Through his obedience to God Christ does the two things that sinners need to have done for them if they are to be saved. By His passive obedience, His sufferings make satisfaction to God’s justice for our sins. By His active obedience to the law, loving God above all and His neighbors as Himself, Christ has merited for us the right to eternal life. This double obedience is imputed to us and our sins are imputed to Christ when we believe on Him alone for salvation.

Good morning We have a wonderful topic this morning topic very much misunderstood and Yet a topic very essential if we're really going to understand the basics of the gospel. So I want to read with you as we address how Christ fulfilled the law in both his passive and active obedience from Galatians 3, 10 through 14. Galatians 3, 10 through 14. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, cursed is everyone that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident for the just shall live by faith.

And the law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Let's pray. Great God of heaven, we ask thy benediction upon us now as we consider a theme that is so germane to our salvation, so honoring to thee and so worthy of thy Son, for He is the one who has given his perfect law obedience so that we might have a right to eternal life. Help us to understand that now, we pray, and bless it to us, and fill us with the wonder, the amazement, the joy of Thy salvation.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen. So what I wanna do, first of all, is I just want to explain to you, as simply as I can, the essence of salvation through the, what Calvin called the double obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to do that by way of introduction, and then in my talk, I'm going to unpack that for you from the scriptures. So, if you want to evangelize someone, and they don't understand why salvation is necessary. What you need to do is you need to tell them, of course, that we're all sinners before God, that God is essentially, quintessentially, perfectly holy, that no one with one unforgiven sin can enter into heaven, and that therefore, we need to substitute, because we're all sinners.

Now, Then you need to explain to them and to yourself the two things that Jesus did for us that we could never do for ourselves and yet must be done for us if we're going to come into heaven and have eternal life with the Lord Jesus Christ. The first thing is that picture behind me a wall with every time you've sinned, there's a little mark on it. And there's millions of marks now. You need those sins forgiven, don't you? Not just the sins that you've committed, but the things that you've omitted.

They are also sin, the things you didn't do that you should have done. Now, what that means is this. The law, the law says to you, you shall love God above all, first table, right? So What that means is if you are not saved every single second of your life, you are sinning by omission because you're not loving the Lord above all. You've never loved the Lord above all.

And so every tick of the clock, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, against God, your creator, whom you are to love every single moment above and beyond yourself. The second table of the law says you're to love your neighbor as yourself. By nature, you never love your neighbor as yourself. You've got some common grace love, but let's face it, by nature, we ourselves are number one. We love ourselves most of all.

And so every tick of the clock, you are sinning against the second table of the law by way of omission. You're not loving your neighbor as yourself. Tick, tick, tick, sin, sin, sin. So that wall behind me is just blackened with sin. There's so many little check marks, millions and millions of times you have sinned.

Now you need all that sin wiped away by someone, first of all, who is infinite, because only an infinite being can satisfy an infinite God. You're finite, no finite being can satisfy the wrath, the holy fury of an infinite God against sin. So you need someone who's God himself. Only God is infinite. You also need someone to come in our nature and to live, think about this now, to live the life that we should have lived, to live a perfect life without any original sin, hence he has to be, can't be born of a male seed and female seed coming together and pollution of sin passed on to him.

No, he has to be absolutely without original sin, so he has to be miraculously conceived in the womb of, we know now of course, the Virgin Mary, so that the holy thing could be born of her. And he can have no actual sin. So never for one second can that person, which can only be Jesus, because he alone is God with the Father and the Spirit, that person must come in our nature to satisfy for sin in the nature that we have sinned, and therefore For 33 years, he had to love God above all every single second of his life, tick, tick, tick, righteousness, righteousness, righteousness, as we heard yesterday, and every single second, he had to love his neighbor as himself, righteousness, righteousness, righteousness, righteousness, every second of his life. He had to obey that law perfectly for us if we're gonna have a right to enter into heaven. Because if Adam had continued in obedience, you see, he would have entered into heaven.

Eventually he would have passed the time of probation. And Jesus' probation as a second Adam was 33 years. And he passed all the tests. And so he could go back into heaven as a sinless one. He came as a sinless one, but he took our nature and lived sinlessly in our nature and he went back to heaven with our nature so that when he's received into heaven, the Father is saying to him, you are absolutely sinless and I can receive you back.

So that's the first thing we have to have done for us. We have to have someone to live absolutely perfectly for us. Never one sin. Now, that still doesn't make payment for all the sins we've committed. That just gives us a right to eternal life, but somehow All those sins need to be forgiven.

So now we need the second thing, which is a substitute, to come and take our place and pay for our sin. Pay the spiritual death, the eternal death, the physical death, for the wages of sin are death. And so what Jesus does is he comes and he pays that threefold death on our behalf, suffering and dying the most ignominious death that you can possibly imagine, the cursed death on the tree, as we just read from Galatians 3. And what happens then when a sinner believes in Jesus Christ alone for salvation by the regenerating efficacious calling work of the Holy Spirit, what happens is this double obedience of Jesus, the active obedience to the law, that's what we call it theologically, active obedience, every moment he's actively doing it, and the passive obedience, passive comes from the Latin word passio, which means suffering obedience, the suffering, dying obedience of Jesus by which he pours out his life unto death, That double obedience, passive, active, is imputed to us, and our hell, the hell we deserve, the death we deserve, everything we deserve, is imputed to him. Now that leaves you with a problem, doesn't it?

Well, wait a minute. How could Jesus die the threefold death? Spiritual death, eternal death? What are you talking about? Physical death, that's obvious.

He died. Well death simply means separation, doesn't it? Well nothing can define death, but the basics of death is separation. Physical death is a separation of soul and body. Spiritual death is a separation of the soul from God.

And you see, that's what Jesus endured on the cross when he said, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He knew the answer. He knew that he was dying a spiritual death in those moments in a short, compressed time as infinite God-man, and God was forsaking him, his own father forsaking him, so that he could die the essence of that spiritual death on our behalf as a true believer. An eternal death he tasted of hell in those last sufferings, in that last 24 hours, Gethsemane, Gabbatha, Golgotha, the three G's, the intensity of his sufferings was like hell on earth. And so Jesus paid the full price and fulfilled all the prophecies.

In fact, when he's on the cross and he's nearing the end and he's realizing that he's drunk the cup of the Father's wrath to its bottom bitter dregs, he sees one more, one more prophecy in the bottom of that cup that has not been yet fulfilled. So he says, I thirst. And Psalm 69, 21, 22, they bring him vinegar to drink. And then it says, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that his Father is now satisfied so that he's paid the full price for the sins of every single believer, he cries out to Telestai, it is finished. That is your salvation.

When you believe in Christ alone, you see, that double obedience is imputed to you, your sins are imputed to him. Now when the Father looks on you, he doesn't just see you, he sees his son. He sees the double obedience of his son so he can set you free. And in this, Jesus is fulfilling the law, both actively and passively, paying for its infractions, so that you can be entirely, perfectly, totally saved. So, as John Calvin said, the answer of our salvation is that Jesus has abolished sin, banished the separation between us and God, and acquired righteousness to render God favorable and kindly toward us by the whole course of his double obedience.

Even in death itself, his willing obedience is the important thing because a sacrifice not offered voluntarily would not have furthered righteousness. So Jesus does all of this voluntarily out of pure love for his people. This is your amazing salvation. And Paul puts it this way in Romans. Christ, therefore, is the end of the law for righteousness.

And really, the Greek word there can best be translated this way. Christ is the goal, the goal of the end of the law, as it were, for righteousness. He attains his goal. The goal of the law is perfect righteousness. Christ has attained that.

And he gives that away to you when you by faith believe in him alone for salvation. Now, He can never take that back, not that he would want to. But if I impute something to you boys and girls, if I put $10, 000 in your bank account today, I'm imputing that, giving that to you. If tomorrow I say, I don't know, that boy there was a little bit naughty last night, I'm gonna change my mind. I'm gonna go back and get the 10, 000 back.

I can't do it, can I? The teller at the bank would say, no, no, no. I have to get that boy's permission because that money is his. You see, when Jesus imputes something to us, it's once and for all. And that's the joy of our salvation.

