I have resumed my duties of listening to the Westminster West conference tapes, and have made it all the way to the Q & A. Imagine my surprise when these worthy gentlemen (in effect) all denied the imputation of the active obedience of Christ. A question was asked which quoted my statement from Credenda, to the effect that I believed that the faith and faithfulness of Jesus Christ was imputed to us. “What do you make of that?”
The answers all showed that they did not understand the plain statement being made, and the plain statement being made was an affirmation of the imputation of Christ’s active obedience. They began discussing a bunch of things that I was not talking about, and missed the whole point. One of them even said that Christ’s faith was utterly different from ours, because He was trusting in God, and not in a mediator.
Of course he was trusting in God! Of course He was not trusting in a meditor! He is the mediator! I wrote (in English, just for the record), that the faith and faithfulness of Christ was imputed to us. His faith was imputed to us. His faithfulness was imputed to us. One of these gentlemen said (I did not recognize the voice) that I was thereby equating Christ’s faith with our faith. The problem with this analysis is that it is (sorry, windshield) THE OPPOSITE of what I was saying.
When I read a cultbuster book, like Walter Martin’s Kingdom of the Cults, I come away knowing what the cult thinks, why they think it, where they say it, and how they defend it. Listening to these tapes all I hear is hopeless muddle and confusion. This muddle is the result of a fundamental conviction that Norman Shepherd, N. T. Wright, the NPP, and the Federal Vision are all engaging in the same basic set of monkeyshines. This fundamental conviction is Not To Be Questioned, despite plain statements to the contrary.
It is like the old joke about the guy who was convinced he was dead, and so he went to a shrink. The shrink decided not to take the direct approach, and showed the gentleman over a series of weeks the incontrovertible proof that dead men don’t bleed. He showed him encyclopedia articles, medical journals, took him to the morgue, and what not. After an arduous number of weeks, the man was finally convinced. “Dead men don’t bleed.” Whereupon the shrink took out a pin and pricked the man’s thumb and a drop of blood appeared. The man’s face turned ashen white. “Dead men bleed after all!”
How is their confusion on this point a denial of imputation of Christ’s active obedience? In order for Christ’s obedience to be truly imputed to us, it has to include the motive force, and not just the motions of his body. But the motive force was faith in His Father. (That is, faith in His Father. Who ever said anything about some other mediator? Not me.) So the imputation of Christ’s active obedience must include His faith — His reasons for obeying. And the imputation of His faithfulness is simply the imputation of the visible aspects of His obedience.
That’s what I said. And that’s what they all disagreed with.
I am late to your debates so I may be especially confused. But this post implies THE motive is faith in the Father. Where is love for the bride? Where is faithfulness to the bride? I can see that the Son’s commitment to the bride may be rooted in the Divine Will, that in His humanity, the Son certainly relies on the Father’s goodness rather than the bride’s worthiness. But is faith in the Father the motive, or one instrumentality of His successful rescue of the bride from her adultery/widowhood/abandonment/rejection/self-destruction/enslavement? (His own human perfection being one other among many assets… Read more »