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Jesus Lives Your Life
"1. The Teaching
Why did Jesus live here for thirty-three years, perfectly obeying every detail of God’s Law? This is a question answered by the teaching that in his perfect life of love under the Law, Jesus was living as our substitute before he died as our substitute.
In his letter to the Christians who lived in Galatia, the Apostle Paul teaches us that Jesus lived his life under the law from the very beginning: “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). Jesus was born under law. He lived his life with it ruling over his head, as though he was obligated to keep it. But Jesus did not need to do this for himself."
...
"If not for himself, then why? Why did he sweat through more than 30 years in this world doing everything God’s law demanded? Paul simply says “to redeem those under the law” in Galatians. But how does his life of obedience serve that purpose?
That is explained in Romans 5:19, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” Jesus didn’t fulfill the law perfectly because he needed it. He kept the law perfectly because we needed it. It makes us righteous. His righteous and holy life of keeping the law is necessary because it provides the righteousness that we need to stand before God as saints who have kept his law. “Christ Jesus...has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
These verses place before us the concept of substitution. Jesus’ life of obedience to the law was one which he lived vicariously, for us, in our place. This substitutionary life is very practical and necessary when we consider the true demands of God’s law. God’s law is not satisfied if we do nothing. It not only commands that we stay out of trouble. It demands that we actively love God and love our neighbor. It demands something, not nothing. Keeping the Law is an active thing. “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). “Do this and you will live” (Luke 10:28). Only when such active obedience has been supplied will we “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Such active obedience is exactly what Jesus’ perfect life supplies for us.
Lutheran pastor and professor Franz Pieper illustrates this for us nicely when he says, “The fact that the thief pays the legal penalty for his crime does not restore to him the name of a law-abiding citizen or of one who has never stolen. Much less is the suffering of the penalty of the law a fulfillment of the Law in the sight of God.”
So, this teaching of Jesus’ perfect obedience to God’s law offers us peace in two ways. It grants us relief from all our obligations to the law. Since Christ has perfectly obeyed everything for us, we are under no compulsion, no obligation to fulfill it ourselves in order for God to accept us. We live in the real freedom Christ promised: freedom from condemnation, and freedom to serve purely out of love."
"1. The Teaching
Why did Jesus live here for thirty-three years, perfectly obeying every detail of God’s Law? This is a question answered by the teaching that in his perfect life of love under the Law, Jesus was living as our substitute before he died as our substitute.
In his letter to the Christians who lived in Galatia, the Apostle Paul teaches us that Jesus lived his life under the law from the very beginning: “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). Jesus was born under law. He lived his life with it ruling over his head, as though he was obligated to keep it. But Jesus did not need to do this for himself."
...
"If not for himself, then why? Why did he sweat through more than 30 years in this world doing everything God’s law demanded? Paul simply says “to redeem those under the law” in Galatians. But how does his life of obedience serve that purpose?
That is explained in Romans 5:19, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” Jesus didn’t fulfill the law perfectly because he needed it. He kept the law perfectly because we needed it. It makes us righteous. His righteous and holy life of keeping the law is necessary because it provides the righteousness that we need to stand before God as saints who have kept his law. “Christ Jesus...has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
These verses place before us the concept of substitution. Jesus’ life of obedience to the law was one which he lived vicariously, for us, in our place. This substitutionary life is very practical and necessary when we consider the true demands of God’s law. God’s law is not satisfied if we do nothing. It not only commands that we stay out of trouble. It demands that we actively love God and love our neighbor. It demands something, not nothing. Keeping the Law is an active thing. “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). “Do this and you will live” (Luke 10:28). Only when such active obedience has been supplied will we “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Such active obedience is exactly what Jesus’ perfect life supplies for us.
Lutheran pastor and professor Franz Pieper illustrates this for us nicely when he says, “The fact that the thief pays the legal penalty for his crime does not restore to him the name of a law-abiding citizen or of one who has never stolen. Much less is the suffering of the penalty of the law a fulfillment of the Law in the sight of God.”
So, this teaching of Jesus’ perfect obedience to God’s law offers us peace in two ways. It grants us relief from all our obligations to the law. Since Christ has perfectly obeyed everything for us, we are under no compulsion, no obligation to fulfill it ourselves in order for God to accept us. We live in the real freedom Christ promised: freedom from condemnation, and freedom to serve purely out of love."