So even when we sin, he brings us to repentance and we fly again to the double obedience of Christ. Well, Hamasab Brackel says in his Christian's Reasonable Service, I have flown 10, 000 times in my life to the double obedience of Jesus Christ. As the end of the law, the goal of the law, he's brought righteousness in for me. Alright, that's just a few words, trying to explain it really simply. Now let's delve a little bit deeper.

I want to look at three things then. First, we want to look at the distinction between Christ's passive and active obedience. Then we want to look at his passive obedience as an obedience to the Father's decreed of will and his active obedience as an obedience to the Father's perceptive will. I'll explain those terms as we go along here. Now, the Savoy Declaration in 1658 and the Second London Baptist Confession, 1689, state that God counts believers righteous, Notice this, quote, by imputing Christ's active obedience unto the whole law and his passive obedience in his death for their whole and sole righteousness.

That's what I just tried to explain to you. But I love that expression, don't you? They're whole and soul righteousness. Not one stitch of your righteousness, not one stitch of Christ's robe of righteousness do you have to stitch. It is holy and solely done for you by free and sovereign grace alone.

And because of that, you, out of gratitude, if you're a Christian, you want to live holy and solely for him, Not to merit anything, but out of thanksgiving. An elderly gentleman in my church who passed away went to be with the Lord maybe 10 years ago now, but every time I heard him pray, he always said, Lord, help us to live holy and solely for thee, because thou hast lived holy and solely for us. That's what you've got to get into your mind, deeply, into your heart, deeply, whole and soul, righteousness, and I must give now a whole and sole response. Francis Turretin, the great continental theologian, post-Reformation, said this, when it comes to the law, and Christ's obedience to the law, there are two aspects. First, there are precepts which prescribe duties and sanctions which ordain rewards to those who keep the law and punishments to its violators.

You see, the first binds people as God's creatures according to their moral obligation to the Lord. He must obey his law. The second imprisons people as sinners according to their guilt against God. So the payment for sin, if Jesus just died for us and didn't live for us, that would have wiped away all the sin, but it wouldn't have given us eternal life, because we wouldn't have anything that merited eternal life. And so, what Turton is saying is what I tried to say to you, that Jesus must do not only the passive obedience, which most people recognize, they say, well, justification is forgiveness of sins, but justification is more than that.

It's forgiveness of sins, yes, through the passive obedience of Jesus, but it's also a right to eternal life through the active obedience of Jesus. In fact, this double obedience really, of course, we break it into two parts, but from God's side, it's just one, it's just one. So obedience, both the passive and the active, shows Jesus' complete submission to God's will. And that really is the heart of our salvation. Jesus' complete submission to God's will.

Now the passive and active aspects of Christ's obedience then relate to God's decretive and his preceptive will. The law reveals God's decreed of will that the punishment of sin is death. Genesis 2.17, Romans 6.23. The divine curse is nothing less than the word of God executing the wrath of God. And the law's condemnation will be publicly executed for all who do not believe in Christ alone for salvation.

Jesus will say, depart from me, ye cursed, Cursed is everyone, remember, that doesn't do all things written in the book of the law to do them. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. Now the commandment of the law is God's perceptive will, a revelation of what he loves and what he hates, in order to define our duty and the path to blessing. Moses, covenant of law, says, in its gracious arrangement, if thou shalt hearken diligently into the voice of the Lord thy God to observe and do all his commandments, all these blessings shall come on thee. But Christ took that, And Christ fulfilled that law condition in his active obedience.

And so Jesus does both for us that we might be saved. And The net effect of that is that God can look upon us through this double obedience of Jesus as if we had never sinned. It's all wiped away. Heidelberg Catechism, question 60, gives this famous answer, expressing it well, God without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had had nor committed any sin, yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience, think both passive and active, which Christ has accomplished for me. Now, let me look with you then just a moment at Christ's passive obedience.

Let's just think about this. He's born through pain. He's circumcised, he starts to bleed when he's a little baby. His life is a series of sufferings. When he's An infant, his parents have to take him to flee from Herod down to Egypt.

During his ministry, he's opposed on every hand. Pharisees are constantly trying to get him to kill him. He groans over sin, he's troubled, He lives in the smoke of sin. He suffers. He's intentionally placed under the shadow of human misery in order to serve and to save.

