The Offices of Christ

The Offices of Christ

By Jay Wegter

Is it possible to know Christ savingly (as Savior) if His offices are not defining your identity and life direction? That is the question we are seeking to answer in this paper. Does knowing Christ as Savior mean being rightly related to His offices? We know from numerous passages of Scripture that a person who is impenitent is actually opposed to God’s entire character. The natural man by his unbelief is actually saying, “Stop being God, cease being transcendentally holy.” “I prefer to wear the crown, to be the sovereign one.” But, we know that sin and rebellion do not create an alternate reality—they only produces an illusory perception of things which will evaporate at the moment of death.

This mindset describing the sentiments of the natural man sheds some light on just how much self-deception is involved in sin. For, the natural man is attempting to bend the arc of reality around his own vantage point so that his life view may excuse his sin and accommodate his self-focused orientation. This is the very essence of impenitence, and it illustrates the depth of confusion which accompanies pride. For, the impenitent man is attempting to distort God’s overarching government so that it might fit acceptably with that man’s sin and idolatry. Romans chapter 2 graphically describes the horrific destiny of those who clutch onto this worldview.

The urgent call to reconciliation is a plea to ‘settle out of court’. This is the heart of the gospel that the cross of Christ functioned as a divine courtroom in which the guilty verdict and its sentence was determinately carried out. The urgency for sinners to be reconciled to God now turns upon the fact that there will be no pardon at God’s final bar of justice for those who have not settled out of court (see sections on God paying an infinite cost on His side to set aside the offense, and thus, to set the terms of peace squarely upon the costly work He has performed).

When we study the offices of Christ, we’re going to quickly see why faith and repentance precede reconciliation. Sometimes when we think upon members of the Holy Trinity, we assume that it is solely God the father who has absolute moral claims upon us, and that Christ’s entire ministry centers upon His provision of grace and forgiveness to believing sinners. I believe that this misconception is corrected by a faithful study of the offices of Christ. What are Christ’s claims upon the entire human race; upon us His creatures? We can develop great insight into those claims by examining God’s four redemptive programs in Christ.

These four stages of redemptive history are encapsulated in the following titles of Christ: Logos, Lawgiver, Lamb, and Lion. In Christ the Logos, He is the Creator of all things, the focal point and rationality of the universe; the repository of all of God’s wisdom and knowledge. No matter a person’s worldview, every individual bears the creational identity of the image and likeness of God. The true believe is intimately familiar with the obligations that flow from his being made in the image of God. And the believer overflows with thanksgiving for the salvation which ransomed him out of rebellion and condemnation. For, the work of Christ has restored and reclaimed that image so that a saved man might walk according to his created purpose.

Next, Christ is Lawgiver. The character of God is expressed in the moral code and ordinances of the Law. Christ who is the epitome of love demonstrated by His life that the fulfillment of the law is the safeguard of love to God and neighbor. The Law is spiritual, holy, and good, but it is also God’s instrument both for governance and of diagnosing of sin. Now the rigor of the law is a declaration of God’s unbending justice, his perfect, immutable standard of righteousness. This perfect standard must be fully met if a single soul is to be saved. For, salvation is only possible by means of the satisfaction of God’s unchanging standard of righteousness through the Substitute Whom God provides.

Next, Christ is the Lamb. This speaks of His work as Redeemer. Thus, the sacrifice of Christ the Lamb is the satisfaction of God’s immutable justice. And by the sacrifice of the Son of God, the floodgates of divine mercy have been opened. But, this glorious gospel is not merely a salvation plan proposed to the sinner which he must accept in order to have eternal life, the gospel is about Christ, the preeminent Mediator. The sinner must himself go to the Lamb, for Christ alone manages the benefits of His sacrifice, for He is the High Priest of the new covenant. He alone dispenses the marvelous benefits of His sacrificial work. Next, Christ is the Lion. As the Son of God who died in our place, by His death He vindicated God’s justice, righteousness, and trampled honor. But, Christ will also will accomplish a second stage of vindication which is yet to come (the ‘Lion’ program). For, at His glorious return He will vindicate God’s justice upon the impenitent when He is manifested as Judge, and Lion of the tribe of Judah. The believer’s relationship to Christ’s Lion-hood (or Kingship) is encapsulated in the word, overcomer or conqueror. Christ overcame so as to sit down on His Father’s throne. And we, through Christ overcome through His own overcoming so as to sit on Christ’s throne with Him. Friends of the cross of Christ are overcomers of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Christ overcame in order to give this victory to His church—every true believer is an overcomer. Believers triumph over the enemies of their souls through the Savior and the conquest He has accomplished. Christ won this victory over the world so that His people might appropriate that victory.

