Part 2. CHAPTER I.
James Dodson
Part II.
Of the Mediatour of the Covenant
CHAP. I
Q. What room or place hath Christ the Mediator in the Covenants?
The room of Christ in both Covenants.
A. He hath place in the Covenant of Works as a satisfier for us.
2. As a doer and an obedient fulfiller thereof in all points. And he is Mediator and Surety of the Covenant of Grace.
The first Adam mars all, the second ADAM mends all.
2. The first Adam mars all, the second ADAM who makes all things new, mends all. The first Adam was a public sort of stirresman, to whom was committed the standing and falling of all mankind, and in reference to man, the standing of Heaven, Earth, and Creatures in their perfection, and he spoiled all, put all things a-reeling. The second ADAM received in his arms the whole Creation that was a-falling for in him all things τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκε stand fast, Col. 1:17. And he bears up all by his mighty word, Heb. 1:3. He satisfied for our sins, and for our breach of the Covenant of Works.
2. He is a full doer and fulfiller of the Covenant of Works most perfectly, by doing. 1 Joh. 3:7. He who does righteousness is righteous: As he who suffers for the broken Law, fulfills the Law. Rom. 6:7. He that is dead, δεδικαίωται is freed, justified from sin, in the obligation of it to punishment. So Paul, vers. 8. If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live with him. This dying is to believe that he died for us, at least it excludes not that. And if we keep the Law, we are not obliged to suffer: for the Law does not oblige man in absolute sense, both to perfect doing and to perfect suffering copulatively, but to one of them.
How the Law doth oblige to both doing and suffering.
But if we be (legally) dead with Christ, (as his death so excellent doth exhaust sins punishment and is a perfect satisfaction therefore) we are freed or justified from sin, not to suffer or satisfy by suffering for it, as Rom. 8:3. For what the Law could not do, so that it was weak (by accident, not of itself) through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. Τὸ δικαίωμα του νόμου the righteousness of the Law, the passive righteousness in suffering for the breach of the Law, might be fulfilled in us, 2 Cor. 5:2. And Isai. 53:5. But he was wounded for our transgressions, &c.—6. The Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all. But though some suffer, as the reprobate do, and suffer in this life the beginning of satisfactory judgement, yet are they not loosed from active obedience to the Law as the Law, though they cannot, having once sinned, be under the Law as a Covenant of Justification and life: nor is any flesh under that Covenant now.
The righteousness of Christ’s person and of his merit.
Q. What place hath Christ’s righteousness here?
Ans. Pareus with some others distinguish between the Righteousness of Christ’s person, which contains his essential Righteousness, as God, the habitual and actual conformity of the Man Christ, and the perfect holiness of the Man Christ. Such a High Priest became us, as is holy, harmless, &c. Heb. 7:26. And, The righteousness of his merit, in the satisfaction of his suffering, the satisfaction is the formal cause of our Justification which is counted ours: this latter righteousness is acquired, the former is essential.
Christ’s active obedience, how it is meritorious for us.
Now the active obedience of Christ falls under a twofold consideration.
1. As the Man Christ’s perfect conformity to the Law of God, so as man he was obliged to do and suffer all that he did and suffered, even to lay down his life for man. But had he been only man his righteousness had neither, been by condignity meritorious, nor yet satisfactory for us.
But 2. The whole course of Christ’s obedience from his birth to the grave, by doing and suffering, is to be considered as the doing and suffering of so excellent a person, his being born, his praying, preaching, dying, coming from a Person God-Man. Now the Law required not praying, preaching of God-man, the blood of God, or the dying of him who was God-Man. And so all these being both so excellent, and then so undue, have respect of satisfaction to God.
