The Institution of Christian Religion

Now where it is demanded, how Christ hath done away our §5sins, and taken away the strife between us and God, and purchased such righteousness as might make him favourable and well willing toward us: it may be generally answered, that he hath brought it to pass by the whole course of his obedience. Which is proved by the testimony of Paul.¹ As by one mans offence many were made sinners, so by one mans obedience we are made righteous. And in an other place he extendeth the cause of the pardon that delivereth us from the curse of the law,² to the whole life of Christ, saying: When the fullness of time was come, God sent his son made of a woman, subject to the law, to redeem them that were under the law: And so affirmed that in his very baptism was fulfilled one part of righteousness, that he obediently did the commandment of his father. Finally, from the time that he toke upon him the person of a servant, he began to pay the ransom to redeem us. Butte the Scripture to set out the manner of our salvation more certainly,³ doth ascribe this as peculiar and properly belonging to the death of Christ. He him self pronounced that he gave his life to be a redemption for many.⁴ Paul teacheth that he dyed for our since. John the Baptiste cried out that Christ came to take away the since of the world, because he was the Lamb of God. In an other place Paul ⟨image 176⟩saith,⁵ that we are justified freely by the redemption that is in Christ, because he is set forth the reconciler in his own blood. Again, that we are justified in his blood, and reconciled by his death. Again▪ He that knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in him. I will not recite all the testimonies, because the mimbre would be infinite, and many of them must be hereafter alleged in their order. Therefore in the sum of belief, which they call the Apostles creed, it is very orderly passed immediately from the birth of Christ to his death and resurrection, wherein consisteth the sum of perfect salvation. And yet is not the rest of his obedience excluded, which he performed in his life: