We Believe In Jesus: The RedeemerSample

Jesus’ Obedience: Romans 5:18-19

In an important sense, Jesus’ role as our redeemer included succeeding where Adam failed. Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father, culminating in his death on the cross. And by his obedience, he won the blessings that Adam had lost. And now he shares those blessings with all his faithful people. In 1 Corinthians 15:45, Paul even called him the “last Adam.”

Theologians often speak of two aspects of the obedience that Jesus rendered throughout his life. On the one hand, his passive obedience was his submission to a life of humiliation and suffering, culminating in his crucifixion. His death on the cross satisfied God’s just requirement that sin be punished by death. In his passive obedience, Jesus was our substitute. He allowed our guilt to be imputed to him, that is, reckoned to his account. And once he was thereby counted guilty in God’s eyes, he died in our place. This single act paid the penalty for all our sins, so that God’s judgment and wrath no longer threaten us. It obtained the forgiveness of our sins, and freed us from the penalty of the law. 

The second type of obedience Jesus rendered was active obedience. This was his life of obedience to everything the Father commanded. In his incarnation, Jesus perfectly kept God’s law. He never sinned, and he always did what God commanded. And in the same way that our guilt was imputed to Jesus on the cross, his righteous obedience is imputed back to us. Theologians often call this “forensic righteousness,” meaning that we are declared to be righteous even though we haven’t yet been completely freed from the indwelling presence of sin. God looks at us as if we were his incarnate Son, Jesus — as if we had lived his perfect life, and performed all his good works ourselves. As a result, our fellowship with God is restored. And although depravity still prevents us from earning salvation ourselves, God rewards us with the blessings of salvation on the basis of Jesus’ merit.