I hope the title of this article reveals the importance of the doctrine of imputation. One of the reasons so many conservative evangelicals pushed back on Evangelicals and Catholics Together in 1994. Charles Colson represented evangelicals and Richard John Neuhaus represented. The gospel, however, was watered down. Salvation was declared to be by grace through faith in Christ. But the important word "alone” was left out. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. R. C. Sproul wrote By Faith Alone to correct this biblical error.
Because of the pushback, the evangelicals had their second Evangelicals and Catholics Together meeting called The Gift of Salvation in 1997. James Montgomery Boice was quoted in Christianity Today magazine as stating that GOS “sells out the Reformation” (click to open). Imputation was left out of its statement.
R. C. Sproul declared there needed to be an Evangelicals and Evangelicals Together meeting. The following evangelicals, Packer, Sproul, D.A. Carson, Timothy George, Erwin Lutzer, John Ankerberg, and John Armstrong, produced The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration. Imputation was included in the statement. Affirmation number 12 reads:
We affirm that the doctrine of the imputation (reckoning or counting) both of our sins to Christ and of his righteousness to us, whereby our sins are fully forgiven and we are fully accepted, is essential to the biblical gospel (2 Cor. 5:19–21).
Michael Horton stated that leaving the imputation out of the gospel is like leaving the chocolate chips out of chocolate chip cookies. You may call it chocolate chip cookies, but it is not. There are two grounds for justification: The biblical ground imputation of righteousness based on faith in Christ and the unbiblical ground of the infusion of righteousness based on works.
On what basis did God impute or “put” righteousness on our account?
There are two different answers to this question, depending on whether you are Covenant or Dispensational in your interpretation. This is generally speaking. Some dispensationalists hold to what is more commonly advocated by covenant theologians.
The primary distinction between Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism is the two views concerning Israel.
Covenant Theology generally advocates one people of God so that Israel and the Church are not distinct. Covenant Theology sees the church in the Old Testament and the church replacing Israel in the New Testament.
Dispensationalism holds two people of God and does not equate Israel and the church. Covenant Theology emphasizes the covenant of redemption, works, and grace. Dispensationalists accentuate the dispensations.
The basis of the sufferings of Christ on the cross for the atonement
“The sufferings of Christ in His death have been labeled His passive obedience in classical Protestant theology. This passive obedience stands in contrast to Christ’s active obedience, which refers to the obedience exhibited during His lifetime …. The sufferings of Christ’s life, though real, were not atoning …. Strictly speaking, only the sufferings on the cross were atoning. It was during the three hours of darkness when God laid on Christ the sins of the world that Atonement was being made” (Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology, Colorado Springs: Chariot Victor, 1999, p. 282).
Robert Lightner gave this Old Testament example, “To prove that the Paschal lamb was without blemish, it was confined from the tenth day of the month until the fourteenth (Ex. 12:3, 6 ). During this time, the lamb was not a sacrifice for sin, but this time was needed to demonstrate its qualifications as a sacrifice to be offered.
Christ was the antitype of that Paschal lamb. His life of suffering with all that involved served to prove His eligibility as an offerer and as the offering for sin (Robert Lightner, “The Saviour’s Sufferings in Life” in Bibliotheca Sacra, January 1970).
The basis of the life and death sufferings of Christ for the atonement
“Christ had to live a life of perfect obedience to God in order to earn righteousness for us. He had to obey the law for his whole life on our behalf so that the positive merits of his perfect obedience would be counted [imputed] for us. Sometimes this is called Christ’s ‘active obedience,’ while his suffering and dying for our sins is called his ‘passive obedience.’ Paul says his goal is that he may be found in Christ, ‘not having a righteousness of [his] own, based on the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith’” (Phil. 3:9) (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids: Zonderman, 1994, pp. 571).
Paul, in Philippians 3, warns about the Judiazers who promoted works for salvation (3:1-3). In 3:4-9, Paul contrasts works for salvation through the Law, which he kept as a sinner in 3:4-6, with salvation through faith in Christ’s cross work in 3:7-9. We place our faith in Christ’s death to receive His righteousness. Nothing in this passage speaks about Christ’s life sufferings or His active obedience in His life.
