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Transcript - ST408 Foundations of Systematic Theology© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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LESSON 11 of 24ST408

Christology: The Work of Christ

Foundations of Systematic Theology

In lesson 10, we asked about the person of Christ. What kind of person Jesus is? We saw that He is both true God and true man—two distinct natures in one person. In this lesson, we will ask about the work of Christ. What does Jesus do for us? I’ll be talking about His work in terms of His offices. Just as some people are presidents or mayors or sergeants or CEOs or certified public accountants, so Jesus holds certain offices. And what He does, His actions, carry out the duties of those offices.

What are those offices? Well as we’ve seen, Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One. That idea sends us back to the Old Testament where three offices of people were anointed with oil: prophets, priests, and kings. When the Messiah comes—the Anointed One, par excellence—He holds all three of these offices and indeed fulfills them. He is the ultimate prophet, the ultimate priest, and the ultimate king. You may recall the threefold concept of lordship that I shared with you in lesson one. These three offices fit right in with that. As prophet, Jesus displays the lordship attribute of authority. As priest, the lordship attribute of presence, and as king, the lordship attribute of control. Or in terms of our distinctions in lesson six, the prophet represents the normative perspective; the priest, the existential; and the king, the situational. These offices help us to understand Jesus’ work.

As a prophet, He brings us the true Word of God with God’s authority. As priest, He serves as a mediator between God and ourselves bringing the presence of God into our lives. As the mediator, He brings sacrifice, and ultimately the sacrifice is Himself. And as the priest. He also makes intercession. He prays for us at the throne of the Father. And as king, He rules all things in His mighty power. Your outline considers each of these in turn.

First, Jesus is the greatest of the prophets. Indeed He is more than a prophet. As we saw in lesson four, a prophet is someone who has the very Word of God on his lips. Deuteronomy 18 and Jeremiah 1

John M. Frame, D.D.Experience: Professor of systematic theology

at Reformed Theological Seminary

Transcript - ST408 Foundations of Systematic Theology © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.


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as well as other passages show that the prophet’s words are God’s words and so they are just as authoritative as the divine voice uttered from heaven. But Jesus is more than a prophet. He is the very Word of God Himself. John 1:1 reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And we see from verse 14 that that word was Jesus. So when Jesus begins His teaching ministry, people are amazed at the authority with which He speaks. Not at all like the scribes and the Pharisees the usual teachers in Israel (see Matthew 7:28-29). Jesus declares God’s Word truly cutting through all the distortions and compromises of the Jewish traditions.

Further, Jesus teaches that His word is to be the foundation of all of life in Matthew 7:21-27. Peter recognizes this when he says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). It is the word of His grace that builds us up, according to Acts 20:32, and Jesus’ Word will judge us all in the last day (John 12:48). Jesus spoke His word not only during His earthly ministry; the whole Old Testament is His Word, for Revelation 19:10, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. He taught His disciples that everything in the Law—the prophets, and the writings of the Old Testament—was about Him. So the whole Bible is not only the Word of God, it is the word of Jesus as well. It is His gospel, His promise, His commandments, and by His Word we are saved.

Second, Jesus is our great High Priest. We can summarize the duties of a priest in two categories: sacrifice and intercession. We’ll discuss Jesus’ sacrifice under Roman numeral II A on your outline, and intercession much more briefly under B several pages later. Jesus’ sacrifice is what we usually think of when we think of the work of Christ. The theological name for this sacrifice is atonement. That word comes from an old English expression referring to reconciliation bringing people to oneness—at-one-ment. Certainly reconciliation is part of the biblical meaning of atonement, but there is much more as well. Jesus’ atoning sacrifice fulfills the Old Testament sacrifices of bulls and goats, lambs and doves, flour, wine, and oil. In the Old Testament, God used these sacrifices to teach the people what Jesus was later going to do. So we can learn from those sacrifices about the meaning of Jesus’ atonement.

First, the sacrificial animal had to be perfect, spotless, without blemish. The Israelite was not to bring an offering to God that was cheap or worthless or damaged. He had to bring something



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really valuable, something perfect, something that otherwise he would treasure for himself. Similarly, Jesus offered Himself as the sinless Lamb of God. As we saw in lesson 10, Jesus committed no sin. Neither His friends nor His enemies were able to find any fault in Him. He loved as no one had ever loved. Even the demons recognized Him as the holy One of God.

