ST408 Foundations of Systematic Theology LESSON 11 of 24 Christology: The Work of Christ John M. Frame, D.D. Experience: Professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary In lesson 10, we asked about the person of Christ. What kind of person Jesus is? We saw that He is both true God and true man— two distinct natures in one person. In this lesson, we will ask about the work of Christ. What does Jesus do for us? I’ll be talking about His work in terms of His offices. Just as some people are presidents or mayors or sergeants or CEOs or certified public accountants, so Jesus holds certain offices. And what He does, His actions, carry out the duties of those offices. What are those offices? Well as we’ve seen, Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One. That idea sends us back to the Old Testament where three offices of people were anointed with oil: prophets, priests, and kings. When the Messiah comes—the Anointed One, par excellence—He holds all three of these offices and indeed fulfills them. He is the ultimate prophet, the ultimate priest, and the ultimate king. You may recall the threefold concept of lordship that I shared with you in lesson one. These three offices fit right in with that. As prophet, Jesus displays the lordship attribute of authority. As priest, the lordship attribute of presence, and as king, the lordship attribute of control. Or in terms of our distinctions in lesson six, the prophet represents the normative perspective; the priest, the existential; and the king, the situational. These offices help us to understand Jesus’ work. As a prophet, He brings us the true Word of God with God’s authority. As priest, He serves as a mediator between God and ourselves bringing the presence of God into our lives. As the mediator, He brings sacrifice, and ultimately the sacrifice is Himself. And as the priest. He also makes intercession. He prays for us at the throne of the Father. And as king, He rules all things in His mighty power. Your outline considers each of these in turn. First, Jesus is the greatest of the prophets. Indeed He is more than a prophet. As we saw in lesson four, a prophet is someone who has the very Word of God on his lips. Deuteronomy 18 and Jeremiah 1 Transcript - ST408 Foundations of Systematic Theology 1 of 12 © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved. Lesson 11 of 24 Christology: The Work of Christ as well as other passages show that the prophet’s words are God’s words and so they are just as authoritative as the divine voice uttered from heaven. But Jesus is more than a prophet. He is the very Word of God Himself. John 1:1 reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And we see from verse 14 that that word was Jesus. So when Jesus begins His teaching ministry, people are amazed at the authority with which He speaks. Not at all like the scribes and the Pharisees the usual teachers in Israel (see Matthew 7:28-29). Jesus declares God’s Word truly cutting through all the distortions and compromises of the Jewish traditions. Further, Jesus teaches that His word is to be the foundation of all of life in Matthew 7:21-27. Peter recognizes this when he says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). It is the word of His grace that builds us up, according to Acts 20:32, and Jesus’ Word will judge us all in the last day (John 12:48). Jesus spoke His word not only during His earthly ministry; the whole Old Testament is His Word, for Revelation 19:10, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. He taught His disciples that everything in the Law—the prophets, and the writings of the Old Testament—was about Him. So the whole Bible is not only the Word of God, it is the word of Jesus as well. It is His gospel, His promise, His commandments, and by His Word we are saved. Second, Jesus is our great High Priest. We can summarize the duties of a priest in two categories: sacrifice and intercession. We’ll discuss Jesus’ sacrifice under Roman numeral II A on your outline, and intercession much more briefly under B several pages later. Jesus’ sacrifice is what we usually think of when we think of the work of Christ. The theological name for this sacrifice is atonement. That word comes from an old English expression referring to reconciliation bringing people to oneness—at-one- ment. Certainly reconciliation is part of the biblical meaning of atonement, but there is much more as well. Jesus’ atoning sacrifice fulfills the Old Testament sacrifices of bulls and goats, lambs and doves, flour, wine, and oil. In the Old Testament, God used these sacrifices to teach the people what Jesus was later going to do. So we can learn from those sacrifices about the meaning of Jesus’ atonement. First, the sacrificial animal had to be perfect, spotless, without blemish. The Israelite was not to bring an offering to God that was cheap or worthless or damaged. He had to bring something Transcript - ST408 Foundations of Systematic Theology 2 of 12 © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved. Lesson 11 of 24 Christology: The Work of Christ really valuable, something perfect, something that otherwise he would treasure for himself. Similarly, Jesus offered Himself as the sinless Lamb of God. As we saw in lesson 10, Jesus committed no sin. Neither His friends nor His enemies were able to find any fault in Him. He loved as no one had ever loved. Even the demons recognized Him as the holy One of God. Theologians call Jesus’ perfect life His “active obedience.” When we believe in Christ, God counts us as righteous in Christ. That is to say God imputes to us the active obedience of Christ so that He sees us, regards us, counts us, declares us righteous and holy as Jesus is. Paul tells us in II Corinthians 5:21 that “for our sake He,” that is, God, “made Him,” that is, Jesus, “He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” You see, God imputes our sin to Christ and His righteousness to us. God judges our sin in the death of Christ, and regards Christ as bearing our sins. And He regards us as righteous for the sake of Christ. That is sometimes called double imputation. God imputes our sin to Christ and God imputes His righteousness to us. So God not only forgives our sins, He gives to us the very righteousness of Christ so we are not only acquitted but we are positively good in His sight. Jesus’ death on the cross is called His passive obedience. The word “passive” may not be the best, because Jesus is very active in sacrificing Himself. He is the priest who offers the sacrifice. He lays down His life as He says in John 10:18, “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from My Father.” But the word “passive” is related to the Greek and Latin terms for suffering, so we can accept the term passive obedience in that sense just referring to Jesus’ suffering. Now Jesus’ passive obedience is an atoning sacrifice. That sacrifice accomplishes a number of things, some of which are listed under number 2 of your outline. First, expiation. This means that Jesus bore our sins, took them on Himself, and therefore did away with them. As we saw earlier in II Corinthians 5:21, He was made sin for us. He became our substitute. As such, He took the full penalty that we owed to God, the penalty of death. By expiation, Jesus wiped our slate clean. We have nothing to fear from God. God forgives our sins fully and completely, taking them as far from us as the east is from the west, as Psalm 103 puts it. Second the atonement involves propitiation. This means that Transcript - ST408 Foundations of Systematic Theology 3 of 12 © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved. Lesson 11 of 24 Christology: The Work of Christ Jesus bore the wrath and the anger of God that was due to sin. In some mysterious way, Jesus was even estranged from His Father on the cross as the Father regarded Him as bearing our sins. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He cried, quoting the 22nd Psalm. Some scholars have tried to eliminate the theme of propitiation from the Bible trying to make it a synonym for expiation. These scholars don’t like the idea of God being angry with people because of sin. But that attempt, I think, has failed. Our God is One who cares about right and wrong. God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day (Psalm 7:11 tells us). God is angry with the wicked, and Jesus, on the cross, turned His anger away from His people. Third, the atonement is reconciliation as the English word atonement (at-one-ment) implies. Since we are now righteous in God’s sight (expiation) and He is no longer angry with us (propitiation), we are reconciled.