Jesus, perfect obedience or faith?
The Law is said to have in fact contained a promise of eternal
life in reward for perfect obedience and to have actually conferred it on Jesus
because he kept it faultlessly. Such reasoning is false. Three epistles
(Hebrews, Romans and Galatians), prove it to be so.
Hebrews. None could dispute that the ministration of
righteousness is a better covenant than that of Sinai if only because it is
established upon better promises (Heb 8:6). One of the chief of these is the
promise of eternal inheritance (Heb 9:15). Eternal life is a prerequisite of
such an inheritance: a man, to possess an inheritance for ever, must, as JT
logically argues, be made immortal to enable him to possess it everlastingly.
There was thus a distinct promise of eternal life in the everlasting covenant
which, apart from any other, constituted it a better covenant than the covenant
of Sinai, for the latter contained no equivalent promise. This fact is easily
verified from the Old Testament itself: we look in vain in the Sinai covenant
for any such promise, explicit or implicit, in reward for perfect
obedience.
Romans. A man who earns a reward by effort receives it
as his due. In the words of Paul, to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned
of grace but of debt (Rom 4:4). Paul therefore concludes logically that if
Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory. But what are the
facts? What saith the Scripture? Abraham had faith in God, and that faith was
reckoned to him for righteousness (Rom 4:2,3). That is, Abraham did not receive
the reward by works. Why? Was it simply because, through the weakness of the
flesh, he obviously could not obtain it by merit? By no means: Christ did in
fact live sinlessly, and if for that reason the Law had power to confer life on
him, then the reward must have been reckoned to him of debt. But Paul shows that
the principle which applied in the case of Abraham applied also in that of
Christ, his Seed, for the promise that he should be the heir of the world, was
not to Abraham, or to his seed, though law, but through the righteousness of
faith (Rom 4:13).
Galatians. A human covenant, once ratified, is binding:
though it be but a mans covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or
addeth thereto (Gal 3:15). So it is with God's arrangements: This I say, adds
Paul, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the Law
which was four hundred and thirty years after cannot disannul that it should
make the promise of none effect (Gal 3:17). Such, however, would be the case if
the Sinai covenant had contained the same promise: it would have been a
modification of the Abrahamic covenant, and have rendered it obsolete, for if
the inheritance be of law it is no more of promise (Gal 3:18). Is such a
contingency conceivable? Is the Law against the promises of God? God forbid, for
if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness
should have been by the law (Gal 3:21). In view of this statement the Law of
Moses could not possibly have had the essential power to confer life. The law
made nothing perfect. It was but the bringing in of a better hope (Heb 7:19,
mg).
Habakkuk. Habakkuk's words (quoted in all three
epistles) settle the matter finally so far as the position of Christ is
concerned: The just shall live by faith (Hab 2:4). Variant renderings for
Habakkuk's statement as quoted in Heb 10:38 are helpful: My righteous one shall
live by faith (RV): it is by faith that my righteous servant shall live (Weym);
and again, My just one by faith shall live (Diag). Stephen tells us that the
prophets shewed before of the coming of the Just One (Act 7:52). Jesus was
without doubt the Holy One and the Just of whom Habakkuk spoke (Act 3:14). Why
was he called the Just One? Because he lived a sinless life, observing the Law
perfectly. How then did he, the Holy One and the Just, attain to life eternal?
Habakkuk answers, by faith. Why not by works, even in his case? Because God GAVE
the inheritance BY PROMISE to Abraham, and if to Abraham then to Jesus also,
for, as we have already seen, to Abraham AND HIS SEED were the promises made --
to Abraham and Christ, that is, since Christ is the seed (Gal 3:16).
We now perceive the twofold weakness of the Law of Moses.
Firstly, no one could keep it: as many as are of the works of the law are under
the curse, for it is written, cursed is every one that continueth not in all
things which are written in the book of the law to do them (Gal 3:10). Secondly,
even if a man kept it, it lacked the essential power to confer life. We find
this illustrated in Christ. He kept the Law perfectly, but that no man is
justified by law in the sight of God is evident: for, The just shall live by
faith (Gal 3:11). Had it been otherwise -- if righteousness came by law -- then
Christ died needlessly (Gal 3:21). But Christ did not die in vain, but to make
good the deficiencies of the Law.
Yet he died a sinless man. Necessarily so, for without perfect
obedience on his part to the Law of Moses, righteousness could not justly be
imputed to those who could not keep it (and so were unjust). But, by virtue of
the fact that he offered himself without spot to God, his blood purges our
conscience (Heb 9:14) and by it we are justified (or declared righteous), our
faith being counted for righteousness for his sake (Rom 5:9; 4:5).
His sinlessness emphasized by contrast the wickedness of the
hands that crucified him. If only because sinners could not be permitted to
triumph over the One in whom God was well pleased, it was essential for him to
rise. But altogether apart from this, God's purpose in and through him could not
be frustrated, and necessitated his resurrection. So God raised him up, having
loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden
of it. He is now, in consequence, alive for evermore, having as our forerunner
entered into that within the veil, to which the righteousness which is of the
Law could never give access. So the Apostle bids us be not slothful, but
followers of them who through faith and patience, inherit the promises (Heb
6:12) (RIC).