Theologians call Jesus’ perfect life His “active obedience.” When we believe in Christ, God counts us as righteous in Christ. That is to say God imputes to us the active obedience of Christ so that He sees us, regards us, counts us, declares us righteous and holy as Jesus is. Paul tells us in II Corinthians 5:21 that “for our sake He,” that is, God, “made Him,” that is, Jesus, “He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” You see, God imputes our sin to Christ and His righteousness to us. God judges our sin in the death of Christ, and regards Christ as bearing our sins. And He regards us as righteous for the sake of Christ. That is sometimes called double imputation. God imputes our sin to Christ and God imputes His righteousness to us. So God not only forgives our sins, He gives to us the very righteousness of Christ so we are not only acquitted but we are positively good in His sight.

Jesus’ death on the cross is called His passive obedience. The word “passive” may not be the best, because Jesus is very active in sacrificing Himself. He is the priest who offers the sacrifice. He lays down His life as He says in John 10:18, “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from My Father.” But the word “passive” is related to the Greek and Latin terms for suffering, so we can accept the term passive obedience in that sense just referring to Jesus’ suffering.

Now Jesus’ passive obedience is an atoning sacrifice. That sacrifice accomplishes a number of things, some of which are listed under number 2 of your outline. First, expiation. This means that Jesus bore our sins, took them on Himself, and therefore did away with them. As we saw earlier in II Corinthians 5:21, He was made sin for us. He became our substitute. As such, He took the full penalty that we owed to God, the penalty of death. By expiation, Jesus wiped our slate clean. We have nothing to fear from God. God forgives our sins fully and completely, taking them as far from us as the east is from the west, as Psalm 103 puts it.

Second the atonement involves propitiation. This means that



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Jesus bore the wrath and the anger of God that was due to sin. In some mysterious way, Jesus was even estranged from His Father on the cross as the Father regarded Him as bearing our sins. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He cried, quoting the 22nd Psalm. Some scholars have tried to eliminate the theme of propitiation from the Bible trying to make it a synonym for expiation. These scholars don’t like the idea of God being angry with people because of sin. But that attempt, I think, has failed. Our God is One who cares about right and wrong. God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day (Psalm 7:11 tells us). God is angry with the wicked, and Jesus, on the cross, turned His anger away from His people.

Third, the atonement is reconciliation as the English word atonement (at-one-ment) implies. Since we are now righteous in God’s sight (expiation) and He is no longer angry with us (propitiation), we are reconciled. We are no longer enemies of God. Again, some scholars have tried to soften this idea by saying that the atonement purges our enmity again God; not God’s enmity against us. They think again that God has no enmity towards sinners, but that is biblically wrong. In sin, man is the enemy of God and vice versa. In Christ, Jesus brings us together so that we will live together with God in blessed fellowship forever and ever. We anticipate that fellowship in the Lord’s Supper in which we have table fellowship with the living God.

Finally, the atonement is redemption. Redemption means literally buying back something. In the Old Testament, when someone sold his property or even got so far into debt that he sold himself into slavery, a relative could buy back the property or buy the man’s freedom. This relative is called the kinsmen redeemer, and Leviticus 25 describes him. In the book of Ruth, Boaz redeems Ruth and her mother-in-law from poverty by marrying Ruth. In Mark 10:45, Jesus says that He is come to give His life a ransom for many, buying us back as God’s lost property. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was an act of great value, and it purchased for Him a people of His own possession. So we belong to God both by creation and by redemption.

Now these four terms summarize what the atonement is according to Scripture, but I should also warn you against some wrong ways of looking at the atonement. Some theologians have not liked the idea of Jesus dying in our place—substitutionary atonement as it is called, so they have tried to make the atonement an easier concept for modern people to appreciate.



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First, some such as the third century writer Origen—no modern man he—but Origen, like some others, picked up the ransom passage in Mark 10:45 and suggested that Jesus paid the ransom to Satan. That idea has no biblical basis. Satan has no rights over us. It is to God alone that Jesus pays our ransom.

