Christ gives us what He acquired

Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559) - John Calvin

Book 2 - God the Redeemer

Chapter 17 - Christ Rightly and Properly Said to Have Merited God's Grace and Salvation for Us

Section 1 - Christ's merit does not exclude God's free grace, but precedes it

God's merciful ordinance, reckoning Christ meritorius, lies behind Christ's merit.

Jesus didn't "deserve" to be the Son of God.

But there is true merit in Christ - Acts 3:15.

Section 2 - Scripture couples God's grace and Christ's merit

God loved us, and so gives us Christ, who gives us "what He has acquired."

John 3:16; 1 John 4:10; 2:2; Col 1:19-20; 2 Cor 5:19, 21; Eph 1:4-6; 2:3, 15-16.

Section 3 - The merit of Christ in the witness of Scripture

He "acquired... grace for us with His Father." Rom 5:10-11, 16, 19.

"He acquired salvation for us by His righteousness, which is tantamount to deserving it."

Section 4 - The substitution of Christ

His sacrificial blood has power to cleanse us from sin.

1 John 1:7; Matt 26:28; John 1:29; Heb 9:22, 26, 28, 12-14.

If He bore the curse for us, it was to "pay... what [we] owed" and give us rightesouness.

Isa 53:5, 8; Gal 3:13; 1 Pet 2:24.

Section 5 - Christ's death the price of our redemption

Rom 3:24-25; 1 Pet 1:18-19; 1 Cor 6:20; 1 Tim 2:5-6.

This results in forgiveness of sins - Col 1:14; 2:14.

In Christ we get the law's promise of life we couldn't get by works.

Gal 2:21; Lev 18:5; Acts 13:39; Gal 4:4-5.

The result: John 6:55, 57; Eph 5:2; Rom 4:25; 1 John 2:12.

Section 6 - Christ acquired no merit for himself

All He did was for us.

Rom 8:32; Isa 9:6; Rom 5:10; John 17:19.