Ryrie mentions the three basic imputations in chapter 37 of Basic Theology. Wayne Grudem also refers to three imputations.
1. The imputation of Adam’s sin to the race in the fall (Rom. 5:12-21).
2. The imputation of man’s sin to Christ on the cross (2 Cor.5:21a; 1 Pet. 2:24).
3. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers at salvation (2 Cor. 5:21b).
Was this imputation based on the life sufferings or death sufferings of Christ? This is a debate today. I will contrast the difference between the Covenantal and Dispensational views in the three imputations.
1. The imputation of Adam’s sin to the race in the fall (Rom. 5:12-21)
Covenant View of the Fall
Representative view
In the Representative view, we did not sin in Adam, but Adam sinned, and God imputed original sin on each sinner because of what our Representative did. This is also referred to as the Federal view: The word “federal” means covenant and indicates that Adam was appointed to represent the race in the so-called Covenant of Works. Because the covenant head sinned, the guilt of his sin was imputed to each of his posterity (Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth, Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition, 258).
“The conclusion to be drawn from these verses is that all members of the human race were represented by Adam in the time of testing in the Garden of Eden. As our representative, Adam sinned, and God counted us guilty as well as Adam” (Grudem, p. 495). In Grudem’s view, God punishes us for someone else’s sin.
Dispensational View of the Fall
Seminal (seed) view
William Shedd espoused this view: The argument is like this: The Seminal view says that because we were in union with Adam when he sinned in the Garden that God is just in punishing each of us with death. “We die because we sinned in Adam” is Paul’s argument in Romans 5:12. “Participation is the ground of merited imputation” of sin to each sinner (William Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 2:29).
An oak tree is in the seed, so we were in Adam when he sinned. We sinned in Adam. The writer of Hebrews makes a similar point with Levi and Abraham in Hebrews 7:9-10: One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.
Here is Ryrie’s explanation: Hebrews 7:9-10 furnishes another example of the seminal or germinal concept in the human race. The writer plainly stated that Levi, though not born until almost two hundred years later, actually paid tithe in his great-grandfather Abraham. The ancestor, Abraham, contained his descendant, Levi. Similarly, our ancestor, Adam, contained all of us, his descendants. There, just as Levi did something in paying the tithe, so we did something in sinning in Adam (Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology, 258).
Here is Thomas Constable’s explanation: In a sense, even Levi himself paid tithes to Melchizedek since he was still in the loins of Abraham when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. In the ancient Near Eastern view of things, people regarded a descendant as in one sense participating in the actions of his ancestors (Gen. 25:23; Mal. 1:2-3; Rom. 9:11-13). This is true to reality in certain respects (cf. Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 15:22), though we are responsible for our own actions too (Ezek. 18:20). Levi, the head of the priestly tribe in Israel, had not yet begun his independent existence, but he was involved in everything that Abraham did [234].
When Achan stole, God said, “Israel has sinned” (Josh 7:11). Michael Horton observed, “Just as the sin of Adam was imputed to the human race” in the Old Testament we see “the notion of imputing the sin of one person to each Israelite and thus to the nation” (page 633). Another example is Levi who lived 200 years after Abraham but paid tithes in Abraham to Melchizedek according to Hebrews 7:9, 10.
Proof that we sinned in Adam is the death of infants between Adam and Moses. Infants died because they sinned according to Romans 5:12. How did infants sin? Infants did not personally sin.
John Piper, in his book Counted Righteous In Christ, wrote: “Infants died. They could not read the law in their hearts and choose to obey or disobey it. Yet they died. Why? Paul’s answer in the context would be: the sin of Adam and the imputation of that sin to the human race” (page 96). Infants die like all people die because they sinned in Adam.
Covenantal View of the inheritance of sin
Origin of souls (Creationism)
How do we explain that all are born sinners? Grudem advocates creationism of souls at conception based on his Representative view: Because we did not sin in Adam, God creates each soul depraved. “God gives each child a human soul that has tendencies to sin” (Grudem, p. 485).
