Stewardship and Time: Students

"Students, I tell you solemnly, nothing will excuse you from the most rigid economy of time; it is at your peril that you trifle with it" (C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students).

Stewardship and Time: Ministers

"Woe unto the minister who dares waste an hour" (C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students).

Confessing Jesus as Lord of All

If you are looking for suitable inducement to aid in confessing Jesus as Lord of all, this New Covenant Church sermon from last Sunday is somewhere you could go without disappointment.  The text is Matt. 16:13-20; the preacher is Doug O'Donnell.

Serious Joy

The following Lewis quotation is one of my favorites, since it holds together precious realities (much like "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" in 2 Cor. 6) that so many so readily separate:

"There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious" (C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle).

Incidentally, when I first began dating my wife, and she wondered if I was too serious for her (on account of something a friend had said), I quoted this text to her.

Be Happy or Else . . .

In my regular reading through the Scriptures with my wife, we've come to Deutoronomy.  This is one of my favorite OT books on account of the robust monotheism and grandeur of God set forth there (not to mention the devotional quality of instruction inculcated by Moses, which typically stirs my heart, or the gospel of grace held forth, which comforts my sin-sick soul).  And at Deut. 28:47-48, in a section that recounts the blessings and the curses for covenant fidelity or infidelity, respectively, I was reminded of an important word from Jeremy Taylor that John Piper records in Desiring God. 


But first, the text of Deut. 28:47-48:  "Because you did not serve YHWH your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom YHWH will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. . . ."


Now, Taylor's word of warning that throws some of the shock of Deut. 28:47-48 into bold relief:  "God threatens terrible things, if we will not be happy!"


Yes, God commands that we be happy in him.  And no, of course it is not a chipper or light-hearted happiness in view.  Weighty joy, joy with gravity, rooted in the everlasting goodness and grace of God, bought by Jesus' blood and freely offered from his exalted throne, is commanded. 


Paul put it like this:  "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!"  A command to be happy in God.  So familiar we miss it.  So for all those who love to make a big song and dance about the ten commandments in schools and the like, add this one: "Rejoice in the Lord always!"

Not if, but What

Worship.  We all do it.  It's inescapable.  We're incurable.  So the question is not if we will worship someone or something, but who or what we will worhsip.

So how may you know your functional center?  Who's your master?  What's ruling you?  Here's a test.  What is ultimate in your life?  Whatever is ultimate, that is your deity.  What is it, that if you lost it, life wouldn't be worth living.  What is it, that if taken away, doesn't just disappoint you, but devastates you?  What is it, that when threatened, not only makes you mad, but utterly bitter, outraged?

And even good things can become god things.  This is where many conservatives often go wrong.  If something is good, it's assumed, it's an unqualified good.  And biblical proportions and priorities are ignored.  And it's not all submitted to the true and living God.  It's called idolatry.  If a good thing becomes an ultimate thing, it's your sovereign, your lord.  And everyone's doing it with someone or something.  As one of our own prophets, Bob Dylan, put it in a song some years ago: "You're gonna have to serve somebody."

So who is your lord?  Whom will you serve?  Wittingly or not, you will worship.

Sparing neither Pharisee nor Sadducee

Well, there he was, at it again.  New Covenant Church Pastor Doug O'Donnell sparred neither Pharisee nor Sadducee in last Sunday's sermon: Dual Dangers.  He seemed to disregard utterly how offensive what he said would be to them and their progeny.  You know, Pharisees have feelings too.  Sadducees are not stones.  I mean, both of these groups are fellow humans, made in the image of God, with dreams and ambitions, hopes and aspirations, opinions and preferences.  So what if they don't entirely agree with what you or I believe, right?  Nobody's got it all figured out.  Do you?  It's just one opinion versus another, isn't it?  To each his own. 

And this lambasting from the pulpit, despite all these religious leaders' religious labors, their high public approval rating, and their respectable societal standing.  No doubt they had the equivalent of an M.Div. or Ph.D. from highly regarded institutions. They had credentials.  So who does this O'Donnell guy think he is?  I mean, in any case, only God knows the heart.  And why should this preacher's opinion matter any more than that of the Pharisee or Sadducee or their modern day counterparts?  So who does this man think he is?

