Foundations of the Christian Life. Chapter 10 - Christ our Representative.

Foundations of the Christian Life.
Chapter 10. Christ our Representative.

We are looking at spiritual foundations. We have looked at the idea that:
(i) Jesus Christ and his work are our true spiritual foundation and that
(ii) The Bible, the word of God, is also a foundation for us in that it is the one means of access to the Christ event.

Now we are ready to move on to the third aspect of spiritual foundations, the question of how we lay a foundation in our own lives and experience. This is the foundation as laid out for us in:

Hebrews 6:2.
“…a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith towards God, with instructions about baptisms, laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement.”

This verse will form the basis for the rest of this series of studies. Before we can move on to that, however, we need to understand clearly the relationship between Christ's completed work and our response to that work, This question is the focus of this chapter.

We have seen how Christ came to be mediator of a New Covenant between man and God. Let’s review this a little and follow through some of the implications of this thought.

THE NEW COVENANT IS COMPLETED, SEALED.

Why did God have to become man to work mediation?

The answer is found in the nature of covenants. Covenants have two parties and both parties have things they must do to make the covenant operational, or “sealed”. God could do the things necessary from his end, but man was incapable of doing the things required of him from his end. Because one of the parties was unable to fulfil all that was required of it to bring about reconciliation a mediator was necessary. Thus God himself became man to do the things required of man to fulfill the covenant terms. But a Biblical mediator is not like our ideas of a mediator. He is not a third party meddling in the affairs of the other two; rather he in himself embodies the two parties requiring mediation.

T.F. Torrance:
“..the mediating action of Christ was twofold - God to man and man to God, and both divine and human activity must be regarded as issuing from one person. In order that there be perfect mediation it requires that both sides in the mediation be fully reconciled and fulfil all that is required of them. Because man is already fallen, God took on himself fallen humanity in order that he might fulfil our part of the mediation, thus providing a perfect salvation for us.”

Athanasius:
“As mediator Jesus ministered the things of God to man and the things of man to God.”

The result of this is that Christ fulfilled both the divine and human sides of the covenant.

The covenant is completed, sealed - Christ has fulfilled all of the requirements of the covenant both from the Divine side and from the human side.
* On the Divine side of the covenant Christ saves us – only God can save. Christ, as God, saves us.
* On the Human Side Christ fulfills all that is required of man for the covenant. Only man can be saved and Christ acts as our representative man. He is saved “for us”.

So not only was Christ acting for God in the Covenant, he was acting for us. The human responsibility for completing the covenant was undertaken by him. He was our representative.

Torrance:
“Jesus Christ constitutes in his … humanity a vicarious way of response for ALL mankind… His response avails for all of us and we may share in it through the Spirit of Christ, who he freely gives us…Therefore we do not approach God in our own right or merit but only “in Christ”. It is his mediating work that God responds to, not our works... Jesus thus fulfilled the covenant from both sides - he is “our God”, and he is “God's people.”

Acting as mediator, Christ fulfilled all that was required for both parties for the mediation to be successful.

The Church has always understood this to be true. The New Covenant was completed, sealed, by Christ 2000 years ago and now we receive it as a gift. It is grace not works.

How does this relate to our theme of foundations in Hebrews 6?

If we look at Hebrews 6:2 we see this:
* The foundation is “repentance” and “faith”.
* The other four things listed are simply things we need “instruction”, or "teaching", on.

On the human side, the key to entering into the New Covenant is repentance and faith; this is what God requires of us. It is exactly here that the relationship of the covenant and our experience of it come to play. It is therefore crucial that we understand how this works.

Man needed a perfect repentance, a perfect obedience and a perfect faith towards God. Christ, as man, supplied these for us. We have a tendency to think of repentance and faith as things that we have to do, as things that we initiate to make the covenant “work for us”. But if the covenant is already sealed and operational there is nothing we can add to the covenant to make it work any better than it already does.


CHRIST HAS ALREADY OFFERED A PERFECT REPENTANCE ON OUR BEHALF.

