Jesus lived for me

A living lamb. This one might have
spots and blemishes, but the Lamb
of God didn't.

Christ’s sinless life is of the utmost importance for our salvation.  He needed to be sinless in order for His sacrifice to be acceptable on our behalf.  He could only bear our sins because He had none of His own.  Indeed, we ‘were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, … but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot’ (I Pet 1:18-19).

However, this is not the only significance of Christ’s sinlessness for our salvation.  Christ’s sinless blood, shed for us, secures the forgiveness of our sins.  Yet this only brings us back to the state of Adam and Eve at the beginning in the Garden of Eden.  At that time they didn't have eternal life.  They would have had to continue in obedience to God (keep His covenant) in order to be established in righteousness and receive eternal life.  Yet Christ, like Adam, is our covenantal representative.  As such, He not only died our death, but also obeyed God fully and perfectly on our behalf.  This is the active obedience of Christ; His perfect observance of all God’s law.  Christ’s active obedience plays a hugely important role in our salvation, for it's because of His active obedience that we can have His perfect righteousness imputed to us in justification.  Romans 5:19 sums this up: ‘by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.’ That means, not only did Jesus die for me: He lived for me too!