Well, I suppose, a real preacher of the real Gospel of the living Lord Jesus.  That's who.  And he doesn't have the authority to preach from his own brains or to tickle the itching ears of the hearers.  And so, it was a less than perfectly tender word for those who want either to add to or subtract from the Gospel.  Well done.  Knocked us again a little off balance, but also steered us clear of falling off the cliffs of error.

The sermon reminded me of another place in the four-fold Gospel record where Jesus was questioned for offending the religious elites of the day.  In Luke 11, after Jesus had given the Pharisees and lawyers a little of what they had coming, a rather sensitive chap, a lawyer, said this to him: "Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also" (Lk. 11:45).  Jesus' reply is priceless: "Woe to you lawyers also!  For you load people with burdens hard to bear . . ." (v. 46).  And so on.  Jesus was the most tender man who ever lived.  And most loving.  And because he loved the sinners he came to save, not least those who were heavy laden with the burdens of the well-respected religious leaders of the day, Jesus was pretty heavy hitting with those very religious leaders.  These religious leaders put unbearable burden after burden into the backpacks of all would-be followers of YHWH.  Not very loving.  So Jesus lovingly lambastes them, protects and guides the sheep as he came to do, and heads toward the cross, where he would bear every last burden for every last one of his own.

Hallelujah!  What a Savior!  Hallelujah!  What a friend!

(Incidentally, O'Donnell's sermon includes a salutary word about remembering God's works, turning from that forgetfullness to which we are all so prone, and also a much-needed word about "weather-watchers.")

Intoxicated by Orthodoxy: Chalcedon

As a twenty-first century evangelical Protestant living in postmodern America who is a physical therapist by profession, I know that I'm not expected by most to care much about ancient creeds and confessions.  But I confess that I do.  I find creeds energizing, clarifying, stabilizing.  What's more, they get my blood boiling for the glory of the triune God.  Call it quirky.  Call it an odd primitive urge.  Call it what you will.  I love Chalcedon.  I get intoxicated by orthodoxy.  And today I savor this particular creed more than usual on account of recent discussions with a client who is a JW.  So much wisdom in the creeds!  What a heritage the Christian Church has!  Oh how we should give thanks to God for them!  We stand on the shoulders and walk in the steps of so many who've gone before.

Last week I posted the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.  This week you get the Chalcedonian definition:

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [coessential] (homoousion)* with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial (homoousion) with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the disctinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.

Praise God, Father, Son, and Spirit, from who all blessings flow, praise him all you creatures here below!  For this God, the triune Lord who reigns supreme, our Creater and Redeemer--and this God alone--is worthy to receive all power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! Amen.

* The parenthetical Greek additions are mine.  The text is taken from Philip Schaff's The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2.

(By the way, I am an infallibalist inerrantist who embraces sola Scriptura with every fiber of my being.  The Scriptures, not creeds, are our sole rule for belief and behavior, for faith and practice.)

The Basic Christian Confession

What does it mean to be a Christian?  Well, among other things, it means basically and fundamentally to confess Jesus Christ as Lord of all.  One cannnot be saved or be his disciple without this confession.  "If you confess with your mouth," Paul says, that "Jesus is Lord . . . you will be saved" (Rom. 10:9).  On account of his shame-filled sacrificial sufferings and sin-bearing for the elect, "God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him that name that is above every name" (Phil. 2:9).  Kyrios!  Jesus is YHWH!  Why did God do this?  Paul tells us: that every knee should bow and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2:10-11). 

No bowing, no confession, no Christianity.  No open acknowledgement that Jesus is Lord, both privately and publicly, no right to call yourself a disciple of Jesus Christ.  And this means acknowledgement that affects praxis--all that we do.  He is Lord of all.  That is the basic Christian confession of the New Testament, of the early church, of the ages.  All authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth.  Jesus is Lord of all--all kings, all presidents, all parliments, all congresses, all corporations, all families, all counseling offices, all laboratories, all kitchens, all bedrooms, all universities, all nations.  Lord of all.  And all means, all.  Whether they like it or not. 

(Incidentally, I find it a pleasing thought that God ordained human knees for at least two primary purposes: one, that they may knock before his Word; and two, that they may bend before his Son.)

