“What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

Micah 6:8

“Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe…”

Rom. 3:22

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Order of Contents

Articles  15+
Books  4
Quotes  12+

Historical  4+
.    Westminster  3
Passive Alone  18+
Not by Divine Righteousness  1
Lutheran  2
Latin  3

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Articles

1500’s

Beza, Theodore – pp. 37-43, 57  in A Book of Christian Questions & Answers…  (London, 1574)  irregular numbering

Viret, Pierre – A Christian Instruction…  (d. 1571; London: Veale, 1573), A Familiar Exposition of the Principal Points of the Catechism, 9^th Dialogue, ‘Of the Offices of Jesus Christ’

Of the Perfect Obedience of Jesus Christ, which makes his office so perfect

Zanchi, Girolamo – ‘Likewise in the Last Aphorism [of ch. 19]’  in Confession of the Christian Religion…  (1586; Cambridge, 1599), pp. 328-30

Finch, Henry – 13. Of Imputed Righteousness: & the Blessedness Belonging to it  in The Sacred Doctrine of Divinity gathered out of the Word of God…  (Middelburg: 1589), bk. 3

Finch (d. 1625) was an English lawyer and politician.

“Imputed [righteousness], which we have by account in Him.  And [it] has two parts, the accounting of our sins to be his, whereby both the guilt and punishment are forgiven us by his sufferings: and the accounting of his righteousnes, aswell in nature as action, to be ours, whereby we are approved of God to be righteous by his resurrection, and consequently made partakers of his blessednes:” – pp. 52-53

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1600’s

Bucanus, William – ‘Tell me whether beside this passive righteousness, the active obedience of Christ also, whereby He did fulfill the law, be imputed unto us by God for righteousness, that is to say, whether are we justified for the obedience that He performed unto the law?  Or whether is our salvation only to be ascribed to the death and passion of Christ, or else to his active life and to his inherent holiness also?’   in 31. ‘Of Man’s Justification before God’  in Institutions of Christian Religion...  (London: Snowdon, 1606), pp. 335-36

Grynaeus, Johann J. – ‘Theses Concerning the Imputation of the Perfect Obedience of Our Lord Jesus Christ’  (d. 1617)  trans. AI by Chaz Navarro  at Reformed Sources

Grynaeus (1540–1617) was a Swiss reformed divine.

Forbes, William – pp. 103-13 & 133-41  in Considerationes Modestae et Pacificae Controversiarum de Justificatio…  (d. 1634; Oxford: Parker, 1850), vol. 1, bk. 2, chs. 2-3

Forbes (1585–1634) was a Scottish cleric, the first Bishop of Edinburgh.  He argues for Christ’s imputed active righteousness against the passive-only view, but he also argues, as some of the Reformed did in that era, that Christ’s righteousness is not the formal cause (in a strict way) of our justification, though it be the meritorious cause, which the passive-only view tends to agree with.

Downame, George – ch. 4, ‘Whether we are justified by the passive righteousness of Christ only? [No]’  in A Treatise of Justification  (London: Kyngston, 1633), pp. 24-39

Featley, Daniel – pp. 154-60  in Lecture 5, ‘Opening of the Assembly’  in The Westminster Assembly: its History & Standards, 2nd ed.  (Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1897)

Extended quotes of Featley (who was for the imputation of Christ’s active obedience) are given by Mitchell, arguing against Gataker.

Burgess, Anthony – Section 5, Sermons 29-45  of Part 2 of The True Doctrine of Justification in 2 Parts  (London, 1651), pp. 284-456

Leigh, Edward – A System or Body of Divinity…  (London, A.M., 1654), bk. 7

ch. 7. Of the Parts & Terms of Justification, Remission of Sins & Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness, pp. 519-22

ch. 8. Of the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness, pp. 522-24

Hoornbeeck, Johannes – VIII. ‘Imputation of Christ’s Active & Passive Righteousness’  in ch. 11, ‘On Justification’  in Institutes of Theology, gathered out of the Best Authors  (Leiden: Moyard, 1658), trans. AI  Latin  at Confessionally Reformed Theology

Hoornbeek (1617-1666).  This systematic largely replaced the Leiden Synopsis (1625) in seminaries in the Netherlands.  It is wholly comprised of choice, extended quotes from previous, standard reformed authors.

This section supports the active obedience of Christ being imputed to the believer, though it also includes some material seeking to unify or lessen the difference between the positions.  Quotes are given from Trelcatius, Gomar, Maccovius and Spanheim.

Owen, John – pp. 209-10, 253–54 & 335  in Works, vol. 5

Gillespie, Patrick – The Ark of the Covenant Opened, or a Treatise of the
Covenant of Redemption between God & Christ...  (London: Parkhurst, 1677)

ch. 4, Assertions 5-8, pp. 89-94

ch. 20, point 5, with the Objection, pp. 415-18

Brown of Wamphray, John – ‘Imputation of Both Christ’s Active and Passive Obedience Necessary’  †1679  being the Appendix to The Life of Justification Opened

Brown was an exiled Scottish covenanter writing from the Netherlands.

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1900’s

Berkhof, Louis – Christ’s Active & Passive Obedience  (1950)  9 paragraphs  from his Systematic Theology

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2000’s

Gootjes, Nicolaas – ‘Christ’s Obedience & Covenant Obedience’  (2002)  20 pp.

Gootjes is a professor in the Canadian Reformed Churches.

Table of Contents

Intro  2
Confessional Development of the Doctrine  4
Scriptural Basis  11
Active Obedience & our Obedience  19

Fesko, John – ‘Do This and Live: Christ’s Active Obedience as the Ground of Justification’  in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California, ed. R. Scott Clark (P&R, 2007), pp. 229–65

Crowe, Brandon – ‘The Passive & Active Obedience of Christ: Retrieving a Biblical Distinction’  in The Doctrine on which the Church Stands or Falls, ed. Matthew Barrett  (Wheaton: Crossway, 2019), pp. 441–68

“Crowe pays no attention at all to the historical debates,” – G.A. van den Brink

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Books

1600’s

Walker, George – A Defense of the True Sense & Meaning of the Words of the Holy Apostle, Rom. 4:3, 5, 9 in an Answer to Sundry Arguments Gathered from the Forenamed Scriptures by Mr. John Goodwin, together with a Reply to the Former Answer  (1641)  56 pp.  ToC

Walker was a Westminster divine, who argues for Christ’s active righteousness being imputed in this work.

Roborough, Henry – The Doctrine of Justification Cleared, by Animadversions on Mr. John Goodwin’s Animadversions Upon Mr. George Walker’s Defense of the True Sense of the Apostle, Rom. 4:3,5, etc. Together with an Examination of Both Parts of his Treatise of Justification: wherein the Imputation of Faith in a Proper Sense is Denied, & the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness, Active & Passive, Affirmed, Against that Treatise  (London: R.C., 1643)  221 pp.

Roborough (d. 1649) was a non-voting scribe at the Westminster Assembly.  John Goodwin was a prominent Arminian, though often considered a puritan.

Roborough argues for Christ’s active righteousness being imputed in this work.  See especially ‘Examination of Goodwin’s Conclusions’, ch. 5, ‘Wherein Scriptures are cleared, brought for the imputation of Christ’s active obedience with their true sense according to the judgment of the best expositors of the Protestant party’.

Norton, John – A Discussion of that Great Point in Divinity, the Sufferings of Christ, & the Question about his Righteousness-Active, Passive: & the Imputation Thereof.  Being an Answer to a Dialogue [of William Pynchon] entitled, The Meritorious Price of Redemption, Justification, etc. [1650], by John Norton, Teacher of the Church at Ipswich in New-England, who was Appointed to Draw up this Answer by the General Court  (London, 1653)  270 pp.  ToC

Norton (1606-1663) was a puritan divine of England and New England.  He argues for the imputation of Christ’s active obedience.

Norton writes against William Pynchon (1590–1662), an influential New England settler who critiqued the puritan theology that surounded him and the nature of Christ’s satisfaction in an unique way in The Meritorious Price of Man’s Redemption… (1650; 1655).  The book was burned on the Boston Common.  The work argues that Christ’s obedience, rather than his punishment and suffering, was the price of atonement.  Officials of the Massachusetts Bay Colony formally accused Pynchon of heresy and demanded that he retract its argument, which he did not.  He moved back to England.  The previously linked, later edition contains an appendix responding to Norton’s charges of heresy.

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2000’s

McCormick, Micah – The Active Obedience of Jesus Christ  PhD diss.  (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010)  380 pp.

Abstract:  “Chapter 1 defines the doctrine, surveys previous literature, offers warrant for the work, and previews the argument of the work.  In short, the thesis of this work is that the active obedience of Christ is a biblical doctrine.

Chapter 2 presents a historical survey, tracing theologians from the early church up to the present time to see the development of the doctrine. Special attention is given to the Reformation and Post-Reformation eras, during which the doctrine received its primary development.

Chapter 3 examines God’s original arrangement with Adam….  Chapter 4 examines human obedience after the Fall. Looking especially at the “do this and live” passages, this chapter argues that God requires perfect obedience from humans in order to gain eternal life.  Chapter 5 traces the OT’s presentation of the need for a Messiah to come who would represent his people in perfect obedience…

Chapter 6…   Beginning with the Gospels and moving on to the rest of the NT, this chapter shows that Christ represented his people in perfect obedience throughout the whole course of his earthly mediation. Chapter 7 first offers a systematic formulation of the doctrine.  This chapter then answers some of the major objections put to the doctrine of Christ’s active obedience, examining the views of opponents both ancient and contemporary.  Chapter 8 summarizes the work…”

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Quotes

Order of

Beza
Perkins
Trelcatius Sr.
French Reformed
Polanus
Geneva
Grotius
Gomar
Prideaux
Davenant
Burgess (& Lucius)
Spanheim
Bridge
Case
Mastricht
Duncan

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1500’s

Theodore Beza

A Book of Christian Questions & Answers…  (London: How, 1574), p. 43

“Question: You say then that we be justified before God, that is to say that we be covered and denounced rightuous, because Christ’s obedience is imputed unto us, which consists chiefly of two parts: namely of satisfaction for our sins, and of full performance of all rightuousness of the law.

Answer: I say so.”

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Epistolae theologicae: liber unus (Geneva: Vignon, 1573), Epistle 35, to Olevianus (1560), p. 200 as trans. G.A. van den Brink, The Transfer of Sin…  (Brill, 2024), p. 219  cf. Epistle 45, p. 228

“For what is vainer than regarding someone as righteous who has not kept the law?  Yet the law not only forbids that anything be done which it condemns (to which is attached a threatening with death) but also prescribes the outcome of what it enjoins (to which is attached the promise of life).  Thus, whoever in Christ is judged to be ‘no sinner’ has indeed evaded death; but on the grounds of what other right would anyone demand life, other than that he has in Christ fulfilled all the righteousness of the law?”

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William Perkins

A Reformed Catholic...  ([Cambridge] 1598), ch. 4, ‘The Justification of a Sinner’, p. 925

“Rule II. That justification stands in two things: First in the remission of sins by the merit of Christ’s death: Secondly in the imputation of Christ’s righteousness; which is another action of God whereby He accounts and esteems that righteousness which is in Christ, as the righteousness of that sinner which believes in Him.

By Christ’s righteousness we are to understand two things: First his sufferings, specially in his death and passion; Secondly his obedience in fulfilling the Law: both which go together: for Christ in suffering obeyed, and obeying suffered.  And the very shedding of his blood to which our salvation is ascribed, must not only be considered as it is passive, that is a suffering, but also as it is active, that is, an obedience, in which He showed his exceeding love both to his Father and us, and thus fulfilled the law for us.  This point, if some had well thought on, they would not have placed all justification in remission of sins as they do.”

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1600’s

Lucas Trelcatius, Sr.

Commonplaces of Holy Theology, “Of Justification”, “Part Constructive”, p. 137  in Trelcatius Sr. & Jr., Opuscula Theologica Omnia (d. 1602; Leiden: Orlers & Maire, 1614), trans. AI  at Confessionally Reformed Theology.  Trelctius Sr. (1542–1602) was a reformed theologian and professer at Leiden, Netherlands.

“Here the preceding cause [in Rom. 3:24] is Christ constituted a propitiation in his blood.  In this impulsive cause, two things are noted: First, Christ’s justice or obedience is the meritorious cause of our salvation; Second, this justice and obedience consists in full satisfaction for our sins and complete fulfillment of the Law for us.

Concerning the first, that Christ’s justice is the meritorious cause of our salvation: since it seems to conflict that we are saved by free grace and by merit, that is, a price paid, it must be thus understood.  Christ’s merit opposes not God’s judgment simply or in itself, for Christ, as man and Son of God by the union of divine and human natures, has this of grace, not having earned it.  As Augustine testifies, in Him the predestination of grace most clearly shines, so His merit opposes not God’s grace but is subordinate to it, depending thereon.  But both God’s grace and Christ’s merit oppose our works, each in its order.  Thus, grace, from which merit flows, and merit, whereby we are saved, stand together.

