Imputation: All of Christ's Righteousness
"That the righteousness of justification is the God-righteousness of the divine Christ himself, which is imputed or reckoned to us the moment we place our confidence in him (see justification as a finished act in Rom. 5:1--"having been justified"), is amply testified to when the Scriptures teach that we are justified (1) in Christ (Isa. 45:24-25; Acts 13:39; Rom. 8:1; 1 Cor. 6:11; Gal. 2:17; Phil. 3:9), (2) by Christ's death work (Rom. 3:24-25; 5:9; 8:33-34), (3) not by our own but by the righteousness of God (Isa. 61:10; Rom. 1:17; 3:21-22; 10:3; 2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:9) and (4) by the righteousness and obedience of Christ (Rom. 5:17-19). In short, the only ground of justification is the perfect God-righteousness of Christ that God the Father imputes to every sinner who places his confidence in the obedience and satisfaction of his Son. Said another way, the moment the sinner, through faith in Jesus Christ, turns away from every human resource and rests in Christ alone, the Father imputes his well-beloved Son's preceptive (active) obedience to him and accepts him as righteous in his sight." (Reymond, Robert. A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. Pg. 746.).
I have recently been challenged on the Reformed view of imputation (crediting/reckoning). This led me to dive headfirst into this subject - one which I am passionate about.
To begin, how can a sinner be justified in God's sight? What is the basis for this justification? Are sinners justified on account of their own righteousness? Weeeell, Romans 4:4-6 speaks to this issue:
"4 Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. 5 But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works."
The Apostle Paul informs us that the one not working, but believing in Christ has righteousness credited (or imputed) to him. Okay, so we don't work. We believe. Then we have a righteousness imputed to us. Who's righteousness is imputed to us? Clearly it isn't ours, because it is imputed. It must be the righteousness of another, that of Jesus Christ.
But still, what exactly is the righteousness that is imputed to the believer? This is where I was challenged.
Historically, Christ's righteousness has been placed within two categories: (1) Christ's Active Obedience and (2) Christ's Passive Obedience. Active Obedience refers to his keeping of the whole law. Passive Obedience refers to the death of Christ. This leads us into the next question my challenger asked me: Why are both the Active AND Passive Obedience of Christ imputed, and not just his Passive Obedience?
I will argue that a unified righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer. This means that both his obedience in life and death are imputed as righteousness.
The fulness of Christ's righteousness is expressed in his life and death, as Paul wrote in the Carmen Christi:
Philippians 2:7-8: "7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
My challenger then pointed out that Christ's death made atonement for sinners. After all, sinners need the forgiveness of the guilt of their sins. This is true. But my question to this challenger was: what positive righteousness do you have to present to God? The challenger did not have a sufficient answer to my question. Thankfully, the Bible is clear on this issue: we have the Active Obedience of Christ's perfect fulfillment of the law imputed to us. This is our positive righteousness, which is seen in Paul's insightful comments found in Romans 5:17-19:
"17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. 18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. 19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous."
Verse 17 and 18 refer to the failure of Adam to keep the Covenant of Works. This resulted in the Fall, and the imputation of Adam's sin to all his posterity; as you well know that all men are born sinful by nature. Christ, on the other hand, kept the divine law perfectly. It is this one act of righteousness performed by the last Adam (Jesus Christ) that gives us a positive righteousness before God.
Sinners need the unified righteousness of Christ imputed to them for salvation to be possible.
If I might take a slight detour to respond to an objection I hear on a regular basis: "But Case, aren't you splitting hairs here? I mean, if your "challenger" denies that Christ's Active Obedience is imputed to Christians, so what? At least he believes in the imputation of Christ's Passive Obedience. Isn't that good enough?" My response: This isn't splitting hairs at all. I am trying to honor the Biblical understanding of our foundation of our justification before God. Imputation is at the heart of justification, by the way. And if imputation is the heart of justification, and justification is the heart of the Gospel, then I believe we ought to take seriously the doctrine of imputation. Furthermore, I find great joy in this Biblical truth! I mean, when you wake up in the morning, and you don't feel the terror of the wrath of God abiding against you, why is that? Well, for the believer in Jesus Christ, he knows that his salvation is secure because he is covered by the righteousness of the Son of God. As Christian people, we ought to rejoice over this glorious teaching found throughout the Scriptures. I hope you can rejoice with me.