Secondly, some such as the medieval thinker Abelard, together with many modern liberals, have argued that the atonement is not a sacrifice but only a moral example. On this view, Jesus dies on the cross to show us how to behave. Now this position does have some biblical basis. First Peter 2:21 says, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you might follow in His steps.” The atonement is an example to us. We’re called to lay down our lives for one another as Jesus laid down His life for us (I John 3:16).

The question is: Is the atonement only a moral example? If it is only an example, then as Roger Nicole points out, it is a very poor example, for if Jesus died merely to encourage us to do the same thing, He is encouraging suicide—something Scripture never honors. But if Jesus lays down His life to bring life to others, then there’s something here we can imitate. We should be cautious at this point. In one sense, we can never do what Jesus did. He took away the punishment of our sins. I can’t do that for anybody else. Yet Jesus’ self-sacrifice is an excellent model for us in that it tells us to give ourselves in love for the benefit of others.

The third wrong view of the atonement is called the governmental view—the view of Grotius and others. It teaches that God forgives our sins without any need for sacrifice but to impress us of the seriousness and the solemnity of God’s Law—God put His Son to death. Now this view is unbiblical in a number of ways. First, Scriptures teaches that sacrifice is required to receive God’s forgiveness. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22). Second on this view, God demonstrates the severity of His Law by putting to death an innocent man. Unless Jesus is a substitute for us, His death is a demonstration of injustice not justice.

Now many theologians have devoted a lot of attention to the question for whom did Christ die? There are basically two views on the subject. One view, called unlimited atonement, says that Christ died for every human being. The other view, which has various names—it’s called limited atonement, it’s often called definite atonement, and it’s often called particular redemption—that view



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says that Christ died only for the elect, only for those who in God’s eternal plan will be eternally saved. The unlimited view seems fairly obvious from a number of Scriptures that say that Christ died for the world or for all. And there are some Scriptures too that seem to indicate that Jesus died for people who ultimately reject Him as in II Peter 2:1 where Peter speaks of some who are “even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.” This sounds very much as though Jesus died on the cross to buy, to redeem some people who nevertheless will be lost in the end.

In Hebrews 10:29, we read, “How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?” Again, it sounds as though some people are sanctified—made holy by the blood of Christ—who nevertheless spurn and profane that blood and receive eternal punishment. But although that view sounds obvious from the verses I’ve quoted, there are some real problems with it. If the atonement is unlimited, universal, then it would seem to bring salvation to everybody in the world for as we have seen the atonement as a substitutionary sacrifice. Jesus’ atonement takes our sins away bringing us full forgiveness. So if the atonement is universal, it guarantees salvation for everybody, but we know from Scripture—indeed we know from II Peter 2:1 and Hebrews 10:29, which I just quoted—that not everyone in the world is saved. Some people spurn Jesus’ blood. They trample it down, and so they receive swift destruction.

So if you believe in a universal atonement, you must hold a weaker view of what the atonement is. It must be something less than a substitutionary sacrifice that brings full forgiveness. What could that be? Some theologians have suggested that the atonement does not actually save anybody but it takes away the barrier of original sin so that we are now free to choose Christ or reject Him. So the atonement does not actually save; it only makes salvation possible for those who freely decide to come to faith. In the end, it is our free decision that saves us. The atonement only prepares the way so that we can make a free decision, and this idea of free decision, by the way, is the idea of libertarian freedom that I rejected back in lesson seven.

Now the trouble is with this view that Scripture never hints at any such meaning for the atonement. In Scripture, the atonement does not merely make salvation possible; the atonement actually



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saves. The atonement of Jesus is not merely a prelude to our free decision. Rather it brings to us all the benefits of God’s forgiveness and eternal life. Those who say the atonement has an unlimited extent believe that it has a limited efficacy—a limited power to save. Those who believe the atonement is limited to the elect, however, believe that it has an unlimited efficacy, so everyone believes in some kind of limitation. Either the atonement is limited in its extent or it is limited in its efficacy.