This is proved by texts conjoining God’s love, Christ’s propitiation, reconciliation, redemption, and ransom, and by the same and like texts proving that Christ by His obedience truly merited salvation for us.  For if He fully satisfied for our sins, paid the penalties due, appeased God’s wrath, and acquired eternal life, He rightly merited salvation for us.  Merit here we call the most sufficient price to satisfy God’s judgment for sins and penalties and to acquire eternal life.  In sum, respecting God, all is free; respecting God’s appeased wrath through the Son, there is merit, yet freely given to you.

Concerning the second, that Christ’s justice consists in full satisfaction for our sins and complete fulfillment of the Law: Christ’s most full and perfect obedience or justice, whereby we are justified when imputed, includes both complete satisfaction for all sins and fulfillment of all the Law requires of us.  For He was made under the Law for us, which demands two things: that we commit nothing against it, and omit nothing of it.  Otherwise, it thunders woe against both him that does not what he ought and him that does what he ought not.  But Christ is the fulfilling of the Law unto salvation for all that believe (Rom. 10).  The righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in us, not by us, but in our Head, Christ, for us.  Thus, chiefly, Christ by His obedience satisfied for our sins, bearing most sufficient penalties, whence Scripture greatly commends the benefit of Christ’s death, for by it we are redeemed from death.

But He also perfectly fulfilled the Law for us, not only by suffering but by doing—yea, in suffering He acts, for He offers Himself as priest and is offered as victim (Rom. 4).  Not only are sins not imputed, being remitted, but Christ’s justice is imputed, He who was made justice for us (1 Cor. 1:30).  Yet to understand this rightly, note that Christ’s justice is threefold:

First, essential, common to the three Persons, which is God Himself, for whatsoever is in God is God;

Second, habitual justice, adorning His human nature from conception with purity far beyond angelic, yet created;

Third, actual justice, whereby throughout His life, especially in suffering that death, He rendered obedience to the Father.

This third alone enters the account of the merit of our justification, whereby we are not only redeemed from death but obtain eternal life through this perfect obedience perfectly rendered to the Law by Christ for us.
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The matter of justification, as the term is variously taken, is considered by theologians not in one way, but it reduces to this: the matter is either the subject in which and from which this benefit arises, namely, Christ’s imputed justice, as taught above, which imputation includes both absolution from injustice through remission of sins (by which term Scripture often synecdochically comprehends the whole benefit of salvation) and the adjudication of Christ’s justice (Dan. 9, Rom. 4, 8, mentioning not only remission but the gift of justice); or the subject receiving this benefit, which is all and only the elect (Rom. 8, proved first a priori, because they are elect, then a posteriori, because they are justified).

The form of justification is this application of Christ’s justice through faith, or that free imputation whereof we spoke (Rom. 4, Phil. 3, 2 Cor. 5), where the phrase ‘in Him’ notes two things: first, our justice is not inherent in us but Christ’s, existing outside us, yet ours by right of donation; second, we have Christ’s justice as Christ has our sin—not subjectively but relatively, by imputation, as shall be said in explicating the effects.”

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French Reformed, National Synods

ed. John Quick, Synodicon in Gallia reformata, or, The Acts, Decisions, Decrees & Canons of those Famous National Councils of the Reformed Churches in France  (London: Parkhurst, 1692)

Synod 17, of Gap, 1603, ch. 2, Observations upon the Confession of Faith, pp. 226-27

“2. The Synod reading over the Confession of Faith, and explaining the 18th, 20th, and 22d. Articles of the said Confession concerning our Justification before God, expresses its detestation of those errors which are now-a-days broached to the contrary, and in particular their errors, who deny the imputation of Christ’s active and passive obedience (by which He has most perfectly fulfilled the whole Law) unto us for righteousness.

And therefore Provincial Synods, Colloquies and Consistories shall have a careful eye on those persons who be tainted with that error, be they ministers or private Christians, and by the authority of this Assembly shall silence them; and in case of a willful stubborn persistency in their errors, to depose them, if they have a pastoral charge in the church; from the ministry.  And Letters shall be writ unto Master Piscator to intreat him not to trouble the Churches with his new-fangled opinions; as also from this Assembly to the Universities of England, Scotland, Leiden, Geneva, Heidelberg, Basil and Herborne (in which Piscator is professor), requesting them to join with us also in this censure.

And in case the said Piscator shall pertinaciously adhere unto his opinions, Master Sohnius and Ferrier are to prepare an answer to his books, and that it be ready against the meeting of the next national synod.  And this article shall be read, and in all points most exactly observed by the provincial synods.”

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Synod 20, of Privas, 1612, ch. 4, Observation on Reading the Confession of Faith, p. 348

“2. That union in doctrine may be preserved among us, and no errors may be suffered to creep into our churches: All pastors in actual service, and all proposans who are to be received into the ministry, shall sign this following article:

‘I whose name is here under-written, do receive and approve the contents of the Confession of Faith of the Reformed Churches in this Kingdom, and do promise to persevere in it until death, and to believe and teach agreeably thereunto.

And whereas some persons contend about the sense of the eighteenth article, treating of our Justification, I declare and protest before God, that I understand it in the same sense in which it is received in our churches, approved by our national synods, agreeably to the Word of God, which is, That our Lord Jesus Christ was obedient to the moral and ceremonial law, not only for our good, but also in our stead, and that his whole obedience yielded by Him thereunto is imputed to us, and that our justification consists not only in the forgiveness of sins, but also in the imputation of his active righteousness; and subjecting myself unto the Word of God, I believe that the Son of Man came to serve, and that he was not a servant because He came into the world.

I do also promise, that I will never depart from the doctrine received in our churches, and that I will yield all obedience to the canons of our national synods in this matter.  And this article shall be religiously observed in and by all the provinces.’”

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Amandus Polanus

Catholic Symphony  (1612), ch. 12, On Justification, thesis 10  as in William Forbes, Considerationes Modestae et Pacificae…  (Oxford: Parker, 1850), 1.107  Polanus follows this with citations from the fathers.

“that justice of Christ which is imputed to us is his satisfaction whereby He fulfilled the whole law by most perfectly performing the obedience enjoined upon us, and enduring the death threatened to us.”

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Thomas Taylor

A Commentary upon the Epistle of St. Paul written to Titus…  (Cambridge: Greene, 1612), on chapter 3, v. 7, p. 666  Taylor (1576-1632) was partially conforming English puritan.

“For 2. I add, it is by the satisfaction of Christ the Redeemer, wherein are contained both the matter and form of the justification of a sinner.

The matter is Christ’s satisfaction, his obedience in his life, in his death; in fulfilling the law, and in suffering for our not fulfilling it; and the merit of all manifested in his resurrection and glorious ascension.

The form is the imputing of that obedience whereby the righteousness of Christ does now become the believer’s as truly and really by imputation as it was Christ’s own in action.”

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Geneva, Pastors & Professors

French Reforemd National Synod 21, of Tonneins, 1614, ch. 19, A Letter from the Church of Geneva. To the National Synod of the Reformed Churches of France assembled at Tonneins in ed. John Quick, Synodicon in Gallia reformata, or, The Acts, Decisions, Decrees & Canons of those Famous National Councils of the Reformed Churches in France  (London: Parkhurst, 1692), pp. 442-44

“We are bound also in conscience to request and solicit you, though we be very well satisfied that it is already upon your hearts, to take care that those different sentiments, which for these last years have troubled your Church in the doctrine of justification may be suppressed.  Those opinions have been fomented and embittered by prejudices grudges, and secret hatable; they have been spread abroad, and propagated, into a multitude of unprofitable and dangerous questions by frequent disputes and wranglings.

As for our part, although we hold absolutely the same faith with your churches, and do apply [the] whole Christ unto ourselves for redemption from death and wrath, and to obtain everlasting life, and that we judge it to be communicable by imputation of all his obedience done and suffered by Him in his human nature, which we were bound to have yielded according to the law of God in our persons; yet we could never approve of such great strife and altercation between brethren who were otherwise minded, much less can we approve of their bitter separation and mutual condemnation.  So that we had rather that little spark had been suffered of its own accord to have dwindled away into nothing, than by blowing it into a flame by so many oppositions to kindle a greater fire in the hearts of God’s people, which has tormented then with a world of ungodly jealousies, suspicions and prejudices, and those too in an age tossed and beaten with the tempestuous winds of contention and victory.

We have diverse time suggested this advice, and importunately insisted on it, that there might be a temperament and expedient found out for a concordat, which without condemning or prejudicing either party might be sufficient to guide and direct conscience, and totally to exclude all errors subversive of faith, and destructive of salvation in this fundamental point.  And we have received abundant consolation, for that the self-same counsels have been prescribed by a great and most potent monarch, and by very many learned men and most celebrated universities.  And we were exceedingly satisfied, that you did not reject, but were well-pleased with our proceedings and intentions, as we do according to the universal laws of Christian charity freely forgive their unkindnesses to us who have been displeased with us for them.  And you most honoured sirs, sith [since] you have not only knowledge and wisdom, but power also to judge and determine in these matters we beseech you to exert that power so forcibly and effectually, that you may pluck up by the roots all unprofitable and curious questions, and see to it, that your pastors and professors do with all sincerity pursue those things which make for the edification of your churches in faith and Godliness, and that they utterly abandon all those opposition of science falsely so called.

On which point we presume to deliver our mind with our usual freedom, and we desire you would revise that form couched and conceived in the Synod of Privas, and once more deliberate about it; not that we except against the substance of it in the least, but because its manner seems to threaten you with worse breaches, and far greater partialities.  We are not the first, who have observed the remedy of forms to be very dangerous, especially when a controversy is not formed into a party, unless it be in articles purely necessary, and determined by the Word of God itself; and when it’s otherwise impossible, all means failing us to detect the fallacies of our real adversaries; and such strait bands instead of conjoining and settling, have for the most part dislocated the members, and wounded them more sorely.  We desire also that when new authentic forms shall come to be framed, the churches might be first of all consulted, that so our ears may not be broken with the din, and complaints of their being surprised, and of an usurped domination over conscience, and of reproaches for precipitancy and connivency, as we are informed has been the issue of that at Privas.

And in short we should think it best to leave your Confession alone, immoveable, and not as you often do, dig it up and lay open this foundation, which though for the present it may be done, with a good intention, and with laudable moderation, yet may in after times produce a world of licentiousness.  Above all we most instantly request this of your piety totally to extinguish those accessory questions, which being altogether needless and unprofitable, do extremely endanger God’s Church, and are naturally apt to engender heresies or atheism among the ignorant people.

We very much fear that the printing of Tilenus’s book will be a great stumbling block, and hindrance to this work, and therefore we judged it necessary to obstruct the publication of its answer and are in great trouble what other lawful course we may take for the justifying of our dear brother, whom he has so grievously impeached.  However, if it shall be thought good for the weal of the Church that he be silent, and there be no more invectives or mutual recriminations left standing on the file; we hope some other expedients may be found out to salve the honor and the reputation of our brother, especially since the controversy is not about any point in itself fundamental, which is to be defended, but occasionally, and in disputation, where all sort of arguments, and ways of proving, though they be not always good and receiveable, do not consequentially import a simple and absolute assertion; because had it not been for their serviceableness to confirm the conclusions, they had never been at all mentioned.

And we cannot think it any wise convenient to redeem the honor of a private dispute from the laughter and scorn of the enemies of Truth, by letting in upon us a swarm of perilous and curious questions, together with horrible scandals, and scruples perplexing and tormenting conscience.  Let’s labor rather to extirpate these animosities, and to draw these divided spirits nearer in love one unto the other.  And then the offender, who in our opinion cannot with any conscience judge so unworthily of our brother, will be the first, as in duty bound, to acquit and clear him, exchanging his invectives into brotherly admonitions.”

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Hugo Grotius

Defence of the Catholic Faith on the Satisfaction of Christ against Socinus  (1617)  as in William Forbes, Considerationes Modestae et Pacificae Controversiarum de Justificatio…  (Oxford: Parker, 1850), vol. 1, bk. 2, ch. 2, p. 109

“Although indeed we have shown that, by the punishment of Christ, God was satisfied, yet we would not deny that the power of satisfaction was also in the acting of Christ…”

“But what we have before said of satisfaction, viz., that it is to be attributed in the first place to his punishment, but in a secondary degree to his obedient acting also–the same is to be understood of the appeasing of God, of our redemption, and of expiation…”

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Francis Gomar

Opera omnia, vol. 2, p. 91, trans. ChatGPT-5

“Whether it is rightly said by Johannes Piscator on Rom. 8:4 [“That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”]:

‘Here he indicates the end for which God, in the flesh of his Son, condemned our sin—namely, that the righteousness (or justification) of the Law might be fulfilled in us; that is, that we might be justified, being endowed with that righteousness which the Law requires of us.  For the Law requires of us either perfect obedience or punishment.  But we have not rendered perfect obedience; yet we have paid the penalty in Christ, for he paid it on our behalf.  Therefore we have satisfied the Law in Christ; and consequently the Law cannot condemn us, but is bound to justify us.’

We deny it.”

