Primer on the Infinite Merit of Christ

Primer on the Infinite Merit of Christ

Compiled by Jay Wegter

Adapted from The Infinite Merit of Christ, by Craig Biehl

1. The Person and work of Christ accomplishes God’s ultimate purpose to display and communicate His glory to unworthy sinners by the perfect obedience to God’s unchanging rule of righteousness. Not a single soul will be saved without perfect satisfaction of God’s unalterable rule of righteousness.
2. By His obedience, Christ gained the ‘equipment’ necessary to save to the uttermost and to communicate His glory in redeeming sinners unto participation in the love and glory of the Trinity (1 Cor 11:3).

3. Redemption reveals the Trinity. Christ’s work of perfect obedience is ultimately a Trinitarian work to display God’s glory; purchase a Bride; and complete the happiness of the elect in the view and enjoyment of God’s glory forever. The Trinitarian basis and foundation of Christ’s work is the ultimate purpose of God.
4. Thus we understand that Christ’s redemptive work is the fulfillment of God’s unchanging rule of righteousness. The glory displayed to man, the image of God is to an analog of God, the original. God enables regenerated souls to behold that glory. He makes redeemed creatures happy in communicating to them His own Trinitarian happiness by giving them the Holy Spirit.

5. The fullness of the saints’ happiness is the riches of God’s glory in the saints in redemption. God’s glory manifested to the understanding of the creature in experiencing His love, life, and happiness is the sum of all that Christ purchased for us—the Holy Spirit Himself. They have the favor to enjoy His love; love is the gift of the Holy Spirit.
6. The saints are not just detached observers, for God not only displays His glory but also communicates His glory to them. They are both joined in Christ—God’s glory and the creature’s ultimate good. This is a riddle: He seeks Himself in communicating His glory to us; but the riddle is solved in that God is doing all for His own glory, so that the highest love to the creature is God’s own supreme end. Thus, God’s love of His own glory is inseparable from the shining forth of that glory to the bliss of the creature.

7. God’s respect to His own glory and the creature’s good is not a divided respect. They are joined in Christ who’s cross is the vindication of God in the obtaining a spouse for His Son. The way the eternal Son of God is glorified in the creature is by communicating Himself to the creature; not by receiving anything from the creature. False religion inverts the client-patron relationship. The gospel is the greatest story ever told that a new innumerable humanity has been given to the Son. God’s glory and our good are joined in Christ. The saints’ happiness in heaven is viewing and loving God’s excellence as displayed and communicated by Christ (the beatific vision). We as participants in God’s ultimate purpose (His glory story) will enjoy the unbroken communication of God’s glory. This is all that satisfies love as this lovely virtue of Christ is imputed to them so that they have more and more pleasure in this knowledge of their lovely robe of righteousness. This is mutuality. The bride is complete in Christ—His perfections are communicated to her so that she has no spot or wrinkle. The redeemed become vessels for the communicable attributes of God. The saints must be glorified in this way in order to experience the communication of God’s glory to us. Having these virtues through Christ is the only way to enjoy God perfectly in glory.

8. Through Christ, God made the free bestowal of grace consistent with His honor, holiness, justice, majesty, and authority. Christ’s voluntariness to fulfill all righteousness on behalf of the elect makes it love. Christ meets the demands of absolute righteousness so that God would be free to be infinitely gracious. Christ’s condescension in assuming our nature as the ‘last Adam’ was that He might keep the terms of the covenant perfectly. He became the prisoner of vindictive justice. He answers for the sins of His people—from eternity—that is out of the eternal covenant (Titus 1:1-4).

9. Their sin and their guilt are imputed to Him so that He pays their penalty. He could not escape; it is impossible that He should go to heaven any other way. Pure disinterested love made Him willing to suffer.
10. As the perfect Mediator, He mediates between: the glory, majesty, happiness of God, and the meanness, guilt, and separation of the sinner. By the eternal covenant, He is bound to assume their debt, to satisfy divine justice to accomplish the great purpose to display and communicate His glory to sinful creatures.

11. In the covenant of redemption conceived by the Father, the Son binds Himself to suffer the wrath due His people. He glorifies God in so doing. In voluntarily taking this on, He exhibits and displays the Father’s love. His love for His sheep makes their salvation His reward. The joy set before Him is His mediatorial glory. He is exalted to God’s right hand as Lord and Judge of all. He sends the Spirit for the salvation and glorification of the elect.
12. These glorious truths are to animate our hope. For hope is the spiritual barometer revealing our affections. Regeneration implants eyes of the heart, making this hope a reality. We are enabled to ‘see and savor’ Christ accomplishing the redemption of His bride. We behold the true treasure of glory in Christ and consequently do violence to obstacles which oppose the interest of the beauty of holiness. There is an unbreakable hope and holiness connection.

