CHAPTER I – Purpose and Effect of Christ’s Death
CHAPTER I – Purpose and Effect of Christ's Death A more specific inquiry into the proper end and effect of the death of Christ.
The main thing on which the whole controversy about the death of Christ turns, and on which the great weight of the business depends, is next for our consideration. It is what we have prepared the way for by what has been said already. It is about the proper end of the death of Christ. Whoever can rightly and clearly demonstrate this issue may well be made an umpire in this contest. For if the end of Christ's death is what most of our adversaries assign to it, then we will not deny that Christ died for everyone. And if it is what we maintain, then our adversaries must not extend it beyond the elect, beyond believers. This, then, must be fully clarified and solidly confirmed by those who hope for success in this undertaking.
A brief summary up to this point:
In the beginning of our discourse, we asserted that the purpose of Christ's death is to draw near to God. That is a general expression for everything involved in the recovery of sinners from their state of alienation, misery, and wrath, into grace, peace, and eternal communion with God. There is a twofold end in these things. One end is for the worker (what he intends), and the other is for the work that is wrought (what is accomplished). The worker (or agent) may lack wisdom and certitude in choosing suitable means to attain the proposed end. Or he may lack skill and power in rightly using appropriate means to his best advantage. And so, we showed how these things are always coincident: the work effects what the workman intends by his selection and use of means.
In the business in hand, the agent is the blessed Three in One. And the oblation and intercession of Jesus Christ were the means by which they aligned with and aimed at their proposed end. Oblation and intercession are united. They intend the same object, as was established. Now, unless we blasphemously ascribe lack of wisdom, power, perfection, and sufficiency to the agent, or we assert that the death and intercession of Christ was inappropriate to attain the proposed end, we must grant that the worker and the work have the same end. Whatever the blessed Trinity intended by them was effected; and whatever we find in the result ascribed to them is what
the blessed Trinity intended. So we have no reason to consider these separately, unless to argue from one to the other. That is, where we find anything ascribed to Christ's death (as its fruit), we may conclude that God intended to effect that fruit by his death, and vice versa.
Now, the end of the death of Christ is either supreme and ultimate, or it is intermediate and subservient to that ultimate end.
1. It is Supreme and Ultimate with regard to God's glory The first end is the glory of God, or the manifestation of his glorious attributes, especially his justice, and his mercy toward us that is tempered with his justice. The Lord necessarily aims at himself in the first place, as the highest good, indeed, what alone is good. That is absolutely and inherently so, not deriving his goodness from anything else. Therefore, in all his works, especially the one in hand which is the highest of all, he first intends to manifest his own glory. And he fully accomplishes this in its close, to every point and degree he intended from the start. He "makes all things for himself," Prov. 16:4. Everything in the end must "redound to the glory of God," 2Cor. 4:15. In this, Christ himself is said to be "God's,"
1Cor. 3:23, serving to his glory in that whole administration committed to him. In Eph. 1:6, we find that the whole end of this dispensation, in choosing us from eternity, redeeming us by Christ, and blessing us with all spiritual blessings in him, is "to the praise of the glory of his grace," and "That we should be to the praise of his glory." Eph. 1:12.
This is the end of all the benefits we receive by the death of Christ. For "we are filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God," Phil. 1:11. This is also fully asserted in Phil. 2:11,
"That every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." The apostle fully establishes this in Romans 9, where he asserts the supreme dominion and independence of God in all his actions, and his absolute freedom from making his purposes depend on anything from the sons of men. He does all things for his own sake, and aims only at his own glory. And this is what will be accomplished at the close of all, when every creature will say, "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power,
be unto the one who sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever," Rev. 5:13.
2. It is Intermediate and Subservient with regard to us There is an end of the death of Christ which is intermediate and subservient to the end of God's glory. It is the last and most supreme end with regard to us. That is what we now address. It is bringing us to God. Now, in reference to the oblation and intercession of Christ, both aim at this same end. Yet, bringing us to God has two distinct parts: the end, and the means to attain that end. With regard to us, both the end (bringing us to God) and the means used (Christ's oblation and intercession), are the ultimate end of the mediation of Christ. The cause is the Lord's appointment of a coherent connection between the acts and the things purchased for us by Jesus Christ.
The one should be a means to attain the other. The one is the condition, and the other is the thing promised upon that condition. Both have been equally and alike procured for us by Jesus Christ. For if either is omitted in his purchase, the other would be in vain and fruitless.
Now, both of these consist in a communication of God and his goodness to us. This is for purposes of grace or glory, holiness or blessedness, faith or salvation. Using this last one as an example, faith is the means, and salvation the end; faith is the condition, and salvation is the promised inheritance. Under the name of faith is included all the saving grace that accompanies it; and under the name of salvation is included the whole
"glory to be revealed," the liberty of the glory of the children of God, Rom.
8:18,21, and all the blessedness of an eternal enjoyment of the blessed God.
With faith go all the effectual means of that faith, both external and internal: the word and the almighty sanctifying Spirit. It includes all the advances in our condition, such as justification, reconciliation, and adoption into the family of God. It includes all the fruits that flow from it in our sanctification and universal holiness. And it includes all the other privileges and enjoyments of believers here, which result from the redemption and reconciliation purchased for them by the oblation of Christ.
We maintain that the end proposed and effected by the blood-shedding of Jesus Christ is a real, effectual, and infallible. It bestows and applies all
these things to everyone for whom he died. It includes the means as well as the ends, the condition as well as the result, faith and grace as well as salvation and glory. And it includes those other acts of his mediation which are inseparably joined. Thus, everyone for whom he died and offered himself, by virtue of his death or oblation, has a right to all these things that were purchased for him. In due time, he will certainly and infallibly enjoy them. In the same way, the purpose of Christ's obtaining grace and glory with his Father was so that all these things would certainly be bestowed on all those for whom he died. Some of them would be bestowed on condition that they believe, but faith itself is absolutely bestowed without any condition. We will further illustrate and confirm this after we remove some false ends that have been assigned to his death.