He was from heaven and deserved nothing but heaven, suffered constantly in the smoke of sin, living among the sinners of this world, living in this accursed world, until finally he endured the hell of the cross. Jesus endured all of this, not as a stoic, but He felt it in the full brunt of His sacred humanity, which hated every sin. Even His own disciples sometimes overwhelmed Him with sorrow. How long must I be with you? But all that suffering Jesus endured for you, dear believer, he gets seminy, gabatha, gogatha, crawling on the ground as a worm and no man.

Asking the Father to remove the cup from him, the cup of the Father's wrath, and the Father is silent. He groans and he agonizes, he's crawling on the ground like a worm. He feels the weight of all your sins upon him. He cries out to God for relief. And God says by his silence, no.

And the son says, not my will, but thine be done. And he obeys and he drinks that cup to the last bitter drop. That's what God thinks of your sin. The Lord of the universe crawling on the ground in agony, writhing in agony to pay for your iniquity. And Gabbatha, he smacked across the face, blindfolded, crowned with thorns.

My wife and I were in Israel a few times, and one time we took some of those thorns from a thorn bush, the very thorns with which Jesus was crowned. I put a little stick of them, a little four inches worth, in her knapsack. We actually threw them away, because they just kept pricking through the knapsack. You just touch it with the end of your finger and it draws blood. These are put on Jesus' head in a wreath and then they're smashed down in his head.

He's bleeding everywhere. It's painful. And then they take a scourge, sort of like a mop with ox tail bones in it, and they put them up against a post, and they come down with it probably 40 times, which is the maximum the law would allow, which often killed people, and all these little rivulets of blood running down his back? They say, hail, king of the Jews, prophesy, who smote you? The agony for your sin, passive obedience, and then going to Golgotha, carrying the cross.

He could hardly stand up. He'd be gone now for 24 hours without anything to eat or drink. His entire spirits were famished, dried up as it were. He's in agony, he's carrying the weight of your sins. He feels the sins of all his people.

All the hell you've ever deserved is coming down upon him, compressed down upon him. They see him stumble. They call Simon Sirene to help carry the cross. Then they lay him down and they nail his hands and his feet. They lift up the cross and they drop the cross into the hole.

It's said when that hits the bottom, there's a racking pain that goes through the entire body. Then for six long hours on the cross, the first three, with all the mockers challenging him all around, if you're the Christ, come down from the cross. And the last three hours, oh those are the three hours of ultimate agony, hell on earth for Jesus, forsaken of his own father. Now even the sun would not shine upon him. Now it grows eerily silent around the cross.

Now he trods the winepress alone. The heavens don't break open now and say, this is my beloved son, hear ye him. He's forsaken by all, forsaken by his disciples, forsaken by the women, forsaken by friend and foe, forsaken by his own father, he's forsaken by heaven, by earth, by hell, and he hangs between them on the accursed tree for your sin. This is what God thinks of sin, of the insanity of sin, that a creature would rebel against his creator. The dastardliness, the overwhelming hatred that God has for sin.

Jesus came and took the entire price in his passive obedience and paid for all your sin. What a wonder, what a wonder. He was not a helpless pawn, shuffled about by the powers that be, as it might appear to the Jews and the Gentiles and the Romans. But he was a sovereign Lord, fully in control of the situation. But he laid down his life, he gave it all voluntarily, he didn't shrink back.

Therefore, doth my Father love me, he says, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No man takes it from me, but I lay it down. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again. He loved you so much, He gave himself for you to the death of the cross, as your servant, as a ransom for you, that you might be set free.

Jesus' passionate obedience is the greatest act of obedience the world has ever seen. The perfect act of obedience to pay perfectly for your sin. But then just a few thoughts about the active obedience of Jesus to the Father's perceptive will. Galatians 4 says, He's made under the law to redeem them that were under the law so that they would be heirs of God. So Christ takes upon himself the full obligations of obeying the law of Moses so that we might gain the blessing and the inheritance that he earned from so doing.

And so his righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees who outwardly obey the law, He obeys the law from within the core of His being for 33 years to be your righteousness. And so all along his journey, what does he say? I'm not here. I'm not here to do my will. I'm here for one reason, to do the will of my Father, to obey my Father.