Dispensational View of the inheritance of sin
Traducianism
Traducianism means inheritance. The soul is inherited from the parents is based on the Seminal view that teaches all sinners participated in Adam’s sin and also affirms that sinful souls are inherited from parents because we sinned in Adam. “In sin did my mother conceive me” (Psa 51:5), David admitted in his confession.
2. The imputation of man’s sin to Christ on the cross (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet: 2:24)
Covenantal View
Christ was our Representative on the cross. “God regards the human race as an organic whole, a unity, represented by Adam as its head. And God also thinks of the race of Christians, those who are redeemed by Christ, as an organic whole, a unity represented by Christ as head of his people (Grudem, p. 496). Because Adam was our Representative in the Fall, Christ was our Representative in his death. We did not participate in either.
Dispensational View
Paul says that “God made Christ sin” in 2 Corinthians 5:21. Just as the imputation of Adam’s sin to mankind was not personal, neither is the imputation of our sins to Christ. Christ did not become sinful on the cross.
The wages of sin is death. What we earned through sinning, God deposited into the account of Christ in heaven. When God looked at His Son’s record as He hung on the cross, at that moment He saw, not His Son’s righteousness but our sin. That is when He judged Him in our place. That is when Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled: “He was wounded for our transgressions….” (Isa 53:5).
We were in union with Christ in His death on the cross, just as we were in union with Adam in his death, based on the Seminal view of the fall.
A. H. Strong wrote, “We should not permit our use of the term ‘imputation’ to be hindered by the fact that certain schools of theology, notably the Federal school, have attached to it an arbitrary meaning --- holding that God imputes sin to men, not because they are Sinners, but upon the ground of a legal fiction [a belief that is fictional] whereby Adam, without their consent, was made their representative. We shall see, on the contrary, that
(1) in the case of Adam’s sin imputed to us
(2) in the case of our sins imputed to Christ, and
(3) in the case of Christ’s righteousness imputed to the believer, there is always a realistic basis for the imputation, namely, a real union (A. H. Strong, p. 594). According to Romans, we died with Christ on the cross. 6:6. Also, in 2 Tim. 2:11, Paul wrote of our union with Christ in his death, “For if we died with him, we shall also live with him”. That is also called the Realistic or Augustinian view because the imputation of sin is based on something real i.e., we sinned in Adam (Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth, Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition, 258).
3. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers at salvation
Covenant View
Christ’s active obedience or life sufferings means that the righteousness of Christ, who perfectly kept the Law, is imputed to believers.
Christ’s passive obedience or death sufferings means that the sins of believers are pardoned by Christ, who suffered the penalty of the broken law on the cross. This is the ground of justification.
In a YouTube lecture on imputation, R. C. Sproul also defines what he calls Double Imputation. In double imputation, our sins are imputed to Christ on the cross, which is true. But the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us at salvation, Sproul says, “He would not have unless He lived a life of perfect obedience. His life of perfect obedience is just as necessary to our salvation as his perfect atonement on the cross.”
Dispensational View
Only Christ’s death sufferings are vicarious.
The life sufferings of Christ are called the Active Obedience of Christ. Christ was obedient in life.
The death sufferings of Christ are called the Passive Obedience of Christ. Christ was obedient in death. Reformed or Covenant Theologians like Reymond, Berkhof, and Grudem believe that the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to believers was based on Christ’s obedience and life sufferings.
“By the former (Active Obedience), he made available a perfect righteousness before the law that is imputed to those who put their trust in him. By the latter (Penal or Passive Obedience) he bore in himself by legal imputation the penalty due to his people for their sin. His perceptive [active] and his penal [passive] obedience, then, particularly as the latter [passive obedience or sufferings on the cross] came to expression in his cross work, is the ground of God’s justification of sinners, by which divine act they are pardoned” (Robert Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 631).
Summary of the Covenant view: Active Obedience of Christ’s life imputes His righteousness to us. Passive Obedience of Christ’s death pardons our sins.
