Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about what the early Christians believed concerning the doctrine of imputation or imputed righteousness. Although this message tonight can stand alone, it's really part two of the message what the early Christians believed about the Atonement. And that's because the whole doctrine of imputation is intrinsically tied to the satisfaction model of the Atonement. Now let's define some terms.
My dictionary defines impute as to attribute to someone to charge with to ascribe. If you impute a crime against someone, it means you're charging them with that crime. Now, I want to read to you what the conservative evangelical reference work, the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, what it says concerning the doctrine of imputation. It says," The term imputation has been used in theology in a three-fold sense to denote the judicial acts of God by which the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to his posterity.
That's number one. Number two, by which the sins of Christ's people are imputed to Him, and three, by which the righteousness of Christ is imputed to His people. And then it says the act of imputation is precisely the same in each case. Now the theological doctrine of imputation uses the word impute to mean to credit to one's account.
Now, as the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, which I'll just be referring to as the Encyclopedia tonight, but you'll understand what I'm referring to, it mentions there's three parts to this overall dogma or doctrine of imputation. The first part is that the guilt and penalty of Adam's sin is imputed to all of his posterity. Number two, mankind's sin was imputed to Jesus Christ. So he was punished for mankind instead of all of us being punished.
Number three, then Christ's righteousness is imputed to all believers, so that in the ledgers of heaven, we believers are credited as being righteous even though we actually are not. Now let's see what the early Christians believed about each of these three parts, taking them one at a time. And more importantly, let's look at what light the Scriptures shed on this whole subject. But there's one thing I want to say before we begin. As most of you know, my formal university training was in law.
And one of the things you learn in law school is how to read something for what it precisely says without introducing subjective interpretations. Now, at first glance, that may sound easy enough, but the truth is that it's our nature to read things into written documents, things that are actually not there, but we infer. I remember one of our law school exams. Very unlike what you might picture a law school exam. You may think it's a lot of memorizing laws and that. And there's a measure of that.
But for the most part, our exams tested how well we could think and analyze, not how much law we had memorized. And I remember this one final exam. I think there were only a couple of questions on it, but the first question was a whole page long. And it just gave a scenario. A man who owned a good bit of land was one morning out riding on his horse across his lands. And he came into an area that was rather boggy. And there he noticed a dead body. And I forget the other details of the scene that was sketched there.
But the final part of it was," You have a law office. This man has now come to you, to your law office. What are you going to tell him?" Well, students went off in all kinds of different directions on this. But what the professor was looking for was how well we could just read the facts without reading anything into it. Most people immediately read into it that there was a dead human there, this dead body he found. But the paragraph just said there was a dead body. Maybe it was a dead fish, a dead animal.
You don't know. And so really, the right answer to the question was a list of all the questions you would have to ask this client before you could give any advice. But people were giving all kinds of advice based on drawing inferences from what was said, rather than looking at precisely what it said, not adding anything to it, not taking away from it. Well, I think that's a good way to read the Bible, to just look at what it actually says and take its literal exact meaning in most situations.
I realize there are symbolic passages in Scripture, but as a general method of reading the Scriptures, look at what it says, don't take anything from it, and don't start reading things into it that aren't there. In fact, this evening, I want to turn all of you temporarily into title attorneys. Now, the type of law that I practiced for over 20 years was nearly all title law.
And in that, that's all you do is sit and read documents and interpret them for what they say, not for what you think the grantor and the deed or the grantee meant to say, but what did they actually say? And then you come up with a list of issues and problems at the end of it that need to be clarified before your client needs to buy this land.
So we're going to be looking at Bible passages tonight and I want you to practice reading them objectively, not reading anything into them that's not there and not taking away what is actually there. Now, as I said, the first section of this imputation doctrine is Adam's sin, that is the guilt and the penalty both of his sin being imputed to his posterity. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says this about this first leg of the doctrine.
It says the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity is implied in the account of the fall in Genesis 2 and 3, taken in connection with the subsequent history of the human race. Now the encyclopedia there, the passage I just read, uses a fudge word. Did you catch what it was? It's the word implied. It says," The doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity is implied in the account of the fall" in Genesis chapters 2 and 3.
Now theologians so often will use that word implied to make it sound like the Bible is saying something when in reality it's not there at all. Now my dictionary defines imply as to indicate indirectly or by allusion, to hint, to suggest. So there is a legitimate use of the word imply. For example, imagine this scenario. I used to work as an attorney for an oil company.
And let's say one day at the staff meeting, the treasurer gets up and says," Last night, somebody came into my office and took the money out of the petty cash box. It was $300 that was taken, okay? And then he says," Now only two people had a key to my office, me and our attorney, David Bercot. And the Night Watchman said that he saw David Bercot out here late last night after everyone had left. And I noticed, David, that you're wearing a brand new Seiko watch this morning. Now see what would be happening there?
Without directly saying," David, I think you stole the $300," he's implying it. He's suggesting it. He's hinting at it, isn't he? Okay? There is a legitimate use of the word. But when a passage says nothing like that to say it implies something, it's not being honest. Let's just look at Genesis chapter 2 and 3 and see if those chapters truly imply that Adam's sin would be imputed to his posterity.
