Theology Thursday!

Since I (Walt) usually blog on Thursdays, I figured it would be a nice adventure to try a new segment, offering bits of theology on Thursdays, along with some quick reflection. So today we will look at Active and Passive Righteousness.

First let’s define the 2 terms:

• Active Righteousness: Works in obedience to God’s will
• Passive Righteousness: imputed (assigned/attributed) righteousness

Now these are very broad definitions, but we will look at them more specifically below:

In the life of Christ:

• Active: His perfectly obedient life, fulfilling the Law and the Prophets according to the will of the Father
• Passive: His substitutionary death in which he bore the full wrath of God against the sins of his elect (those who would be justified by His death)

While we like to focus on Christ’s death, we cannot overlook the importance of his life. Without his Active obedience, we have no righteousness before God. What has been imputed to us if it is not his life? From Christ’s life we stand perfectly righteous before God, just as Christ is righteous.

Passively, we no longer must bear the wrath of God against sin and sinners, because Christ bore that in our stead. Rising from the dead and named the victor over sin and death, we, as Christians, also inherit his eternal life, as co-heirs with Christ – all of this given to us, which is what we will look at below:

In our lives:

• Passive: The point at which Christ’s atoning work is attributed to us, resulting in our perfect righteousness before God
• Active: After salvation, God has enabled us (by the work of Christ on the Cross and the Holy Spirit in our lives) “to do good works, which he has prepared in advance, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10)

The juxtaposition here is important – in Christ’s life, Active Righteousness comes first, and it ends in Passive; in our lives, the Passive must come first, and then the Active. Why? It’s that depravity thing again. Without Christ we are unable to do good works. We are alienated from God, as Colossians 1 says. Christ is holy and sinless by his own nature, while we are wicked and sinful. So let us glory in our Redeemer and praise him for his Active and Passive Righteousness, given to us as a free gift of God. Since there is never a time when this verse exhausts itself (as it appears to be the anthem for this blog), let’s end with 2 Corinthians 5:21:

“For our sake, God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

P.S. - Let me know what you think about Theology Thursdays