9. Error 7: Sin really transferred to Christ.
and advantages that accrue to them by the rods of God upon them. It was never his intent to put us into a condition on earth, that would have been so much to our loss. So then if the hand of God be upon his people for sin, and consistently enough with his justice, it must be an error to say, God smites not believers for their sins, and it would be injustice in him so to do; which is their sixth error.
Error 7: Sin really transferred to Christ.
Error 7. They tell us, That by God's laying our iniquities upon Christ, he became as completely sinful as we, and we as completely righteous as Christ: That not only the guilt and punishment of sin was laid upon Christ, but simply the very faults that men commit, the transgression itself became the transgression of Christ; iniquity itself, not in any figure, but plainly sin itself was laid on Christ; and that Christ himself was no more righteous than this person is, and this person is not more sinful than Christ was.
Refutation. These two propositions will never go down with sound and orthodox Christians: the first sinks and debases Christ too low, the other exalts the sinful creature too high. The one represents the pure and spotless Lord Jesus as sinful: the other represents the sinful creature as pure and perfect: and both these propositions seem evidently to be built upon these two hypothesis. (1.) That the righteousness of Christ is subjectively and inherently in us, in the same fulness and perfection as it is in Christ; grant that, and then it will follow indeed, That Christ himself is not more righteous than the believer is. (2.) That not only the guilt and punishment of sin was laid on Christ by way of imputation: but sin itself, the very transgression, or sinfulness itself, was transferred from the elect to Christ: and that by God's laying it on him, the sinfulness or fault itself was essentially transfused into him; and so sin itself did
transire a subjecto in subjectum. Grant but this, and it can never be denied but that Christ became as completely sinful as we.
But both these hypotheses are not only notoriously false, but utterly impossible, as will be manifested by and by; but before I come to the refutation of them, it will be necessary to lay down some concessions to clear the orthodox doctrine in this controversy, and narrow the matter under debate as much as may be.
(1.) And first. We thankfully acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ to be the Surety of the New Testament, Heb. 7.22, and that as such, all the guilt and punishment of our sins were laid upon {579} him, Isa.
53.5,6. That is, God imputed, and he bare it in our room and stead.
God the Father, as supreme Lawgiver and Judge of all, upon the transgression of the law, admitted the sponsion or suretiship of Christ, to answer for the sins of men, Heb. 10.5,6,7. And for this very end he was made under the law, Gal. 4.4,5. And that Christ voluntarily took it upon him to answer as our Surety whatsoever the law could lay to our charge; whence it became just and righteous that he should suffer.
(2.) We say, That God by laying upon, or imputing the guilt of our sins to Christ, thereby our sins became legally his; as the debt is legally the surety's debt, though he never borrowed one farthing of it:
Thus God laid, and Christ took our sins upon him, though in him was no sin, 2 Cor. 5.21, "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin," i.e. who was clean and altogether void of sin.
(3.) We thankfully acknowledge, that Christ hath so fully satisfied the law for the sins of all that are his, that the debts of believers are fully discharged, and the very last mite paid by Christ. His payment is full, and so therefore is our discharge and acquittance, Rom. 8.1,31. And that, by virtue hereof, the guilt of believers is so perfectly abolished, that it shall never more bring him under condemnation, John 5.24.
And so in Christ they are without fault before God.
3. We likewise grant, That as the guilt of our sins was by God's imputation laid upon Christ, so the righteousness of Christ is by God imputed to believers, by virtue of their union with Christ; and becomes thereby as truly and fully theirs, for the justification of their particular persons before God, as if they themselves had in their own persons fulfilled all that the law requires, or suffered all that is threatened; No inherent righteousness in our own persons, is, or can be more truly our own, for this end and purpose, than Christ's imputed righteousness is our own. He is the Lord our righteousness,
Jer. 23.6, We are made the righteousness of God in him, 1 Cor. 5.21.
Yea, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them that believe, Rom. 8.4.
But notwithstanding all this, we cannot say, (1.) That Christ became as completely sinful as we. Or, (2.) That we are as completely righteous as Christ; And that over and above the guilt and punishment of sin, (which we grant was laid upon Christ) sin itself simply considered, or the very transgression itself, became the sin or transgression of Christ; and consequently that we are as completely righteous as Christ, and Christ as completely sinful as we are.
1. We dare not say, that sin simply considered, as the very transgression of the law itself, as well as the guilt and punishment,
{580} became the very sin and transgression of Christ: For two things are distinctly to be considered and differenced, with respect to the law, and unto sin. As to the law, we are to consider it in,
1. Its preceptive part.
2. Its sanction.
(1.) The preceptive part of the law, which gives sin its formal nature, 1 John 3.4, For sin is the transgression of the law. All transgression arises from the preceptive part of the law of God: he that transgresseth the precepts, sinneth: and under this consideration sin can never be communicated from one to another. The personal sin
of one, cannot be in this respect, the personal sin of another. There is no physical transfusion of the transgression of the precept from one subject to another: this is utterly impossible; even Adam's personal sins, considered in his single private capacity, are not communicable to his posterity.
(2.) Besides the transgression of the preceptive part of the law, there is an obnoxiousness unto punishment, arising from the sanction of the law, which we call the guilt of sin; and this (as judicious Dr.
Owen[5] observes) is separable from sin: and if it were not separable from the former, no sinner in the world could either be pardoned or saved; guilt may be made another's by imputation, and yet that other not rendered formally a sinner thereby: Upon this ground, we say the guilt and punishment of our sin, was that only which was imputed unto Christ, but the very transgression of the law itself, or sin formally and essentially considered, could never be communicated or transfused from us unto him. I know but two ways in the world by which one man's sins can be imagined to become another's, viz.