The Dispensational View sees only the death sufferings [passive obedience] as the basis of imputed righteousness. Ryrie concisely states, “Only the sufferings on the cross were atoning” (Basic Theology, 325).
The imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers is based on Rom. 5:18, 19 and especially one phrase from verse 18: di henos dikaiomatos or as NKJV translates: “through one man’s righteous act.” The one righteous act referred to is the death or sufferings of Christ on the cross, which imputed Christ’s righteousness to believers, i.e., the Passive Obedience of Christ.
This is in contrast to the condemnation imputed to sinners “through one transgression” (NET) or the one act of disobedience of Adam in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:6). Just as the imputation of sin to the sinner is not based on a life of sin committed by Adam, the imputation of sin was based on the one act of disobedience by Adam. In other words, the imputation of righteousness to believing sinners is based on the sufferings of Christ in His one act of death not the sufferings of Christ in His life.
Does di henos dikaiomatos mean “through one righteous act,” i.e., the death of Christ?
The Dispensational View
ESV translates “so one act of righteousness.”
NKJV translates as “through one man’s righteous act”
NET translates “through the one righteous act”
ASV translates “through one act of righteousness”
NIV translates “so one Man’s act of righteousness”
Does di henos dikaiomatos mean “through the righteousness of one,” i.e., the life and death of Christ?
The Covenant View
Covenant Theologian Charles Hodge translates “through the righteousness [the righteous life] of one” and explains why all of the translations which stress the one righteous act of Christ in his death, are impossible:
“It is inappropriate, in as much as we are not justified by one act of Christ, but by his whole life of obedience and suffering” (Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistles to the Romans, pages 173, 174). In other words, they are incorrect because the other translations do not fit my theology.
Covenant Theologians say the Representative view of the imputation of sin to sinners better explains the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believing sinners than the Seminal view.
The argument goes like this: In the Representative view, we did not sin in Adam, but Adam sinned and God imputed original sin to each sinner because of what our Representative did. Likewise, we did not do any righteous act in Christ on the cross to merit imputed righteousness. Because Christ is our Representative on the cross, like Adam was our Representative in the Garden, God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us based on what Christ did, not what we did in Him on the cross (Grudem, pages 494, 495).
Scripture does not make this logical connection. Just because something is logical in a system of theology does not mean it is biblical. Limited atonement is logical in the system of strict Calvinism; Christ died for the elect, but the Scriptures do not teach that Christ died only for the elect: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16). Also see “the whole world” in 1 John 2:1 and 5:19.
So, the doctrine of the imputation of sin to sinners is related to the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believing sinners.
The Seminal view says that because we were in union with Adam when he sinned in the Garden, that God is just in punishing each of us with death. “We die because we sinned in Adam” is Paul’s argument in Rom. 5:12.
We not only sinned in Adam and therefore die, but we also were in union with Christ in that we died with Him and therefore we live as the Scriptures teach: “Our old man was crucified with Christ” (Rom. 6:6). “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live” (Gal. 2:20).
Here is the glorious result of the imputation of God’s righteousness to our account. According to Paul in Romans 4:8, because the righteousness of Christ has been put on our account, sin can not be put on the same account: “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”
“It seems that there was a man in England who put his Rolls-Royce on a boat and went across to the Continent to go on a holiday. While he was driving around Europe, something happened to the motor of his car. He cabled the Rolls-Royce people back in England and asked, “I’m having trouble with my car; what do you suggest I do?” Well, the Rolls-Royce people flew a mechanic over! The mechanic repaired the car and flew back to England and left the man to continue his holiday. As you can imagine, the fellow was wondering, “How much is this going to cost me?” So when he got back to England, he wrote the people a letter and asked how much he owed them. He received a letter from the office that read: “Dear Sir: There is no record anywhere in our files that anything ever went wrong with a Rolls-Royce” (Wiersbe, Key Words of the Christian Life, 16). Sin was imputed to each of us because we have sinned in Adam. Our sin was imputed to Christ on the cross, and His righteousness was imputed to us at salvation; therefore, no sin can be put on our record. There is no record anywhere in Heaven that any believer ever sinned.