13. God’s unconditional love is seen in that the Son enters the covenant of which the Father is Head to fulfil the terms of the covenant. The Father redeems without injury to His justice. The Son displays the Father’s love by suffering infinite wrath—satisfying the unchanging demands of divine justice. Rewards are given to the Son for His perfect obedience to the requirements of the covenant.
14. The doctrine of the Trinity is clearly revealed in the economic work of redemption. The voluntariness of the covenant is central to love—the Son voluntarily assumes the surety of His bride in a new subjugation to the Father—as the creature is subject to the Father.

15. God does everything beautifully. He sets His love on the unlovely and the unlovable. He makes them lovable by the redemptive work of Christ—then loves them for the beauty of their holiness that He may communicate to them His happiness. This is out of His own sovereign love, for He is not moved by merit in the creature, for there was none.

16. God entered a covenant of redemption with the Son from all eternity based upon His desire to communicate happiness to a bride for the Son according to His benevolent love to unlovable sinners. This is positive love beyond the appeasement of His anger and deliverance from the deserved penalty for sin. The objects of His love also participate in His glory (2 Thess 2:13-14). Thus, this is a kind of favor infinitely beyond pardon for sin alone.
17. Redemption required a Mediator to unite the two distant parties—a middle party to transact for man’s place and standing. Christ stands in the place of sinners to make the purchase—thus, the necessity of the incarnation. God’s holiness cannot interact with sinners apart from the Mediator. There is no covenant between God and sinners directly. Christ is a ‘public Person’ with the names of His people on His heart. His voluntary act made Him one with us. Thus, the gospel, the covenant of grace between the covenant of grace between God the Father and man is grounded upon the divinely appointed Mediator.

18. Christ’s election is the foundation of ours. And His justification and glorification are the foundation of ours. By means of the covenant of redemption, we are united to Christ from all eternity. Wonder of wonders, a human being, Jesus of Nazareth, has been forever taken into the heart of the Trinity.
19. God wills to be known; He has a boundless propensity to share Himself—to extend His glory in so doing. He wills to be known by means of the satisfaction of His unchanging standard of righteousness by means of substitution planned by imputation in the eternal covenant of redemption, in order to save unworthy sinners, so that He might glorify His grace and reveal and communicate His glory forever to redeemed sinners.

20. God desires to extend His glory, that He might display His glory, which manifests that He has an interest in respect to the fruit of His glory which is the church. The fruit of His glory is bringing the elect from dust to glory through Christ—you never get beyond the cross of Christ.
21. On Judgment Day, God will appear to all to be universally righteous toward everyone. The justice of God’s moral government will at that day at once discovered by all. All objections will be removed (Rom 3:19). Consciences will be satisfied in all verdicts; all cavils of evil will be silenced. God will be praised; how true and righteous are Thy judgments—God will be vindicated in all His judgments. It will be seen that it is impossible for anything to be united to God and brought to enjoyment of Him which is not holy.

22. What Christ accomplished infinitely exceeds what Adam would have done by obedience. Christ’s obedience was perfect, voluntary, unto death, and exalting positive righteousness. All His obedience earned exaltation. Christ accomplished the purpose of the Trinity to display and communicate the glory of God. Christ’s obedience in His condescension in taking on human nature was to keep the covenant perfectly. To become subject to the penalty of the law involved following the ceremonial law and ultimately the cross—by this He gained infinite merit for us. Christ laid down His life by His Father’s command resulting in our justification. What Christ did in His perfect obedience on Calvary’s tree is far more difficult than staying away from a tree (Adam’s probation).

23. Christ fulfilled a ‘covenant of works’—His work of humiliation as Mediator was the fulfillment of the command His Father gave to Him. God’s authority as Lawgiver is the ultimate authority of a divine Legislator. The Son of God fulfilled a mediatorial command (Jn 15:19, 30). Christ was not justified until He obeyed all the commands—He was justified in His resurrection. The perseverance of Christ remedies the defect of the first covenant with Adam. Christ went to heaven to make representation of what He had accomplished by His perfect obedience to God (Jn 17:4). The rule of righteousness is a justifying righteousness.

