Our questions include, how did we arrive at our doctrines? Does the Bible really teach what we think it teaches? Why do churches do what they do? What is the biblical basis of church leadership structure? Why do certain traditions get entrenched?
It's easy to be spoon fed the conventional wisdom, but it's an entirely separate thing to search these things out for one's self. In the past we have read the Bible with these unexamined understandings and interpreted what we read through those lenses. We were lazy about our Bible study, assuming that pastors and theologians were telling us the truth, but we rarely checked it out for ourselves.
Therefore, these Rethinks are our attempt to remedy the situation.
We should note that we are not Bible scholars, but we believe that one doesn't need to be in order to understand the Word of God.
Introduction
It really bothers us when the work of Christ on the cross is misrepresented. All sorts of odd and offensive theories are accepted as gospel truth simply because a pastor taught someone what some other pastor taught him, which was taught to him by someone else. Thus doctrines and perspectives and teachings are handed down to us which have absolutely no biblical support.
Such is the case with imputation.
Let's first provide the dictionary definition:
impute - verb
1. To ascribe (a misdeed or an error, for example) to:2. To regard as belonging to or resulting from another:
This means a quality or attribute is affixed or assigned to something that doesn't actually belong to that thing. In the case of God, He supposedly affixes or assigns Christ's righteousness to the believer, because the believer is not actually righteous. This is often expressed something like, "when the Father looks at you He sees Jesus."
Thus the Christian is not righteous, he is only regarded as righteous. God pretends we are righteous. It seems we aren't really even saved, we're still evil and are still in our sins, we have just been "imputed" with righteousness.
In fact, God can only look at us through Jesus' righteousness. Which would mean that we are still dressed in filthy rags. Catch that? There is no difference between a sinner and a Christian from God's point of view, aside from Christ's righteousness blocking God's view.
We find this idea to be unbiblical. There is no verse in the Bible that documents imputation.
The OT
There is really only one verse that implies imputation:
Ge. 15:6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness. (ASV)
The Hebrew word for "counted" is chashab, to think, account. That is, something was added to Abraham 'that God takes into account. God thinks of Abraham differently. This suggests righteousness was something Abraham actually possessed, that is, he was accounted righteousness because of his faith. His faith gained him something, righteousness.
The same word, chashab, is used in these verses:
Ps. 32:2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.
Ps. 44:22 Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
Ps. 88:4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength.
Ps. 144:3 LORD, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him?
Pr. 27:14 If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse.
Is. 40:15 Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
Is. 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
None of these verse make sense if the word "imputed" is used.
The NT
Paul quoted this verse, Gen. 15:6, to the Roman church when he was discussing Abraham's faith.
The KJV:
Romans 4:22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
The ASV:
Romans 4:22 Wherefore also it was reckoned unto him for righteousness.
(Interesting that the ASV changed their Genesis 15:6 translation from "counted" to "reckoned" in Romans 4:22)
The NIV:
Ro. 4:22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”
The word "credited" or "reckoned" (or "imputed" in the KJV) is the Greek word logizomai, to take into account, to make account of. So this means that God took Abraham's faith into account and declared him righteousness. Abraham was not imputed with righteousness, which would mean he still remained unchanged. No, Abraham's faith actually yielded righteousness.
This is an important concept. Read this carefully: If righteousness is imputed, we are not righteous.
The main point Paul was establishing was that righteousness cannot come by following the law (Ro. 3:20), but there is righteousness available:
Ro. 3:22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
Righteousness is a gift given by faith (Ro. 5:17). Paul contrasted a man who works and receives his wage because he is entitled to it, versus a man who does not work but rather trusts God receives his righteousness as a gift:
Ro. 4:4-5 Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5 However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
The one who believes receives a gift for his faith: Righteousness. And we know that the gift belongs to the one who received it.
There are two ways to obtain righteousness, works or faith. It's important that we understand that Paul's intent was to contrast works under the law with that which comes by faith.
One cannot obtain righteousness by works:
Ro. 9:30-31 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.
The use of the word "obtained" is telling. The Greek word is katalambanó, to lay hold of so as to make one's own, to obtain, attain to... We seize righteousness by faith. Certainly Paul would not use such language if righteousness was merely imputed.
And the icing on the cake:
Ro. 10:4 Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
We receive our righteousness when we believe.
Paul tells us this gift of righteousness is not only for Abraham, but also for us:
Ro. 4:24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness — for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
So God takes into account our faith as righteousness just like Abraham's.
Jesus Imputed With Our Sin?
The flip side of this issue is that if we are imputed with Jesus' righteousness then Jesus was imputed with our sin, based on
2Co. 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Let's look at some of the words. It says God made Him to be sin. "Made" is the word poieó, which means I make, manufacture, construct. The literal Greek is
The (one) having not known sin for us sin he made...
The man Jesus was constructed, made for a purpose. He was "made sin" to reconcile us to God, which is what we read just a couple of verses before:
2Co. 5:19...God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ...
Poieó (made) is the same word used here:
Ac. 2:36 “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”
We certainly cannot say that Jesus was imputed with being Lord and Christ.
Jesus was appointed to the position of sin, and he was appointed to the position of Lord and Christ. Nothing about His nature changed. The Father basically said, "Go, here's your position." Therefore, His position on earth was sin.
He was also not imputed with our sin.
Conclusion
Righteousness is a matter where God has clearly set the terms: Through faith we are righteous, not simply regarded as righteous. The English word "imputed" does not correspond to the Greek meaning. Nothing is imputed to us as if somehow our condition remains unchanged.
We think the idea of imputation comes from a false humility, the same mindset that incorrectly represents us as "sinners saved by grace." It also connects to the false idea that even in salvation our hearts remain deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9). All this seems to derive from something called "worm theology."
False humility is pride because it diminishes what Jesus did for us on the cross. It denies we are new creations. We somehow prefer to believe we are lowly creatures not worth God's time. However, God lifted us up, yet we refuse it and grovel instead.
The Bible is clear. Nothing stands in the way of the righteousness accounted to us. We are justified as righteous because God gifts righteousness via our faith:
Ph. 3:9 ...and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
God doesn't impute anything. We are truly, actually, literally righteous because of faith.
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