His baptism, his whole life and death, Matthew tells us, all of this is aimed to fulfill all righteousness, as we heard last night. Righteousness, the obedience of God's Son, therefore, to the law is crucial for our salvation. He's the second Adam, who's juxtaposed over against the first Adam, in Romans five. Adam's sin brought condemnation to all in him, but Christ's righteousness brought justification of life to all in him. For by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one, Jesus, shall many be made righteous.

Calvin says, as by the sin of Adam, we were estranged from God, destined to perish, so by Christ's obedience, we are received into his favor as righteous, so that the obedience of Christ is reckoned to us as if it were our very own. Jesus' obedience is your righteousness, your standing before God if you are a true believer. And so his obedience spans the whole state of his humiliation. Just as Adam's disobedience in the original covenant of works determined the status of mankind before God, so in the covenant of grace, Christ's obedience determines the status of all those in him to their justification and life eternal. Thomas Goodwin, that prince of Puritans, describes this very poignantly.

He pictures two huge giants. Picture, boys and girls, picture men that are so big you can't imagine. And then he says, picture a huge belt around both of them, right around their waist, with millions and millions of holes in these two great big giants' belts. And he says, by nature, when we come into the world, we are all hooked onto the belt of the first Adam. We're all hanging on that belt, because that Adam represents us by way of covenant.

And what we need to have happen in our lives is that the Holy Spirit comes, unhooks us from the first Adam's belt, and then hooks us to the second Adam, to his belt, to his righteousness, so that he represents us. And the point Goodwin is making is that no one is just here alone in this world. You are all represented by one of those two Adams. Either you're in the first Adam and you're on your way to hell because he sinned and you fell in him, or you're in the second Adam by saving grace through faith and you're relying on the double obedience of Jesus for your salvation and you're saved forever. Christ fulfilled the law in his active and passive obedience so that when you are hooked to his belt, you will never perish.

Well that brings me then to the conclusion. Just some practical implications for you. I want to give you seven of them very quickly. Number one, recognize that God will glorify his righteousness and his law. God will never short circuit his own character, never contradict his own law, never fail in his own righteousness.

That's why the double obedience of Jesus is absolutely essential. Without that, no one would ever be saved. Number two, rely upon Christ alone to deliver you from the punishment that you deserve. Your sins and mine have merited damnation, eternal death in the lake of fire. We can never look at a person that's going to hell and say there's something in me that deserves more than there is in you.

We're just as hell worthy as they are. There's no other escape from hell than Jesus Christ. And so we rely 100% on His righteousness to save us, His double obedience. Third, we must resist the temptation to judge ourselves by the strictness and the severity of the law. That's the error of perfectionism.

People sort of name the name of Jesus, but they don't understand the gospel, and so they think that if they're not absolutely perfect, they must lose their assurance of faith in Christ, and they think, I am condemned, and I've got to live perfectly before God can save me. Christ lived perfectly for you. If you have trusted in Christ, and you are a justified child of God, the law is now your friend, your guide, your helper, to teach you how to walk the Christian life. And you want to obey it now not to merit anything. That's all done.

You want to obey it now out of gratitude to God for such a great deliverance. And so God is pleased with you because of his son. And he takes pleasure even in our sincere but imperfect works because the imperfect part has been wiped away by Jesus. Number four, reckon the high value of obedience in the sight of God. The lack of obedience casts the human race into slavery and death.

God treasures obedience. God demands obedience. But You need to practice as a Christian a new accounting in your mind. Learn to value the treasures of this world lightly, but see that there's nothing more precious than obedience to the will of God. Focus on that obedience of Christ.

That has got to be what you hold tight. Not, as we heard last night, holding tight, which is our sin, to this world. Fifth, run the race of obedience in imitation of Christ. Focus your mind, engage your energies to this great aim because Christ obeyed the will of God in all respects for my salvation. I want to obey the will of God wholly and solely for Him.

I want to meditate upon his word. I want to know his will. I want to make the doing of my Father's will, as Jesus told us to do, to be my meat and my drink. I want to follow Christ in loving God and loving my neighbor, not to save myself, but because he has saved me to a new obedience. If he loved me, keep my commandments.

And number six, be willing duloses, willing slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ to do His will in response, loving response to what He has done for you. You know, when we were kids, my dad had lots of famous sayings, we said, in the household. He'd always say certain things to us, give us wisdom. We heard him dozens of times. One thing he said dozens of times to us, all throughout our life, from the time we were babies to the time we left home.

