The Active Obedience of Christ

No hope without it.

In the early twentieth century, one of the greatest Reformed thinkers of his generation, J. Gresham Machen, sent his very last telegram. Machen was, among other things, a well-known Presbyterian New Testament scholar, a professor at Princeton (when it used to be a seminary!), and the man who founded both the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, as well as Westminster Theological Seminary. If you haven’t heard of (or read) Christianity and Liberalism, it was on my “must-read” list for 2023 and I highly recommend you add it to your library! Machen was in the center of the 1930's war - not WWII per se - but an equally fatal one the western church was battling known as the "fundamentalist-modernist" controversy. Machen stood up to defend the veracity of Scripture against men like Harry Emerson Fosdick of New York, who were trying to challenge the fundamentals of the Christian faith, dismissing the Bible's truth claims and all but eliminating the substitutionary work of Christ. Machen was a bold champion and defender of God's Word. Some even called Machen "liberal Protestantism's greatest nightmare".

In December 1936, Machen had some speaking engagements in some North Dakota churches which were a part of his OPC denomination, and despite the cold weather he kept his commitments to them. After exposure to the bitter cold, Machen developed pneumonia and was hospitalized. As he lay dying in his hospital bed, Machen sent a telegram to his good friend, professor John Murray. The telegram was short (only 13 words), it was direct, and it included the last known words of Machen, who died unexpectedly and just hours after it was sent, on January 1, 1937.

The telegram simply read:

"I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ: no hope without it."

John Murray would go on to say that this subject, the active obedience of Christ, was the topic of one of the last conversations they had together. Murray asked, "Why should he have suspended the issues of eternal hope upon this truth? Why did he dare to say: “No hope without it”? We hang on to the last words of our friends, but particularly should we do so when they are pregnant with the issues of eternal life or death. It surely interests us to know what precisely he meant by that expression."¹

Theologians distinguish between the “active” and “passive” obedience of Christ in this way:

Active: Jesus fulfills the obligatory demands of the law

Passive: Jesus satisfies the penal demands of the law

In his active obedience, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us because he is our representative and substitute, and all of this comes to us in virtue of his perfect obedience to the divine law, just as if we had perfectly obeyed it to the letter. In his passive obedience, Christ's suffering and death satisfies all the penal demands of the divine law, facing the wrath of God just as if he had violated it at any point. Philippians 2:8 says that Jesus was "obedient to death, even death on a cross".

When Jesus cried out "tetelestai", or “it is finished!”, we understand that it wasn't merely his suffering and atoning work on the cross which were completed: it was also his perfect obedience to God's law. It was Jesus' passive and active obedience which were finished upon that cross.

During his life, down to the least stroke of the law, Jesus was pleased to fulfill all righteousness. In John 6:38, he tells us that "I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me." No stumbling, no error. Perfect obedience, rooted in perfect love.

Michael Horton says, “By never once giving in to the lust, pride, sloth, greed, selfishness, and malice that are so often allowed space in our overcrowded hearts, Jesus Christ becomes our Savior not only in his atoning death but throughout his life. In this way, every day of his life was as necessary for our salvation as that dark afternoon on Golgotha.”²

Think about how throughout his life, in his obscure early years, through his teens, and twenties, and then beyond his baptism here to his three years of publicly ministering, to the agony of the garden to his final victorious breath of triumph - Jesus was actively obedient to the law of God.

Our Savior's obedience fulfills all righteousness, therefore, receive it! Stop striving in your own strength to do what only the perfect Savior could accomplish. Like Machen, I too am so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it!

1. https://ulsterworldly.com/post/hope-and-the-active-obedience-of-christ/

2. https://www.monergism.com/dying-mans-consolation-active-passive-obedience-christ