1. What is Repentance?

Biblical Terminology:

(a) Hebrew - two words:

(i) Nacham:
Two meanings:
(a) "To be penitent (sorry), comforted, eased."
I.e. when you have been penitent you are comforted, eased (in conscience).
(b) "Changing ones' mind".

The word "nacham" is rarely used in the Bible to speak of man's repentance. It nearly always refers to God's change of heart over his people. This suggests that God is not very much interested in our emotional wailings over our sin or its consequences. What we need to do is to change, not emote.

(2) Shub - To turn, return, bring back (again).
It is used to describe an active turning away from one course of action to another, i.e. from sin to God. Thus it means an outward response, a change of actions and lifestyle.
This is the regular word used to describe man's repentance in the OT. This suggests that God is primarily interested in our ACTIONS and LIFESTYLE, not in our tears.

(b) Greek - metanoeo – “to change one's mind.”
Because of its usage in the Greek OT (The Septuagint, or LXX) to translate both nacham and shub, it came to mean: “An inward change of attitude, or mind, resulting in a change of actions, or lifestyle.”

This is the regular NT word for repentance.
The Good News Bible translates it: "Turn away from your sins and return to God" (Acts 2:38, Matthew 3:1).

Biblical Definition: - Five Parts

(1) A change of mind.
We need to come to a realisation that Christ is the truth and we are living a lie when we are out of relationship with God.

(2) A turning from sin.
A recognition that sin is wrong, confession of it as sin, and a rejection of the old sinful lifestyle. This is not just a weak apology, but a rejection of a former way of life in favour of living for God.

(3) To turn to God, i.e. a change of Lordship.
Before we became believers we did our own thing. This independent action is called sin.

Romans 14:23
“… and everything that does not come from faith (I.e. out of relationship with God) is sin.”

To repent is to turn away from this independent action (rebellion) and to submit to Christ as LORD and do HIS thing, i.e. ceasing to be our own lords and making Jesus our Lord.

If we do the above three things then God does two things for us:

(4) We are given another mind - the mind of Christ - as a transplant.

Repentance is more than just a change of opinion; it involves receiving the mind of Christ, i.e. thinking like God. This involves a complete rejection of our own wisdom and knowledge, and an acceptance of God's truth.

This happens in two stages:

(a) At new birth we are given the mind of Christ as a gift. It becomes our LEGAL possession.

1 Corinthians 2:16.
"… we have the mind of Christ.”

(b) We must thereafter "put on" the mind of Christ in our daily experience.

Romans 12:2.
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”

As we find out the will of God for every area of our lives we need to repent. Thus there needs to be in our lives an ongoing repentance. Repentance is not something we do only once.

(5) We are converted.

Both the Hebrew and the Greek words for repentance imply a change.
This idea of change is conveyed to us in another Bible word: Conversion / convert.

Definition: Convert: A word drawn from the field of commerce. When people go from one country to another they need to convert/change their money into the legal tender for the country they are now in. To do this we go to the "Foreign Exchange" teller at our bank. What conversion means is that the medium of exchange which we had - sin, brokenness, death, guilt, judgement, curse, etc. - has been changed by Christ for a new currency which we can trade in - life, wholeness, blessing, liberty, etc.

A fundamental truth: We cannot convert/change ourselves.

Our fallen corrupted nature is beyond reformation by our own efforts. This is because we are not only fallen; we are also spiritually dead, therefore impotent. We do not have the power to convert ourselves.

Because of this Christ has entered into our humanity to convert it.

Repentance is the tool that releases the power of God in our lives to transform or convert us.
Again this happens in stages. It is a process not an event.

2. Christ supplied a perfect repentance for us.

(1) Victory over Sin.

Christ has lived a perfect life before God, a life without sin – a victory over sin- for us.

Hebrews 4:15
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are- yet was without sin.”

(2) Submission to the Lordship of God.

Christ lived his earthly life in perfect submission to the will of God.

Hebrews 10:7-10.
“Then I said, `Here I am- it is written about me in the scroll- I have come to do your will, O God.'" First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

Where Adam did his own thing and so passed on to us this rebellious nature, Christ lived a life of perfect submission to the will of God while on earth.

