Christ's Active Righteousness

Bobby Grow has posted an interesting article asking about the Mosaic Law and its relationship to Christ righteousness which is imputed for our salvation. I find this quite fascinating as it relates to the dispensational and covenantal views on the Mosaic Law. The first question that arises is did Christ have to actively keep a law in order to save us? And second was it the Mosaic Law?

It seems to me that the idea of Christ active obedience to some kind of moral standard was required in order for him to be our Savior. He had to be a lamb without blemish. If he had sinned He would have had to die for His own sins not ours. A Christ who committed adultery would be no Christ at all. Maybe there is some view that would deny this, and if you hold to one I would be interested in hearing about it. But with that being said it seems that active righteousness was needed for our salvation.

But this does not answer the question of which law Christ had to fulfill. Was it the Mosaic Law or some other law? Do we make a distinction here between the moral law of God and the Mosaic Law?

To dig a bit deeper into this question it would be helpful to ask what law did Abraham and Jacob have to live by before the Mosaic Law. The reformed view seems to believe that it was God’s Moral Law which stems from His nature. Since God nature is unchanging so is His moral law. The reformed view tends to believe that the Mosaic Law is the clearest expression of His moral law, but the Mosaic Law has more in it than moral laws. It has judicial law, and ceremonial law. In fact, many in the reformed camp actually see the ceremonial laws as Gospel, because they paint a picture of the redeemer and the Lord never actually had to give this part of the law to us. So in one sense the Mosaic Law contains Grace. The New Testament does not seem to distinguish between these different aspects of the Mosaic Law. It tends to treat it all like one big sheet of glass. If you break one aspect of it, moral, judicial, or ceremonial, you are guilty of all of it. In other words you have shattered the entire pane of glass.

So this leaves us with the question, was Christ’s active obedience based on keeping the entire Mosaic Law or just the moral aspect of it? I’m still working through this at this point but I would say it at least dealt with the moral aspect of it, and most likely all of it.

Scripture tells us,

Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

I have always understood this to mean that He did what we could not, He kept the Mosaic Law.

Any thoughts?

Doug