A Defense of the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness (Active Obedience)

In my recent study in Romans, I have come across several points of theological controversy related to the doctrine of justification by faith. It appears that there are a whole slew of contemporary challenges to the traditional Reformation view of Sola Fide at work in the evangelical world today. Some are saying that the Reformers (Luther, Calvin, etc.) got it totally wrong, and that the true meaning of the Apostle Paul’s teaching on this subject has only recently been discovered. Others are interested in revisiting these orthodox positions and negotiating for a revised set of definitions based on what they view as truer interpretations of Scripture. I, however, side with Luther, in that I believe justification by faith is the principal article of the Gospel by which we as a church, and we as individuals, either stand or fall. Many are specifically attacking the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer, and I believe that this point of truth is so close to the center of the Gospel that I see these challenges as serious attacks on the glory of God.  As a rule, the closer something is to the Gospel, the harder it should be defended and contended for.

This inspired me to read on the subject, and I encountered several helpful resources:

After reading Counted Righteous in Christ, I felt as though my grasp of the value of doctrine for the Christian life increased by leaps and bounds, and in regard to this doctrine in particular, I began to see the incredible weight it holds for every aspect of Christian life and practice. I am beginning to see the difference it makes in our lives when we don’t believe or don’t apply this truth of Christ’s imputed righteousness/active obedience to our lives. This doctrine is truly the healing balm of Gilead for the wounded spirit, for the person stuck in the performance narrative as I once was. It has been incredibly faith-affirming and affection-stirring to study this, and I am grateful to the saints for the wealth of material that is available. Another great resource that I just recently took a look at is a blog post by Phil Johnson over at Pyromaniacs. He provides a great summary of the issues at hand in relation to Christ’s imputed righteousness (active obedience):

The doctrine of Christ’s active obedience is currently under attack on several fronts:

1. It is a favorite target of those who advocate the so-called “New Perspective on Paul” (an increasingly popular position influenced by the writings of Anglican Archbishop N. T. Wright).
2. In 2001 a controversial article by Robert Gundry appeared in Christianity Today claiming “the doctrine that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believing sinners needs to be abandoned.” (That article prompted a fine defense by John Piper in his book Counted Righteous in Christ).
3. The principle of Christ’s active obedience has long been rejected by many in the mainstream of traditional Scofield/Dallas dispensationalism.
4. Norman Shepherd (whose controversial teaching seeks to modify the standard Reformed definition of sola fide) argues against the role of Christ’s active obedience in our justification.
5. And the principle of Christ’s active obedience has also lately been renounced by some of the proponents of “New Covenant Theology.”

Here is a summary of some of the chief biblical reasons for holding fast to this doctrine:

