On the objective side, Jesus has done everything for us to win us that reconciliation with God. Jesus fulfilled the law, not just for himself, but also for us so that our reconciliation means that we stand before God with all of Christ's law-keeping reckoned to our account. Jesus bore the penalty for our sins on the cross so that he has propitiated the wrath of God and expiated our sins. Jesus imputes both his active and passive obedience to his own. As Calvin put it, "When, however, we come to Christ, we first find in him the exact righteousness of the Law, and this also becomes ours by imputation.”
On the subjective side, such serenity or peace is missed, Calvin argues, by two sorts of persons. The first are those whose consciences are still filled with fear and a sense of God's anger with them as sinners. "No one will stand without fear before God, unless he relies on free reconciliation, for as long as God is judge, all men must be filled with fear and confusion... wretched souls are always uneasy, unless they rest in the grace of Christ." Such people either do not understand the work of Christ in its fullness and completeness, or they have not rightly understood the implications of the gospel for themselves. The former are filled with fear because they think they have failed to augment what is lacking in the work of Christ. These people demean Christ, thinking to add their works to his without realizing that such an addition is always a subtraction (like adding a mustache to the Mona Lisa). The latter do not grasp that the full benefit of Christ's work is theirs by faith alone. They are like hypochondriacs who, although healthy, do not enjoy their healthy state.
The second sort, according to Calvin, are those who see no danger for themselves. "This serenity is possessed neither by the Pharisee, who is inflated by a false confidence in his works, nor by a senseless sinner, who, since he is intoxicated with the pleasure of his vices, feels no lack of peace. . . . Peace with God is opposed to the drunken security of the flesh." Here again are two kinds of people. The former actually are secure in believing that their works are good enough to gain them some claim on the divine goodness. They utterly fail to know that even our best works are flawed in the sight of God. The latter-perhaps the majority in our world-have no sense at all of any danger from the wrath of God. They are like the dying man who, when asked if he had made his peace with God, responded that he did not
know they had quarreled.
𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐃
The only true antidote to either fear or self-satisfaction is faith. Faith is that trust in Christ and his work, which looks away from all the valid grounds in ourselves for fear and from all the vain flattery of self-satisfaction. Faith alone looks to Christ alone, and Christ alone justifies those who have faith alone.”
Robert Godfrey, “Finding true peace with God” in Modern Reformation 11, no.2 (March/April 2002)
HT: Austin Olson
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