I Am Sick, I Must Die

The following poem is called A Litany in Time of Plague:

Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss;
This world uncertain is;
Fond are life's lustful joys;
Death proves them all but toys;
None from his darts can fly;
I am sick, I must die.
   Lord, have mercy on us!

Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health,
Physic himself must fade.
All things to end are made,
The plague full swift goes by;
I am sick, I must die.
   Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die.
   Lord, have mercy on us!

Strength stoops unto the grave,
Worms fed on Hector brave;
Swords may not fight with fate,
Earth still holds ope her gate.
"Come, come!" the bells do cry.
I am sick, I must die.
   Lord, have mercy on us.

Wit with his wantonness
Tasteth death's bitterness;
Hell's executioner
Hath no ears for to hear
What vain art can reply.
I am sick, I must die.
   Lord, have mercy on us.

Haste, therefore, each degree,
To welcome destiny;
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player's stage;
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
   Lord, have mercy on us. 

--Thomas Nashe [1567-1601]

A plague tends to put things in perspective, now doesn't it?

Monks and Beer: A Little Medieval Ditty

As I enjoy my way through a couple of glasses of Guinness and Mansfield's book on God and Guinness, I've gotten to a portion that relays the history of beer in the world.  Fascinating.  It includes the crucial role of the Church in brewing.  In a section on brewing in the monastaries as a social service, Mansfield tells of a little ditty that came about on account of the beer drinking habits of the monks.  Now while I do believe this is also healthy for you, I'm pouring this one exclusively for your enjoyment:

To drink like a Capuchin is to drink poorly;
To drink like a Benedictine is to drink deeply;
To drink like a Dominican is pot after pot;
But to drink like a Franciscan is to drink the cellar dry.

Enjoy this one with a Guinness, on me (the ditty, that is).

God and Guinness

Some days ago I posted on an intriguing new book, a book that stirred up quite a bit of discussion over at Between Two Worlds some weeks back.  Well, I went ahead and got it.  God and Guinness, by Stephen Mansfield.  And over at YouTube you can hear Mansfield talking about the book.  I started poking away at it one night after dinner this week when thoroughly exhausted, wondering if I had much stamina to think through another book.  But it's a very light and easy read.  It's enlightening, encouraging, and enjoyable.  It's also refreshing given the greedy and grasping cultural corporate landscape in this carnival called America.  Take it up and read!

Perfect Justification and Incomplete Sanctification in this Life

Have you ever asked why God doesn't make us completely holy immediately after saving us?  I mean, why leave us with indwelling sin, slogging it out day after day with this beast within?

Could it be that one of the reasons God has been pleased not to fully sanctify his people immediately when he justifies them (or at any point in this life while we enjoy full justification) is to fully persuade us that we are never justified by our personal, inherent righteousness--even that produced by the Spirit?  For even the Holy-Spirit-wrought righteousness within us cannot function as the basis or ground of our acceptance, since it is always tainted by our sin.  So all our days, even as we percieve the Spirit's work in ourselves as we grow in grace and holiness, we are ever and always aware of our utter dependence upon an alien righteousness from God, if we are ever to pass muster at that awful judgment seat.

What does this do to the Christian in his or her daily walk with God?  The constant awareness of indwelling sin even as we make progress (for we must, or we're not saved or going to be saved) moves us again and again to depend upon the righteousness of Another.  Psychologically and existentially this is powerful.  Deeply conscious of daily dependence upon the Righteous One, He gets all the glory.  If we were daily considering our Spirit-produced works as securing a standing at the last, who would our eyes be fixed upon?  Who would get less honor and glory?  The sovereign Lord will have none of that.  All praise be to Jesus, the LORD our righteousness!

Does God have Freedom of Choice?

As something of a corollary to the post two posts ago on God's inability to sin, I have another question.  If God is unable to sin because it is not in his nature to do so, can we (or the Arminians) say that he has freedom of choice?

Theological Anthropology

Because of our creaturely status, because we live in God's universe, because we utterly depend upon God for life, breath, and everything, the study of humanity is necessarily always theological anthropology.  If anthropology leaves out man's relationship to God, it is infinitely deficient and truncated.