2. The active obedience of Christ & all that Christ did and suffered were performed by him in his state of humiliation: In which he was poor, διʼ ὑμᾶς, 2 Cor. 8:9. for us, so also by the same ground a weeping man, hungry, thirsty, weary for us, made lower than the Angels by the suffering of death, Heb. 2:9. Humbled by partaking of flesh and blood, because of the children, Heb. 2:14. Emptied himself for us, Ph. 2. This was, as Pareus well saith, perpetua quaedam passio & paena peccatorum nostrorum, fuit tota vita Christi [a perpetual suffering and punishment of our sins, has been the whole life of Christ]:[1] All these have a respect of punishment and suffering. For since Christ was both a viator and a comprehensor, and such a holy sinless person, he ought to have had the actual possession of the Crown of Glory from the womb, and so should have been free of weeping, hunger, thirst, weariness, groaning, sighing, sadness, persecution, reproaches, &c. all which adhered to all his active holiness, and therefore in that his actions were satisfactory passions. For satisfaction is defined a voluntary restoring of the equivalent, and as good in the place of what is taken away, and the good restored must be, 1. Undue. 2. The proper good of the restorer, which agrees to the active and passive obedience of Christ.[2]
No satisfaction could be at all except Christ had died, because all the satisfaction of a surety might in Law have been refused, and the Lord might have eternally punished Adam & all his, in a Law-way in their persons, therefore there was need of a punishment agreed upon between God and the Mediator by a special Covenant, & this punishment must be satisfactory to the Law which required death Gen. 2:17. and so must Christ-God-man die.
Obj. Then Christ’s very weeping, and praying, being the weeping and praying of God-Man, might have been a perfect satisfaction for our sins; for Christ was God-Man in all his holy actions in the state of humiliation, as in his being crucified, and in his suffering?
Ans. This doth not follow: Because the punishment of the breach of the Law, and not that only, but such a special punishment, by dying the first and second death, according to the threatening of the Law, Gen. 2:17. In the day that thou eatest thou shalt surely die: was required in the Law, and except the threatening of the Law be fulfilled, the Law is not fulfilled: And Paul, Gal. 3:13. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed be every one that hangeth on a tree. Now Christ’s suffering the death of the cross the cursed death is that which makes him under the Law. Ergo, there is a Law-righteousness in suffering death. So Gal. 4:4. God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the Law. For what end? [v.]5. To redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the Adoption of sons. How are we redeemed from under the Law? By blood, purchasing to us Justification. Rom. 3:24. Being justified freely by his Grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins past: And redemption from the curse of the Law, and remission is ever ascribed to the blood of Christ dying, Rom. 3:24, 25. Ye are bought with a price, τιμῆς called a ransom of Christ’s blood, λύτρον ἀντίλυτρον, Matth. 20:28; 1 Tim. 2:6; Eph. 1:1, 7. In whom we have redemption in his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Col. 1:14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Rom. 5:9. Being justified by his blood. 1 Pet. 1:18. Being redeemed by the blood of the Lamb unspotted and undefiled. 1 Joh. 1:8. The blood of Jesus Christ purgeth us from all sin. Rev. 5:9. And they sang a new song (to wit, the four Beasts and the four and twenty Elders)—for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood. 1 Pet. 1:18. By his stripes (which he suffered in his death, Isa. 5:3.) we are healed. Rev. 1:5. To him that hath loved us, and washen us from our sins in his blood. For though all Christ’s actions of God-man from the worth of the infinite person be meritorious, yet are they refusable, yea a satisfaction by Covenant, which was the death of God-Man must be also.
The Scripture never speaks of Christ’s dying, but it speaks of this intrinsical end, that they should die to sin and live to God, for whom Christ died; now this end is not possible in Pagans who never hear, nor can hear the Gospel, therefore Christ died not for Pagans.
2. The word also never speaks of Christ’s dying for all, but it mentions Justification in his blood, Ro. 3:24, 25; Rom. 5:9. Yea the Scripture adds another end of Christ’s death, to wit, forgiveness, Col. 1:14; Eph. 1:7. intercession at the right hand of GOD, 1 Joh. 2:1. that we may receive the Adoption of sons, Gal. 4:5. To make us Kings and Priests to God, Rev. 1:16. dying to sin, living to him, 1 Pet. 2:24. That he might bring us to God, 1 Pet. 3:18. The glorifying of God in our bodies, 1 Cor. 6:19, 20. Redeeming us from our vain conversation, 1 Pet. 1:18. From this present evil world, Gal. 1:4. Sanctifying the people, Heb. 13:12; Heb. 10:8, 9, 10. All which the Lord must intend in Christ’s death to Pagans, old and young, to all and every one of mankind to whom the Gospel could not come. And what authority have men to devise a redemption general, universal, from hell, and not from sin?