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John Prideaux

in William Forbes, Considerationes Modestae et Pacificae Controversiarum de Justificatio…  (d. 1634; Oxford: Parker, 1850), vol. 1, bk. 2, ch. 2, p. 119

“the form of our justification…  is the imputation as well of the active as of the passive obedience of Christ.”

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John Davenant

A Treatise on Justification: or The Disputatio de justitia habituali et actuali…, vol. 1  trans. Josiah Allport  (d. 1641; London: Hamilton, 1844/1846), ch. 29

p. 254

“1. We begin with the most ancient father, Justin [Martyr]. He, in the book inscribed…  an Exposition of the Faith, has these words: ‘The Son of God, as man, passed a life removed from all crime, and underwent a voluntary death; [Greek] that is, obliterating sin by a perfect and sinless conversation [conduct], and abolishing our debt by a debt that he owed not.  Justin Martyr here plainly teaches, not only that the death and satisfaction of Christ are imputed to us for the blotting out of our punishment, but that his conversation itself, or active obedience, is imputed to us, for the obliteration of our sin.

2. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5…  in ch. 18:

‘The Lord has restored us to friendship by his incarnation, being made the Mediator between God and man; both propitiating the Father for us, against whom we had sinned, and making amends for our disobedience; bestowing moreover upon us that conversation [conduct] and obedience which is due to our Maker.’

…What else is this than the obedience of Christ both active and passive, made ours by imputation and bestowal?”

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pp. 260-61

“12. Cyril of Alexandria upon the Gospel of John, bk. 11, ch. 25:

‘As by the offense of the first man, as in the first fruits of our race, we have been sentenced to death; so by the obedience and righteousness of Christ, inasmuch as He subjected Himself to the Law, although He was the author of the Law, the blessing and quickening which is by the Spirit has reached to our whole nature.’

…And he extends this righteousness of Christ not to the satisfaction only, but to the fulfilling of the law: which, we must observe is opposed to the opinions of the Jesuits and others, who maintain that the passive obedience of Christ is imputed to us, not his active obedience.”

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Anthony Burgess

The True Doctrine of Justification…  (London: Underhill, 1654), pt. 2, sect. 4, sermon 27, ‘That the whole nature of justification is not comprehended in remission and forgiveness of sin’, pp. 264-65

“[Ludwig] Lucius [d. 1642] a learned [Swiss reformed] writer says, ‘Justification is therefore attributed to resurrection [Rom. 4:25], because it was the complete and ultimate act of Christ’s active obedience;’ and from hence infers, ‘That remission of sin is attributed to his passive, and justification to his active obedience.’
…

That the whole nature of justification is not comprehended in remission and forgivenesse of sins.

To clear this, consider first, that there are different opinions, not only between the [Reformed] Orthodox and their adversaries, but also amongst the Orthodox themselves in this great privilege of remission of sins;

[1.] For some make justification in the whole nature of it to lie in forgiveness of sins.  Thus Piscator and Wotton with all diligence set themselves to assert this, and many others, who deny the imputation of Christ’s active obedience to the believer;

I say ‘many’, for some, though they deny the imputation of Christ’s active obedience, yet grant justification to be more than remission, herein forsaking Piscator. (Mr Gataker, Animadversions on Luke)  Bellarmine would charge this upon Calvin as his different opinion from other Protestants, but it may be easily cleared that Calvin does, by placing our justification in remission of sin, only oppose inherent renovation against the Papists, not the imputed righteousness of Christ; witness his exposition on this text [Rom. 4:25], beside other places.

Indeed Vorstius while orthodox does say (Antibellarmine, ‘On Justification’), If we place justification only in remission of sins, we may the more easily answer all the Popish objections, neither shall we then be so obnoxious to their malignant calumnies.

2. Others they make remission of sin not to be any part, much less the whole of justification, but the effect and result of it.  Thus for the satisfaction of Christ, we being accounted just before God, thereby we come to have remission of sins.  There are learned men [that] go this way (Bradshaw, Gataker).

3. The Popish writers, they make remission of sin a concomitant of our justification, which they place in our internal renovation.

Lastly, There are those who make remission of sins an integral part of our justification; for they say, The whole nature of justification consists in these two parts, remission of sin and imputation of righteousness; which indeed of these has the priority is disputed, but that is not much material.

And surely if we regard the expressions of the Scripture, this seems to have most truth in it; and with these later, I joyn myself.  Neither may it seem such an absurd thing to place justification in two particulars, as if the form of it ought necessarily to be single, for we are not to speak of justification as natural forms which consist in indivisibili [indivisible things], but we are to look upon it as a favor and priviledge of God, which He vouchsafes to his children, and to the integral constituting whereof there may be as many ingredients as God shall put in; neither are imputation of righteousness and remission of sins so disparate but that they may well concur to one thing.”

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Friedrich Spanheim

‘Miscellaneous Theological Disputation exhibiting a Theological Compendium’  in Disputationum Theologicarum Miscellaneorum Pars Prima (d. 1649; Geneva: Chouët, 1652), trans. AI by Roman Prestarri at Confessionally Reformed Theology  Latin

“35. The rule [ratio] of merit is to be sought in the entire obedience of Christ exhibiting full satisfaction both in order to the commandment of the law and in order to the penal sanction adjoined to it.”

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‘Disputation on Justification’  in Disputationum Theologicarum Miscellaneorum Pars Prima (Geneva: Chovet, 1652), trans. AI by Roman Prestarri at Confessionally Reformed Theology  Latin

“9. The μεσεγγυητική [mesengguētikē, mediating] cause — that is, the material and meritorious cause — we hold to be neither the habitual righteousness of man infused in him or inhering in him, nor the actual exercise thereof, Rom. III.20 and IV.2, 5; Gal. II.16; Phil. III.9; Tit. III.5 — but the obedience of Christ alone, the μεσίτης [mesitēs, Mediator], Jer. XXIII.6; Rom. V.9; 1 Cor. I.30.

And we hold that this obedience must be considered both ἐνεργητικῶς [energētikōs, actively] and παθητικῶς [pathētikōs, passively] — although by some it is otherwise stated — and that there must be conjoined here both the obedience which Christ set over against the precepts of the law, and that which He set over against its threats and curse.  Nor indeed do we hold that obedience to have been rendered by Christ as the son of Adam or of Abraham on His own account, but as our surety in our stead.

We establish both as necessary for man to be perfectly justified before God: so that he might not only be immune from condemnation, but also have a right to life — between which it is said, though not taught, that no middle ground exists — although we hold both benefits, howsoever distinct, to be conjoined in the justified, and indeed inseparably; Rom. III.24–26 and V.17–18 and VIII.3–4.

“10. The form of active justification we hold to be both the plenary remission of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ; nor do we hold that these phrases ought to be either equated or confounded.  The form of passive justification we constitute in the apprehension and sense of both in subjects who are capable thereof.”

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‘Disputation on the Justification of Man before God’  in Disputationum Theologicarum Miscellaneorum Pars Prima (Geneva: Chouët, 1652), trans. AI by Roman Prestarri at Confessionally Reformed Theology  Latin

“13…  And thus far there is the highest consensus among the Orthodox, although a certain dissensus intervenes in the explication of the material cause — some urging both the ἐνεργητική [energētikē, active] and the παθητική [pathētikē, passive] obedience, and conjoining satisfaction through obedience and through suffering; others seeking the material cause of our justification in satisfaction through suffering alone.

14. The foundation is safe among both parties.  For both not only admit but also require the obedience of Christ perfectly rendered to the law for our justification; but they differ in the manner of explicating the matter.  For some hold it to be the meritorious cause of our justification; others hold it to be the condition of the person and the causa sine qua non [indispensable cause] of meriting justification — namely, that it behoved us to have such a High Priest who was holy and undefiled, Heb. VII.26–27.  Concerning which there is a certain dissensus of opinions, the unity of faith and charity being preserved, since both parties apprehend the whole Christ and Christ alone, and in Him whole and alone seek righteousness and life.”

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Edward Leigh

A System or Body of Divinity…  (London, A.M., 1654), bk. 7, ch. 6, ‘Of Justification’

pp. 513-14

“The righteousness by which we are justified and stand righteous before God, is not our own righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ, Phil. 3:8-9; 2 Cor. 5:21, not the righteousness of Christ as God the Second Person in Trinity, but as Mediator, God-man.  In which there are two things:

1. The perfect holiness of his humane nature, Heb. 7:26.

2. The perfect righteousness which He performed in doing and suffering according to the Law, this is imputed to us.

Christ’s active obedience, his good works and holy life could never have been meritorious for us, nor brought us to Heaven, if he had not died for us, therefore our justification and obtaining of heaven is ascribed to his blood, as if that alone had done both, Rom. 5:9; Heb. 10:19; Rev. 5:6, 9, 11; his intercession and prayers had not been meritorious for us, if he had not died for us.”

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pp. 518-19

“Whether we be justified by the passive obedience of Christ alone, or also by his active?¹

¹ Bishop Carlton, Consens. Eccles. Cathol. contr. Trid. de Fide Justif., ch. 3; Daniel Featley in his Sacra nemesis, pp. 24, 29-30, 36-38; L’Emper. in his Theses, Article 1 and many others are for both Christ’s active and passive obedience.

Etsi autem in negotio Iustificationis magno periculo erratur, prout ea de re controversia procedit inter nos et Pontificios, utrum scilicet gratiá Dei Iustificatio nobis contingat, an meritis nostris: Attamen prout inter nos & Piscatorem controversia instituitur, passiváne tantum, an etiam activa Christi obedientia justificemur coram Deo, nullo prorsus erratur periculo.  Utrobique enim Iustificationis causae gratiae et Christi meritis adscribuntur, non autem operibus nostris.  Twisse, i• Corv. Defens. Arm. contra Tilenum Animadversio.  Scriptura Christi passioni Iustificationem passim adscribit; idque eu i• locis, in quibus exprofesso argumentum istud pertractat: nulla tamen justitiae, quae in obedientia legi exhibita consistat, facti mentione vel levissima, Rom. 3:24-25 & 4:24-25 & 5:9-10; Gal. 3:11, 13. Gataker.

Animadv. in Piscat. & Lucii Scripta Adversaria, p. 2, Sect. 10. Vide plura in cjus Gomar, Disput. Elentic. de Iustif. Elench.

In this controversy many learned divines of our own differ among themselves, and it does not seem to be of that importance that some others are about justification.

We are justified in part by Christ’s active obedience, for by it we obtain the imputation of that perfect righteousness which gives us title to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Seeing it was not possible for us to enter into life, till we had kept the commandments of God, Mt. 19:17, and we were not able to keep them ourselves, it was necessary our Surety should keep them for us, Dan. 9:24; Rom. 10:4; Rom. 3:21. (Mr. Hildersham on Ps. 51:7, Lecture 119)

The Scripture seems to ascribe our redemption wholly to Christ’s bodily death, and the blood that He shed for us, Eph. 1:7; Rev. 5:9, but in these places the Holy Ghost uses a synecdoche, it puts one part of Christ’s passion for the whole:

1. Because the shedding of his blood was a sensible sign and evidence that He died for us.

2. This declared Him to be the true propitiatory sacrifice that was figured by all the sacrifices under the Law. (Idem, ibid.)

Some urge this argument, By Christs active obedience imputed to them, the faithful be made perfectly righteous, what need is there then of his passive righteousness? need there anymore than to be made righteous? (See Mr. Bradshaw, Of Justification)

Christ fulfilled the duty of the Law, and did undergo the penalty, that last was a satisfaction for the trespass which was as it were the forfeiture, and the fulfilling the Law was the principal, Ps. 40:4; Jer. 31:3; Gal. 4:4.

Some, to avoid Christ’s active obedience, question whether Christ as man was not bound to fulfill the Law for Himself?  All creatures are subject to God’s authority.  Yet this detracts not from his active obedience, partly from his own free condescension, and partly because his whole person God and man obeyed.”

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William Bridge

‘The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, Opened & Applied from Rom. 3:24-25…’  in Works  (London: Tegg, 1845), vol. 5, pp. 378-79

“Whether we are justified by the passive righteousness of Christ only?

I answer, we are not justified by the passive righteousness of Christ only: there are two essential parts in justification, namely, remission of sin, and imputation of righteousness.

By Christ’s redemption, the guilt of sin is taken away, and by his active obedience, the believing person is made completely righteous, in the sight of God; and although these always go together, yet are they to be distinguished one from the other: for as it is one thing to obey the command, and another to suffer the penalty, even so it is one thing to be fread from hell, by the merit of Christ’s death, and another thing to be entitled to heaven by the merit of his obedience, Rom. 8:3.  Here we have the end and design of the Father’s sending of Christ asserted.

“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”

Here is sin made an end of, and put away by the sacrifice of Christ, yet that did not answer all the demands of the holy law of God, but a farther design is asserted, “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in (or for) us,” verse 4.  Here we see, the law must be “magnified and made honourable,” in and by Christ’s underdertaking.  Thus, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,” Rom. 10:4.  And does not the law require to do if we would live?  Now had Christ only suffered the penalty, and not fulfilled the preceptive part of the same, we might thereby have been freed from Hell, but could not from thence have had any right and title to an eternal kingdom.  See how distinctly the Holy Ghost treats of them, “Much more, being justified by his blood,” Rom. 5:9.  Here is the full and free remission of all sin: “So, by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous,” 5:19.  And thus it briefly appears that believers are justified by the whole righteousness of Christ, active and passive.”

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Thomas Case

Mount Pisgah, or a Prospect of Heaven, being an Exposition on the Fourth Chapter of the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians...  (London: Milbourn, 1670), pt. 2, 2nd Use, p. 152 with margin note

“Behold what can be desired more to make commutations of parties in public contracts authentic in courts of justice than consent of all parties, the allowance of the judge and public record?

And if this self-same commutation of pennance must be allowed of by those who are for justification by way of satisfaction only,¹ why should it seem incongruous in this other branch of justification, sc. by imputed righteousness?  Surely, God would have the active as well as the passive obedience, as near the same, required by the Law, as might be, that He might dispense with as little of the Law as was possible.

¹ Bellarmine, Of Justification, bk. 2, ch. 7, sect. 4; Stapleton, etc.  Their own argument will serve to prove the necessity of imputation of Christ’s active obedience to the Law for justification, because, ‘Nothing,’ say they, ‘can satisfy for sin (which is an infinite wrong to God) but that only which is infinite in value.’  By the same reason nothing can give us right and title to eternal life (which is an infinite reward) but that which is of infinite worth.”

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Peter van Mastricht

Theoretical Practical Theology  (RHB)

vol. 3, Bk. 3, ch. 12, section 19, ‘The man who was to render perfect obedience to God was perfect in every way’

“God demanded this perfect obedience from a man that was perfect in every way, and equal to the stipulated duty, for indeed:

(1) through the image of God conferred upon Him, and in that image, original righteousness, He was blessed with spiritual wisdom…

(2) He was to that point without any vice or sin (as much original as actual), through which alone his whole posterity was incapable of rendering to God his due (Rom. 8:3). Thus:

(3) intrinsically, he was equipped with a perfect principle of obeying, namely, original righteousness; extrinsically, there was before him a perfect norm of obeying, nor did anything hinder that obedience.”

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vol. 4, bk. 5, ch. 18, The Mediator’s Redemption Itself

“15. Did Christ redeem us only by his passive righteousness?  The difference of opinions
XXXVII. Fifteenth, it is asked whether Christ redeemed us only by his passive righteousness, or in addition also his active righteousness.  Johannes Piscator, otherwise an outstanding theologian, together with several others, because they thought that the necessity of passive righteousness and death would be abolished if it were stated that in our place he most exactly kept the divine law, because one who kept the law exactly could not be punished with death, chose the prior.

Protestants commonly prefer the latter, and certainly correctly, but not all in one way.  Some divide the passive and active righteousness of Christ in such a way that only by his passive righteousness did he satisfy in our place for the law that was not observed, and by it delivered us only from the guilt of punishment, and likewise, only by his active righteousness did he keep the law perfectly in our place, and by keeping it, acquire for us the right of eternal life.  Others, with that more subtle division laid aside, prefer to state that Christ devoted both these kinds of righteousness to us, to the end that he might satisfy for the divine law that was not observed by us, and by satisfying, also merit for us the right of life, in such a way that by this satisfaction he at the same time delivered us from every evil and gained the right of every good.

The difficulties raised by Piscator are removed
We have adduced the reasons for this view in §XX: with them presupposed, it is not so difficult to respond to the difficulties raised by Piscator.

For if (1) it should be alleged that the law demands nothing but one or the other, either obedience or punishment, we will respond that the law, first from man in his integrity, demands only obedience under threat of punishment, but from the sinner, it demands punishment for past sin and obedience in the future, because punishment cannot deliver from the obedience owed to God.  Wherefore the Redeemer had to supply both.

If (2) it should be alleged that the necessity and use of the death and passive righteousness are removed when he has most fully kept the law on our behalf, we will respond that it is by no means removed, because both kinds of righteousness were necessary for him to satisfy for the injury we inflicted upon the divine majesty and his law, and in satisfying, to merit for us the right of eternal life.

If (3) it should be alleged that Scripture refers the consummation of our salvation to his one and only sacrifice accomplished on the cross, we will respond that by that sacrifice is understood by synecdoche his entire satisfaction, the outstanding part of which his death on the cross supplied, just as by the same synecdoche, the blood of Christ designates the same satisfacation (1 John 1:7; Acts 20:28).

If one should proceed (4) to allege that obedience was necessary for his own self as a man, and thus could not be expended for us, we will respond that

(a) the obedience, insofar as it resulted from the God-man, was not necessary for him, because the law obligates not the God-man to obedience, but a mere man;

(b) that obedience of the God-man is of infinite value, whereby it was able to suffice both for himself and for us, because an obedience greater than infinite could not be demanded or supplied for him, or at the same time for us.”

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vol. 5, ch. 6, the Justification of those to be Redeemed

“By which righteousness of Christ we are justified
XI. Since, moreover, a twofold righteousness is observed in Christ—an essential righteous, as much of the divine as of the human nature, with which he was born (Luke 1:35); and a righteousness procured or acquired during his life on earth—so that we may more easily understand by which righteousness of Christ we are justified, it must be maintained that:

(1) certainly the whole Christ, and all his righteousness, is profitable to us for justification, because the whole Christ was given by God to the world, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16) and because he was not born for himself, and did not come into the world so that he might minister to himself, but to us, that he might give himself as the price of redemption for many (Matt. 20:28; Eph. 5:2, 25–26), although it does not all profit us in one and the same way. In particular,

(2) his essential righteousness, as much the divine as the human, is by no means profitable for justification as our [Greek], dikaioma, righteousness, on account of which we are justified, because not only does he require it for himself, but because it would also make superfluous and void a justification through a procured righteousness.  For if we were to be absolved on account of the righteousness of the divine person, which is of infinite value, or even on account of the righteousness of the human nature, as our dikaioma, why would the righteousness of his death or of his life be required?  Still, this essential righteousness also is profitable as a prerequisite in the person of the Mediator, apart from which he could not provide the dikaioma for us (2 Cor. 5:21; Isa. 53:11).  So

(3) only the procured righteousness of Christ provides the dikaioma on account of which we are justified by God.  But since again a twofold procured righteousness of Christ is observed, one active, whereby he kept the law exactly (Matt. 3:15; 5:17; Gal. 4:4), and the other passive, whereby he suffered for the law that we violated (Rom. 4:25; Phil. 2:8), it must be maintained that

(4) the active righteousness alone is insufficient for procuring justification, because a dikaioma was demanded for sinners, who had earned death (Gen. 2:17; Rom. 5:12; 6:23), which from the divine decree, the threat of the law, and God’s natural hatred of sin, was necessary to be suffered (Rom. 1:32; 2 Thess. 1:6).  And also

(5) he did not expend on our behalf only his passive righteousness, because it is not only his passive righteousness that is referred to our salvation throughout Scripture (Jer. 23:6; 1 Cor. 1:30; Rom. 5:19; Phil. 3:9), but it also regards the fullness of grace that he was expended for us in the whole of what he is (Rom. 8:32).  Hence,

(6) both kinds of his righteousness join into our one dikaioma, whereby he satisfied for the sins of those to be justified (Rom. 8:3–4), such that accordingly,

(7) this twofold righteousness is not separated, indeed not even distinguished in such a way that to the passive righteousness alone is attributed the efficacy of making satisfaction for our guilt, and thus of delivering us from evils, and to the active righteousness alone is attributed the power of meriting for us the right of eternal life.  For not only do satisfying and meriting in this matter not differ really, but neither should the passive be stripped of the dignity of meriting, nor the active of the dignity of satisfying, as we have demonstrated elsewhere (1.5.18 §XIV; cf. §XVII, below).”

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“XVII. (2) The adjudication of eternal life, with respect to its right (Rom. 6:22; Jn. 3:16), for when the guilt of eternal death is taken away through absolution, the right of eternal life cannot but follow it.  So that from this, it is perceived with no trouble that there is not a real distinction between absolution from eternal death and adjudication of eternal life.  For just as there is also not a real difference between satisfaction and merit, such that absolution must be sought in only satisfaction and the right to eternal life in only merit, and then the former, that is, satisfaction, in only passive righteousness, and the latter in only active.  For the dikaioma on account of which we are justified, as it includes without division both forms of the righteousness of Christ, so also it provides without division the cause on account of which also we are freed from the guilt of sin, and receive the right to every good, just as we taught elsewhere explicitly (1.5.18 §XIV; §XI, above).”

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6. Are we justified on account of Christ’s passive righteousness alone?
XXIV. Sixth, it is asked whether that procured righteousness on account of which we are justified consists in only Christ’s sufferings.  Olevianus, Piscator, Cargius, Lubbertus, and others affirm.  Protestants deny it, although they do so in slightly different ways.  We have already examined the arguments of both sides in bk. 5, ch. 18, §XXXVII.”

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1800’s

John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan

“The atonement…  the whole of Christ’s obedience unto death.”

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Historical Theology

Whole of Church History

Book

Kang, Paul C. – Justification: the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness from Reformation Theology to the American Great Awakening & the Korean Revivals  Pre  (2006)  160 pp.  ToC

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On the Post-Reformation

Articles

2000’s

Berends, Bill – ‘Christ’s Active Obedience in Federal Theology’  Vox Reformata (2004), 20 pp.

“My preliminary conclusions…  is that the doctrine of the active obedience of Christ may first have been discussed under the rubric of a prelapsarian covenant by Theodore Beza.” – p. 27

Berends’ main thesis about Beza is in general accordance with the findings of Campos’s later, more thorough dissertation below.

White, Wesley J. – ‘The Denial of the Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ: Piscator on Justification’  in The Confessional Presbyterian, no. 3 (2007), pp. 147-55

van den Brink, Gert – ‘Obedience, Punishment & Merit: the Heidelberg Catechism on the Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ’  Ref  in Journal of Reformed Theology  (Nov. 2024)

Abstract: “There is a longstanding debate on whether the Heidelberg Catechism favors the imputation of the active obedience of Christ (IAOC).  In this article, I argue that the IAOC is not present in the Catechism, not even latently.  The main authors of the Catechism, Olevianus and Ursinus, denied the IAOC.  Additionally, what the Catechism teaches about the interrelations between obedience, punishment and merit, makes clear that the IAOC does not fit in its theological structure.  Therefore, a historically sensitive interpretation of the Catechism leads to the recognition that the Catechism leaves no room for the IAOC.”

McDaniel, Matthew C. – ‘The Origins of Reformed Discourse on Imputed Active Obedience: Heidelberg’s Reception of Georg Karg’s 100 Propositions on Justification in 1565’  Abstract  in Reformation & Renaissance Review  (online, 2026)

Here is a blogpost by McDaniel introducing his article.  Here is a review of the article by Dr. R. Scott Clark.

Abstract: “Where and when did Reformed theologians first debate the imputed active obedience of Christ (IAOC)?  Through previously overlooked correspondence, this article establishes that Reformed discourse on IAOC originated in spring 1565 when Heidelberg theologians Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus favourably received Georg Karg’s propositions, prompting concern from Heinrich Bullinger and Theodore Beza about potential division.

The study documents how Reformed authorities resolved this controversy by 1570, designating the IAOC as adiaphora [something indifferent] – permitting both pro – and contra-IAOC positions among the Reformed.  This resolution, advocated particularly by Ursinus and Bullinger, prioritised ecclesial unity over doctrinal precision.  The findings upend narratives of an early Reformed consensus on the IAOC, revealing instead theological diversity from the doctrine’s inception.  The article provides a chronological anchor for understanding early Reformed orthodox development and demonstrates the conscious coexistence of divergent views on the IAOC.”

William Forbes: “For this [passive-alone] opinion is new, and first brought into the Church by a certain M. George Kargius, a pastor of Anspach, in the year 1570, as Mentzer testifies (Theological Disputations in the Academy of Giessena, vol. 3, p. 451-53), and John Gerhard (Common Places, vol. 3, On Justification, sect. 57, p. 1010 ff. [p. 485 ff.]).  He, however, retracted it, having been more rightly instructed by pious and learned men.  The same opinion, however, was afterwards was again brought forward and vigorously, nay, pertinaciously, defended by Zachary Ursinus, and especially by J. Piscator, a theologian of Herborn; as if there were not already more than enough disputes in the Church.  These were afterwards followed by many others.  Charles Molinaeus defends the same opinion. (Annotations on Ps. 51, part of the Harmony; see Fransicus Feuardent, Dialogue 4)” Considerationes (1850), 1.105.

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Book

de Campos, Jr., Heber Carlos – Johannes Piscator (1546-1625) & the Consequent Development of the Doctrine of the Imputation of Christ’s Active Obedience  PhD diss.  (Calvin Theological Seminary, 2009)  370 pp.

