“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law,
although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it –
the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
For there is no distinction.”
(Romans 3:21-22)
At the point of creation, God established a system whereby two distinct persons, or “federal heads” would represent humanity throughout the course of history. The first representative head was Adam. And because Adam sinned by disobeying the one law God required of him, everyone born after Adam shares in his guilt and lives under the same condemnation and penalty of death (Rom. 3:23).
As the initial representative head for all humanity, Adam’s sin counts against every one of his descendants, as if we had all been present in the Garden and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree right alongside him. As our federal head, his guilty sentence is imputed into each one of us (Ps. 51:5) such that the penalty of death is on our head from the moment of birth (John 3:18). We are all liable to punishment under the justice of God.
But in due time God sent His second representative head – the second Adam, i.e., Christ – to pay in full the insurmountable debt of sin that had accrued as a result of the default of the first Adam. Because the Judge of all the earth only does what is right (Gen. 18:25), justice had to be served, which meant someone who could qualify to rectify that debt had to be found. That someone was Christ, the second representative head.
Jesus Christ became both the penal substitution (one who takes the punishment for someone else’s offenses) and the representative federal head for His people. And both are eminently necessary.
As a result of the first Adam’s representative sin and penalty of death, we are all guilty sinners on death row. But Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross takes the place of the punishment we were due to suffer for our sins. As a result, God’s justice is satisfied. Those who receive Christ’s payment on their behalf are then set free – forgiven, acquitted, and reconciled to God and life eternal.
Just as the first Adam was subjected to the law of God and failed… the second Adam was subjected to the Law and fulfilled it perfectly. Christ was “made under the law,” (Gal. 4:4). That is, as a man He was subject to the law for Himself as a rule of holiness, bound to love and serve God, which He did perfectly.
But Christ also fulfilled all the precepts of the law as our representative head. In this covenantal relationship with His Father, He suffered as our surety every demand the law made of us that was essential and necessary for our redemption.
We refer to this as Christ’s active obedience, which is the ground on which His righteousness can be imputed to all believers. As our federal head, His fully satisfactory payment for sin at Calvary is applied to our account… just as if we had satisfied that debt ourselves (though that was impossible because of Adam’s sin which we inherited, and which Christ did not, being virgin born… “born of God”).
Christ’s atonement is necessarily linked to His obedience, for if Jesus was not perfectly righteous before God, He would not have been able to provide atonement for sinners. Turretin rightly says, “But voluntarily bound to all that the law required of us, in order to acquire a title to life, He kept the law perfectly. In the law, life is not promised to one who suffers its penalties, but to him who performs its duties. “Do this and you shall live.” Therefore, to undergo the penalty by dying was not sufficient, without obeying all of the precepts of the law.”
Justification must be founded on a righteousness which is perfect, absolutely perfect, in all its parts. It must be a righteousness which complies with all the conditions the law imposes for the purpose of obtaining eternal life. It must be a righteousness which answers the eternal and immutable claims of God upon the creature in His law.
It was said of Christ, “He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it” (Matt. 5:17; Rom. 3:31). What the law demanded of us was accomplished by another in our stead. Further, Paul says that, “Christ was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him,” (2 Cor. 5:21).
As those sins which violated God’s law were transferred from us to Christ, and His righteous actions by which He fulfilled the law are reckoned to our account as believers for our justification. And so, when we receive Christ’s penal substitution for us, God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us. This is the only means of salvation – when a person believes in Him by faith and is saved by His righteous work.
- Lord, help me see that the only means by which Jesus Christ can be received and applied to my own soul for recovery out of this sinful and wretched natural state is by true saving faith in Jesus Christ alone and the appropriation of His righteousness to my account.
- Lord, I am grateful that after Adam’s fall, it pleased You to make a second covenant with men called the Covenant of Grace. Here You freely offer to sinners life and salvation through faith in Your Son, promising to give to all those that are ordained to eternal life His Holy Spirit who makes them willing and able to believe. How wonderful that news is! How wondrous You are for stooping low to save a wretch like me!
- Lord, I can’t help but think about all the deviations in the evangelical church today. If a person twists or warps the sacred mysteries surrounding the divine covenants, they are twisting the means by which men are saved! And if the means of salvation are twisted then how can salvation be found? You say in Matthew 5:19, “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven…” Altering Your Word carries eternal consequences. Help me hold unswervingly to Your truth and not fall into error.
- Lord, we are justified by the righteousness of Christ being imputed to us when we receive Your salvation by faith alone. If a person comes to the throne of grace, a law-condemned sinner, he is capable of being justified there, pardoned and accepted, as truly righteous. There You unite Yourself to him through Christ. Christ’s righteousness is now his that very moment. What sacred mysteries are these that You lavishly reveal to us!
Further References for Romans 3:21-22
Rom. 10:12; Gal. 2:16; Col 3:11; Rom. 5:1; Gal 3:22; Isa. 61:10