The divine purpose of Christ’s offices will reach their apex when Christ is manifested. Redemptive history is hurtling toward a predetermined end. The almighty exercise of Christ’s offices is dovetailing into and toward the great climatic event; the consummation of the ages in which the church will be triumphant, glorified, made like her Head in glory and holiness. But this day of history’s consummation will first involve a public judgment of the sheep and the goats. Christ will say of his sheep, “these are mine” and he will say of the goats, “these are not mine.” How sobering those words will be coming from the lips of the Lamb (Redeemer) who has become the Lion (Judge). The verbs are very powerful in Christ’s statement, “I never knew you, depart from me, who you work iniquity.”

May the reader will grasp the fact, that these four programs of God, carried out through Christ (Logos, Lawgiver, Lamb, and Lion) are not abstract symbols to be held in the realm of the theoretical. A person who truly knows Christ is properly adjusted to each of these four roles (or offices), and, through ongoing sanctification is regularly recalibrated to these four programs. A married man with children is both a husband and a father, he may also be an uncle and a grandfather. His role as a married man is not limited to just one of these designations. So also, the Lord Jesus Christ bears a number of relationships to His people and to the created order (see Col 1 on the aspects of His supremacy). Thus, the true believer is profoundly in synchrony with these four programs or offices of Christ—they shape his identity, his walk his, and destiny. But, what of the unbeliever? In what ways is the unbeliever alienated from Christ’s offices? As an exercise to see into the heart of the rebel who is separated from God by sin, let us look at the unbeliever’s misalignment to these four programs of Christ.

First, how is the unbeliever’s rebellion and insubordination to

Christ the Logos manifested? Answer: the natural man worships his own mind, preferring to exalt his own opinions rather than think God’s thoughts after Him by being bathed in the Word and being subject to Christ’s light and knowledge. But also, the unbeliever has no interest in living as the image of God. So dearly does he cherish his imagined autonomy that he prefers to think of himself as an advanced animal rather than what he really is, the image and likeness of God.

What of the natural man’s revolt against Christ, the Lawgiver? The natural man diligently clings to his imagined right to choose right and wrong for himself—without facing eternal consequences (‘you will not die’). By this action and sentiment, he shows that he is rejecting God’s absolute authority as Moral Judge. He seeks to replace God’s transcendent moral law with his own self-referential sliding scale of morality. And, rather than seeing his conscience as witness and testament to his accountability to God (and thus prima facia evidence of God’s bar of justice), he treats his faculty of conscience as if it were merely the product of social conditioning. (Add rise up to full stature, etc.)