“…this dissertation does point to Beza as…  possibly even the first systematizer of the doctrine under study, since he demonstrates his threefold righteousness imputed as early as his first edition of the Annotationes Maiores (1556) and a detailed discussion of the topic soon appears in his Confession (1559). ” – p. 286

“…the assignment of precise labels (favorable to the doctrine/against the doctrine) in the history of the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s active obedience becomes possible only after Piscator raised his voice against Beza.  In short, there was no early consensus against which Piscator argued.  Doctrinal consensus, limited as it was, arose only after the debates of the early seventeenth century.” – p. 287

“…the beginnings of doctrinal formulation of the issue occurred in the 1550s and 1560s, and that significant debate over the doctrine became common only in the 1580s and 1590s…” – p. 292

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At the Synod of Dort

Article

Gootjes, Nicolaas – pp. 146 & 151  in The Belgic Confession: Its History & Sources  (Baker Academic, 2007)

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On Westminster

Articles

1800’s

Mitchell, Alexander F. – pp. 154-60  in Lecture 5, ‘Opening of the Assembly’  in The Westminster Assembly: its History & Standards, 2nd ed.  (Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1897)

Those at the Assembly or cited by it against the imputation of Christ’s active obedience are: Twisse, Gataker, Vines, Rollock, Piscator.  Cited for it are: Featley and the French Synods of Gap and Privas (though these synods yet used ambiguous language).

Extended quotes from Featley are given, with some from Gataker.  On pp. 159-60 is a wise quote from King James I exhorting the French Synods not to make a new controversy out of this.  The conclusion of the Assembly’s language in it documents was mediating so that both sides could affirm in it in their respective senses.

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2000’s

Strange, Alan – ‘The Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ at the Westminster Assembly’  in Drawn into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity & Debates within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism, eds. Jones & Haykin in Reformed Historical Theology 17 (V&R, 2011), pp. 31–51

See below for Strange’s updated book.

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Book

2000’s

Strange, Alan – The Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ in the Westminster Standards  Buy  in Explorations in Reformed Confessional Theology  (RHB, 2019)  179 pp.

This is in general a helpful treatment of the subject.  Strange is unable to see how advocates of imputed-passive-righteousness-only can affirm one proposition in the Westminster standards.

However, in the understanding of the webmaster, T. Fentiman, such proponents could affirm, and did affirm, that language on their own view; and hence the Westminster standards do not exclude the passive-only view.

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Those who Held that Christ’s Passive Rightouesness Alone is Imputed to Believers

Proponents, besides the below, were also William Twisee and Richard Vines.

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Order of

Articles  12+
Books  2
Quotes  10+
Historical  1
Latin  3

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Articles

1500’s

Heyden, Sebald – A Christian Assertion, that through the Blood, Death & Obedience of Christ Jesus, the Son of Man, All Believers are Justified; Against the New & Antichristian Sect of the Osiandrists, who so thoroughly Attribute the Justification of the Sinner to the Essential & Eternal Righteousness of God, that they Completely take it away from Christ the Man  (1555)  in Matthew McDaniel, ‘Sebald Heyden on the Blood, Obedience, & the Man Christ: Against the Osiandrian Error (1555)’

Heyden (1499–1561) was a Lutheran who here refutes Osiander in his specific errors, emphasizing the imputation of Christ’s obedience.  Heyden does not appear to go beyond Christ’s active obedience being a condition for his sacrifice, that sacrifice of passive obedience being imputed to believers.

Ursinus, Zacharias –

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1600’s

Wotton, Anthony – ‘Mr. Wotton’s Defense’  (1614)  in Mr. Anthony Wotton’s Defence against Mr. George Walker’s Charge...  (Cambridge: Daniel, 1641), pp. 21-34

Wotton (c.1561-1626) was an Anglican professor of divinity who has been described as having puritan views, and also “a Modernist and Ramist”.  He controverted with George Walker (a Westminster divine) on justification.

“Mr. Anthony Wotton, a man, by Mr. Walker’s own confession, of special note for his piety, life and learning, while he lived, which both the University of Cambridge and the City of London are able also to give ample testimony unto;” – Mr. Anthony Wotton’s Defence, Preface, p. 3

Bradshaw, William – ch. 13, sect. 22-28  in A Treatise of Justification…  (London: Creede, 1615), pp. 75-80

Bradshaw (1571-1618) was an English, congregationalist puritan.

Boyd of Trochrig, Robert – sect. 150-154  in Praelections on Ephesians

Boyd was a Scottish divine and professor of theology in Saumur, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

“First, that the distinction of the righteousness or obedience of Christ into active and passive, as if into two really diverse parts, seems neither necessary nor founded in Scripture; but rather, as the life of Christ was a kind of perpetual cross, as is eloquently said by the pious and blessedly remembered Beza in Epistle 45, so also in Christ’s death shines forth the most noble of all actions, the most full of all virtues.  So that only one obedience of Christ is to be established, defined by the whole tenor of his life…

Secondly, that they speak and think rightly with Scripture who attribute all things in the business of our salvation to Christ’s death, cross, and blood: the remission of sins, peace with God, eternal life…

What then, you will say, Do you exclude the most holy life or active righteousness of Christ from all consideration of merit?  Not I indeed, simply; but, as I began to warn, I place all merit in this, not that He lived most holily and justly, but that being humbled and emptied He did this; that He willingly and gladly submitted and humbled Himself to that point…  of which humiliation (ταπεινώσεως, tapeinōseōs), since the final degree was death…  for this reason, not only the expiation of all sin, but also the merit of eternal life is most deservedly attributed to his death and cross; so that his blood alone was found to be a worthy price (ἀντάξιον, antaxion) for that heavenly kingdom.

Certainly, before I answer, I still say confidently, before I am compelled by this or another argument to detract the merit of eternal life from Christ’s death and sacrifice, to which I always see it attributed by Scripture, that I should be prepared to transfer it to his active obedience…  beyond and above the guidance of Scripture and to cross over into the camp of Piscator and those who agree with him (ὁμοψήφων, homopsēphōn), being content with Christ’s death and passion alone.  But our opinion is not constrained by these straits.”

“For this being once posited and granted, that there is in reality only one righteousness of Christ, which is the perfect obedience to the divine law rendered both in life and in death, then it is both satisfactory for all sin, and also meritorious of all grace and eternal life; I indeed do not see what would greatly stand in the way, so that the parties might not agree, and right hands join in treaties.”

Forbes, John – ch. 24  in A Treatise tending to Clear the Doctrine of Justification  (Middelburgh: Richard Schilders, 1616), pp. 93-110

“These three opinions [two involve the imputation of Christ’s active obedience], agreeing all in the main point (that is, that only Christ in his obedience is our righteousness) may well (without any contention, strife or schism) be tollerated in the Church of God: if Christian modesty, humbleness of mind, and meekness did in that measure possess all, that they could support one another in love: and study more to keep the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace: then by controversies of disputations, to engender strife.  Especially seeing none of these opinions overthrow the foundation: or yet contains in them any impiety: or leads any man from the mark or matter of his righteousness, seeing all three exclude all things except only Christ’s obedience from our righteousness.  Moreover, if we shall consider two things distinctly: we shall easily perceive that these three opinions may easily be reconciled, and made all to agree in one: and that none of them is contrary to the truth of God.” – p. 94

“Which [Scriptural phrases] all signify one thing: that is, his suffering in the flesh.  For nowhere in the Scriptures of God is our righteousness particularly attributed to any other action of Christ.  Neither can it be collected to consist in any other action, except out of the general word of ‘obedience’.  Neither is there any necessity (if the matter be well weighed) to add anything to the sufferings of Christ in the matter of our righteousness.  Yea moreover, it would appear by diverse grounds of the truth of God that nothing can or may be added thereunto in the matter of our righteousness.” – p. 96

Forbes (c.1568-1634) was a Scottish minister who founded a church in Middleburg, Netherlands.  He was not one of the Aberdeen Doctors, as Forbes (1593-1648).

Gataker, Thomas – in pp. 154-60  in Alexander F. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly: its History & Standards, 2nd ed.  (Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1897), Lecture 5, ‘Opening of the Assembly’

Extended quotes are given by Mitchell for Gataker, arguing against Featley.

Wendelin, Marcus Friedrich – ‘On Christ’s Imputed Righteousness’  tr. Michael Lynch  being Christian Theology (d. 1652), bk. 1, ch. 25  at Translationes Lyncei

Rutherford, Samuel – pt. 2, ch. 1  of The Covenant of Life Opened  (1655), pp. 225-30

“It is a question, the threatening standing, Gen. 2:17, how the active righteousness of Christ can be a cause meriting to us life and satisfying the Law when there is no suffering for the breach of the Law, which expressly required death in the sinner: Not to say that it seems too near to make Christ’s dying needless if his active holiness do the business; Nay we cannot so teach.” – p. 230

Baxter, Richard – Aphorisms of Justification…  (1649; Hague, 1655)

‘The other opinion…’ (1649), pp. 52-55

Thesis 16 (1655), pp. 62-66

“The great question is, of which sort is our righteousness whereby we are justified?  I answer, of the second sort [Christ’s passive righteousness], which yet is no derogation from it: for though it be not a righteousness so honoring ourselves, yet is it as excellent in Christ, and honorable to Him.  And this first kind of righteousness [Christ’s active righteousness] as it is in Christ, cannot, retaining its own form, be made ours.  And to that the Papists arguments will hold good.

The Law commanded our own personal obedience, and not another for us; We did not so personally obey, we did not really obey in Christ: and God does not judge us to do what we did not; If we had, yet it would not have made us just: for one sin will make us unjust, though we were never so obedient before and after; Therefore if we had obeyed in Christ, and yet sinned in ourselves, we are breakers of the Law still.  And so our righteousness cannot be of the first sort.  This breach therefore must be satisfied for, and consequently, our righteousness must be of the second sort: seeing both cannot stand in one person as before said.

Christ indeed had both these kinds of righteousness, viz. the righteousness of perfect obedience; and the righteousness of satisfaction for disobedience.  But the former only was his own personal righteousnes, not communicable to another under that notion, and in that form of ‘a righteousness by obeying’.  The latter, was his righteousness, as he stood in our room, and was by imputation a sinner: and so is also our righteousness in and through Him.

Yet the former [Christ’s active righteousness] (as I have proved before etc.) is ours too, and our righteousness too (though many divines think otherwise), but how?  Not as retaining its form, in the former sense: but as it is also in a further consideration, a part of the righteousness by satisfaction: seeing that Christ’s very personal obediential righteousness was also in a further respect satisfactory.”

Le Blanc de Beaulieu, Louis – ‘Righteousness of Christ imputed to believers’  in Theological Theses Published at Various Times in the Academy  of Sedan  3rd ed.  tr. by AI by Colloquia Scholastica  (1675; London, 1683), pp. 404-12  Latin

Le Blanc (1614-1675) was a French reformed professor of theology at Sedan.

Vlak, Johannes – sect. 213-26  in Three Dissertations, of the Works of God, the Covenants of Peace and of Justification  (1689), pp. 396-403  in Matthew McDaniel, ‘An Update & Helpful 17th Century Historiography on the Issue of the IAOC’  (2025)  at Obedientia Mortis Christi

Vlak (c.1635-1690) was Dutch reformed.

Clark, Samuel – sect. 5.4 – sect. 14  in ch. 7, ‘How the Righteousness of Christ concurs to our Justification’  in Scripture-Justification, or a Discourse of Justification, according to the Evidence of Scripture-Light  (London: S. Bridge, 1698), pp. 28-35

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1700’s

La Placette, Jean – Treatise on Justification  (Amsterdam, 1733)  151 pp.

7. What is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that God imputes to us  55
8. Digression where one explains in which sense the Law subsists, and does not subsist, under the Gospel  59
9. Where one takes up again the matter of the imputation of
active righteousness. Some other proofs which those who do not admit it use.  62
10. Where one examines the reasons of those who hold that the active righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to us.  65-67

Venema, Herman – sect. 51-61  in Disputes on the Covenant of Works, Mediate or Immediate Imputation, Active & Passive Obedience of Christ, & General & Particular Decrees of Predestination  trans. AI by Nosferatu  (Leeuwarden: van Dessel, 1735), pp. 50-55  Dutch

Venema (1697-1787) was a Dutch reformed professor of theology at Franeker.

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1800’s

Vos, Geerhardus – ch. 5, ‘Justification’, Questions 13-16  in Reformed Dogmatics  tr: Richard Gaffin  1 vol. ed.  Buy  (1896; Lexham Press, 2020), vol. 4, ‘Soteriology’, pp. 763-65

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Books

1500’s

Piscator, Johannes – A Learned & Profitable Treatise of Man’s Justification. Two Books. Opposed to the Sophisms of Robert Bellarmine, Jesuit  (London, 1599)  128 pp.  ToC

“For remission of sins does not only deliver from pain, to wit, eternal death; but also brings glory or eternal life.  The reason of which thing is this, that remission of sins, wherein man’s justification consists, is remission of all sins: and therefore not only of sins of committing, but also of sins of omitting: whereby it comes that he to whom God forgives sins, is so accounted of, as if he had not only committed nothing which God has forbidden in his law: but also, omitted nothing of that which he has commanded: and therefore, as if he had perfectly fulfilled the law of God.  Now where the perfect fulfilling of the law is, there also is life, according to that, ‘The man that doeth these things shall live in them.’

