The Doctrine of Imputation.
Genesis 15:6
Notice
Genesis 15:12, “And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram;
and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.” Notice he starts off with
this command not to fear, and then as soon as he does what God says he is put
into a deep sleep and he is terrorized in the midst of that sleep. The word that
is used for fear here is a word that is used for the most intense kind of fear
possible. Fear is not a thing that is a stranger to any of us, but what is the
solution? The solution is the faithfulness of God, and that is the theme of
this whole passage, that everything is being grounded in the faithfulness of
God. So God reminds us about Abraham in verse six, that he had already believed
in Yahweh, and the word that is chosen in that passage among several
possible Hebrew words for faith is the word aman in the hiphil stem, meaning
to rely upon something that is steadfast, something that is solid, something
that is immovable and unshakable. And so the undercurrent of this whole chapter
is that God is faithful to His promises. He reiterates the promises related to
the seed in the first part of the chapter and in the second part of the chapter
He is going to reiterate and define even more precisely the promise related to
the land. But what under girds all this is that no matter how uncertain things
may be for Abraham, no matter how much he might fear today for his safety
because of potential threats from foreign enemies, no matter how he may perceive
a threat to his own personal safety and security, his plans, his hopes, his
dreams, God is saying, “I am always there, I am always faithful and am not
going back on my promises.”
Abraham
had learned this when he was saved, Verse 6 is just a reiteration of this and in
verse 7 God is going to strengthen that foundation through the Abrahamic
covenant. But what we have already mentioned is that verse 6 sits in the center
of this passage as the anchor point for the first conversation, verses 105, and
the second conversation, verses 7-21. In verse 6 there is this reference which
is picked up and commented on and utilized by Paul in Romans chapter four as
the foundation for understand the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and
we are told that he believed or trusted in Yahweh, and this is a significant
statement here because of a couple of things in the Hebrew text here. He
believed in Yahweh, and Yahweh, the sacred tetragrammaton for a Jew is always reminiscent
of God as the covenant God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the God who gave the
covenant on Mount Sinai, because it was to Moses God revealed the significance
of His name, I
AM THAT I AM,
and so that is always tied to His faithfulness and stability. Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob understood that that was God’s name and they used that name, but they
didn’t understand its significance in the way that the later Jews understood it
in terms of the meaning given and revealed in relationship to the Exodus event.
And that deliverance at the Exodus event, interestingly enough, is rooted and
grounded in the prophecy made by God right here in Genesis 15. That shows how
the Bible connects all these things together.
The
issue that underlies this is anxiety that Abraham feels about his own life, his
own security, his own destiny, and God is going to show what that is based on;
that he can have certainty and stability even when the details of life are very
loose and fluid and uncertain. All certainty in the Christian life is grounded
on the character and person of God. The underlying doctrine here is the
doctrine of justification and the doctrine of imputation. To understand the
doctrine of justification we have to understand the doctrine of imputation. This
is an important doctrine, it underlies our whole understanding of salvation, it
underlies our whole relationship to God. Everything is built on this doctrine.
1)
The
doctrine of imputation is the action of the justice of God whereby either
condemnation or blessing is assigned, credited, or attributed to a human being.
It is the action of the justice of God, which means that is flows from His
holiness. The foundation of this is His integrity, His holiness—His righteousness
which forms the standard of His character, and the justice which is the
application of that standard. It is fascinating that in both languages that God
used to reveal Himself to man, in both Greek and Hebrew, the word for
righteousness and the word for justice are the same word. In Hebrew that word
is tzaddeq, and in Greek it is DIKAIOSUNE [dikaiosunh]. Each of these words, depending on the context,
can either mean righteousness or justice, which indicates that when we are talking
about these things, because they are represented by that same word, we are
talking about the same thing but we shift in terms of its orientation. So that
when we are talking about the standard we talk about righteousness; when we
talk about the application of that standard to creatures we talk about justice.
At the very root of man’s whole problem with God is the problem of failing to
meet a standard. That is why when we get over in to the New Testament one of
the major doctrines related to salvation is the doctrine of reconciliation.
Reconciliation means to have something be re-conformed to a standard. That standard
was breached when Adam sinned. So at the very core of everything is the issue
of God’s righteousness and His justice so that before anything can happen in
terms of our relationship to God this has to be resolved. The important thing
is to understand how it is resolved. It is not resolved through our own
personal ethics or morality because essentially that is not the problem. What
we will see is that the reason we are condemned has nothing to do with our personal
sin, it has to do with Adam’s sin. Once we really understand that (very few
Christians do) it starts to change our perception of what happens at salvation.