Next, what of man’s rejection of Christ the Lamb? Man’s tendency to lean on an arm of flesh goes hand in hand with his imagined self-righteousness. By his unbelief in the Lamb of God, he spurns the mercy that God has provided in giving Christ for our sins. What a powerful piece of evidence that this man does not fear God. He tramples the blood of Christ under foot as some worthless thing. In so doing, like an idol-maker in his workshop fashioning something of brass, he invents a tiny idolatrous god who may be placated by religious and moral striving. And, then finally, what of man’s rebellion toward Christ the Lion? The impenitent man is the very opposite of an overcomer. For, he has normalized his sin and rebellion and has thereby deepened further his enmity toward his Holy Creator. Because he justifies his sin, he is not a friend of the cross. For in the rejection of Christ, who restores us to God, he has rejected his created purpose (see what Jesus said of the Pharisees who rejected God’s justice and the rejected the baptism of John, and thus rejected God’s purpose for them). It is a horrific thing to endure forever the glorification of God’s justice in a man’s damnation. In conclusion, we ought to ask ourselves as professing Christians, “Are all of Christ’s claims upon me being realized in my life so that His offices including His Kingship over me is evident?” Or have I contented myself that Christ has taken away all my sin and therefore, since He is my righteousness, then my practical holiness is an optional thing.” This begs the question, “Is it possible to receive the benefits of Christ’s redeeming work, without manifesting the evidence that we are rightly related to these four programs in Christ?” Because these four programs are names of Christ (and closely related to the offices of Christ), therefore, to know him savingly is to be rightly related to who He is as His character is manifested in His offices. To be a saved individual is to care assiduously for one’s relationship to these four areas (His offices). How all-inclusive, how all-encompassing are God’s purposes in Christ? We know from Colossians chapter 1 that it is the Father’s purpose that Christ have first place in everything. We see this preeminence of the Son of God in the biblical names of Christ, the offices of Christ, and in each of the programs of Christ (in redemptive history). Christ’s preeminence in all things is the Father’s great overarching purpose. But the recognition of Christ supremacy is only possible by the new birth. No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ but by the Holy Spirit. One of the radical changes in the redeemed person is that God’s cause becomes that saved person’s cause. In other words, God’s plan to glorify himself by means of Christ’s preeminence (the Son having first place in everything) becomes the believer’s cause. Now, our entrance into the knowledge of Christ comes by first tasting His pardoning mercy and justifying love. The quickened sinner, by the work of the Spirit, becomes a partaker of Christ. Consider that if there is a single particle of self-righteousness in the sinner upon which he relies (no matter how sorry of regretful that person might be for his transgressions) this individual’s heart will be closed and locked shut to the offices of Christ. Our Savior will only be the righteous robe and ‘covenant covering’ to those who are stripped of all self-righteousness.

The true believer glories in the fact that he has been clothed with Christ. He finds great delight in discovering the ways in which Christ is perfectly fit to answer every aspect of the sinner’s ruin. Thus, the true believer is subject to Christ in all of our Lord’s offices. Contrast this to the false Christian whose blindness has allowed him to presume that he may have the saving benefits of Christ but without the supremacy of Christ’s rightful rule and offices. It is an impossible thing to commodify Christ’s saving benefits as if those infinite salvific blessings can exist apart from Christ’s offices and His rule. We see this error in Romanism and in the Arminian error of decisional regeneration. By contrast the true believer who has closed with Christ is eager to explore and discover through the Scriptures the royalty, majesty, and efficacy of Christ, his great High Priest. The beauty and fitness of Christ’s offices are his daily food, his spiritual nutrition. And, as he meditates upon Christ’s offices, it settles and stabilizes and supports him upon his Savior who is his ‘continent of Rock’.

Now contrast this to the false Christian who wants just enough of Christ to pacify his own conscience. But, we know from God’s Word that saving grace is a holistic matter. Our Lord’s authority and resultant Christ-centered worldview is fully embraced by every faculty of mind and soul in the true believer. Thus, the Christian is an unveiled beholder of divine glory—that glory captivating the whole man. This is missing entirely in the unbeliever, for he has never seen the glory of God in the face of Christ, and because he has not seen it, he cannot be ravished by it, or be directed and constrained by it. By contrast, the true believer has a savor for that glory that has been planted into his soul—and, as a result there is endless delight flowing from the gospel realities of Christ’s perfect suitability to answer each aspect of the sinner’s ruin.

Original sin was a forfeiture of glory. Redeeming grace restores the sight, savor, and passion for that glory. The true believer has endless satisfaction in beholding the facets of this glory from the vantage point of union with his Savior. Christ is the manna, the bread upon which the believer’s soul feeds. For, the joy of the Godhead is communicated to us through Christ. Sometimes we are so busy generating works that we forget the necessity of resting in Him in order to labor for Him. Our efforts in ministry would be much more likely to possess right motives if we first reckoned our completeness in Him and our security, love, and favor we possess in Him. That in Him we have everything pertaining to life and godliness, and that our lives are hidden in Him and that we will be revealed when He is revealed.

