What Machen understood so well and what gave him such assurance in the face of death was that wrapped up into Christ’s saving work was his obedience to the Father on our behalf. If our estate before God is guilty because of the man Adam’s disobedience (Rom. 5:15), then we are in dire need of another representative, another man, to now obey God in our stead. And that is what Christ came to do.
There is a logical progression when one moves from the doctrine of the incarnation to the doctrine of Christ’s obedience. As Jeff Stivason argued in a previous post, Christ Jesus not only came into the world to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15) but, in order for God to save sinners, the Son had to become incarnate. That is, God saving sinners necessarily requires that the fully divine Son take to himself our full humanity. But why? Well, to use language developed in an even earlier post, our estate in Adam is guilty and our condition is fallen, and without a divinely human mediator, our future standing before God is utterly hopeless. And here’s where our understanding of Christ’s obedience comes to bear on the doctrine of salvation. Without a fully divine and fully human mediator who lived a life of full obedience, even obedience unto death on a cross, then we are completely without hope.
This underlies J. Gresham Machen’s famous “last words”, when on January 1, 1937 he telegrammed his close friend and colleague John Murray with these words: “I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.” Indeed! What Machen understood so well and what gave him such assurance in the face of death was that wrapped up into Christ’s saving work was his obedience to the Father on our behalf. If our estate before God is guilty because of the man Adam’s disobedience (Rom. 5:15), then we are in dire need of another representative, another man, to now obey God in our stead. And that is what Christ came to do.
And this is partly why our savior came wrapped in swaddling clothes; his obedience on our behalf was a lifetime’s obedience. Consider the words of Hebrews 5, verses 8-10, that “although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.” The author of Hebrews here grounds Jesus’ priestly ministry, his ability to be a mediating sacrifice on our behalf, in his life of obedience. And notice how he emphasizes Jesus’ progressive obedience: he learned obedience.