Can God Sin?

In his Summa Theologiae, scholastic theologian Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) addresses a recurring question about God's omnipotence:  If God is omnipotent, can he sin?  Here's the nut of the answer:

"To sin is to fall short of a perfect action.  Hence to be able to sin is to be able to be deficient in relation to an action, which cannot be reconciled with omnipotence.  It is because God is omnipotent that he cannot sin." 

In other words, God cannot be both omnipotent and not omnipotent, for that would be a contradiction.  He cannot be A and non-A at the same time and in the same sense.

The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed

Regularly reviewing and confessing creeds is good for the soul and body, both the individual and the corporate.  So here is an important one, hammered out at the Council of Constantinople in 381, worthy of memorization:

I believe (credo) in one God the Father Almighty;
Maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of the Father before all worlds [God of God],*
Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made,
being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father;
by whom all things were made;
who, for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried;
and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures;
and ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
and he shall come again, with glory,
to judge both the quick and the dead;
whose kingdom shall have no end.

And [I believe] in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life;
who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son] (filioque);
who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped
and glorified;
who spake by the Prophets. 
And [I believe] one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins;
and I look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. 
Amen. 

The Council of Constantinople and the creed it produced ably defended the full deity of Jesus Christ, effectively stamping out and banishing from the Church Arianism and arianizing tendencies.  Jesus was confessed as being "of the same substance" (homoousios) with the Father, not merely "of like substance" (homoiousios), as the Arians would have it.  It was a glorious moment and great victory in the history of the Church, actually won, not in an instant, but over many drawn out years of debate and deliberation.  For it we should regularly give thanks, as we stand on the shoulders and walk in the steps of those who've gone before us in the once-for-all-delivered-to-the-saints faith.

* The brackets are Western additions (which, of course, I affirm as glorious, with all due respect to the Eastern Church).  The parenthetical Latin and Greek additions are mine.  The translation is from Philip Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2.

The Worth of a Wonderful Wife

No mortal can possibly properly reckon with the worth of an excellent wife.  She is indeed far more precious than jewels (Prov. 31:10).  This I know from Scripture; this I know from experience.  God has given me a great gift in giving me my wife.  Her worth is incalculable.  She does me much good, all the days of our life (Prov. 31:12). 

I am stunned by God's grace toward me.  I have been given a woman who not only supports my commitment to the Word, but one who also is herself utterly committed to all that God has spoken for our belief and behavior. 

Thank you, O gracious God!  Your grace humbles and stuns me.  How unworthy I am to be this woman's husband, You alone truly know.

Good for Nothin'

"A man without holiness is good for nothing."--John Owen

Ruled by Love Far More than by Fear

John G. Paton was a missionary to the New Hebrides (Vanuatu).  One of his sons, it is told in his biography, said this about him as a father:

The very discipline through which our father passed us was a kind of religion in itself.  If anything really serious required to be punished, he retired first to his "closet" for prayer, and we boys got to understand that he was laying the whole matter before God; and that was the severest part of the punishment for me to bear!  I coud have defied any amount of mere penalty, but this spoke to my conscience as a message from God.  We loved him all the more, when we saw how much it cost him to punish us; and, in truth, he had never very much of that kind of work to do upon any one of all the eleven--we were ruled by love far more than by fear.

May the fathers in our churches likewise live before the face of God with their children--that our children may be "ruled by love far more than by fear."  And may the discipline meted out be "a kind of religion in itself."  For the sake of the Name in the generations yet to be born!

Feeding the "Dogs"

The story in Matt. 15:21-28 of the Caananite woman pleading importunately with Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter is one of my favorite passages in the Gospel according to Matthew.  (The title of my blog rather gives this away.)  And so I was eager to hear my pastor, New Covenant Church Pastor Doug O'Donnell, unpack it.  Pastor O'Donnell preached on it this past weekend, along with the rest of the literary unit (verses 29-39), entitling the sermon Feeding the "Dogs."

After the service, a dear Christian sister sitting next to my wife and I commented that the sermon was perhaps the best she's ever heard from the Gospel of Matthew, certainly the best on that text.  She'd definately be listening to it again.  It was quite good, worthy of another hearing.