Even in Gethsemene, where it was clear that his own desire was to not undergo the Cross and he prayed, “Father, if it is at all possible, take this cup from me,” yet he still submitted his will to the Father: “Yet not my will but yours be done.”

This obedience of the Son was vicarious - on behalf of us. Christ offers to the Father a life of perfect submission and obedience to the will of God on our behalf. Thus he can offer to us, as a gift, perfect submission to the will of God - perfect holiness. We are thus invited to share in his perfect obedience.

3. Jesus perfectly obeyed all of the will of God required of him.

Matthew 3:13-15.
“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented.”

Notice Jesus’ words, “Thus (i.e. through baptism) it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness”. Jesus fulfilled all that was required of God for righteousness under the law and the prophets – including undergoing John’s baptism, John being the last of the prophets. But what was John’s baptism?

Matthew 3:11.
“I baptise you with water for repentance.”

But Jesus was sinless, he had no sin to repent of so why did he have to be baptised into repentance? Well there are two reasons:
1. It was part of the righteous response God had required under the age of law.
2. Jesus underwent baptism, and because it was unnecessary for him we understand it to be vicarious, i.e. on behalf of others, i.e. for us.

So here we see Jesus undergoing a repentance for us.

Hebrews 5:7-10.
“During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.”

Though Jesus was the Son of God we are told here that there was a sense in which he had to learn obedience, be made perfect, and suffering was part of that. In the process Jesus had to cry out to God for salvation. Again here we see an aspect of Christ’s repentance – again a vicarious repentance for us.

(4) We are converted. A Change of mind.

T.F. Torrance:
"Christ took our ignorance along with other human limitations in order to save us from them.... This is not just an appearance of ignorance on his part, but a real assumption of human ignorance in order to save it. Through his earthly life Christ took hold of our alienated and darkened human mind in order to heal and enlighten it in himself. He laid hold of our rebellious mind, which we cannot change, and altered it from within, a change of mind, a vicarious repentance.”

Christ as our mediator has already presented on our behalf a perfect repentance to God.


3. CHRIST HAS ALREADY OFFERED A PERFECT FAITH ON OUR BEHALF.

The Greek word or faith is pistis, and primarily means faithfulness. Faithfulness means primarily loyalty, or fidelity. It is the being true to someone because of a love/friendship commitment. Hence this word stresses the fact that "faith" is primarily a word defining a sort of RELATIONSHIP, and only secondarily a word defining a set of beliefs.

The sort of Faith we are talking about is defined by the relationship between The Father and the Son in Eternity. Mankind does not, and cannot, have this sort of Faith because of sin. However Christ has entered into our lost human condition and has brought to bear the Divine Faith on our human existence.

Faith is actually a definition of the kind of relationship that God and Christ have in the Spirit. The relationship of Faith already exists in heaven between the Father and the Son. It is this relationship which we are invited to share in by becoming members of Christ's body. This relationship of Faithfulness has existed from all Eternity, but was clearly demonstrated in the Incarnation.

Hence he is called the Faithful One:

Revelation 1:5
“…and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, …”

Because of the faithfulness of God and Christ we can have faith. And we receive all the faith we need as a gift.

The crux is this - we believe certain things about God, not because we can intellectually prove them but because, in the relationship that we obtain through faith, he tells us certain things are true and we can take him at his word. We know his character, and we know he would not lie to us.

Biblical faith is built on the faithfulness of God. He is faithful, his word never passes away, his character is without and tarnish or change. Because of this we can trust him.


4.THEREFORE REPENTANCE AND FAITH ARE GIFTS WE RECEIVE, NOT THINGS WE DO.

1. Repentance is a Gift of God.

Correctly understood then, repentance is not something we DO, rather it is something we RECEIVE; it is a gift.

2 Timothy 2:25
“Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth,…”

Acts 5:31
“God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.”

Acts 11:18
“When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, "So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life."

