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Debt fills the modern world. Governments run on huge deficits. Many Americans live with a high amount of credit-card debt, striving to live beyond their means. Although debt should arguably have a different place in our cultural outlook, it does furnish a fitting metaphor to explain the need that Christ’s obedience meets for us.
Every form of debt runs with principal and penalty balances. When you swipe your credit card, you add a principal debt to your account. You must pay this base obligation. In addition, if you miss a payment, then you accrue a penalty debt, which adds a fee to the balance you owe. As consequence for failing to come through on your base obligation, the penalty adds another kind of debt to the balance that you owe.
To understand Christ’s obedience, we need first to understand our obligations to the Lord. In the Reformed tradition, covenant theology provides the framework to understand both our principal and penalty debts before God. Westminster Confession of Faith 7.1 explains:
The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.
Our principal debt by virtue of our status as creatures before our Maker is obedience. The first covenant that God made with humanity was the covenant of works, wherein He promised everlasting heavenly life to us all if Adam paid his principal debt of keeping God’s law. So our principal debt is perfect obedience to God.
The problem is that Adam failed to pay his principal debt and incurred a penalty debt by sinning against God. When he broke the covenant of works, he accrued the penalty debt of a death sentence for every one of his natural descendants. We still owe a principal debt of perfect obedience, but none of us can ever pay it for ourselves, because now we can never even satisfy our penalty debt of enduring God’s everlasting curse against sinners.
Christ’s obedience pays our whole debt before the heavenly court so that we have the right to enter everlasting life in His heavenly kingdom. In Romans 5:15–21, Paul contrasts the achievement of Christ’s obedience with the failure of Adam’s disobedience:
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 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. 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.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 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. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
This comparison of Adam’s failure against Christ’s victory tells us a lot about what Christ’s obedience achieved for us, and it tells us a lot about how Christ pays our principal and penalty debt.
Christ’s payment of our penalty debt is what Reformed theology has typically called His passive obedience. Romans 5 points to this need in how Adam’s disobedience made us all sinners and brought death into the human experience. After all, apart from sin, we would not have tasted the grave. Galatians 3:13 explains it another way as Christ’s enduring in our place the curse that we deserved as sinners: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” We had accrued a penalty of everlasting suffering under God’s just wrath for sin. Christ absorbed the full force of that penalty in His passive obedience.
Although we cannot quote every word here, Westminster Larger Catechism 46–50 explains Christ’s passive obedience in terms of His estate of humiliation. Answer 46 summarizes:
The estate of Christ’s humiliation was that low condition, wherein he for our sakes, emptying himself of his glory, took upon him the form of a servant, in his conception and birth, life, death, and after his death, until his resurrection.
Notice how Christ’s humiliation applies to every moment of His incarnate work. As the subsequent questions unfold this reality, we realize that for God the Son to experience any infirmity, any weakness, any lack of recognition as the One who deserves worship, or any discomfort at all was entirely about His willing acceptance of the curse of our sin. Then this passive obedience culminated in His death on the cross and His remaining in the grave three days. As He experienced the full force of death, Christ paid the penalty debt for our sin.
Let’s take a step back to help ourselves reframe the question about Christ’s obedience. If your childhood was anything like mine, you had to mow the lawn a lot. Imagine that one of your parents comes up to you one day and instructs you to mow the lawn. Instead, you go to the movies. When you come home, Mom and Dad sit just inside the door, waiting.
Two things are about to happen to you. First, you get a penalty for not fulfilling your responsibility, a punishment for breaking the law, so to speak. Second, you still have to mow the lawn to remove your obligation to do the task.
Let’s also imagine that you have an older brother, who enters as your parents dole out your punishment. Seeing what is happening, he steps between you and your parents and says: “Mom and Dad, wait just a second. You need to know that I mowed the lawn today and want you to count my act of mowing the lawn to my sibling here. On top of that, whatever punishment you know to be a fitting consequence to his disobedience—I want you to give that punishment to me instead.” What a great older brother!
This illustration highlights exactly how Christ’s obedience pays our principal and penalty debts so that we might be justified in God’s courtroom. We have already seen how He bore our curse throughout His estate of humiliation to satisfy God’s justice in our penalty for sin. The other side of the illustration shows how He fulfills our principal debt as well.
Christ’s work to fulfill our obligation to keep God’s law is called His active obedience. When we were supposed to keep God’s law in every jot and tittle but failed, Christ has obeyed God’s law in our place. Westminster Larger Catechism 39 explains why God the Son had to take on a human nature to save us:
It was requisite that the Mediator should be man, that he might advance our nature, perform obedience to the law, suffer and make intercession for us in our nature, have a fellow feeling of our infirmities; that we might receive the adoption of sons, and have comfort and access with boldness unto the throne of grace.
When we had a task to complete, Christ completed it in our stead.
Christ’s twofold obedience is the sure and certain ground of our justification to guarantee our right standing with God. In His work of intercession, Christ stands before God’s throne, saying: “Father, I know that everyone who believes in Me was supposed to keep Your law. I also know that every one of them has failed to do that. They have broken Your law, and every one of them is a sinner. But Father, I went to earth as a man and kept the whole law perfectly. I want You to take My perfect record and give it to them. I also know that they deserve to die for their sin and never have perfect fellowship in heaven with Us. But Father, I died on the cross, and that was the punishment for their sin.” Because of His great merit, He is able to defend us and to secure our place in His everlasting kingdom.
Our assurance skyrockets when we understand that Christ, in His active and passive obedience, has taken care of everything needed to reconcile us to God and to ensure our citizenship in the new creation. Yes, we are meant to pursue God in faithfulness as a life of gratitude for the great salvation that we receive from Christ. But nothing we do can add to the certainty of our right standing with God. Christ has done it all. His merit is full and fully sufficient. We rest on His great achievement, knowing that He has obeyed in our place and made sure that all our debts are paid.