24. On account of Christ’s righteousness, believing sinners are treated as if they had obeyed (Rom 5:19). All of Christ’s obedience is imputed to us. The authority and honor of God’s law had to be retrieved and the penalty of its breaking imposed. Positive righteousness is needed to vindicate His law—this positive righteousness is imputed to the elect.
25. To receive the reward of His obedience is to have that obedience imputed to us. In terms of righteousness, imputation is grounded upon the obedience of Christ to the covenant terms of God’s unchanging rule of righteousness—reckoned on our account as if we had performed it. Impute is like a credit transfer.

26. In the justification of believing sinners by the righteousness of Christ, the purpose of God in the display and advance of His glory is advanced. The dignity of Christ’s Person (His divine nature) gives Him all the glory of our righteousness. In that way, we are abased (selfrighteousness annihilated), and we are dependent upon God for all we should be in His sight— for it is derived of God. The value of our justification rests on the dignity of Christ’s Person.
27. The dignity of Christ’s Person determines the pedigree, the caliber, and quality of the righteousness we have. It makes man’s righteousness stink. All that Christ did as Mediator for the members of His body is known as His ‘mystical’ work by representation and union with us. Thus, He goes to heaven as a forerunner for His church (Heb 6:19-20). He and the saints are one, they have solidarity—He has radically identified Himself with us in His suffering, glory, and exaltation. He reconciles us purchasing the love of God for all who have His imputed righteousness (Jn 10:17).

28. He voluntarily took on our guilt—becoming guilty so that He became a debtor to justice. Once He paid the debt He became guilty no more—He was justified (Rom 4:25). He bound Himself to the terms of the covenant, fulfilled divine justice, then in the joyousness of the resurrection, rested from His redemptive work. God’s testimony of His redemptive work is finished.
29. Believers are admitted to communion in justification of their Head who is our surety or guarantor. Saints have the same justification as Christ—the same righteousness and are accepted by God. They have the same eternal rest and glory and participate in the accomplishments and rewards as those clothed in Christ’s righteousness. God now stands on the side of the believer. Justice is appeased, the law fulfilled on our behalf. An act of saving faith in God requires that we must see the ungodliness of self—the unrighteousness of self and see the righteousness of Another.

30. In Christ’s merit for us, both the negative and positive requirements of God’s rule of righteousness are met. Our full pardon and acceptance are the eternal fruits of His Fatherly kindness. Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice is not only the satisfactory price that saves us from hell, but it is the price of our happiness and glory (Is 53:12; Jn 6:51-55; 10:17-18; Acts 20:28).

31. During the probation in the Garden there was the trial of obedience. But creatures are not confirmed to eternal life apart from a positive display of honor to God’s authority and law by positive obedience to His rule of righteousness. The last Adam by the covenant of redemption enters to fulfill perfect obedience as surety for mankind. Christ more than repaid the honor due God’s authority—He showed and supplied an infinite regard to the holiness and majesty of God.
32. The dignity of Christ means that the One who obeyed for us demonstrated the most wonderful instance of submission to God’s sovereignty there ever was. Christ paid so that man’s salvation might be to the majesty of the glory of God’s attributes. This was a holy act out of love to God. The greatness of the cost of obedience is commensurate with the greatness of respect to God’s authority (Is 50:5-6; Jn 12:28). Thus, respect for God is respect for the way of salvation that He has inaugurated—for the way of salvation shows forth His perfections to men and angels. The voluntary nature of His sacrifice is the basis of its merit.

33. The wonder of blood bought grace—there is no need of righteousness originating from you. Cast yourself down at the feet of Jesus as one justly condemned (acknowledging you are clad in grave clothes). Christ stands at the tree of life (Rev 22:1-5, 17). In eternity past, He undertook to stand in their place. The names of each are on His heart.
34. The capacity of the saints to enjoy God’s excellent perfections is determined by their holiness and by their good works here—this is not contrary to grace. Capacity is based on four things: 1) The degree of grace and holiness, 2) The degree of glory to the Name of God and of the good done, especially to the household of faith, 3) Self-denial and suffering in the exercises of the fruits of grace, 4) Eminency in humility. There are differing degrees and capacities of joy in heaven. The measure of fruit and capacity for joy in heaven are by God’s sovereign pleasure.

35. The believer in Christ is rewarded out of Christ’s righteousness—out of the worthiness of the Mediator. Christ’s righteousness purchased our holiness and purchased that it should be rewardable. The Holy Spirit purchased for us by Christ produces the good works in us. On earth the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of His own character. God rewards the saints far above the proportion of the work they do.
36. Consider the glory of Christ’s condescension, wrath-bearing, suffering and humiliation. This is the greatest trial of obedience ever experienced. It is the greatest display of God’s infinite perfections ever accomplished. The obedience of Christ in His substitutionary death is the most exalted part of Christ’s positive righteousness.