That is, let's see if those chapters hint or suggest something that would make us think that His posterity would be guilty along with He Himself and Eve.
Now, Genesis chapter 2, the only passage in there that would even have any light on it is verses 16 and 17, where it says," And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,' Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." Now, is there anything in there that suggests that his posterity would be punished as well, that they would share his guilt? None whatsoever is there.
So we can't say that that chapter implies it because there's no reference at all. All right. What about chapter 3? We'll read verses 16 through 19. It's the only ones I can find that would have any bearing again, where God pronounces judgment. Upon Adam and Eve. It says to the woman, he said," I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain, you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." Then to Adam He said," Because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground for your sake in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field, and the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you are taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return." Is there anything in there that mentions Adam's posterity, that says anything about his children? Nothing whatsoever. They're not mentioned. Is there a hint? Is there a suggestion? There's not even a hint, is there?
Now, if I practiced title law like that, if I took a document like that and said," Well, now it implies you know blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I mean, I would be fired. Nobody would use me as a title lawyer if I did that. Why do we think it's okay to do that with God's Word that would not be acceptable in the world of humans? I mean, does God require less exactness, less honesty from us than man does? I don't think so.
All right, let's go back to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia and see what it says in proof of this statement it's made. It says," It is true that the threat of punishment to Adam in case of disobedience was made to him alone, and that the penalties threatened are said to have come only upon him and Eve." Well, yeah, I guess so. Okay. See, first, it makes a statement that it's implied, and it says," Well, no, actually, it doesn't say that." Okay?
But nevertheless, it says," It is clear from the account of the subsequent history of the race that it actually shared, that is, the human race, in the punishments inflicted upon Adam, and that this was in consequence of his sin." This is another fudged word that I see a lot in theological writing, and that's the phrase," It is clear." I mean, that should be a term of precision when we say it is clear. But this encyclopedia can give no Old Testament references to what is just said is clear. Really?
It's clear in the Old Testament that everybody else shared in Adam's guilt, that everybody else was punished because of what Adam and Eve did? Now, I think we could say, honestly, the history of the Old Testament shows that everybody was affected somehow by Adam's sin. Either that or they all individually went down the same path. But to say that his sin was imputed to them, nor does it say that in the Old Testament.
So to make the statement that it is clear is just simply spiritually dishonest, but it's not limited to this work. I see it all of the time. In fact, it was this sort of thing that I saw when I was a Jehovah's Witness and began doing some investigation. And the conclusion I came to after a number of months of digging back and reading the older books and issues of the Watchtower that were put out by Jehovah's Witnesses was that when it said it was clear, what it really meant was there's only slight evidence.
And then when it said that there's incontrovertible evidence, that usually meant there's virtually no evidence at all, but maybe there's a slight possibility. So everybody plays that game. It's not limited to this encyclopedia by any means. But now if you do want to talk about something that is truly clear in the Old Testament, let me read to you Ezekiel 18:20. It says," The soul who sins shall die. The Son shall not bear the guilt of the Father, nor the Father bear the guilt of the Son.
The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." It would seem like that verse alone would pretty well refute the whole doctrine of Adam's sin and his guilt being imputed to his offspring. Now back to our trusty encyclopedia.
It says," This implies that in Genesis 2:16, that's the passage where it says," If you eat of it, the day you eat of it, you shall die, are contained the terms of a covenant in which Adam acted as the representative of the race," meaning the human race. If, therefore, the race shares in the penalty of Adam's sin, it must also share in his guilt or the judicial obligation to suffer punishment.
And this is precisely what the theology of the entire Christian Church has meant by saying that the guilt of Adam's sin was imputed to his posterity. All of this sounds so authoritative. I mean, it's very intimidating to the average layperson. You read this and think," Well, this is just fact. This is just what the church has always believed." But it's not. I noticed first off, did you the fudge word?
This implies," Well, it implies no such thing to tell someone the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." Now, how does that imply that your posterity are going to die as well? There's no implication there whatsoever. And the writer here uses another less than honest expression saying that this is the theology of the entire Christian church.
You know I've seen that so many times when people don't have a very strong leg to stand on, there's not a lot of scriptural evidence for their theological position, then they'll say," Oh, well, this is what Christians have always believed." Oh, the whole church believes that. That's one reason. Years ago, I went back and began reading the early Christian writings because I'd heard that so much said about things that it did not seem to me the Scriptures were saying that.
And yet, I didn't want to be one of these mavericks. You know I'm going to read the Scriptures and what it means to me, then that must be what it means. And I don't have to regard what the rest of the church has ever thought. Because I do believe it is important what the historic teachings are that were handed down to the church. And that's why I began reading the early Christian writings.
And what I found was that in so many instances where reference works and Bible teachers and books and preachers and things like that will say," Well, this is either the historic Christian faith," or," This is what Christians have always believed," or that sort of thing. In fact, it isn't. It is not what Christians originally believed. It's not the historic faith. You can usually point to the theologian who first began teaching it.