For further study on this important doctrine, I wanna recommend two books that every Christian should read:
(1) Counted Righteous in Christ by John Piper
(2) The God Who Justifies by James R. White
An excerpt from my favorite hymn:
"When he shall come with trumpet sound,
O may I then in him be found,
Dressed in his righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne."
(Mote, Edward. "The Solid Rock.").
2 Corinthians 5:21: "21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
Counted Righteous in Christ,
Rusty
posted by rustypth @ 3:00 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Dead on, many-nick'ed-one.
Dead on. The only reason the sacrifice was acceptable was because it was perfect. In every way.
Hey cent! Good to hear from you. ... after summer skewl, I hope to hang out more in channel =)
Please consider adding content to:
http://theopedia.com/Imputation
A focus on “the active obedience” of Christ can become a distraction from the death of Christ as that which frees the elect from sin and law and death. I have no big problem saying that Christ’s life of obedience also is imputed. But I am looking for texts, not only for what tradition says.
This question makes me uncomfortable. because Norman Shepherd and federal vision and NT Wright deny the active obedience. But I think the debate about the active obedience being imputed CAN BE a distraction from three big facts. It doesn’t have to be.
1. It CAN BE a distraction from Adam’s sin imputed to humans. Wright does not have any place in his theology for original sin as Adam’s original guilt. Who does? We should be talking about that more.
2. It’s a distraction from the sins of the elect being imputed to Christ. This is the main thing. This is more important even that saying that Christ’s death is only for the elect or saying the Christ’s death is effective to save all for whom He died. This is about justice, about the justifying of God not only the justifying of sinners.
This also makes us think about the difference between the atonement itself and the justification which happens in time when the atonement is imputed to the elect. The atonement and justification are not the same thing.
Of course it’s true that, if God only imputed the sins of the elect to Christ, then Christ only died for the elect. But we need to think not only about Christ’s successful death but also about the justice of Christ’s death.
Focusing on “active obedience” CAN sometimes distract from this. Because lots of folks who are all currently heated up about the “active obedience” almost never talk about Christ’s just death for the elect only. I think of Piper and Sproul and many in the PCA.
To be distracted from the truth that the atonement was only for the elect is also to be distracted from the truth that justification is not conditioned on faith as its preliminary cause. Many of the same folks who fight with NT Wright about faith not being the “active obedience” then turn around and say that God counts faith as the righteousness, and teach that the righteousness is “appropriated” by the condition of faith.
On the one hand, I don’t want to be a distraction by debating “active obedience as vicarious law-keeping” (or by debating if there was a “covenant of works” with Adam.) I want to take sides with these folks against the new perspective.
But on the other hand, most folks on both sides of that debate don’t even believe in Christ’s just death only for the elect. If they did, they would teach it.
3. A focus on doing as the righteousness CAN imply that the death of Christ is not the righteousness. I don’t think active and positive should be split up, not only because the death was active and the obedience passive, but because I want to get away from any idea that the remission of sins is because of the death and that the positive blessing is because of the life.
I see two serious problems with the tradition. 1. The supposed proof texts don’t show vicarious law obedience. They show law obedience. As for ”saved by his life” in Romans 5:10 that’s “saved by his resurrection”.
Problem 2. Which law is being obeyed, which we were supposed to obey? Christ kept the Mosaic law, which none of us were ever under. And more than that, Christ was under unique (only for Him) requirements from God when He became incarnate.
The “new perspective” only wants justification to be about our status and not about the legal record of Christ’s obedience to death (His merits, the righteousness). I don’t think the texts in question (Romans 4, Philippians 3) say that we share only in Christ’s verdict. We share in the obedience that lead to that verdict. Not only the verdict, but the righteousness (the legal value of Christ’s death) was for the elect.
If you don’t want to say that the death of Christ was imputed, since that’s not the exact wording of Scripture, use Romans 6 language and say “placed into the death”. God the Father putting the elect into Christ’s death results in the verdict—–justified, dead to sin, and dead to the law.
Post a Comment
<< Home