Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 181:723 (Jul 2024)
Article: Twofold Justification? An Examination Of The Active And Passive Obedience Of Christ
Author: Matthew E. Ferris

BSac 181:723 (July-September 2024) p. 287

Twofold Justification? An Examination Of The Active And Passive Obedience Of Christ

Matthew E. Ferris

Matthew E. Ferris lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he is involved in small group Bible studies and teaching Sunday school at his church.

Abstract

During the period of Reformed orthodoxy, a view emerged that believers’ “positive” righteousness depended on fulfillment of the law. This view sees Christ’s obedience in two parts. His passive obedience is his death, and his active obedience is his lifelong keeping of the law. However, a view that predicates righteousness on law accounts neither for salvation history nor for the New Testament attribution of righteousness to Christ’s death and resurrection rather than to law.

When Scripture speaks of the Christian’s standing, some theologians posit that forgiveness comes through the death of Christ but positive righteousness—justification—only results from Jesus keeping the law in our stead. Sproul, for example, says, “If all Jesus did was die for your sins, that would remove all of your guilt, and that would leave you sinless in the sight of God, but not righteous. You would be innocent, but not righteous because you have not done anything to obey the Law of God which is what righteousness requires.”1 Sproul is joined by Grudem, who asserts, “Christ had to live a life of perfect obedience to God in order to earn righteousness for us. He had to obey the law for his whole life on our behalf so that the positive merits of his perfect obedience would be counted for us.”2

BSac 181:723 (July-September 2024) p. 288

These contemporary theologians echo some Puritans. Brooks held that justification came only by a perfect righteousness: “Whatsoever Christ did or suffered in the whole course of his life, he did it and suffered it as our surety, and in our steads,” affirming that we need the fulfillment of the law’s penalty and precept.3 Shedd also asserted that justification needs both sides, “The Mediator, therefore, must not only suffer for man, but must obey for him, if he would do for man everything that the law requires.”4 These theologians considered Jesus’s obedience in two parts—active and passive—suggesting a twofold nature of justification.

There are two other assertions that accompany this view. First, the law promised life for those who fulfilled its demands. Vos asked, “Can eternal life be obtained in ...