At its very core imputation is a legal concept. Genesis 15:6, talking about imputation
as a legal concept, is wrapped right into this covenant context where God is
making a legal contract with Abraham. There are two categories of imputation:
real imputations and judicial imputations. The term “real imputation” isn’t
contrasted to something that is unreal. It is in contrast to a judicial imputation.
This distinction, interestingly enough, originated with Dr. Chafer at Dallas
Seminary.
2)
Real
imputations credit something to a person which truly belongs to him, i.e. there
is a similarity, there is an affinity between what is imputed and something that
is possessed by the person to whom it is imputed. Therefore, when you say that
eternal life is imputed to a regenerate believer there is an affinity there because
he is already regenerate. When we say that the personal sins of man have been
imputed to Jesus Christ there is not an affinity there, there is no
relationship between our personal sin and the perfect Savior. So because we are
fallen and our sins are imputed to Him that is called a judicial imputation, whereas
a real imputation exists, for example, as when Adam’s original sin is imputed
to our sin nature. That is a real imputation because there is an affinity
between the two, a correlation between the two.
3)
Judicial
imputations occur when the justice of God credits to a person what is not
antecedently his own, in other words, there is not this correlation or affinity
between what is imputed and the person receiving it. That is referring to the
imputation of our sin to the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.
4)
What
is the meaning of imputation? The English word “imputation” derives from the
Latin word imputare, which means to reckon or to charge to one’s
account. The English means to charge someone with a fault or responsibility, or
simply credit something to someone. It means to reckon, to charge to one’s
account, to assign something. It is a legal concept. The Old Testament word has
a root meaning which means to think, and from this concept of thinking we get
calculating, the idea of assigning value. It is an economic term, which is
interesting because sin is often looked at as a debt. The New Testament Greek
word is LOGIZOMAI [logizomai], which comes from logic, [logoj]. These are terms which
have to do with thought. It is not a concrete thing, it is an abstract
assignation or assigning of something to something else.
5)
There
is an example of the secular usage of the word in the New Testament, in
Philemon 1:18 where Paul tells Philemon: “If he has wronged thee, or owes you
in anything, charge that on my account”—impute it to me: logizomai.
6)
The
basis for justification is the character of God. We can’t understand
justification without understanding the character of God, the character of God
relating to His justice and his righteousness. That has to be resolved.
7)
Man,
therefore, is ethically worthless, not ontologically worthless. We have value
because we were created in the image and likeness of God, but we are ethically
worthless because we have violated God’s standard. Man isn’t just neutralized,
we don’t move from a positive value to zero, we move into, negative territory. We
don’t just lose righteousness, we acquire an unrighteousness. Isaiah 64:6, “But
we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.”
It doesn’t say our unrighteousnesses, it says all our righteousnesses, i.e. the
very best that we do is viewed by God as filthy rags. That is the deficit that
we approach God with. We are not in a position of neutrality, we are in a position
where there is an ethical deficit.
8)
Therefore,
there must not only be forgiveness of sin in the process but there has to be a positive
addition of righteousness. Where this is important is that if we are ever witnessing
to a Roman Catholic or someone who is out of a Roman Catholic background, their
view of sin going back to the Middle Ages is that sin is a privation. Privation
simply means you are missing something. As far as they are concerned evil is
just the absence of righteousness, it is not the presence of a substantive evil
or substantive unrighteousness. So they diminished at the very core of their
understanding of man’s being , what evil and sin is, to where it is merely an absence
of righteousness and absence of good. That ends up making man neutral, and if man
is neutral what can man do? He can do something to please God! All this fits together,
and that is why it is so difficult.
9)
Because
the essential problem is a legal problem, not experiential, man can’t solve the
dilemma through ritual or through works. The problem is Adam’s sin, and because
of Adam’s sin we are condemned, not because of our own sin. Because of that we
can’t solve it by doing something ourselves. We can’t turn back the clock on
Adam’s fall in the garden. Romans 4:10, talking about Abraham’s faith, “How was
it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in
circumcision, but in uncircumcision.” Circumcision was the ritual which was the
sing of the Abrahamic covenant, and circumcision isn’t introduced until Genesis chapter seventeen. So
in chapter fifteen we just have the formal cutting of the covenant between God
and Abraham, but the sign isn’t given until chapter seventeen, and we have
already seen that Genesis 15:6 predates even chapter twelve. So Paul’s argument
is, how was righteousness imputed? It is whether it was circumcised or
uncircumcised. Not while circumcised but while uncircumcised. In other words,
it is imputed before he does anything, before there is any ritual on Abraham’s
part. Romans 4:11, “And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the
righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might
be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that
righteousness might be imputed unto them also.” So it can be seen that it is completely
apart from ritual, it is completely apart from obedience on the part of the
believer. Man can’t solve the legal dilemma through his own ritual or through
works, it is a total reliance upon God. He is the one who gives us the
righteousness.