Sitting under the skilled unpacking of a text (especially when it's a favorite) satisfies my heart as much as anything I've experienced in this life.  Especially when Jesus appears there in all of his glory and excellency--his beauty, truth, and greatness!  Heaven on earth!  O taste and see the Savior and his salvation!

This sermon is also a model of handling a literary unit in such a way that all can see what Matthew really intended when he wove together these pericopes in his account of the Gospel.  The whole unit hangs together and flows marvelously from the pulpit.

Toward the conclusion of the sermon, Pastor O'Donnell once again reminded us of Matthew's melodic line: "All Authority, All Nations, All Allegiance."  Amen!  Jesus is Lord of all!  Let every knee bow!

Not Mine Own Righteousness

Many today have a hard time understanding the apostle who wrote Phil. 3.  But the good old men of an older era didn't seem to have such trouble. 

Two examples:

"It's easier to save us from our sins than from our righteousness" (Charles Haddon Spurgeon).

"Sin doesn't harm us as much as our own righteousness" (Martin Luther).

The longer I'm a believer, the longer I meditate on Scripture and face my own wretched condition (at my very best), and the longer I interact with a self-righteous human race, the more I'm persuaded that the older sort of Protestant knew himself, humanity, and his Bible better than the newer sort.

Love (III)

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
          Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
          From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
          If I lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here":
          Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
          I cannot look on thee."

"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
          Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
          "My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
          So I did sit and eat.

—George Herbert (1593-1633)

True Humility, Christian Living, Puritan Counsel, and Trembling at the Word

What Scripture says, God says.  And so Scripture carries the authority, truth, weight, and honor of God himself.  Small wonder then that trembling at this divine Word and heeding it heartily are commended again and again in holy Scripture itself.

Two texts with some comments (followed by an exhortation from Buynan):

"Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself, but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded (Prov. 13:13).  Notice here two options: despising the Word, or revering the commandment. Our common vain, third neutral option of fence sitting or indifference or "I'm just not a reader" is conspicuously absent.

"This is the one to whom I [YHWH] will look: to the one who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word" (Isa. 66:2).  In this text it is clear that humility, contrition, and trembling at God's Word go together.  Anyone who claims that true humility and contrition are possible when there is no knee-knocking before the Word doesn't get it.  There is no such thing as true humility and contrition without true reverence and deep esteem for God's Word.

Now the word from John Buynan about the effects of not revering Scripture as from the mouth of God himself:  The "want of reverence of the Word is the ground of all disorders that are in the heart, life, conversation, and in Christian communion."  If Buynan is substantially right, and there doesn't seem reason to doubt that he is, then the Christian life is massively simplified.  Is your heart disordered?  Tremble at the Truth.  Is your life dislocated?  Reverence the Revelation of God.  Is your walk bent and twisted and crooked?  Bow before the Word of God.  Is Christian communion fractured or fracturing?  Bend the knee before that Book of vast authority.  And revere your God.

Confessing Christ

A favorite quotation by Martin Luther (1483-1546) regularly comes to my mind.  Actually it is on the door of my study.  He says, with his typically inimitable pungent eloquence:

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ.  Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

What is that point, or are those points, today?  Where is the battle raging?  How are the soldiers doing?

Climate Change Gurus and Intelligentsia

I confess that I find laughable the climate change gurus and inteligentsia who pontificate about rising temperatures on account of human body heat.  I also confess double disbelief and incredulity over those sorry saps who believe the climate change pundits are trustworthy guides. 

World Magazine has a good article this month on climate change.  The mockery is not quite as strong as one might wish, but it's still better than most muster.  The article also links to a website that appears to be promising: Climate Depot.  

God's Particular Providential Love and Care

Moving through John Owen's On Communion with God, one sentence recently grabbed me, shook me, turned me round, and set me going in a new direction concerning God's merciful providences.  In a section from chapter 5 speaking of Jesus' conjugal tenderness and compassion toward the saints, Owen says a desperately needed word for a North American church in the grip of Arminianism (or, in many instances, Pelagianism) and functional deism:

"Believers are unacquainted with their own condition, if they look upon their mercies as dispensed in a way of common providence" (italics mine).

