I’m reading faster than I’m blogging on The Wonderful Works of God. Such is the nature of life. From Christ’s nature Bavinck moves to Christ’s wonderful works in successive chapters on His humiliation and His exaltation. Christ’s incarnation, by itself, does not save us but make our salvation possible in that it makes His saving works as Mediator possible. It is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition. He then must do certain things to accomplish our salvation (not simply making salvation possible).
“The incarnation of the Son of God, therefore, without anything further, cannot be the reconciling and redeeming deed. It is the beginning of it, the preparation for it, and the introduction to it, but it is not that deed itself.”
The Work of Christ in His Humiliation
The death of the Son is just as necessary as the birth of the Son for our salvation, and not simply a death of due to illness or old age. Bavinck follows Calvin in discussing the work of Christ in both humiliation and exaltation through the lens of the three offices (munix triplex): prophet, priest and king. This view has received criticism at times, largely rooted in misunderstanding. Just as we struggle with understanding the two natures and the one person, we struggle with the three offices and the one person. Jesus didn’t take these offices on and off like a pair of clothes, or some hat, to indicate “now I work as priest”. Bavinck notes that “essentially Jesus was at all times and places busy in all three offices simultaneously.” There are some moments when it is more clear that He is busy in a particular office.
“Because He Himself is prophet, priest, and king, He in turn makes us prophets, priests, and kings unto God and His Father.”
God the Son subsisted eternally and prepared a human nature for Himself through the Spirit in Mary; Jesus was not subject to the covenant of works. By this Bavinck means He was not subject to original guilt and corruption. I’m not sure he intends to say that Jesus didn’t fulfill the covenant of works for us. Jesus didn’t inherit a fallen condition because Adam was never His covenant head. Yet, Bavinck still affirms the weakness of His human nature that He might be tempted, learn obedience, struggle in order to empathize with us as a compassionate Great High Priest. Jesus is not some kind of hero who “overcomes every obstacle, and finally achieves the pinnacle of his fame.” The incarnation was the beginning of a long humiliation, a long descent, that ended with His death upon the cross bearing the curse.
The anointing for office was at His baptism. The Spirit came upon Him to fulfill the duties of His three offices. His “emptying” was one of dependence upon the Spirit showing us how to live as redeemed people.
He was not simply one prophet among many, the latest in a long line of prophets. He was the Prophet to whom the others testified and from whom they received their message. He is the perfect revelation of God not only in His message but also in His person. He fulfills the earlier prophecies. Jesus didn’t abolish the law but purified it from “false interpretations and human additions, and by bringing them to their full actualization in His own person and work.” While earlier prophets preached the Gospel, Jesus was the Gospel. He is grace and truth, not merely a preacher of them. In this way the priestly office is related to the prophetic office.
The priestly office is also related to the kingly. Israel was called to be a kingdom of priests (Ex. 19:6), and Jesus will make us such a kingdom (Rev. 5:10). His kingdom is established by the sacrifice, not the sword. He doesn’t supplant Herod or Caesar in His humiliation. In His exaltation He will bring all His enemies under His feet, but we’ll get there later.
“During His sojourn on earth, too, He never yielded any of His Divine or His human rights. He did not try to get His rights by violence, but wanted to arrive at them solely by way of a perfect obedience to God.”
His whole life of prophetic, priestly and kingly activities culminated in His death, and as I noted a specific kind of death. Jesus surrendered Himself to death, and death on a cross. It was not a death He sought, but one which was inevitable due to His faithfulness to God and His mission. The disciples struggled to understand this mission, this impending death, until after the resurrection and the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost.
The words of Samuel to Saul, that to obey is better than sacrifice, mean that Jesus’ obedience was vital to His sacrifice having any meaning. Jesus must die for our sins, not His own. His obedience merits eternal life for all those who are united to Him by faith. The covenant rests upon God’s gracious election, but the law and sacrifices serve the promise of salvation. They reveal the guilt and corruption of sin. They reveal the necessity of ransom. This shed blood of Christ is the “effective cause of the atonement, forgiveness, and purging of our sins.”
The church, Bavinck notes, has struggled with the active and passive obedience of Christ. Various generations tend to emphasize one over the other, sometimes at one’s exclusion. It is like a see saw back and forth. They go together, however. Both are essential to our salvation. The perfect, unblemished Lamb of God would die for our sins, to remove our guilt and pollution.
The Work of Christ in His Exaltation
The salvation accomplished by Christ must also be applied. The benefits achieved by Christ must also be applied. Christ continues to work in the application of redemption in His exaltation. He seems to shift back and forth between the offices much more in this chapter. Here, oddly enough, Bavinck speaks much of propitiation. One statement caught my eye that I wish were expounded upon more clearly as to what he did and didn’t mean. That is this:
“Because Christ by His death has covered our sin and averted God’s wrath, God changes His attitude towards the world into one of reconciliation, and He tells us this in His gospel, which is therefore called the word of reconciliation.”
