Of communion with Christ in purchased grace — Purchased grace considered in respect of its rise and fountain — The first rise of it, in the obedience of Christ — Obedience properly ascribed to Christ — Two ways considered: what it was, and wherein it did consist — Of his obedience to the law in general — Of the law of the Mediator — His habitual righteousness, how necessary; as also his obedience to the law of the Mediator — Of his actual obedience or active righteousness — All Christ’s obedience performed as he was Mediator — His active obedience for us — This proved at large, Gal. iv. 4, 5; Rom. v. 19; Phil. iii. 10; Zech. iii. 3–5 — One objection removed — Considerations of Christ’s active righteousness closed — Of the death of Christ, and its influence into our acceptation with God — A price; redemption, what it is — A sacrifice; atonement made thereby — A punishment; satisfaction thereby — The intercession of Christ; with its influence into our acceptation with God.
Our process1 is now to communion with Christ in purchased grace, as it was before proposed: “That we may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, and be made conformable to his death,” Phil. iii. 10.
By purchased grace, I understand all that righteousness and grace which Christ hath procured, or wrought out for us, or doth by any means make us partakers of, or bestows on us for our benefit, by any thing that he hath done or suffered, or by any thing he continueth to do as mediator:— First, What this purchased grace is, and wherein it doth consist; Secondly, How we hold communion with Christ therein; are the things that now come under consideration.
The First may be considered two ways:— 1. In respect of the rise and fountain of it; 2. Of its nature, or wherein it consisteth.
1. It hath a threefold rise, spring, or causality in Christ:— (1.) The obedience of his life. (2.) The suffering of his death. (3.) His continued intercession. All the actions of Christ as mediator, leading to the communication of grace unto us, may be either referred to these heads, or to some things that are subservient to them or consequents of them.
2. For the nature of this grace wherein we have communion with Christ, flowing from these heads and fountains, it may be referred to these three:— (1.) Grace of justification, or acceptation with God; which makes a relative change in us, as to state and condition. (2.) Grace of sanctification, or holiness before God; which makes a real change in us, as to principle and operation. (3.) Grace of privilege; which is mixed, as we shall show, if I go forth to the handling thereof.
Now, that we have communion with Christ in this purchased grace, is evident on this single consideration, — that there is almost nothing that Christ hath done, which is a spring of that grace whereof we speak, but we are said to do it with him. We are “crucified” with him, Gal. ii. 20; we are “dead” with him, 2 Tim. ii. 11; Col. iii. 3; and “buried” with him, Rom. vi. 4; Col. ii. 12; we are “quickened together with him,” Col. ii. 13; “risen” with him, Col. iii. 1. “He hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places,” Eph. ii. 5, 6. In the actings of Christ, there is, by virtue of the compact between him as mediator, and the Father, such an assured foundation laid of the communication of the fruits of those actings unto those in whose stead he performed them, that they are said, in the participation of those fruits, to have done the same things with him. The life and power of which truth we may have occasion hereafter to inquire into:—
(1.) The first fountain and spring of this grace, wherein we have our communion with Christ, is first to be considered; and that is the obedience of his life: concerning which it must be declared, — [1.] What it is that is intended thereby, and wherein it consisteth. [2.] What influence it hath into the grace whereof we speak.
To the handling of this I shall only premise this observation, — namely, that in the order of procurement, the life of Christ (as was necessary) precedeth his death; and therefore we shall handle it in the first place: but in the order of application, the benefits of his death are bestowed on us antecedently, in the nature of the things themselves, unto those of his life; as will appear, and that necessarily, from the state and condition wherein we are.
[1.] By the obedience of the life of Christ, I intend the universal conformity of the Lord Jesus Christ, as he was or is, in his being mediator, to the whole will of God; and his complete actual fulfilling of the whole of every law of God, or doing of all that God in them required. He might have been perfectly holy by obedience to the law of creation, the moral law, as the angels were; neither could any more, as a man walking with God, be required of him: but he submitted himself also to every law or ordinance that was introduced upon the occasion of sin, which, on his own account, he could not be subject to, it becoming him to “fulfil2 all righteousness,” Matt. iii. 15, as he spake in reference to a newly-instituted ceremony.