People want Jesus’ work in redemption to be, as far as our justification is involved, a work of “strict justice.”
But as soon as anyone affirms, as the whole Church has, that Christ died in the place of believers, then the strict justice has been affirmed. It is quite obvious:
- The wages of sin is death
- Jesus was crucified for our sins and raised for our justification
- There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
Anyone who affirms this basic story line has established that Christ fulfilled God’s justice for our justification. The problem is that some are not satisfied with that. So we have to find a way to explain how Christ’s lawkeeping, in addition to his death, is imputed to meet the requirements for being counted righteous in the sight of God.
In some ways this is easy. It seems like an obvious consequence of shairing in the verdict God bestowed upon Christ at his resurrection that, just as Christ’s whole life was declared to be one of faithfulness, even to the point of sinlessness, so we now possess that same verdict in Him.
But to claim that once the Law’s demand for death is met, that there is still another demand, seems redundant and unnecessary.
So complications and convolutions result, especially as Adamic merit is asserted, and then it is admitted that this merit is non-meritorious etc. Others wonder about the value of this sort of thing and even think it detracts from the unique worth of Christ’s death. If non-meritorious merit is all that is necessary, then why was it necessary that the Mediator be truly God? Why would the merit of Christ’s death require supplementation with non-meritorious merit?
So, it should come as no surprise that there are different ways of formulating all this. But the bottom line is that the death of Christ is sufficient to meet the demand that His work be formulated in terms of justice.
Truth be told, not even Christ’s dying in the place of sinners (even with all of the active obedience imputation that you want to pile on it) can be an act of “strict justice.” *STRICT* justice would require the death of the very soul that had sinned. The fact that there *IS* a vicar means that we have moved beyond strict justice, and grace has entered the picture.
Furthermore, the whole idea of trying to establish salvation as an act of strict justice is, it seems to me, an attempt to take grace out of salvation at all. If God only forgives because someone else met the exact same conditions and paid the exact same price, that’s not forgiveness; that’s just payment from another place. When i get someone to pay my complete debt for me, it’s *NOT* “forgiven”; it’s “paid.” Only when something different is offered than what was required can that “payment” be seen as “forgiveness.” (See Dabney on the issue in chapter 35 of his Systematic Theology; you can find it here: http://www.pbministries.org/R. L. Dabney/Systematic Theology/chapter35.htm) Christ’s sacrifice was wonderfully spotless, sinless, and perfect (i.e., he was not only passively obedience but actively obedient to God and all the commandments as well), but it was still a payment different than that which was required. God required our personal deaths and damnations; he didn’t require God the Son’s. To accept God the Son’s is to accept something he did not originally require, and thus, to undercut “strict justice” in the act of forgiving and saving sinners.