I don't think we usually even get as far as acknowledging the mercies sent our way from the hand of God moment by moment, day by day, as common, let alone particular.  So we have a long way to go.  Thus I think we're starting further back and lower down from the position Owen targets. 

But Owen's sentence grips me and holds me because I'm appreciating more nowadays how shot through are the daily mercies I enjoy under the particular love and care of God.  To be sure, God causes his rain to fall on just and unjust alike, his sun to shine upon all alike.  And yet, for those who stand in grace, these sorts of "common" mercies are not common, but manifestations and instances of God's particular love and care of those whom he purchased by the death of his Son.  And the purchase of eternal mercies by Christ is applied through his moment by moment intercessory work on behalf of his own.  All the kindnesses, care, provisions, pity, relief, deliverences, delights, and freedoms we enjoy daily are the fruit of Jesus' high priestly heavenly ministry for the elect, the manifestations of God's peculiar providential care of his children.

Oh the depths of mercy and love!  How many divine mercies are untold!  How many not noted, enjoyed, praised!

A Whole Life Lived Well for Life Everlasting Really Required

The Lord Jesus is the second Adam.  As the second Adam, he is the corporate head of a new humanity, the new Israel.  All the orthodox acknowledge that Messiah Jesus suffered and died as the substitute of his people to remove their sins and God's wrath.  Sometimes this suffering is called Jesus' passive obedience (which is not a good term, but we'll live with the terminology).  What is then called his active obedience pertains to his life of doing the will of the Father prior to his substitutionary sufferings on the cross. 

Now, did the Lord Jesus obey the Father only to be a spotless sacrifice for our sins?  Or was his obedience also intended to be counted as our obedience?  That is to say, did the Lord Jesus obey in our place such that his righteous life would be imputed to the account of all those who are united with him through faith?

Apart from careful, rigorous exegesis of particular texts, I think that the answer to this question also really does require the hard biblical-theological work of discerning how the Messiah functions as a second Adam.  Where are there correspondences with the original Adam?  (Warranted and drawn out by the sacred Scriptures themselves, not just the theologian's brains.)  We know that the first Adam was not given eternal life immediately.  Entrance into eternal life was dependent upon his obedience at the first tree in a garden, even as entering into eternal life for Jesus and for us was dependent upon Jesus' obedience at the second tree in a wilderness.  Adam needed, it would seem, an active obedience (I don't really care for this language, as I said, but I'll use it to make the point) to persist in or enter into life everlasting. 

So the question then is this: do we need a life of active obedience to enter into eternal life, or do we only need our failings to be forgiven and forgotten?  I cannot see any reason why we should suppose that the first Adam needed to live flawlessly sinlessly and obediently to obtain everlasting life, but we don't.  One sin disqualified him.  One disqualifies us.  Lacking an obedient righteousness appears to have meant and to mean lacking what was and is needed to enter everlasting life.     

So did the second Adam also have to have an active obedience for himself and for us for both him and us to enter into everlasting life?  Given the given structures of biblical theology, I cannot imagine why anyone would answer in the negative.  Consequently, if the correspondences are sound, the whole life of Christ lived well as the head of a new humanity is considered by God as their whole life lived well, that is, perfectly obedient, perfectly righteous to all of God's commands and demands.  That is, we are counted righteous with the representative righteousness of Christ.

Hallelujah!  What a Savior!  Hallelujah!  What a Head!

Stunning, Staggering, Mind-blowing, Breathtaking--Almost Unbelievable . . .

. . . but it's actually true.  Christians, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the living God, receive in faith these words from your transcendently holy God who abhors iniquity and cannot abide sin:

"For as a young man marries a young woman,
   so shall your sons marry you,
 and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
   so shall your God rejoice over you" (Isa. 62:5). 

"The LORD your God is in your midst,
    a mighty one who will save;
 he will rejoice over you with gladness;
   he will quiet you by his love;
 he will exult over you with loud singing" (Zeph. 3:17).

These words are yours, believer, as joined to the true Israel in Christ--in whom all of God's promises are "Yes!"  And so through him also is our "Amen!" to the glory of God (2 Cor. 1:20).

(Incidentally, do these passages sound familiar?  Remind you of any parable in the Gospels?)