“grant them repentance” – that which is “granted” comes from the initiative of the granter and is received as a gift by the recipient. If repentance is a gift it is no longer something we do, something we initiate. Rather it is something we receive as part of the covenant.

This is an Astounding Implication:
Our acceptance before God is thus not dependent on the amount or quality of OUR repentance. Our repentance is always unacceptable to the Father. It is always motivated by self-interest. It is weak, ineffective, useless, and powerless to change us. The fact is we really don’t want to repent from our sins – we like them too much. So our repentance is always half-hearted. And a half-hearted repentance will never do any good.

Rather God accepts the repentance of Christ on behalf of fallen mankind and we are invited to share in Christ's repentance. Hence the Father only ever sees a perfect repentance. When we come to the Father, we come "in the name of Jesus", i.e. through the self-offering of Christ.

Correctly understood then, repentance is not something we DO, rather it is something we RECEIVE; it is a gift.

The Truth is this: We cannot repent, unless we are given the gift of repentance by God. We do not have the capacity to repent in ourselves; it is something we receive as a gift of Grace.

2. Faith is a Gift of God.

(a) Faith originates in God

It is never "ours" in the sense that we can create it or even own it. It belongs to God; he originates it and works it. Faith is the relationship that the Father and the Son already enjoy in heaven.

Mark 11:22 (Greek) = "Have the faith of God".

Ephesians 2:8
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast.”

“through faith” (Greek) = "through the faith" i.e. God's.

(b) We are invited to enter into this relationship by becoming members of Christ.

Ephesians 2:8

Faith here is the gift. We don’t have the faith we need to be saved – rather we simply believe the promise of the gospel and receive the covenant as a gift. And in the gift of the covenant the first two things we find are a gift of repentance to meet our need for repentance and a gift of faith to meet our need for faith.

(c) We are given this faith as a gift.

Romans 12:3
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”

A “measure of faith” is given to each of us at conversion, which not only saves us, but also is sufficient for anything God will call on us to do, and is able to bring us to full salvation.

(d) Faith, even after it has been given, remains God's.

Even after God has given it to us it is not ours to use as we like. God owns it and operates it.

Ephesians 6:16
“In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”

There were two types of Roman shield:
(a) A small round one carried by the warrior himself in hand to hand combat.
(b) A large, door sized one carried by the armour bearer, for protection by arrows.
The second is the shield referred to here. We, the warriors, do not carry the shield of faith ourselves, we simply trust God to carry it for us.

(e) This Faith is Mediated to Us through Christ.

Hebrews 12:1,2.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

“The author and finisher of our faith.”
Or, “the originator and perfecter.”

The sort of faith we are talking about begins in God and is given to us through Christ – it is not a natural quality we have in ourselves. It was brought to perfection by Christ even before it was given to us.

T.F.Torrance:
"We think of faith as something we have, or as an act in which we engage. This is true, but there is more to it.
If we thought of faith as an autonomous act we do from a base in ourselves we would misunderstand it. Biblically faith is to do with reciprocity - a relational term - to do with faithfulness between God and man.
"The incarnation personalises this. We must think of Jesus as stepping into the relation between the faithfulness of God and the unfaithfulness of man, actualising the faithfulness of God and restoring the faithfulness of man by grounding it in the incarnate medium of his own faithfulness so that it answers perfectly to the divine faithfulness. In the place then where we are summoned to have faith, he stands in our place and from the depths of our unfaithfulness he provides us freely with a faithfulness in which we may share. He does this as man united with us and taking our place at every point at which we are asked to have faith and trust God.
Thus the faith we confess is the faith of Christ, our faith is grounded in him who is the author and finisher of our faith."

Because of the faithfulness of God and Christ we can have faith.

Christ has offered for us a perfect repentance and faith. He is our representative. Thus there is nothing we can do to enter the covenant. Rather participation in the covenant is to be received simply as a gift.

T.F. Torrance:
“We must repent and believe. No one can do this for us, none other except Christ. If we do not allow him to substitute for us at that point we make his atoning substitution for us something partial and not total, which would empty it of atoning significance altogether.”

