It is good to know–especially when facing the next world–that for every time we have failed to conform to God’s will in thought, word, and deed, by actively sinning or failing to conform to His revealed will, His Son has fulfilled the obedience that we owe. 

Dismissing his doctor’s orders, J. Gresham Machen, beaten down by a career of struggling for the Faith even within his own communion, kept his commitments to a small circle of Orthodox Presbyterian parishes in South Dakota. “I have too much to do,” he insisted, as his chest was even then tight from pneumonia. The next day, however, Machen was hospitalized. On New Year’s Eve, the host pastor visited this infamous opponent of Liberalism on his deathbed and the elder statesman related a dream he had enjoyed that made him long for Heaven. “Sam, it was glorious, it was glorious,” he said. “Sam, isn’t the Reformed Faith grand?” Just before he passed into the next world, Machen dictated a telegram to John Murray, professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary. These last words read, “I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.“⁽¹⁾

Once more we are reminded of just how practical and relevant doctrine can be in our deepest crises. When all is well, we can dispense with such questions, but not when the truly great issues of life are staring us in the face. But what is this “active obedience of Christ” to which Machen referred and why was it such a remarkable comfort in his dying hour?

John Murray, the recipient of that famous telegram, wrote eloquently of this great biblical doctrine. “Early in our Lord’s ministry we have his own witness” to being the promised “Servant of the Lord” in Isaiah, says Murray. When John the Baptist questioned the propriety of him baptizing the Messiah, Jesus answered, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness” (Mt 3:15).⁽²⁾ It was our Lord’s great pleasure and duty to “fulfill all righteousness” down to the least stroke of the Law: “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me” (Jn 6:38). Calvin observes, “Now someone asks, how has Christ abolished sin, banished the separation between us and God, and acquired righteousness to render God favorable and kindly toward us? To this we can in general reply that he has achieved this for us by the whole course of his obedience.”⁽³⁾

We are told in Scripture that Jesus Christ was both human and divine. Because of this union of the divine with the human nature, “he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man” (Lk 2:52). In fact, he “learned obedience from the things he suffered” (Heb 5:8). This is not at all to suggest that our Lord was sinful, but in his humiliation he was truly and fully human. That is, just as he grew up physically, so too he progressively obeyed God throughout his life. At no point did he fail to respond positively to his Father’s will, so his growth was perfect and complete.

It is impossible for us to imagine what it would have been like for this Son of Man to experience genuine temptation in precisely the same way as it comes to us and still to have turned his will from every form of hatred, lust, selfishness, greed, pride, laziness, and every other form of disobedience, whether in thought, word, or deed. He sinned neither by omission nor commission, neither by ignorance nor malice. Even when faced with the temptation in the wilderness, where Lucifer offered him the kingdoms of the world (as if he owned them), in addition to food to satiate his fast-weary body, Jesus, unlike the first Adam, answered with the Word of God.

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