beauty that we should desire Him. 

He was despised and rejected by men; 

a man of sorrows, 

and acquainted with grief; 

and as one from whom mend hide their faces 

He was despised, 

and we esteemed Him not. 

Surely He has born our griefs and carried our sorrows; 

yet we esteemed Him stricken, 

smitten by God, 

and afflicted. 

But He was wounded for our transgressions; 

He was crushed for our iniquities; 

upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, 

and with His stripes we are healed. 

All we like sheep have gone astray; 

we have turned--every one--to his own way; 

and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. 

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; 

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, 

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, 

so He opened not His mouth.

How do these two fit together?
Well, this is a great question. Berkhof says, "The active obedience of Christ was necessary to make His passive obedience acceptable with God, that is, to make it an object of God's good pleasure. It is only on account of it that God's estimate of the sufferings of Christ differs from His estimate of the sufferings of the lost. Moreover, if Christ had not rendered active obedience, the human nature of Christ itself would have fallen short of the just demands of God, and He would not have been able to atone for others. And finally, if Christ had suffered only the penalty imposed on man, those who shared in His fruits of His work would have been left exactly where Adam was before he fell" (pg 380).

Basically, the righteousness Christ achieved through the fulfilling of the law proved the sacrifice that He made was worthy and acceptable to God for the sin of the elect.

What do these mean for us?
For the believer, the active and passive obedience of Christ are ways in which the atonement for sin was accomplished. Therefore, our sins have been atoned for and we are now reconciled back to God because of Christ's work.

We are at one with Christ once again.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

John Gresham Machen was a theologian who helped form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and he says this about the active obedience of Christ:

"I am so grateful for the active obedience of Christ; no hope without it."

He actually wrote these words on his death bed in a telegram to theologian John Murray.

The same is true for us; there is no hope without the active and passive obedience of Christ.

If we had a lifelong record of our obedience; would you rely on it in order to stand before God hoping to be proven innocent by your own obedience?

Or would you rather rely on Christs?

As we think about the life of Christ,  especially in this season of Lent, we ought to ask ourselves; was it good enough to deserve God's approval? And are we willing to rely on His record for obedience for our eternal destiny?

I pray that you choose to rely on what Christ has done in His life, death, resurrection and ascension!