I think the Bible teaches that it is limited in its extent but unlimited in its efficacy. So mainly because I believe Scripture teaches the efficacy of the atonement, I hold to the view that the atonement is limited in its extent. It doesn’t save everybody, but it fully saves everybody that it does save. The fundamental point here is not the limited extent of the atonement—though that is a biblical teaching. The fundamental point is the efficacy of the atonement.

Let’s then look at the particular redemption view, which is B on your outline. On this view, the atonement does not just make salvation possible; it actually saves. Many biblical texts indicate that the atonement is limited to Jesus’ own people. In John 10, Jesus says that He lays down His life for His sheep, but in the context, not everyone is one of Jesus’ sheep. Further, as we’ve seen, many texts about the atonement indicate that it fully saves. Romans 8:32-39 says:

He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all [there’s the atonement], how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I’ve quoted a long passage for you, but you see what Paul says here is that God gave His Son for us all and the consequence is salvation in the fullest sense, a salvation that can never be lost or



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taken away. If Christ died for you, no one can ever bring a charge against you before God; not even Satan. If Christ died for you, nothing can separate you from the love of Christ. There are to be sure passages that say that Christ died for the world. Some of these passages emphasize the cosmic dimension of Jesus’ work as in John 3:16.

In Colossians 1:20, Paul says that God, through Jesus’ atonement, intends “through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” Other world passages use “world” in an ethical sense as when I John 2:15 says “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” That may have been in the mind of John the Baptist when he said in John 1:29, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” And there are passages that say Christ died for all, but the extent of the word all is notoriously flexible. Mark 1:5 says that all Judea and Jerusalem went out to hear John the Baptist, but clearly we should not take that all literally. In some of the “all” texts it’s plain that the writer is referring to all Christians or all God’s people or all the elect.

Note I Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” Now taken literally this means that everyone will be saved. But it does not mean that. Rather what it means is that everyone who dies, dies in Adam, and everyone who lives, lives in Christ. Note also II Corinthians 5:15, “and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.” Here it says Jesus died for all, but it also says that they all receive new hearts so that they no longer live to themselves but for Christ. Even in this “all” text, the atonement is efficacious. When Christ dies for someone, that person is fully saved. He receives a new heart and a new life. Clearly not everyone in the world receives a new heart and a new life, so not everyone in the world is included under that term “all.”

In other “all” texts, the reference may be to what we call ethnic universalism. That is, that Jesus died for people of all nations, all tongues, all races, all tribes. That may be the meaning in I Timothy 2:6 which mentions the nations in the first two verses of the chapter. But I prefer to take this verse as in D on our outline that the death of Christ warrants a free offer of the gospel to everybody, for He is the only Savior. That is to say that when in I John 2:2, for example, the writer says that Jesus “is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole



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world,” he is saying that Jesus is the only Savior. There’s none other in the whole wide world so that if anyone anywhere, say in Thailand or Sri Lanka, is seeking a propitiation with God, he will find no other except in the blood of Jesus.

What about texts like Hebrews 10:29 and II Peter 2:1 that describe some people as denying the Lord who bought them in some sense? I take these texts to describe members of the visible church who have confessed Christ at their baptism. These have claimed that Jesus died for them. On the basis of that profession, they have entered a solemn covenant relationship with God and with the church; a relationship made solemn by the blood of Christ, but now they blaspheme the blood of Christ. They were never united to Christ in a saving way, but having professed Christ, they’re subject to the curses of the covenant as covenant breakers.

I said earlier that the two main duties of a priest were sacrifice and intercession. We spent far more time on the first mainly because the ideas are harder to understand and much more controversial, but intercession is just as important, and the truth of Jesus’ intercession is just as precious. Hebrews 4:15 tells us, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 7:25 tells us also speaking of Jesus’ priesthood, “Consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” Romans 8:34 is also an important verse: “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

You see from the Hebrews verses that Jesus’ humanity is important here. His human nature enables Him to sympathize or emphasize, to feel our feelings, to actually suffer our sufferings. He is also undergone all our temptations, so among all the members of the Trinity, He is able to be a priest, to make sacrifice, and also to bring our sufferings, to bring our griefs before God’s throne.

