8. Chapter Two
Chapter Two T o clarify both of these points, we must understand how Christ assumed a dual role: first, as a guarantor for us; second, as a representative in our place. The distinction between these two roles, and the significance of these two considerations, will help explain everything that follows in this entire discussion.
To better elucidate these roles, consider that Christ, in nearly everything he did for us (as the phrase here implies, and should be attached to each specific instance), stood in a dual role for us before God.
1. As a guarantor, obligated to pay our debt and save our souls.
2. As a representative, or as a legal advocate in our place.
These two roles, while distinct and different in their own right, will help us understand the two previously mentioned ways in which Christ's resurrection can bolster our faith. They provide evidence that our debt has been paid and assurance that we are thereby absolved and cannot be
condemned. The concept of his resurrection, as our guarantor, confirms the first, and his resurrection as a representative, illuminates the second. I will delve deeper into the explanation of these two roles, as their consideration will be useful throughout the rest of this discussion, to highlight the impact that his ascension and seating at God's right hand have on our justification. I will carry these concepts throughout this discourse.
1. A guarantor is someone who commits and is obligated to do something for another, such as paying a debt for him, or ensuring his safe arrival at a certain place. Once he has fulfilled what he committed and was obligated to do, the person for whom he acted is also considered discharged.
2. A representative, or someone acting on behalf of another, is someone who legally embodies, impersonates, and performs the role of another.
Whatever he does, as such a representative and in the name of the other, is legally considered as done by the other. Similarly, whatever is done to him, as being in the other's place, is considered as done to the other. For example, in our legal system, an attorney appears for another, and money received by him is considered as received by the person to whom it is due.
Thus, the transfer of property, a re-entry made and possession taken of land, if done by and to a man who is his lawful attorney, is as legally valid as if it had been done by the man himself.
Ambassadors for princes represent their masters—what is done to them is considered as done to the prince, and what they do, according to their commission, is as if the prince, whom they represent, had done it himself.
Similarly, the marriages of princes are conducted and solemnized by proxy, as a representative acting on behalf of his lord, and in his name is married to a princess in her father's court. The laws of men authorize it, and the marriage is as valid as if both princes themselves had been present and had
performed all the rites of it. Thus, being a representative is more than simply being a guarantor for another, it is a further thing; and therefore these two roles are to be distinctly considered, though they seem to be somewhat similar. An attorney is different from a guarantor. A guarantor commits to pay a debt for another, or the like; but a representative serves to perform any common act, which by the law is considered and virtually attributed to the other, and is to stand as the other's act, and is as valid as if he had done it. So, the good and benefit which is the consequence of such an act, shall accrue to him whom he represented, and for whom he stood as a representative. Adam was not a guarantor for all mankind; he did not commit for them in the sense mentioned before, but he was a representative for all mankind; so, what he did was to be accounted as if they had done it.
To better express and secure our justification in and by Christ, according to all sorts of laws (the fairness of all which God usually incorporates into his dispensations), God ordained Christ to be both a guarantor for us, and also a representative for us and in our place. As Christ assumed all other roles for us, such as a Husband, Head, Father, Brother, King, Priest,
Captain, so that the fullness of his love might be expressed to us, in that what is lacking in any one of these roles, is supplemented and expressed by the other. In the same way, God ordained Christ to take on and sustain both these roles, of a guarantor and a representative, in all he did for us, thereby to make our justification by him more complete and legal and justify, as I may so speak, our justification itself or his justifying of us, by all sorts of legal considerations whatever, that hold commonly among men in like case.
And that which one of these roles or considerations might not reach to make good, then the other might supplement; what fell short in the one the other
might make up; and so we might be most legally and formally justified, and made sure never to be condemned.