He said, remember one thing, remember one thing. No matter what you do for your mother, you can never repay her back, everything she's done for you. But you see, that's how a believer feels to Jesus. 10, 000 times more. No mother's perfect.

Jesus is. And so, Let me tell you this quick story. There was once a very wealthy nobleman, and he went to California in the 1850s to make millions more from the gold rush. He was coming back to England through New Orleans, and he did what many people did at that time. He went to see the infamous slave trading block, and there was a young, beautiful young black African girl being sold.

And he stood in the back of the crowd and he heard two men vying with one another to outbid each other to obtain this girl. They were whispering what they'd do to her if they got her and it wasn't good. And the nobleman was incensed. So he got the auctioneer's attention. He said, I'll give twice the price anyone has given for this slave.

And the auctioneer stopped in his tracks and he said, No one has ever given this much for a slave. Have you really got that money? And the guy reached his pocket, waved the bills. The auctioneer said, Sold. The man came up, took the young lady down from the stand, and she spit him in the face.

And he wiped the spit away, took her down by the hand to a downtown office, talked to the man behind the desk, got some papers, Signed the papers, handed them to her, and said, these are your manumission papers. And she spit him in the face. And he said, don't you understand? You are free. And she just stared at him.

And finally she collapsed at his feet and she began to weep and weep and weep. And then she looks up at him and she says, do you mean to tell me, sir, you paid twice the amount anyone has ever paid for the price of a slave just to set me free? And she said, he said, yes. And she started to weep some more. And finally she looked up at him and she said this, can I be your willing slave forever?

You see, that's how a Christian feels. I'm delivered from the slavery of sin, but I want to be the willing doulos of Jesus Christ forever out of gratitude for the double obedience that is imputed to me by God's sovereign grace, by the Son's merits, and by the Spirit's sealing it in upon my soul. And finally, number seven, Remain patient and faithful through suffering even unto death. If Jesus suffered all the way to the most ignominious death you can possibly imagine, you can endure to the end in his strength who died for you. So don't string back.

Don't grumble and grow bitter when life pierces you. Count the cost, press on to glory. The one who saved you by his obedient sufferings waits for you at the end of your journey, and he will bring you home. And when he brings you home, the question will be asked, as it is in the book of Revelation, These are they who have been washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and been delivered from all tribulation, all affliction. The best is yet to be.

So I close with this illustration. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, President Gerald Ford, former president of America, grew up. When he died just some years ago now, he wanted to be buried in Grand Rapids. And our family joined the highway side along with many other families to pay our last respects. Waiting for the hearse to come down the highway going to the Ford Museum.

As we were waiting, there was a boy on the other side of the highway with a sign. And he was so happy. And that sign was bouncing back and forth above his head. The sign was bigger than he was. And it said, welcome home, President Ford.

I thought, man, that's amazing. This boy is so happy to welcome home a dead body. But what will it be in that great day when you, a sinner saved by grace, who deserve hell every day of your life, God will open the gates of heaven and you will come down that glorious highway lined up on both sides with 10, 000 times 10, 000 of holy angels and the redeemed made perfect and you not with a dead body, but with a living body and a living soul, the whole man will be received into everlasting glory. And the saints and the angels will cry out, welcome home, sinner, saved by grace, through the double obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as Samuel Rutherford said, as you approach the pearly gates, the gates will go open and Jesus will stand with a soft cloth in his hand to wipe away every last tear from your eye and you will enter in with him to be married to him in a perfect utopian marriage.

You'll be as perfect as he is perfect. You will never sin again. You'll never be tempted to sin again. You'll not be tempted to be tempted to sin again. It will be absolute perfection.

You will be as righteous as Jesus is righteous and forever you will praise him for his double obedience in fulfilling the law and paying for your sin. Let's pray. Gracious God, we thank thee so much for thy amazing obedience, double obedience, active, passive, to the law, our entire salvation. Oh God, we look forward to that day when we will hear the cry, well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord, because of Jesus. Welcome home, sinner, saved by grace.

Thank thee so much, Lord Jesus, for thy double obedience. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.