Truly, we are only accepted in the Beloved. Apart from Christ’s death we are still in sin and under the wrath and curse of God. But, did God change His attitude? Does this undermine divine simplicity and immutability? Or does he mean it in a way in keeping with them? I honestly don’t know and can’t tell from this text. God’s attitude toward the elect never changes. God loved and sent the Son to be our propitiation. He states this elsewhere but doesn’t necessarily connect it to God’s attitude. The Father sent the Son because He was mercifully disposed, not that the Son might change His attitude towards us. Our disposition changes as we see the kindness and mercy of God (as well as His justice) in the death of Christ for our propitiation.
Perhaps Bavinck is guarding against the idea of eternal justification. That, I think, would be noble, but not the best way to explain it. Justification, as an act, is applied to us at conversion rather than when the decree was made in eternity. Those elect will surely be justified but they aren’t yet justified until the instrumental cause effects the change in our status.
Bavinck does not use election to avoid the proclamation of the gospel but sees it as the justification for the promiscuous preaching of the gospel. He advocates a preaching without distinction to all whom He sends us. The preaching of the gospel is accompanied with the twin commands to repent and believe. Jesus then sends the Spirit to empower His people to bear witness to those nations as part of His exaltation. As He completes the New Testament through the Apostles who wrote it under the power of the Spirit, and proclaims the message through us, He exercises His office of prophet in His exaltation.
“Jesus by His Spirit Himself continued the work of prophecy in the hearts of His disciples.”
The recipients of Christ’s blessings are the church, the true Israel, the true seed of Abraham: Jew and Gentile. There is no sharing in the blessings apart from Christ, and apart from the church. His application of the blessings to His people is His wonderful work in His exaltation. This work is just as essential to our salvation as the work in His humiliation.
In this context he addresses “the descent into hell” providing the interpretations given by Rome, the Lutherans and the various views within the Reformed heritage. The Reformed view has abandoned the view that Jesus traveled to hell to set the prisoners free for either experiencing the agonies of hell on the cross (Calvin) or being under the power of death (WLC). He also delves in to false views of the resurrection since the resurrection is the beginning of the exaltation of Christ.
Jesus goes before us in His resurrection, guaranteeing our resurrection. He paves the way for humanity’s presence in heaven with His ascension as well. “Therefore the conquest of death could take place only by a man. A man had to effect the resurrection of the dead.” He’s not being Nestorian but pointing out the necessity of Christ’s humanity in accomplishing these wonderful works. The Son must be the God-man to die and rise for us. No mere man can do this, but a man must. There is not simply a spiritual resurrection but a physical one.
He expresses a “double grace” like Calvin in that there is “no forgiveness without a succeeding sanctification and glorification.” Okay, a “triple grace”? All those who are justified are also sanctified in the same Christ who cannot be torn asunder.
In Christ’s ascension we discover a triumph over creation, over the laws of nature. It is also a triumph over the forces of evil who become captives. The ascension sees Christ seated at the right hand of the Father to rule over all of creation, heaven and earth. This is Christ fulfilling the office of king in His exaltation. He works to subdue His enemies by converted the elect through the gospel and putting the reprobate under His feet. He will continue this great work in the exercise of judgment at the end of time.
In terms of His priestly office, the emphasis is on intercession in His exaltation. Bavinck begins with discussion of Melchizedek to point us to Christ as the priest who lives forever to intercede for us. He no longer offers sacrifices for us, but pleads the one sacrifice for us as we continue to sin. His one sacrifice gained Him entrance into the true & heavenly tabernacle in order to appear before the Father on our behalf. Our Great High Priest also grants us mercy and grace in our time of need from His throne of grace.
Bavinck returns to the kingly office of Christ, and makes a helpful distinction for us.
“Within the pale of this one kingship Holy Scripture makes a distinction. There is a kingship of Christ over Zion, over His people, over the Church, and there is also a kingship which He exercises over His enemies. The first is a kingship of grace, and the other is a kingship of power.”
There is Christ’s rule as Creator over all things which He rules by power or providence. There is also His rule over His people by grace. Here he delves into the union of Christ and His Church. Each local church is a body of Christ. We are related to one another as members of that one body. Christ brings each body to maturity as we work for one another’s benefit. Through the Church He gathers, rules and protects His people. As He does this He will also triumph over His enemies through His kingship of power so that every knee will bow and call Him Lord either willingly (thru grace) or unwillingly (thru power).
There was plenty of important material here. At times Bavinck reminded me of The In-Laws, moving serpentine in fashion. He moved back and forth instead of straight ahead. At times it is difficult to address one office without address another. There were also a few ambiguities and potential problems in this material. I do stress potential over actual. We must guard the immutability and simplicity of God. We must also, I think, guard against eternal justification (though many of my continental Reformed brothers will disagree). We must not sacrifice one for the other. I’m not sure he did that, but we shouldn’t.
Cavman Considers 
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