Either by imputation, which is legal, and what we affirm; or by essential transfusion from subject to subject (as our adversaries fancy) which is utterly impossible; and we have as good ground to believe the absurd doctrine of transubstantiation, as this wild notion of the essential transfusion of sin. Guilt arising from the sanction of the law may, and did pass from us to Christ by legal imputation; but sin itself, the very transgression itself, arising from the very preceptive part of the law, cannot so pass from us to Christ: For if we should once imagine, that the very acts and habits of sin, with the odious deformity thereof, should pass from our persons to Christ and subjectively to inhere in him, as they do in us; then it would follow,
First, That our salvation would thereby be rendered utterly impossible. For such an inhesion of sin in the person of Christ is absolutely inconsistent with the hypostatical union, which union is the very foundation of his satisfaction, and our salvation. Though
{581} the Divine nature can, and doth dwell in union with the pure
and sinless human nature of Christ, yet it cannot dwell in union with sin.
Secondly, This supposition would render the blood of the cross altogether unable to satisfy for us. He could not have been the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world, if he had not been perfectly pure and spotless, 1 Pet. 1.19.
Thirdly, Had our sins thus been essentially transfused into Christ, the law had had a just and valid exception against him; for it accepts of nothing but what is absolutely pure and perfect. I admire, therefore, how any good men dare to call our doctrine, which teaches the imputation of our guilt and punishment to Christ, a simple doctrine; and assert, that the transgression itself became Christ's; and that thereby Christ became as completely sinful as we. And,
Fourthly, If the way of making our sins Christ's by imputation, be thus rejected and derided; and Christ asserted by some other way to become as completely sinful as we; then I cannot see which way to avoid it, but that the very same acts and habits of sin must inhere both in Christ and in believers also. For I suppose our adversaries will not deny, that notwithstanding God's laying the sins of believers upon Christ, there remain in all believers after their justification, sinful inclinations and aversations; a law of sin in their members, a body of sin and death. Did these things pass from them to Christ, and yet do they still inhere in them? Why do they complain and groan of indwelling sin? as Rom. 7, if sin itself be so transferred from them to Christ? Sure, unless men will dare to say, the same acts and habits of sin which they feel in themselves, are as truly in Christ as in themselves, they have no ground to say, that by God's laying their iniquities upon Christ, he became as completely sinful as they are; and if they should so affirm, that affirmation would undermine the very foundation of their own salvation.
I therefore heartily subscribe to that sound and holy sentence, of a clear and learned divine,[6] Nothing is more absolutely true,
nothing more sacredly and assuredly believed by us, than that nothing which Christ did or suffered, nothing that he undertook, or underwent, did, or could constitute him subjectively, inherently, and thereupon personally a sinner, or guilty of any sin of his own.
To bear the guilt or blame of other men's faults, to be alienæ culpæ reus, makes no man a sinner, unless he did unwisely and irregularly undertake it. So then this proposition, that by God's laying our sins {582} upon Christ (in some other way, than by imputation of guilt and punishment) he became as completely sinful as we, will not, ought not to be received as the sound doctrine of the gospel. Nor yet this Second proposition, That we are as completely righteous as Christ is; or, that Christ is not more righteous than a believer.
I cannot imagine what should induce any man so to express himself, unless it be a groundless conceit and fancy, that there is an essential transfusion of Christ's justifying righteousness into believers, whereby it becomes theirs by way of subjective inhesion, and is in them in the very same manner it is in him: and so every individual believer becomes as completely righteous as Christ. And this conceit they would fain establish upon that text, 1 John 3.7, "He that doeth righteousness, is righteous, even as he is righteous."
But neither this expression, nor any other like it in the scriptures gives the least countenance to such a general and unwary position. It is far from the mind of this scripture, That the righteousness of Christ is formally and inherently ours, as it is his. Indeed it is ours relatively, not formally and inherently; not the same with his for quantity, though it be the same for verity. His righteousness is not ours in its universal value, though it be ours as to our particular use and necessity. Nor is it made ours to make us so many causes of salvation to others; but it is imputed to us as to the subjects, that are to be saved by it ourselves.
It is true, we are justified and saved by the very righteousness of Christ, and no other; but that righteousness is formally inherent in him only, and is only materially imputed to us. It was actively his, but passively ours. He wrought it, though we wear it. It was wrought in the person of God-man for the whole church, and is imputed (not transfused) to every single believer for his own concernment only.
For, (1.) It is most absurd to imagine that the righteousness of Christ should formally inhere in the person of every, or any believer, as it doth in the person of the mediator. The impossibility hereof appears plainly from the incapacity of the subject. The righteousness of Christ is an infinite righteousness, because it is the righteousness of God-man, and can therefore be subjected in no other person beside him. It is capable of being imputed to a finite creature, and therefore, in the way of imputation we are said to be made the righteousness of God in him; but though it may be imputed to a finite creature, it inheres only in the person of the Son of God, as in its proper subject. And indeed, (2.) If it should be inherent in us, it could not be imputed to us, as it is, Rom. 4.6,23. Nor need we go out of ourselves for {583} justification, as now we must, Phil. 3.9, but may justify ourselves by our own inherent righteousness. And, (3.) What should hinder, if this infinite righteousness of Christ were infused into us, and should make us as completely righteous as Christ; but that we might justify others also as Christ doth, and so we might be the saviours of the elect, as Christ is? Which is most absurd to imagine. And, (4.) According to Antinomian principles, What need was there that we should be justified at all? or, What place is left for the justification of any sinner in the world? For, according to their opinion, the justification of the elect is an immanent act of God before the world was; and that eternal act of justification, making the