What Torrance is saying here is this:
Christ as Mediator did everything that was required on the human side for the completion of the covenant. He offered for us a perfect repentance and faith where we cold not offer these. If we say, “We have to add something to Christ’s repentance and faith to secure salvation, i.e. our repentance and faith, then we actually end up saying that Christ’s work was not sufficient for our salvation. It logically follows from there that the covenant is not sealed, it is not completed. From there it is obvious that Christ would have achieved absolutely nothing at all. We would still be left having to perform something to secure our salvation and Christ’s work would have been emptied of all significance.

What we end up doing is slipping into a subtle works based doctrine of salvation where in some way salvation is dependent on what we do – on our repentance and faith – and not on what Christ did for us.

If we do not accept Christ’s repentance and faith for us as being sufficient for God then we fall into a subtle denial of the gospel. What we end up doing is insisting that our repentance and faith is necessary for salvation, thus there is a work of our own on which the grace of God is dependent. When we go down this road we deny the gospel altogether. We deny that the covenant between man and God is already sealed, already complete, because Christ has completed it. Instead we insist that, in our case at least, for the covenant to work there is something we must do, i.e. repent and believe. But either the covenant is sealed or it is not. If it is sealed then there is no more we can do.

The problem is this: We desperately want to find something that we can say that we have done to secure (“earn”) our salvation – even if it is only to “repent and believe”. But even these are taken away from us when we see that these are not things we do, but things we receive, they are gifts from God and not works of our own.

That is why, in the Western Church, repentance and faith are typically presented as a demand, a command to be obeyed, and not as a gift. And our legalism is exposed thereby.

John Stott:
“The doctrine of substitution is the scandal of the Cross. Our proud hearts rebel against it. We cannot bear to acknowledge either the seriousness of our sin and guilt or our utter indebtedness to the Cross. We insist on paying for what we have done. We cannot stand the humiliation of allowing someone else to pay. The notion that this somebody else should be God himself is just too much to take. We would rather perish than humble ourselves. Only the Gospel demands such an abject self-humbling on our part for it alone teaches divine substitution as the way of salvation. Other religions teach different forms of self-salvation.”

Emil Brunner:
“All other forms of religion and philosophy deal with the guilt apart from the intervention of God, and therefore they come to a cheap conclusion. In them man is spared the final humiliation of knowing that the Mediator must bear the punishment instead of him. Man is thereby not stripped absolutely naked.”

Question:
What about our response? We are commanded to repent and believe? What do we make of that?

We will look at this in the next two chapters.

HOMEWORK:
If you are anything like me you will have areas of your life that you find difficult to bring under the Lordship of Christ and live “in faith” in those areas.

1. Spend some time waiting on God and allow him to speak to you identifying areas of non-repentance, non-faith in your life.
2. Write them down. Writing helps to clarify exactly what the problem area is.
3. Bring each one to God in turn. Ask God to grant to you a new mind, a new understanding of his will, in this area. Ask him to grant you faith so you can believe his word. Confess where you have failed to live according to his mind, his will – be specific. Ask God to give to you the gift of repentance in that area of your life so that you can change, be converted. Put to death on the Cross your old way of life. Ask God to empower your will to live according to his will, to life under his lordship in this area of your life. Receive the conversion of your inner man by faith.

Do continue to use the Transformer verses and prayer. Use each for at least one week, preferably for two weeks. Using it for two weeks will help facilitate remembering and will allow time for the truth of each verse to sink into your heart and change you.


Keep using the Divine Exchange confessions from the last chapter. These are so important and you should try to use them every day for the rest of your life.

TRANSFORMER VERSES:

Acts 5:31
“God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Saviour that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.”

Ephesians 2:8
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast.”


PRAYER:
Father God, I thank you that where I stood bankrupt, unable to fulfill what was required of me to enjoy the covenant you offered mankind, you yourself, in Christ, stepped into the gap and offered what I could not. Thank you for that perfect repentance and faith offered by Christ as my representative. I receive now the gift of repentance and faith freely offered to me by you in your Son, Jesus.
Amen.