Some people ask what is the resurrected Christ doing right now? And the answer is He is interceding at the Father’s right hand. Even now, and this is an amazing thing to me, even now He is thinking of us, bringing our needs to the Father’s attention. Of course, Scripture also speaks of the Holy Spirit interceding (Romans 8:26-27). The two persons act in unity to bring the believer’s needs before God’s great throne of grace. The Father willingly hears the



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intercession of His Son and His Spirit. The bottom line is that we can be sure that the Father will withhold no good thing from us. The whole Trinity is on our side. God is of one mind on our behalf, and if God be for us, who can be against us?

Now Jesus is not only prophet and priest, He is also King of Kings and Lord of Lords. King is very closely related to Lord in the Bible, and we have seen that Jesus is Lord, the head of the covenant, Yahweh, the Lord Himself. We see His kingship over the whole earth in His great works of power. Again, everything that God the Father does, the Son does as well, and that includes creation, providence, miracle. More specifically, Jesus is of the royal family of David. He is great David’s greater Son; both David’s Son and David’s Lord (Matthew 22:42 and Psalm 110). Although He was always king, He demonstrated His kingship especially in His resurrection. Paul tells us that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead—Jesus Christ our Lord.

In connection with His priesthood, we focused especially on His atoning death. In connection with His kingship, we focus on His resurrection. The resurrection, like the atonement, is part of our salvation from sin. It is Jesus’ great triumph over death and sin. Death could not hold Him, and so because of Him death cannot hold us. It is also the Father’s witness that Jesus’ claims are true and that His atonement accomplished its purpose. And consider this as well, Romans 6 tells us that when Jesus died, we died with Him to sin, and when He rose from the dead, we rose with Him to new life. Somehow when Jesus rose from the dead, we were there. The basis of our new life is Jesus’ resurrection. So Paul says in Colossians 3, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

I don’t know exactly what that means, but at least it is this: Christ’s glorious resurrection life is now ours in some sense. This is the beginning of the new life that we shall enjoy fully when Jesus also raises our bodies on the last day. So Paul tells us that the resurrection of Christ is the very basis of our faith. First Corinthians 15, “If Jesus is not raised from the dead, we are still dead in our sins. We are of all people the most miserable,” Paul says. The risen Christ has all authority and power throughout the created universe. When He returns, every eye will see Him and



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bow before Him as the rightful king over all the earth. On that day, His royal word will judge all the living and the dead. So He is the object of all our worship and praise.

Never forget that the gospel is good news about the coming of a king. This is plain in Isaiah, for example, where the prophet gives us important background for understanding the term “gospel”: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’” That’s Isaiah 52:7. In Isaiah 61:1-2, which Jesus quoted in the synagogue at Capernaum, we hear a similar gospel:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor [good news—gospel]; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God.

He goes on in Isaiah to mention other things, but here too the gospel—the good news—is about the coming of the Anointed One—the Messiah, the King—and all the things that the King will do to bind up the brokenhearted to set captives free. Who but a king can do that, to proclaim both God’s favor and His vengeance?

At the beginning of their ministries, both John the Baptist and Jesus proclaimed as gospel, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2 and Matthew 4:17. Again, the gospel is the coming of a great King. The gospel is not just about us. It’s not limited to justification by faith. It is focused on God and His coming. It’s almost political in its force. To the Romans, the gospel, or good news, was that a new emperor had come to power. They proclaimed kurios caesar—Caesar is lord, and messengers went throughout the Roman Empire to make sure that everybody knew that there was a new lord—there was a new Caesar.

The Christians proclaimed not kurios caesar but kurios jesus—Jesus is Lord. You can understand why the Roman rulers became nervous about Jesus. Of course, they misunderstood what kind of king Jesus was, but they were not wrong to feel threatened. King Jesus claimed sovereignty over them. Think of Psalm 2 where God calls the rulers of the world to kiss the anointed Son. Never forget that Jesus is Lord and king of all, and will not accept any lesser position. He demands that we do all things to His glory,

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everything in accord with His will. His gospel contains law, we may say, but service to this King is wonderful freedom. To trust this King is to trust a priest who gives us full forgiveness from God and constant intercession, and to trust this King is to trust a prophet whose word is completely true and trustworthy.

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