“He was sent to be our righteousness” by John Calvin
“Paul says that in the upbuilding of Christian teaching we must keep the foundation that he had laid among the Corinthians [cf. 1 Cor. 3:10], ‘beside which no other can be laid, which is Jesus Christ’ [1 Cor. 3:11].
What sort of foundation have we in Christ? Was He the beginning of our salvation in order that its fulfillment might follow from ourselves? Did He only open the way by which we might proceed under our own power?
Certainly not. But, as Paul had set forth a little before, Christ, when we acknowledge Him, is given us to be our righteousness [1 Cor. 1:30].
No man, therefore, is well founded in Christ unless he has perfect righteousness in Him: since the apostle does not say that He was sent to help us attain righteousness but Himself to be our righteousness [1 Cor. 1:30].
Indeed, he states that ‘He has chosen us in Him’ from eternity ‘before the foundation of the world,’ through no merit of our own ‘but according to the purpose of divine good pleasure’ [Eph. 1:4–5, cf. Vg.].
He states that by His death we are redeemed from the condemnation of death and freed from ruin [cf. Col. 1:14, 20].
He states that we have been adopted unto Him as sons and heirs by our Heavenly Father [cf. Rom. 8:17; Gal. 4:5–7].
He states that we have been reconciled through His blood [Rom. 5:9–10].
He states that, given into His protection, we are released from the danger of perishing and falling [John 10:28].
He states that thus ingrafted into Him [cf. Rom. 11:19] we are already, in a manner, partakers of eternal life, having entered in the Kingdom of God through hope.
Yet more: we experience such participation in Him that, although we are still foolish in ourselves, He is our wisdom before God; while we are sinners, He is our righteousness; while we are unclean, He is our purity; while we are weak, while we are unarmed and exposed to Satan, yet ours is that power which has been given Him in heaven and on earth [Matt. 28:18], by which to crush Satan for us and shatter the gates of Hell; while we still bear about with us the body of death, He is yet our life.
In brief, because all His things are ours and we have all things in Him, in us there is nothing.
Upon this foundation, I say, we must be built if we would grow into a holy temple to the Lord [cf. Eph. 2:21].”
–John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 1: 793. (3.15.5)