2. For life eternal and not for the giving of the Spirit, and for redemption from a vain conversation, and for sanctifying of the people also?
3. A redemption in Christ’s blood, but no forgiveness of sins in his blood, not any non-imputation of sin, nor reconciliation of the world, 2 Cor. 5:15; 18?
4. A dying of the just for the unjust, but not to bring them to God; a redeeming of them, but not a redeeming of them out of every Kindred and Tongue, and People and Nation (for these People, Nations, and Tongues, were redeemed by this way, as well as they) and a washing of them in his blood, but no making of them Kings and Priests to God, a dying for all, but no living to him: contrary to 1 Pet. 1:18; Rev. 5:9; Rev. 1:5, 5, 6; 2 Cor. 5:15?
These who teach that Christ died for all and everyone, and made a Covenant of Grace with all & every one, and sends no more of the Gospel to all & every one, make the way of salvation more impossible under the second, than under the first Adam.
5. Christ’s blood did something (and it is not anything) to make all savable, to pacify Justice, satisfy the Law, to merit Heaven; but did nothing to soften the heart, mortify and sanctify the will, mind, affections, to remove unbelief, to renew the mind. But it is sure the Lord had not intended to commit heaven and hell any more to a sanctified will, but mutable and lubric [unsettled] in Adam, but to commit all to Christ, to a better Covenant, better promises, to a way of free-grace not of nature: Yet these men commit the salvation and damnation of all and every one, to an unsanctified, corrupt, rebellious will, Gen. 6:5; Gen. 8:21; 1 Cor. 2:14; Joh. 6:44; Job 14:4; Psal. 51:5; Jer. 17:9, 10, &c. (except they say, Pagans and all mankind are regenerated, sanctified, justified) yea to a worse Covenant then that Covenant of Works, to an universal Covenant of Grace.
That (1.) never came to their ears.
(2.) By which they are in a worse condition then Adam was, who had the Image of God in his soul, and a full power to stand, and a clearly revealed Covenant: But all mankind for whom Christ is supposed to die, are born heirs of wrath, but they are born in more misery in the bondage of sin, of a blind heart, of a corrupt will, their chains heavier, their furnace hotter in hell, helps fewer. And yet the absoluteness of Sovereignty under the freedom of the Grace of Christ, by this way of Universalists, shines no more now, nay not so much now as in Adam’s state, for more is laid upon free-will, and less help to heal the will, then was in the Covenant of Works. And if all die in Adam, and the Second Adam die for all, he must die to loose the works of Satan in all; Now if a weaker course be taken to destroy Sathan’s kingdom now then in Adam’s state, and all be laid upon a weaker will, Sathan is stronger now than before: And if Christ do not purchase by his death grace to bow indeclinably the will of all these for whom he died, to cause them live to him, die to sin, to make them Kings and Priests to God, &c. but leave their will in a more weak and wicked condition then it was under in the first Covenant, Sathan is in this stronger then the second ADAM. No more of this here.
It is a question, the Threatening standing, Gen. 2:17. how the active righteousness of Christ can be a cause meriting to us life, and satisfying the Law, when there is no suffering for the breach of the Law which expressly required death in the sinner: Not to say, that it seems too near to make Christ’s dying needless, if his active holiness do the business; Nay we cannot so teach.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Epist. David Pareus, de justi. ch. activa & passiva, 186.
[2] Satisfactio est redditio voluntaria equivalentis, alioquin indebiti, ut alii ex propriis bonis & non debitis [Satisfaction is a voluntary payment equivalent, otherwise undue, as others from their own property and not due.].