We do by no means assign the same place, condition, state, and use to the obedience of Christ imputed to us, and our obedience performed to God. If we did, they were really inconsistent. And therefore those who affirm that our obedience is the condition or cause of our justification, do all of them deny the imputation of the obedience of Christ unto us. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, as that on the account whereof we are accepted and esteemed righteous before God, and are really so, though not inherently. We are as truly righteous with the obedience of Christ imputed to us as Adam was, or could have been, by a complete righteousness of his own performance. So Rom. v. 18, by his obedience we are made righteous,- made [constituted] so truly, and so accepted; as by the disobedience of Adam we are truly made [constituted] trespassers, and so accounted. And this is that which the apostle desires to be found in, in opposition to his own righteousness, Phil. iii. 9. But our own obedience is not the righteousness whereupon we are accepted and justified before God; although it be acceptable to God that we should abound therein.
And this distinction the apostle doth evidently deliver and confirm, so as nothing can be more clearly revealed: Eph. ii. 8-10, ‘ For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his work-manship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them.’ We are saved, or justified (for that it is whereof the apostle treats), ‘by grace through faith,’ which receives Jesus Christ and his obedience; ‘not of works, lest any man should boast.
John Owen (1616–83), A Vindication of Some Passages in a Discourse Concerning Communion with God from the Exceptions of William Sherlock, Rector of St George Botolph Lane in The Works of John Owen (Banner of Truth, repr. 2009), 2.314–15.
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Inwoo Lee
Inwoo Lee (BA, UCSD) earned his MA (Historical Theology) in 2020 from Westminster Seminary California and is author of “Righteous Before God: William Perkins’ Doctrine of Justification in Elizabethan England” (MA Thesis, Westminster Seminary California, 2020). He lives in the Great Seoul area, in South Korea with his wife Holly.
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