I keep asking about how people go about defending the imputation of the active obedience of Christ. I think one of Turretin’s arguments, the one I agree with, is from union with Christ (Lusk affirms this as well, for those of you who care). But other defenses of the doctrine seem like they do more damage to the message of the cross than anything else.

For example:

All the punishment required of us because of our sin, Christ endured for us on the cross. And all the obedience that God required of us, that he, as our Father, might be completely for us and not against us forever, Christ has performed for us in his perfect obedience to God.

But this only works if the punishment Christ endured for us is insufficient to cover sin of failing to obey what God requires of us.

And that cannot possibly be true. In fact, it is an idea that most Evangelicals would instictively recoil from. Even our hymns show this:

This is all my hope and peace:
nothing but the blood of Jesus.
This is all my righteousness:
nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Of course the rest of Piper’s essay is excellent, except that, instead of claiming that the error he is refuting detracts from Christ’s cross, he says it detracts from Christ’s cross and obedience, as if the cross did indeed require supplementation.

If one wants to include the life of Jesus leading up to the cross in what is imputed to us, the most natural and Biblical way to do this would be to consider the resurrection. This would give us the advantage of actually sounding Pauline rather than sounding like the very basic Gospel depends on formulas that are never found in the apostolic preaching or writing. For example:

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

I quote the whole context to point out the overwhelming emphasis on the resurrection. But notice the resurrection is a forensic event. When Christ was declared righteous at his resurrection, that verdict was not only for himself, but for all believers. That verdict is imputed to us. We are declared righteous in Christ, the righteous one. And that declaration was obviously for his whole life–a declaration that Christ had been totally faithful. We, thus, get credited as totally faithful in Christ.

What we never find in the Bible is anyone preaching the formula “death and righteousness,” or his “doing and dying.” No, constantly we find the death and resurrection of Christ presented as the all-sufficient basis for our standing before God. This isn’t a case where we need a special term like “Trinity.” There is no reason why the apostolic preaching and writing should be insufficient to give us a shorthand summary of the Gospel message we are supposed to preach.

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