Ebenezer Erskine (1680-1754)
LAW, CURSE, AND CHRIST'S
RIGHTEOUSNESS
Ebenezer Erskine (1680-1754) G OD, having made man a rational creature capable of moral government, gave him a law suited to his nature by which he was to govern himself in the duties he owed to God his great Creator. This law was delivered to man in the form of a covenant with a promise of life upon the condition of perfect obedience and a threatening of death in case of disobedience (Gen 2:17).
Thus stood matters between God and man in a state of innocence.
Adam and all his posterity in him and with him, having broken the covenant, are become liable to the curse and penalty of it, so that our salvation is become absolutely impossible until justice be satisfied and the honor of the broken law be repaired. The Law and justice of God [admit no refusal] and stand upon a full satisfaction and [compensation], otherwise heaven's gates shall be shut and eternally barred against man and all his posterity. The flaming sword of justice turns every way to keep us from access unto the paradise that is above.
While man in these circumstances was expecting nothing but to fall, an eternal sacrifice unto divine justice, the eternal Son of God, in His infinite love and pity to perishing sinners, steps in as a Mediator1 and Surety,2 offering not only to take our nature but to take our Law-place, to stand in our room and stead, whereby the whole obligation of the Law, both penal and preceptive, did fall upon Him. That is, He became liable and obliged both to fulfill the command and to endure the curse of the Covenant of Works,3 which we had violated.
And here, by the way, it is fit to [alert you to the fact] that it was an act of amazing grace in the Lord Jehovah to admit a Surety in
1 Mediator – go-between; one that intervenes between two hostile parties to bring reconciliation. Christ came as Prophet, Priest, and King between the holy God and sinful man.
2 Surety – one who assumes the responsibilities or debts of another; Christ our Surety guaranteed a full legal satisfaction for our sin by paying our debt upon Calvary's cross.
3 Covenant of Works – God's arrangement with Adam before his fall into sin: he would have privileges as long as he did not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Law, Curse, and Christ's Righteousness
our room. For had He stood to the rigor and severity of the Law, He would have demanded a personal satisfaction without admitting of the satisfaction of a Surety—in which case, Adam and all his posterity [would] had fallen under the stroke of avenging justice through eternity. But glory to God in the highest, Who not only admitted of a Surety, but provided one and "laid help upon one that is mighty" (Psa 89:19)!
Christ, the eternal Son of God, being in "the fulness of time, made of a woman, and made under the law" as our Surety (Gal
4:4), He actually in our room and stead, fulfilled the whole terms of the Covenant of Works. That is, in a word, He obeyed all the commands of the Law and endured the curse of it, and thereby brought in a complete Law-righteousness, whereby guilty sinners are justified before God.
This righteousness of the Surety is conveyed unto us by imputation. [This] is abundantly plain from many places of Scripture, particularly Romans 4:6, 11-12, 23-24. Now, this imputation of the Surety's righteousness runs principally upon these three things: (1)
Upon the eternal transaction between the Father and the Son, wherein the Son of God was chosen and sustained as the Surety of an elect world. Then it was that He gave bond to the Father to pay their debt in the red gold of His blood, saying, "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire...Lo, I come...I delight to do thy will" (Psa
40:6, 8). (2) It is grounded upon the actual imputation of our sins unto Him: "The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isa
53:6). There is a blessed exchange of places between Christ and His people: He takes on our sin and unrighteousness, that we may be clothed with the white robe of His righteousness: "He was made sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2Co 5:21). (3) This imputation goes upon the ground of the mystical union between Christ and the believer. When the poor soul is determined in a day of power to embrace the Lord Jesus in the arms of faith, Christ and he in that very moment do coalesce4 into one body. He becomes a branch of the noble Vine, a member of that Body whereof Christ is the glorious Head of eminence,5 influence, and government. And being thus united to Christ, the long and white robe of the Mediator's righteousness is spread over him, whereby he is not only freed from condemnation, but forever sustained as righteous in the sight of God: "But of him are ye in Christ
4 coalesce – come together to become one; unite.
5 eminence – distinguished superiority.
Law, Curse, and Christ's Righteousness
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1Co 1:30).
So perfect is this righteousness that the piercing eye of infinite justice cannot find the least flaw in it: yea, justice is so fully satisfied therewith, that God speaks of the soul who is clothed therewith, as though it were in a state of innocence and perfectly freed from sin.
From "The Believer Exalted in Imputed Righteousness" in The Whole Works of the Late Ebenezer Erskine, Vol. I, Free Presbyterian Publications.
This is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS," because He is the author of righteousness to His people and is only so. No creature could be the author of it. Unrighteous man cannot be the author of righteousness, and the righteousness of an angel is of no advantage to man. Indeed neither of the other divine persons is the Lord our righteousness; for though They are both Jehovah, the Father and the Spirit, yet not our righteousness. The Father appointed and sent Christ to work it out. He approved and accepted it, when wrought out, and imputes it to His people; but [He] is not the author of it. So the Spirit convinces of the need of it, reveals it, brings it near, works faith to receive it, applies it, and pronounces a person justified by it; but [He] is not the author of it. The Son of God is
[the only One], Who is become so by His obedience to the Law and by bearing the penalty of it, and Who, having been delivered for our offences, rose again for our justification. And this righteousness, which He has wrought out to the satisfaction of law and justice, becomes "ours." It being signed for us and wrought out for us, by a free gift of it is given to us—ours through the imputation of it to us by the Father, in virtue of our union to Christ and interest in Him; and through the application of it to us by the Spirit of God, Who puts it upon us, clothes us with it, and enables us to lay hold upon it and claim interest in it; and which may be meant by Christ being called "our righteousness."
For the meaning is, not that He should commonly go by this name, but only that He should be that unto us, which it signifies; and that we should by faith, even every true Israelite, every believer, call Him our righteousness, say that we have righteousness in Him, make mention of that continually, and express our desires to be found alone in it. For so the words may be rendered: "and this is the name whereby he shall call him, THE LORD OUR
RIGHTEOUSNESS." And a sweet name to a sensible sinner it is—to one that has felt the guilt of sin in his conscience, seen his need of a righteousness, and the worth of it.
—John Gill