The third question is, how the obedience of Christ should be made ours? Answer. By the free donation of God. For Christ is really given unto us in the word and sacraments; and consequently the obedience of Christ is made ours, even as when a piece of ground is made ours, the commodity [i.e., produce] thereof is ours also. The fourth question is, how the obedience of Christ should be our [righteousness]? Answer. It is not our [righteousness] in natural manner, for then it should have been in us, but by a divine and supernatural manner, namely, by God’s acceptation, in that He accounts it ours even as truly as if it were in us. And because God accepts it for ours, it is ours indeed. For His willing and approving of anything is the doing of it; and He calls the things that are not, as if they were.
William Perkins | The Works of William Perkins, ed. Paul M. Smalley, Joel R. Beeke, and Derek W. H. Thomas, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2015), 115.
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