To have seen this glory is to be willing to lose one’s life for Christ’s sake, and for the sake of the gospel. In the negative portion of that same text, our Lord infers that it is those who have never seen the glory that are clutching so tightly to this present life and are unwilling to lose their life in this world. Thus, in that text our Lord is alluding to a massive exchange which occurred at the cross and was applied at regeneration (losing one’s life in this world that one might have Christ and eternal life is the result of experiencing the guilt exchange accomplished by Christ) (see 1 Peter 2:24 etc.).

The glory of Christ is a subject of ceaseless interest for a true believer. It is vein of pure gold which has no end. The believer’s admiration for his Savior is repeatedly stimulated as he mediates upon the glory of Christ. One of my favorite authors, Craig Biehl states that the glory of Christ is not only the wonder of His human and divine Person (the hypostatic union), it is also the ‘equipment’ He earned by His humiliation and His passion, the fitted-ness to save He gained by His obedience, which enabled him to make the guilt exchange with His people. Thus, His incarnation and perfect life and bloody death (through which He was able to propitiate the wrath due to us) was the cost of the guilt exchange. At times I have preached this and seen one or two people protest about that term ‘the equipment Christ earned in order to save us’, “How can Christ earn anything.” But, I agree with professor Biehl, that Christ needed a physical life in which to obey perfectly, and He needed to take on a body of flesh and bone in order to offer His blood. God could not exchange our debt for His righteousness by a mere act of declaration or fiat. When this guilt exchange is applied to a sinner, that person experiences an exchanged life as well (Galatians 2:20, Galatians 5:24, Romans 6). The true believer is by God’s grace given a sight and savor for his Savior. This sight and savor enables him to revel in this glorious truth of Christ’s willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to gain this equipment (see Heb 7). For, Christ’s love is not proposed to us as an abstract ethereal concept, it is made tangible to us as we witness by faith in God’s Word His willingness to endure an infinite cost in order to carry out and fulfill the guilt exchange—an exchange which was planned in eternity past. The cross is not an example, a symbol, nor an extreme measure , the cross is at the center of God’s purposes of manifesting His holiness. As one theologian quipped, “The cross is so important, God created the world as a place to plant it.”

So, God’s purposes of holiness manifested in Christ’s Person and work are now an essential part of the true believer’s ‘spiritual DNA’. In other words, the true believer really does live a cross-centered life. This reality of having been made a new creation via the cross causes something in a true believer that normally nature would instinctively abhor, namely the annihilation of the sinful self-life. The believer marvels and rejoices to hear that the execution of his suffering Substitute was the effectual judgment of the old Adamic man! The believer can say with absolute conviction, “The cross which judged the penalty of my sin has also judged my sin nature!” “The cross which saved me has also sanctified me, and is sanctifying me.” This controlling sentiment is a distinguishing mark of a true believer, and it sets him in boundless contrast to the false Christian who accepts the cross as a propositional truth, but keeps the self-life deadbolted against the plowing and harrowing work of Christ, the great High Priest. (Add Christ subduing His people to Himself.)

Consider what Christ accomplishes by applying His cross to his people. Its depth of invasiveness is beyond our understanding (Hebrews 4). There is an infinite contrast between believer and unbeliever, but no sinner ever willed himself to be a friend of the cross. No depraved descendant of Adam ever declared holy war on the contents of his own heart. No natural man exalted God’s justice by emphasizing the depths of his own ill desert. It is only by the cross of Christ slaying all of the sinner’s carnal hopes, and by the cross uprooting of enmity that the sinner is made new. For, the sinner’s hostility can only be conquered by the Savior’s humiliation.

The free grace of God is a great paradox and is infinite good news. For, the natural man’s helplessness and inability mean that he cannot lift a finger to overcome his innate enmity so as to comply with the requirements of the gospel. He cannot work up faith and repentance. So, how is the good news the best possible news for a helpless person? The answer comes in Romans 1, for the gospel is the power of God, for it bestows upon the elect the capacity to receive its promises by granting to the helpless sinner the ability to believe and repent.