Moreover, the example of civil judgment which Bellarmine brings, proves not his assumption: because that absolution is unlike to the absolution of God.  For this is universal, to wit from all sins against the law of God: but that is particular or special; to wit, from some certain crime or crimes, against the politic laws.  Notwithstanding, the civil judge gives unto him whom he has quitted from certain crimes those rewards which he has promised to the innocent, namely, preservation in life and defence; although he give him no new and singular rewards which he has promised only to certain virtuous exploits.  And so God gives eternal life as a reward to those unto whom He has promised it, to wit, unto those that keep his law: such as He accounts all those whose sins He has forgiven.” – bk. 2, ch. 4, pp. 106-8

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1600’s

Baxter, Richard – Of the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness to Believers, in what Sense Sound Protestants hold it & of the false divised sense by which Libertines [Antinomians] subvert the Gospel…  (London: Simmons, 1675)  295 pp.  ToC

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Quotes

Order of

Ursinus
Rollock
Piscator
Bradshaw
Boyd
Placeus
Rutherford
Gataker
Baxter
Manton
S. Clark
G. Vos

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1500’s

Zacharias Ursinus

Rules & Axions of Certain Chief Points of Christianity  in A Collection of Certain Learned Discourses…  (d. 1587; Oxford, 1600), 22. ‘Of Man’s Justification before God’, pp. 271-72

“1. That righteouseness whereby we are justified before God is the fulfilling of God’s law.

2. Legal justice is the fulfilling of the law, performed by him which is named just.

3. Evangelical justice is the punnishment of our sins, which Christ endured for us, freely imputed by God to them that believe.

4. Since the fall of man no man besides Christ alone in this life is justified before God by the righteouseness of the law.

5. We are justified only by faith in Christ.

6. And yet the righteousness of the law must in this life be begun in all that will be saved.”

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The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered…  in his Lectures upon the Catechism…  tr. Henrie Parrie  (Oxford, 1587), ‘Of Justification’, 4 What is our iustice & 5 How Christ’s satisfaction is made our justice and righteousness, pp. 680-82

“Our justice or righteousness, that is, the justice or righteousness of the Gospel, whereby we are just in the sight of God, is not our conformity with the Law: but it is Christ’s satisfaction performed unto the Law for us, or the punishment, which He sustained for us, and so his whole humiliation (that is, his taking of flesh, his undertaking of servitude, penury, ignominy, and infirmity: his suffering of that bitter passion and death: all which He did undergo for us, but willingly) and that humiliation and satisfaction freely of God imputed unto us his faithful and believers.

1 Cor. 2:2, ‘I esteemed not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.’  Col. 2:10, ‘Ye are complete in Him.’  Rom. 5:19, ‘By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.’  Isa. 53:5-6, ‘With his stripes we are healed.  The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all.’

Now that Christ might perform obedience and satisfy for us, it behoved Him to be our Mediator, being by Himself just and holy, Heb. 7:26, ‘For such an High-Priest it became us to have, holy, harmeless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.’  All these things are true perfectly and wholly in Christ.  For He has perfectly fulfilled the Law for us: 1. by the holiness of his human nature. 2.by his obedience: for He became obedient unto the death, even the death of the cross:

And the former fulfilling of the law, namely, the holiness of Christ’s human nature, was requisite for the other, even for his obedience.  This obedience and satisfaction of Christ is our satisfaction, and our proper iustice, for which we please God, for which we are received into favor with God the Father, and which is imputed unto us.  That former fulfilling of the Law is indeed imputed also unto us, namely the humiliation and justice or righteousness of Christ’s human nature, that we may be reputed holy before God: but this holiness of Christ is imputed unto us for his obedience or satisfaction sake: because He satisfied for us God’s justice, in sustaining eternal punishment and pains, which we should have sustained everlastingly.

Hence is it, that the effusion of Christ’s blood (as being the complement and consummation of Christ’s satisfaction) is only said to be our justice and righteousness. 1 Jn. 1:7, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin,’ that is, not only from that which is past, but also from that which is to come.
…

5. How Christ’s satisfaction is made our justice and righteousness:

This question is adjoined because it seems absurd that we should be justified by that which is another man’s, and not ours.  The satisfaction or justice of Christ is made ours, or applied unto us, two ways, that is, by a double application.  The former application is God’s, who in respect of that fulfilling of the Law performed by Christ, accepts us, and applies the same unto us; that is, He imputes it, no less than if we had never sinned, or at least had paid and suffered sufficient punishment for our sins.  For albeit to justify signifies to make just, yet in the Church it signifies another thing, and is taken in another sense.  Or God does apply it, when He imputes the fulfilling of the Law performed by Christ unto us, even as if it were performed by us, neither will at all punish us.  But to impute, is, to accept Christ’s satisfaction, performed to this end, that it might be our justice and righteousness.  We then also apply unto us the fulfilling of the Law performed by Christ, when we are steadfastly persuaded, that God does impute, apply and give it unto us, and for it reputes us for just, absolving us from all guilt…

That which we have now spoken of both applications, both God’s, and ours, does manifestly show what is meant in this place by justifying: Which is, that, to justify, is not to make one just who is uniust: but to repute him for just and righteous who is uniust, and to absolve the unjust and unrighteous from all guilt, and not to punish him, and this for another’s justice and righteousness imputed by faith unto us.”

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Robert Rollock

‘Treatise on Justification’  tr. Aaron Denlinger & Noah Phillips  MAJT 27 (2016), 1.4.2. ‘The Imputation of Righteousness’, pp. 107-8  Rollock (c. 1555-1599) was a Scottish minister.

“From the imputation of righteousness, a meritorious claim upon life and the reward of life itself equally follow.

For just as the sentence of sin’s remission has regard to three things—sin, liability to punishment, and punishment itself—so the sentence of justification has regard to three things—Christ’s righteousness or satisfaction, that merit which belongs to Christ’s righteousness or satisfaction (for his satisfaction is meritorious of eternal life), and life itself.”

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Johannes Piscator

Epistolae ecclesiasticae, Epistle 68, p. 124b  as trans. G.A. van den Brink, The Transfer of Sin: The Debate on Imputation in the English Antinomian Controversy (1690–1700)…  (Brill, 2024), p. 217

“If Christ made satisfaction for our sins by the obedience with which He fulfilled the law, so that that [obedience] is imputed to us by God as though we ourselves had fulfilled [the law], then it follows therefrom that we are set free from obedience of the law, because—according to this hypothesis—Christ has fulfilled it for us or in our stead.”

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‘Examen sententiae Domini Theodori Bezae, De justificatione Hominis coram Deo, quae habetur in annotatione ad Rom. 8, v. 2’  in Correspondance de Théodore de Bèze (1586), eds. Dufour, Genton & Nicollier-de Weck, vol. 27, Travaux d’humanisme et Renaissance 401 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2005), p. 59, trans. ChatGPT-5  For a discussion of the import of the below, see Brink, The Transfer of Sin (Brill, 2024), pp. 219-20 ff.

“I have therefore found in your [Beza’s] published letters two, namely Epistles 35 and 45, in the former of which you touch briefly upon this controversy, but in the latter you discuss it more fully and at greater length.  In Epistle 35, then, you say: ‘What is more absurd than to reckon that man just who has not fulfilled the Law?’

But I reply: the righteousness of the Gospel must be carefully distinguished from the righteousness of the Law.  That righteousness by which we are accounted righteous by God, and therefore justified or absolved by Him, is not the righteousness of the Law; for God does not justify us on the ground that either we ourselves have fulfilled the Law, or that Christ has fulfilled it for us.  Rather, it is the righteousness of the Gospel, that is, that which God bestows upon us through the Gospel—namely, the remission of sins obtained by the blood of Christ.

Therefore we seek life from God not by the right of a fulfilled Law or of obedience rendered to the Law, but by the right of adoption, which Christ has procured for us by his death.”

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“Inveni igitur in Epistolis tuis in lucem editis Epistolas duas 35 et 45 in quarum illa controversiam hanc paucis attingis.  In ista vero copiosius et plenius edisseris.  In 35 igitur epistola ‘Quid vanius est, inquis, quam justum arbitrari qui Legem non impleverit?’

At, inquam, justicia Evangelii a justicia Legis, prudenter discernenda est, Justicia qua nos justi censemur a Deo ac proinde ab eodem justificamur seu absolvimur, non est justicia Legis, neque enim Deus ideo nos justificat, quod Legem vel ipsi nos impleverimus, vel Christus pro nobis impleverit.  Sed est justicia Evangelii, id est quam Deus nobis per Evangelium donat, nempe remissio peccatorum sanguine Christi parta. Vitam igitur petimus a Deo non jure impletae Legis seu obedientiae Legi praestitae sed jure adoptionis, quam Christus sua morte nobis peperit.”

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On Rom. 8:4, “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

“Here he indicates the end for which God, in the flesh of his Son, condemned our sin—namely, that the righteousness (or justification) of the Law might be fulfilled in us; that is, that we might be justified, being endowed with that righteousness which the Law requires of us.  For the Law requires of us either perfect obedience or punishment.  But we have not rendered perfect obedience; yet we have paid the penalty in Christ, for he paid it on our behalf.  Therefore we have satisfied the Law in Christ; and consequently the Law cannot condemn us, but is bound to justify us.”

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1600’s

William Bradshaw

Dissertation on the Doctrine of Justification, in which a plain way is built up to the concord of them which vary on this thing  (d. 1618; Leiden, 1684), ch. 24, ‘Of the Effects of Justification’, sect. 27, pp. 115-16  trans. ChatGPT-5

“27. By the righteousness of Christ imputed to us we cannot be said absolutely or in every respect to be righteous, as if, on account of it, God regarded us as though we had performed all things required of us by his law.  For then, after that righteousness of Christ had been admitted and accepted, God could demand no obedience to his law from us on our part.

But by the righteousness of Christ imputed to us God esteems us righteous insofar as we have been transgressors of the divine law; so that we are said to be made righteous by that righteousness of Christ insofar as by our disobedience we had been constituted unrighteous.  For Christ did not satisfy for all those things which we were bound to do by the law (for He would then have come into the world to dissolve the law), but only for those things which we had done against the law, or which, when we ought to have done them, we did not do.”

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1600’s

Robert Boyd of Trochrig  (d. 1627)

in Johannes Vlak, A Triad of Dissertations: on the Covenants of God of Works & of Peace, & on Justification in Response to Leydekker  (1689), pp. 349-50  trans. AI  Latin

“First, that the distinction of the righteousness or obedience of Christ into active and passive, as if into two really diverse parts, seems neither necessary nor founded in Scripture; but rather, as the life of Christ was a kind of perpetual cross, as is eloquently said by the pious and blessedly remembered Beza in Epistle 45, so also in Christ’s death shines forth the most noble of all actions, the most full of all virtues.  So that only one obedience of Christ is to be established, defined by the whole tenor of his life…

Secondly, that they speak and think rightly with Scripture who attribute all things in the business of our salvation to Christ’s death, cross, and blood: the remission of sins, peace with God, eternal life…

What then, you will say, Do you exclude the most holy life or active righteousness of Christ from all consideration of merit?  Not I indeed, simply; but, as I began to warn, I place all merit in this, not that He lived most holily and justly, but that being humbled and emptied He did this; that He willingly and gladly submitted and humbled Himself to that point…  of which humiliation (ταπεινώσεως, tapeinōseōs), since the final degree was death…  for this reason, not only the expiation of all sin, but also the merit of eternal life is most deservedly attributed to his death and cross; so that his blood alone was found to be a worthy price (ἀντάξιον, antaxion) for that heavenly kingdom.

Certainly, before I answer, I still say confidently, before I am compelled by this or another argument to detract the merit of eternal life from Christ’s death and sacrifice, to which I always see it attributed by Scripture, that I should be prepared to transfer it to his active obedience…  beyond and above the guidance of Scripture and to cross over into the camp of Piscator and those who agree with him (ὁμοψήφων, homopsēphōn), being content with Christ’s death and passion alone.  But our opinion is not constrained by these straits.”

“For this being once posited and granted, that there is in reality only one righteousness of Christ, which is the perfect obedience to the divine law rendered both in life and in death, then it is both satisfactory for all sin, and also meritorious of all grace and eternal life; I indeed do not see what would greatly stand in the way, so that the parties might not agree, and right hands join in treaties. “

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Joshua Placeus

‘Theological Theses on the Justification of Man before God’  (1634), p. 6

“XXX. We are justified by that righteousness alone by which our Surety was freed from our guilt.  But He was fully freed from our guilt by the power of the satisfaction which He rendered on our behalf; therefore, by that same righteousness alone, we too are fully justified.  Who would deny that, when the debt owed by us is paid, the handwriting that was against us (Col. 2:14) is erased, and we are no longer liable to our creditor?

