Oftentimes, people have very sober thoughts on their deathbed. Everything is put into perspective. What is truly important to a person comes into focus with incredible clarity as they live the last few days of their life on earth. For Christians, reflections at the approach of death are not only filled with great clarity, but also encouragement and hope. One such example is 20th-century seminary professor and Presbyterian minister J. Gresham Machen.
Coming off a rigorous teaching schedule and the founding of a new Presbyterian denomination six months earlier, Machen traveled to North Dakota to provide pulpit supply and help new churches in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. While traveling in the harsh winters of North Dakota, Machen contracted pneumonia and, in God’s providence, died on New Year’s Day 1937. Whatever tragic thoughts this story might initially fill us with, Machen’s last words to his friend and seminary colleague, John Murray, shine with the radiance of hope. Before his death, Machen sent a telegram to Murray simply, but powerfully saying: “I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.” Even while death closed in on his life, Machen had hope because of Christ's obedience. Like Machen, both in life and death, we can have hope and confidence because of Christ’s perfect obedience, too.
The Last Adam
In order to better understand Christ’s obedience as the Last Adam, it is illuminating to consider what was lost by the first Adam. In the early chapters of Genesis, we learn that God has entered into a covenant with Adam (Gen. 2:15–17). Commonly called the Covenant of Works, the condition of this covenant was clear: perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience. Had Adam obeyed, he would have been granted eternal life. Sadly, we know that Adam fails and as a consequence, sin and death enter the world (Gen. 3:16–19; Rom. 6:23). Adam, by his sin, brought guilt and corruption onto all mankind (Rom. 5:12–14), making it impossible for any mere human to perform the perfect obedience God requires. Yet, amidst Adam’s failure, there is gospel hope, namely, a second Adam, the Son of God, who will come and do what Adam failed to do, for Adam “was a type of the one who was to come” (Rom. 5:14).
Where the first Adam failed in his temptation against Satan, Christ withstood perfectly in obedience to his Father. After his baptism, Christ is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested (Matt. 4:1–11). Displaying perfect obedience and loyalty to God amidst Satan’s temptation to him, Jesus shows himself to not only be the more faithful federal head than Adam, who was tempted by Satan and failed, but also a more faithful son than Israel (Hos. 11:1; Matt. 2:15). Jesus’s entire life was one of perfect righteousness towards God and neighbor (Rom. 5:17–19). His obedience extends to and is exemplified by his going to the cross in order to save a people for himself (Phil. 2:8). Having offered perfect obedience to God’s law, Jesus has merited eternal life for his people, the very thing Adam failed to do. Thus the Apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (Rom. 5:17). Adam brought forth death, but Christ, by his perfect obedience, brought eternal life to his people (1 Cor. 15:22).
“It is Finished”
Understanding Christ’s perfect obedience is not just a nice once-only doctrine, but a continual reminder of our confidence and assurance throughout the Christian life. While I was wrestling through my sense of guilt and shortcomings before God, a deacon in my church helpfully exhorted me to stop looking to myself and start looking in faith to Christ. In doing so, Christians find the perfect Savior who not only cleanses and forgives them from all their sin (1 John 1:7), but also the one who gives his perfect obedience to them as if it was their own (2 Cor. 5:21). God’s people are not just cleansed from sin and given a new slate to try again. Rather, they are given the perfect obedience of Christ, something they can rest in all their days, even to the last days before death.
Dwelling on this truth of Christ's perfect obedience for me, I was comforted with Jesus’ final words before his death on the cross: “It is finished” (John 19:30). Having fulfilled all Scripture and perfectly obeyed the Father, completing the mission to save his people (John 17:4–5), Jesus uttered it is finished. We no longer have to strive in our own righteousness; we can come and rest in Christ’s perfect and finished obedience. We are fully justified before our Father in Christ (Rom. 5:1, 8:1). We are no longer clothed in our filthy garments of sin, but in the perfect robes of his righteousness (Zech. 3:1–4).
Understanding Christ’s obedience aids our assurance of salvation because what we have been given in Christ cannot change. Christ’s perfect righteousness cannot be improved and will not degrade over time. Scottish theologian John Murray wrote, “This is the grandeur of the gospel. I have the confidence that as I make this righteousness my plea, I have not simply something that God will justify, but I have something that God cannot but justify, because it is the righteousness of the Redeemer, a righteousness that is undefiled and undefilable.” In considering such a wonderful truth, let us be thankful for Christ and his perfect righteousness, which is also ours by faith and, with the saints old, confess this as our confident hope all our days, even unto death.
Footnotes
Westminster Confession of Faith 7.2, Westminster Larger Catechism Q&A 20.
The Law Is Not Of Faith: Essays on Works and Grace in the Mosaic Covenant, ed. Bryan D. Estelle, J.V. Fesko, and David VanDrunen (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2009), 9.
John Murray, O Death, Where Is Thy Sting? Collected Sermons (Philadelphia: Westminster Seminary Press, 2017), 16.