10)
Legal
justification requires a perfect righteousness, an absolute righteousness,
there can’t be any flaws, any failure or any other problem, it has to be perfect.
Therefore, we can’t produce it. It can’t be experiential.
11)
God
in His wisdom came up with a plan called imputation which is crediting one
person someone else’s perfect or positive righteousness. That is how God solved
the dilemma.
12)
The
justification that we have is based on a perfect righteousness that comes
outside of man, not inside of man. It is not based on some ethical improvement
that takes place. It is not even exemplified by some ethical improvement that
takes place, that is the error that came out of Roman Catholic theology, it is
the error that is present in Lordship salvation, it is the error that is present
in a lot of holiness theology—that somehow, if you are really saved, there is
this ethical difference. But, you see, where do you get ethical out of legal? We
are talking about a legal concept, not an ethical concept. The ethical concept belongs
under sanctification.
13)
This
distinguishes justification from regeneration and sanctification. Justification
comes first, and then because we have this legal standing before God He can
regenerate us. Sanctification is subsequent to that. We have to distinguish
these. If we connect them too closely we end up saying, “Well the spiritual
life [sanctification] is how you know whether you were saved.” It’s, well so
and so doesn’t live like a Christian; he can’t be one. The whole presupposition
of that is that if you are really saved you are ethically changed on the inside
so you won’t do certain things. That confuses sanctification with
justification.
14)
Thus,
justification must precede both regeneration and sanctification.
15)
It
is distinct from regeneration and sanctification. This isn’t understood today.
It was understood by Martin Luther, it was understood by the Reformers, and
that is what gave birth to the Protestant Reformation and the historic position
of the Anabaptists in the 16th century, the Lutherans in the 16th
century, and the Reformed Calvinistic Huguenots in the 15th century.
They understood this and they died for this. For them this wasn’t abstract theology.
16)
Attempts
are often made to try to base justification on some inner quality of the
sinner. That is what happens in Lordship salvation, i.e. How do you know
whether you are saved? If you are saved you are going to exemplify a certain
kind of behavior. Therefore, if you claim to be saved and you lie or commit murder
or some sexual immorality then maybe you weren’t really saved. And if you
renounce Christ then you definitely were never saved, because if you were
really saved there would have been this inner ethical transformation. That is
just false. It ignores grace and it is a back-door legalism.
17)
The
first real imputation was Adam’s original sin to the sin nature at birth. Historically
there have been four different views related to imputation or how Adam’s
original sin affects the human race. In the early church there was a first
class heretic by the name of Pelagius. He said it is not imputation, it is imitation
and every person is born just as neutral as Adam was created. He was opposed by
Augustine. Pelagius denied original sin and he was declared to be so. Another
attempt was Jacob Arminius, the man from whom we get the school of theology known
as Arminiainism. He is almost as bad as Pelagius. Pelagius said they were fully
alive, they were neutral; Arminius said they are just partially dead. Calvin
came along and his contribution to this theology was called federal headship,
and that is that Adam was the federal head of the race and that he represented
all of us. Augustine, going back in time again, introduced the concept of
seminalism, that we were actually seminally, physically participatory. Both of
these last two views are true.
18)
The
first judicial imputation is the imputation of our personal sins to Christ. The
second judicial imputation is the imputation of His righteousness to each
believer at the point of faith alone in Christ alone.
19)
The
result, then, is that man is declared righteous; he is not made
righteous. It is not just as if I had never sinned. We are covered, we are
given someone else’s righteousness.
20)
The
model is Abraham. The picture of Joshua the high priest in Zechariah 3 gives us
this picture of righteousness. The Old Testament always gives us those images. Zechariah
3:1-6, “And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of
the LORD, and Satan [Satan is the
accuser of the believer] standing at his right hand to resist him. And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke you, O Satan; even
the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem
rebuke you: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Now Joshua was clothed
with filthy garments [picture of the sinner], and stood before the angel. And
he answered and spoke unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the
filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused your
iniquity to pass from you, and I will clothe you with robes.” It is that clothing
with robes that is the picture of imputation. We are clothed with Christ’s righteousness.
It is His righteousness, not our righteousness. It is His righteousness that
God looks at and declares us to be just.