That by the same righteousness by which we are redeemed from condemnation and the curse of the law (Gal. 3:13), we are also justified?  That by the same satisfaction by which divine justice was perfectly satisfied for us, and by which we were so reconciled to God that He adopted us as sons and heirs, God is now completely propitiated toward us?  That by the same propitiation by which our sins were fully expiated and cleansed, we now obtain the right of access into the Temple of God?”

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Samuel Rutherford

Intro

The clearest passages of Rutherford on the topic (it is believed) are below.  He at least doubts, but more likely here teaches and argues against the imputation of Christ’s active obedience to the believer, that Christ’s active obedience is meritoriously causative of eternal life for believers.

Rutherford in his writings commonly speaks of the believer receiving the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, unqualified.  Below and in some other places Rutherford speaks of:

Christ being obliged to active obedience, and that unto his sacrifice, and this for believers, and that active obedience factors into his satisfaction as a part of it, wholly fulfilling the Law for man where man had left it undone.

Yet all this is consistent with:

– active obedience being a requirement for the person being sacrificed (which notion was common to those who denied the imputation of active obedience);

– Christ’s satisfaction restoring God’s Law fully, even in its requirement of active obedience;

– Christ’s passive obedience of suffering the Law’s curse being imputed to believers, taking away the curse of the Law for them;

– and yet “the active righteousness of Christ” is not “a cause meriting to us life and satisfying the Law”. (Covenant of Life, pt. 2, ch. 1, p. 230)

When Rutherford positively sets forth what he believes to be the case, it is consistent with passive obedience alone being imputed to believers.  He says of the believer:

“in what he comes short in performing of new obedience, from a new principle, to wit, a Gospel-spirit in him, he is pardoned in Christ, and the rest is accepted for Christ’s sake, as if it were obedience.” Survey of Spiritual Antichrist, pt. 1, ch. 35, pp. 317-18

Rutherford cites positively below David Pareus (a German reformed theologian), which summary reference goes no further than speaking of Christ’s passive obedience being imputed.

In some places below, and others, Rutherford uses the imputation of Christ’s active obedience as an argument against antinomians and Libertines,¹ who held to the doctrine, by drawing unpalatable inferences therefrom.  It appears Rutherford goes beyond simple ad hominems pertaining only to antinomian teachings, but reflects on the teaching of the imputation of Christ’s active obedience itself.  When Rutherford states what that teaching is in Covenant of Life, pt. 2, ch. 3, pp. 246-47, arguing against it, he states it in a fair way consistent with how reformed, non-antinomian persons hold to it.

¹ “For some, a key reason to concur with Piscator’s stance was that the doctrine of
the imputation of Christ’s active obedience would parry Antinomianism.” G.A. van den Brink, The Transfer of Sin (Brill, 2024), p. 218

One of Rutherford’s clearest passages is in a margin note to Covenant of Life Opened, pt. 2, ch. 3, below.  The margin notes in that work have every appearance of being Rutherford’s.

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Examination of Arminianism  tr. by AI by Onku  (1639-1642; 1668)

ch. 9, On Universal Redemption, on 1 Pet. 2:24, pp. 259-60

“2. He can be said to have sustained our person, as if He satisfied justice, and by suffering for us, merited that right and title to eternal life, which we ourselves would have merited, supposing this, that we had suffered for our sins, what He suffered.  The Adversaries ascribe this sense to us, and all oppugners of imputed righteousness; and they infer that we are equally just, as Christ Himself is.

But we teach that Christ from the dignity of the suffering Person, merited far more by His death, than we could merit, even supposing, per impossible, that we had suffered all in so short a space which He suffered.  Whence Bellarmine, bk. 2, On Justification, ch. 2, arg. 5:

“If the righteousness of Christ were truly imputed to us, so that through Him we should be accounted and reckoned just, just as if it were properly our own intrinsic and formal righteousness–we ought to be reckoned equally just as Christ Himself; and we ought to be called redeemers and saviors of the world.”

But the Jesuit himself in the same place, arg. 4, responds for us:

“For if they only wanted” (he says of ours) “the merits of Christ to be imputed to us, because they were given to us, and we can offer them to God the Father for our sins, because Christ took upon Himself the burden of satisfying for us, and reconciling us to God the Father; their opinion would be right.”

And certainly this is for Christ to have died in our stead and place, and it is the same, as if we ourselves had died.
…

4. Yet Christ, in this sense, died in our place and stead, that He suffered the penalties due to us for sins for eternity; and by satisfying the justice of God for us by dying He thus far pleaded our cause, that God esteems it the same, as if we had died, and requires nothing else for satisfying His justice and our actual redemption from the guilt of sin; but for the application of that redemption, demands faith effective through charity.”

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ch. 12, Justification of a Sinner, p. 315

“5. Because the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, indeed, because Christ died for us, i.e., in our place and stead, as sponsor and surety, He was made a curse for us, and sustained in Himself the malediction and penalty of the violated Law due to us.  From which necessarily flowed from Christ to us surety-righteousness, or such as a sponsor renders for debtors.  But this is imputed righteousness.”

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Christ Dying & Drawing Sinners to Himself  (London: 1647)

p. 79

“But I fear the sense of this [said by antinomians], that ‘Christ repents for us, and obeys for us, He being the end of the Law to overy one that believes,’ be far otherwise, to wit, that Christ’s obedience of the Law, He being the end of the Law, as also his passive obedience is ours.  If this be the intended sense, then:

[1.] All our sanctification is nothing but the sanctification and holy active obedience of Christ.  I yield this to be a broad, a fair and easy way to heaven.  Christ does all for us [according to antinomians:], Christ weeped for my sins, and that is all the repentance required in me, if I believe that Christ was mortified and dead to the world for me, that is my mortification; and if I believe that the change of the whole man was truly in Christ, this is my true holiness: then my walking in holiness cannot be rewarded with life eternal, nor have any influence as a way or means leading to the kingdom.

2. Christ’s active obedience imputed to the sinner can be no evidence of justification, because it is in Christ, not in me; any evidence or mark of justification must be inherent in the believer, not in Christ.

3. And one and the same thing cannot be a mark and a sign of itself.  Now the active obedience of Christ imputed to the sinner is holden [by antinomians] to be a part of justification [and therefore it cannot be a sign of justification].”

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p. 321

“But do not Libertines teach that no man is saved, but these that walk holily, and that sanctification is the unseparable fruit and effect of justification?

Answer: They say it in words, but fraudulently: 1. Because all sanctification to them, all repentance, all mortification, all new obedience is but an apprehension that Christ has done all these for them, and that is their righteousness, and so Christ repented for them and mortified sin for them, and performed all active obedience for them.”

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A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist...  (London: J.D., 1648), pt. 1, ch. 35, p. 317-18

“And the man, out of Christ and under the Law, is still compelled in both active and passive obedience…

And for the believer in Christ, the rigor of the Law is abated, not that the Law, as the Law, requires less of him than absolutely perfect obedience, but because in what he comes short in performing of new obedience, from a new principle, to wit, a Gospel-spirit in him, he is pardoned in Christ, and the rest is accepted for Christ’s sake, as if it were obedience.

Now in this new obedience, the Spirit so oils the wheels of free-will as obedience, in its kind, is as free, connatural, delightful, being sweetened with the love of God, as if there were not an awing Law, but a sweetly alluring and heart-drawing free love, so that the believer obeys…”

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The Covenant of Life Opened  (1655), pt. 2

ch. 1

p. 226

“Q. What place has Christ’s righteousness here?

Answer: [David] Pareus with some others distinguish between [1] the righteousness of Christ’s Person, which contains his essential righteousness as God, [2] the habitual and actual conformity of the man-Christ, and the perfect holiness of the man-Christ.  Such a High Priest became us, as is holy, harmless, etc. Heb. 7:26.  And [3] the righteousness of his merit, in the satisfaction of his suffering: the satisfaction is the formal cause of our justification, which is counted ours: this latter righteousness is acquired, the former is essential.”

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pp. 226-27

“[1.] Now the active obedience of Christ falls under a twofold consideration:

1. As the man-Christ’s perfect conformity to the Law of God, so as man he was obliged to do and suffer all that He did and suffered, even to lay down his life for man.  But had He been only man his righteousness had neither been by condignity meritorious, nor yet satisfactory for us.  But:

2. The whole course of Christ’s obedience from his birth to the grave, by doing and suffering, is to be considered as the doing and suffering of so excellent a Person, his being born, his praying, preaching, dying, coming from a Person, God-man.  Now the Law required not praying, preaching of God-man, the blood of God, or the dying of Him who was God-Man.  And so all these being both so excellent, and then so undue, have respect of satisfaction to God.

2. The active obedience of Christ and all that Christ did and suffered were performed by Him in his state of humiliation: in which he was poor, [Greek], 2 Cor. 8:9, for us, so also by the same ground a weeping man, hungry, thirsty, weary for us, made lower then the angels by the suffering of death, Heb. 2:9, humbled by partaking of flesh and blood, because of the children, Heb. 2:14, emptied Himself for us, Phil. 2.  This was, as [David] Pareus well says:

perpetua quaedam passio et paena peccatorum nostrorum, fuit tota vita Christi [‘The whole life of Christ was a certain perpetual suffering and punishment for our sins’]:

All these have a respect of punishment and suffering.  For since Christ was both a viator [pilgrim] and a comprehensor [one attaining glory], and such a holy sinless person, He ought to have had the actual possession of the crown of glory from the womb, and so should have been free of weeping, hunger, thirst, weariness, groaning, sighing, sadnesse, persecution, reproaches, etc., all which adhered to all his active holiness, and therefore, in that, his actions were satisfactory passions. 

For satisfaction is defined [as] a voluntary restoring of the equivalent, and as good in the place of what is taken away; and the good restored must be:

1. Undue.
2. The proper good of the restorer, which agrees to the active and passive obedience of Christ.”

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p. 230

“It is a question, the threatening standing, Gen. 2:17, how the active righteousness of Christ can be a cause meriting to us life and satisfying the Law when there is no [legal] suffering [by the saint] for the breach of the Law, which expressly required death in the sinner: Not to say that it seems too near to make Christ’s dying needless if his active holiness do the business; Nay we cannot so teach.”

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ch. 3, pp. 246-47

“[Margin Note:] It’s false that Christ so died for us, that is, in our stead, as that in our stead He fulfilled the Law and performed all active obedience and passive by doing and dying that God can require of us.

2. Christ may be said to die for us, as if we had substituted Him in our place, in so rigid a sense as if He had been made our surety to fulfill both the preceptive and active, and also the satisfying and suffering part of the Law in our room.  This may please Antinomians, but a doubt it is, if it stand with the truth:

For then whatever we, yea all mortal men be (for Christ died for them all, as many teach) most wicked, yet Christ’s active and surety, and cautionary righteousness should be ours; and though we should never believe, yet Christ who fulfilled the Law, and preceptive as well as the threatening part, must have believed for all that He died for, and what need we then in our persons either [to] believe or repent?

It’s true, we need not perform any active obedience, as a part of active fulfilling of that Covenant of Works, which either must have all or no obedience.  If it be said that alio titulo, ‘upon another account’ of thankfulness to our ransom-payer we owe active obedience: Yet all [persons] that Christ died for, both actively and passively, must be perfectly righteous and justified, [He] having paid the most perfect active and passive obedience that the Law required, though we never believe, and Christ must have paid the active part of justifying faith for us.  And why, but we should be formally justified in Him without faith also?  As also, God, not we, laid our sins upon Christ, Isa. 53:6; 2 Cor. 5:21, and therefore we did commissionate and substitute Christ to die in our room.”

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Thomas Gataker

An Antidote Against Error Concerning Justification…  (d. 1654; London: Brome, 1670)

pp. 19-20

“Howbeit this exposition of the term justification seems faulty as well as the former: and that two ways:

…
2. With them all, it presumes in the matter of justification a needles twofold act, the not-imputation of sin, and the imputation of righteousness, as two distinct things; whereas not to impute sin in consideration of satisfaction made for it, is no other thing than to impute righteousness to the party therein concerned.  Since that a man cannot be deemed or doomed guiltless or faultless, but he must of necessity be deemed or doomed just or righteous; there being no medium or middle state be∣tween a delinquent or a guilty person and one guiltless or just.  He that can prove himself no delinquent, but free from fault, must of necessity be justified, acquitted and assoiled as just.  See Dt. 25:1.  If nothing but sin can make a man unjust, then surely the utter absence of sin must necessarily make a man just.  See Paul’s plea, Acts 25:8.”

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p. 34

“2. That which is exhibited whither by doing or suffering, or both in way of satisfaction and so accepted, being such as makes a plenary compensation for an offence formerly committed; because it utterly extinguishes and abolishes the wrong, so takes it away, as if it never had been; it justly procures a guiltlessness, a blamelessness unto the delinqent, in whose behalf it is performed; and makes him therefore to be reputed in the eye of law and justice, as now no delinqent, but as guiltless, faultless and just: there being no medium between these two just and unjust, nor between guiltless and just.  See Dt. 25:1.