1. In Matthew 3:15, Christ explicitly said His baptism was necessary “to fulfill all righteousness.” Those who deny Christ’s active obedience are in effect claiming that nothing but the absence of sin and guilt is necessary to fulfill all righteousness. Of course, Christ was completely devoid of any sin or guilt; yet He insisted on undergoing John’s baptism (symbolic of repentance) in order to “fulfill . . . righteousness.” On whose behalf did He submit to this ordinance? Clearly He did not do it for His own sake. He had no need of repentance. But He was identifying with – and substituting for – His people. That is why He rendered an obedience that was by no means obligatory for His own sake, and yet He regarded it as necessary.
2. Romans 10:4 says “Christ is the end ["telos" - the completion or the goal and fulfillment] of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” To deny the role of Christ’s active obedience is to teach that the law and Christ’s relationship to it are utterly irrelevant to the reckoning of righteousness to believers.
3. In other words, those who deny Christ’s active obedience are teaching that redemption is accomplished by the setting aside of the law’s absolute demands, not by Christ’s perfectly fulfilling the law on our behalf. That overturns the clear teaching of Christ in Matthew 5:17: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”
4. Second Corinthians 5:21 teaches that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believers in exactly the same sense that our guilt was imputed to Him. In other words, justification involves a double imputation: Just as our violation of the law was imputed to Christ, His fulfillment of the law is imputed to us. Any other view destroys the parallelism of that verse.
5. Romans 5:19 clearly teaches that Christ’s obedience is the ground of our righteous legal standing. Since a single act of disobedience makes a person disobedient by definition and sets the full weight of the law against him (James 2:10), the “obedience” of Christ in this context must include the whole course of His lifetime of obedience to God.
6. A host of other verses also make legal obedience (not merely forgiveness) essential to true righteousness. “And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as he hath commanded us” (Deuteronomy 6:25; cf. Psalm 15:2; 106:3; 119:172; Proverbs 12:17; Isaiah 58:2; Romans 6:16; 8:4; 10:5). The distinction often made between “active” and “passive” obedience does not nullify this point: righteousness and obedience are inextricably linked in Scripture. A perfect righteousness clearly requires something more than just the forgiveness of sin.
7. To deny the role of Christ’s active obedience in justification is to distort what Paul meant when he described believers as “in Christ” – united with Him in such a way that our very life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). We are clothed in His perfect righteousness – not merely stripped of our guilt (Isaiah 61:10). Indeed, Christ is our righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6; 1 Corinthians 1:30). Furthermore, Christ’s “righteousness” consists not merely in His sufferings, but in all his actions (1 John 2:29).
8. Philippians 2:8 suggests that Christ’s obedience only culminated in His death. The full scope of the obedience He rendered on our behalf was manifest in His whole life, not merely in His dying. See also Romans 8:3-4.
9. Christ became man for us, not for Himself (2 Corinthians 8:9); and therefore the obedience He owed to the law was for us, not for Himself (Galatians 4:4).
10. Scripture teaches that God’s own righteousness involves numerous positive elements – His goodness, His love, His mercy, and so on. So God’s righteousness (Romans 10:3) is certainly something more than merely the absence of guilt.
11. The law’s promise of life to those who obey would seem to be pointless if Christ somehow obtained life for us without obeying the law on our behalf. Why else would the law promise life for obedience (Leviticus 18:5; Ezekiel 20:11; Luke 10:28)? Note that the law promises life not to the one who suffers, but to the one who obeys. If Christ’s active obedience has no relevance to our justification, those promises would add up to nothing but an empty, pointless bluff.
12. The context of Philippians 3:9 makes clear that the ground of the believer’s justification is an alien righteousness, not any degree of righteousness we obtain for ourselves. To deny that this is the righteousness of Christ is to diminish His unique role as our proxy, our mediator, and our substitute.

There are also several important theological reasons for affirming the role of Christ’s active obedience in our justification:

1. Denying Christ’s active obedience sets one on a course that inevitably leads to a minimalist, downgraded view of justification. That is why so many of the leading critics of “active obedience” have concluded (quite logically, given the arguments they employ) that nothing positive is imputed to believers at justification. They teach instead that justification is nothing more than the forgiveness of sins, period. That kind of justification would leave believers with no better standing than Adam had before the fall.
2. To portray justification as forgiveness only without any positive imputation is to undermine the biblical doctrine of the atonement. That view actually contains an echo of the Socinian argument, by claiming that merit is unnecessary where you have satisfaction.
3. Some who deny the vicarious efficacy of Christ’s active obedience have embraced a principle that is inherently antinomian. The law of God did not need to be fulfilled on our behalf, they say. It was simply overturned and abolished. Thus they relegate the law of God to complete irrelevancy as far as redemption is concerned.
4. Others who deny the vicarious efficacy of Christ’s active obedience teach a kind of neonomianism. They make the believer’s own legal obedience a condition of final justification. This is a form of works salvation.
5. Justification is a richer, fuller concept than forgiveness. (Christ Himself was “justified in the Spirit” – 1 Timothy 3:16.) Justification is a declaration that God regards the believer as fully righteous, perfectly faithful, wholly acceptable to Him. It is not merely an edict that the believer is free from the penalty of sin. To eliminate the declaration of righteousness from our concept of justification (or to tone it down by redefining it as a pronouncement of forgiveness only) is to miss the profoundest aspect of the biblical doctrine of justification (Romans 3:22; 4:6, 11, 22-25; 1 Corinthians 6:11; see also Isaiah 54:17; Daniel 9:24). In effect, any denial of the efficacy of Christ’s active obedience renounces the very heart and soul of Reformation theology.