This guiltlessness therefore is justly termed justice; and the party conseqently by plea thereof upon any emergent occasion may be truly justified, and such guiltlessness achieved by Christ’s satisfaction made to God’s Law and his justice, makes the party unto whom the same is imputed, and who has interest therein, truly named and justly deemed just, and to be in the state of justification, or in a justifiable condition, 2 Cor. 5:21;

and this is that, not the satisfaction itself, but the guiltlessness thereby procured, that is so oft in his argument termed ‘justice’ or ‘righteousness’, called the ‘Justice of God’, Rom. 1:17, and 3:21-22, and 2 Cor. 5:21, not, as some, for that the satisfaction was made by Christ, who is God, but because contrived, prepared, propounded and appointed us by God, for God as the party wronged, and Christ as the party satisfying, for the wrong, are in this argument distinguished, Rom. 3:24-25 and 2 Cor. 5:19, 21.”

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Richard Baxter

Aphorisms of Justification…  (Hague, 1655)

Guide to the Reader  Baxter here lays out his Neonomianism.

“[You must distinguish:] 4. Betwixt a twofold righteousness of one and the same Covenant:

1. Of perfect obedience, or performance of the condition.

2. Of suffering, or satisfaction for disobedience or non-performance which makes the Law to have nothing against us, though we disobeyed.

See [William] Pemble, Of Justification, p. 2.  Our legal righteousness is of this last sort, and not of the first.  Both these sorts of righteousness are not possible to be found in any one person, except Christ, who had the former righteousness as his own (incommunicable to us in that form).  The second He had for us, as He was by imputation a sinner: And so we have it in, or by Him.  Mark this.

5. Betwixt two kinds of righteousness, suitable to the two Covenants [of Works and of Grace] and their conditions:

1. Legal righteousness, which is our conformity, or satisfaction to the Law.

2. And evangelical righteousness, which is our conformity to the new Covenant.

Note, that: 1. Every Christian must have both these.  2. That our legal righteousness is only that of satisfaction: but our evangelical is only that of obedience, or performance of the condition.  3. That our legal righteousness is all without us in Christ, the other in ourselves.

6. [Distinguish] Betwixt [1.] evangelical righteousness, improperly so called, viz. because the Gospel does reveal and offer it.  This is our legal righteousness of Christ.  2. And evangelical righteousness properly so called viz. because the new Covenant is the rule to which it is conformed.  This is our performance of the new Covenant’s conditions.”

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Appendix

‘The Sum of the Objections’, p. 227

“[Objection:] 2. Though you [Baxter] seem to take in the active righteousness of Christ with the passive into the work of justification, yet it is on such grounds as that you do in the main agree with them who are for the passive righteousness alone, against the stream of orthodox divines?”

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‘The Answer’, p. 230

“To your second objection about Christ’s active and passive righteousness: You should have overthrown my grounds and not only urge my going against the stream of divines: As I take it for no honor to be the first inventing a new opinion in religion, so neither to be the last in embracing the truth: I never thought that my faith must follow the major vote; I value divines also by weight, and not by number; perhaps I may think that one Pareus, Piscator, Scultetus, Alstedius, Capellus, Gataker, or Bradshaw, is of more authority than many writers and readers: View their writings, and answer their arguments, and then judge.”

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Richard Baxter’s Catholic Theology, Plain, Pure, Peaceable...
(London: White, 1675), ‘An Appendix to this Premonition,’ n.p.

“14. No man is saved or justified but by the proper merit of Christ’s perfect obedience; yea, and his habitual holiness and satisfactory sufferings, advanced in dignity by his divine perfection.

15. This merit, as related to us, supposes that Christ, as a sponsor, was the Second Adam, the Root of the justified, the reconciling Mediator, who obeyed perfectly with that intent that by his obedience we might be justified; and who suffered for our sins, in our room and stead; and so was in tantum [to that extent] our Vicarius poenae, as some phrase it, or substitute; and was made a curse for us, that we might be healed by his stripes; as He was obedient, that his righteousness might be the reason as a meritorious cause of our justification: which supposes the relation of an undertaking Redeemer, in our nature doing this, and in our stead so far forth, as that therefore perfect obedience should not be necessary to be performed by ourselves:

And righteousness therefore is imputed to us, that is, we are truly reputed righteous, because we, as believing members of Christ, have right to impunity and life, as merited by his righteousness, and freely given to all penitent believers.  And Christ’s own righteousness may be said so far to be imputed to us, as to be reckoned or reputed the meritorious cause of our right or justification, as aforesaid.”

[See also the rest of the section to the end, which is on the topic and which contains important references to other reformed theologians, specifically on how Christ’s righteousness is not, according to Baxter, the formal cause of our justification (though it be the meritorious and material cause).  He believes, rather, the effects of Christ’s righteousness give us the right to eternal life.]

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Thomas Manton

A Second Volume of Sermons…  (London: Astwood, 1684), Sermons on Rom. 8, Sermon 43, on Rom. 8:33, p. 333

“2. In accepting us as righteous in Christ, who died for our sins to reconcile us unto God; and therefore sometimes he is said to be made righteousness to us, 1 Cor. 1:30, and we are said to be made the righteousness of God in Him, 2 Cor. 5:21, that is, we have the effect of his sufferings, as if we had suffered in person; for they were undergone in our stead and for our sakes, and the fruit of it given to us by God Himself.”

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Samuel Clark

in John Humfrey, Ultimas manus…  (1698), “To Mr. Humfrey”, p. 13

“[Humfrey said:] ‘He obeyed and suffered both in our stead.’  That notion I [Clark] cannot swallow.  I cannot apprehend that we are bound to obey and suffer both.”

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1800’s

Geerhardus Vos

Reformed Dogmatics  tr: Richard Gaffin  1 vol. ed.  Buy  (1896; Lexham Press, 2020), vol. 4, ‘Soteriology’, ch. 6, ‘Sanctification’, pp. 801-2

“Q. 23. Is it correct to say that the righteousness of the Mediator is imputed to us in justification and infused in sanctification?

…it is not the same righteousness of Christ that occurs in its two parts.  When I speak of an imputed righteousness of the Mediator, then I mean that righteousness that He obtained by means of his suffering and dying and obedience in the state of humiliation–not, however, the righteousness of life of the human nature of Christ, that is, that Christ in his human nature now possesses.  The latter is not imputed to me.  And, conversely, the former cannot be infused into me; it can only be reckoned to me.  Really, one cannot even say that the righteousness in which Christ now lives is infused into me.  This always rests on a more or less unclear mystical conception.  It is not the personal righteousness of Christ that is infused into the believer, for, as an inherent quality, righteousness cannot be detached from the person.

Q. 24  Is then no ‘holiness’ of Christ imputed to us?

Yes; by that term, if one wishes, one can designate his active obedience, imputed to us in justification.  As our [Heidelberg] Catechism states in the answer to question 60, ‘How are you righteous before God?…  God grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ,’ etc.  In this sense, one may thus then say that Christ is not only our sanctification but also our holiness before God.”

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Historical

Quote

G.A. van den Brink, The Transfer of Sin: The Debate on Imputation in the English Antinomian Controversy (1690–1700)…  (Brill, 2024), p. 217

“Many theologians took on Piscator’s view.  The Lutheran theologian Johann Gerhard mentions (Loci theologici, 3:341 (16.57)), among other adherents to it, the names of Martinius of Bremen (1572–1630), Tilenus, Goclenius (1537–1628), Ravensperger and Lubbertus.”

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Latin

1500’s

Molinaeus, Charles – Annotations on Ps. 51, part of the Harmony; see Fransicus Feuardent, Dialogue 4

Dumoulin (1500–1566) was a French jurist.  William Forbes cites Dumoulin as teaching the passive-alone opinion in Considerationes (1850), 1.105.

Lucius, Ludovicus & Johannes Piscator – De causa meritoria nostri coram Deo Justificationis, inter D. Johannem Piscatorem,
Theologum Herbornensem, et M. Ludovicum Lucium, Professorem Basileensem, Amica Disceptatio  (Basel: Genathus, 1630)

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1600’s

Pareus, David – ‘Epistola D. Davidis Parei ad…  Dn. Ludovicum Witgensteinium…  de Justitia Christi activa et passiva’  in Miscellanea Catechetica in quibus Praecipui Articuli religionis Christianae inter Evangelicos reformatos, et Heterodoxos controversi, perspicue explicantur  (Hanover: Aubrius, 1634), pp. 178–79

Gomarus, Francis – Opera omnia, vol. 2, (27.8–10), p. 89

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Christ’s Divine Righteousness is Not Imputed to Believers

Quote

1600’s

Peter van Mastricht

Theoretical Practical Theology  (2nd ed. 1698; RHB), vol. 5, pt. 1, bk. 6, ch. 6, ‘The Justification of those to be Redeemed’, p. 131

“5. Are we justified on account of the essential righteousness of Christ’s divine nature?

XXIII. Fifth, it is asked whether the dikaioma [righteousness] on account of which we are justified is the essential righteousness of Christ’s divine nature.  Andreas Osiander [a Lutheran], as we have often said, affirms it, because he rejected the procured righteousness of Christ, which nonetheless his son Lucas Osiander, a professor at Tübingen, does not acknowledge; at least it is certain that he has to reject it, from his hypotheses, because:

(1) this essential righteousness of the divine nature, through its infinite value, would be so sufficient that it would make the other undoubtedly void.  This is not even to mention that

(2) the essential union of believers with Christ (which he presupposes) is blasphemous in not just one way, as we taught elsewhere (1.6.5 §XX).

And (3) it is false that he is the Messiah only according to the divine nature.

Moreover, (4) that the fellowship of that essential righteousness is understood (2 Peter 1:4), we have already shown to be absurd (cf. bk. 5, ch. 2 §XXII; ch. 18, §§XIV, XXXVI; ch. 5 of this book, §XX; likewise §XI of this chapter.)

Nor does there remain anything that they may say for themselves, except that the righteousness on account of which we are justified is called the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:17; 3:21–22; 10:3; 2 Cor. 5:21; 2 Peter 1:1).  To which we respond that:

(1) the [Greek; dikaiosune theou], ‘the righteousness of God’, sometimes designates procured righteousness (James 1:20).

(2) Christ’s procured righteousness is the righteousness of God, insofar as the one who procured it is the God man, and thus is God (Acts 20:28).

(3) The procured righteousness of Christ is called the righteousness of God because it was constituted by God, and is admitted for us by God (Rom. 3:25; 2 Cor. 5:21).

…
XXV…  Protestants, although they leave essential righteousness to Christ alone, as a prerequisite
for his mediatorial function, yet affirm that the righteousness that was procured by his satisfaction and
merit (insofar as they teach that on account of it we are delivered from our guilt and obtain the right to
life) is altogether imputed to us, or transferred to our account.”

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A Lutheran

Order of

Quote  1
Historical  1

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Quote

1500’s

Georg Major  1502-74

Commentarius in Divi Pauli Epistolam ad Ephesios  (Wittenberg, 1552), as quoted in Gerald L. Bray, Timothy F. George, Scott M. Manetsch (eds), Reformation Commentary on Scripture X: Galatians, Ephesians (IVP Academic, 2011), p. 135  HT: Daniel Ritchie

“Christ was subject to the law in two different senses. The first was the active sense, in that he perfectly fulfilled everything that was prescribed in the ceremonial or moral law. He was circumcised on the eighth day according to the law, being presented in the temple in order to fulfill the law of purification, to which, however, he was not himself subject. Likewise, he kept the feasts and rituals commanded in the law and fulfilled the moral law to such a degree that … he did not commit any sin, nor was any falsehood found in his mouth.

He performed this perfect obedience to the law so that he could pass it on to us. The result is that his fulfilling of the law is imputed to us, who have not kept it perfectly, as if we had done so. He was also subject to the law in a passive sense, when he took on himself the punishment and offence of the law in order to deflect the wrath of the eternal Father from us.”

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Historical

Article

Schmid, Heinrich – pp. 344, 352-56, 430  in Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church  4th ed. rev.  (1875; Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1899)

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Latin Articles

1500’s

Pareus, David – An epistle to an illustrious Count  annexed to A Body of Christian Doctrine of the Churches Reforming from the Papacy, containing Catechetical Explications, ed. Zachary Ursinus  (Heidelberg, 1621)

William Forbes: “in which he explains his opinion of the active and passive justice of Christ, in what each of the contending parties is wrong, and, lastly, by what method this controversy may be reconciled.  But there are many things in it in which he himself in no small degree errs; among which (to omit others) the chief is the following, namely, that after his wont he accounts the habitual and actual conformity of the manhood of Christ to the law to be merely the justice of the person of Christ, and not the justice of the merit of Christ.  Nor will learned men ever be satisfied with this method of conciliation which is proposed by him, when it is joined to a manifest detriment of the truth.” – Considerationes (1850), 1.111

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1600’s

Voet, Gisbert – Syllabus of Theological Problems  (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 2, tract 3   Abbr.

Of the Active & Passive Righteousness of Christ
Of the Distinction of Justification into Active & Passive

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Related Pages

The Atonement