Like last night we were talking about Anselm and the satisfaction theory or model of the atonement. I know for a fact the early Christians certainly did not believe that the guilt and penalty of Adam's sin was imputed to his posterity. Now what we saw last night was they believed that mankind did inherit a mortal nature death from Adam and a corrupted or fallen nature that leads us to sin as well. And that because of what Adam and Eve did, they brought all of us into bondage under Satan.
So yes, we all are affected by Adam's sin, but to say that his guilt was imputed to everybody, none of them taught that, or that we are punished because of what he did, not because of what we do. Justin Martyr wrote," The human race from Adam had fallen under the power of death and the guile of the serpent. Each one had committed personal transgression." Okay, we fall under the power of death because we commit personal transgression. Volume 1, page 243, where you can find that in the ante-Nicene Fathers.
Volume 2, page 573, we have a quote from Clement of Alexandria, where he said," He says," Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain. For so also, we lie under Adam's sin because of similarity of sin." He's saying," We do the very same thing Adam and Eve did." And so we become sharers in the same punishment because of what we do.
But like I say, I have not found any early Christian writers to say that His guilt is imputed to us, that we die because of His wickedness, which would be directly contrary to what we just read there in Ezekiel. Okay, back to our trusty encyclopedia. It says," The universality of sin and death is not brought into connection with the fall of Adam by the other Old Testament writers." Well, I'll just interject there. You haven't shown where any of them do it.
And yet, after making, well, it's implied and all that, you say," Oh, well, no one else says anything about it." You haven't shown anyone who said anything about it in the first place, but I'll continue on. This is done, however, by Paul. In 1 Corinthians 15:21 and 22, Paul says that the death of all people has its cause in the man Adam in the same way in which the resurrection from the dead has its cause in the man Christ. All right, let's read 1 Corinthians 15:21 and 22, and let's see what it says.
It says," Since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. Okay, let's play the title lawyer again. Do those verses there in 1 Corinthians 15 say that the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed or transferred to his offspring? Do those verses say that? Not a word to that effect. They say that death entered the world through Adam. This is exactly what the early Christians taught.
We inherit death from him, mortality from him, and also corruption, which Paul doesn't even mention here. Nothing about inheriting Adam's guilt or his sin being imputed to us. It's not there. Let's look at another verse that's commonly quoted as supporting the doctrine of imputation. Romans 5:12 through 14, which says," Just as through one man, sin entered the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned.
For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. All right, does that passage say anything at all about Adam's guilt being imputed to others? No, it does not. Now it says there's a reason why death has spread to all men. And what is that reason? I'm going to read it.
It says," And thus death spread to all men because all sinned." See, he didn't say because Adam had sinned, because we inherited his penalty or his guilt, it says," Because all of us sinned as well." Now, this passage does contain the word" impute." But what does it say? It says," But sin is not imputed when there is no law." In other words, no one is charged with being a sinner if there was no law that they've transgressed.
Of course, as Paul shows in another part of Romans, there is a natural law that is embedded in our conscience. But that would, to me, flatly contradict this allegation that Adam's sin is imputed to everybody else. Else, how could he say, but sin is not imputed when there's no law? I'll read to you a couple of quotes from the early Christians on this subject before we move to the second phase of the imputation doctrine.
Tertullian wrote," In the beginning, the corrupting and God-opposing angel overthrew the virtue of man, the work and image of God, the possessor of the earth." So Satan has entirely changed man's nature into his own state of wicked enmity against his maker. For it was created like his own for perfect sinlessness. Satan did this so that he could make man guilty in God's eyes and set up his own supremacy. It's in volume 3 page 80. He's saying it's Satan who's got us in this mess.
He used Adam, but he's certainly not understanding Adam's guilt is transferred to us. It's rather we've come into the same bondage as a result of what they did. Methodius wrote," For I know that in me, that is in my flesh no good thing dwells," he's quoting there from Paul. Now Mantonia says," And this is rightly said, for remember how it has been already shown that from the time when man went astray and disobeyed the law, from then on sin dwelled in him, it received its birth from his disobedience.
As a result, a commotion was stirred up. We were filled with agitations and foreign imaginations. We were emptied of the divine inspiration and filled with carnal desires, which the cunning serpent infused into us. For that reason, God invented death for our sakes that He might destroy sin. Otherwise, if we were immortal and sin rose up in us, sin would be immortal as well.
So again, the early Christians do not deny that there is a fall, that we are affected by Adam's sin, but they do not teach that His guilt and penalty was imputed to us that God punishes us for what somebody else did. No, we died because of our own unrighteousness. As we previously said, the second part of the doctrine of imputation is that mankind's sin was then imputed to Jesus Christ. I'm going to read to you again from this encyclopedia.
It says," That our sins are imputed to Christ is not expressly stated in the Scripture, but is implied catch that word? Is implied in those passages which affirm that Christ bore our sins and that our iniquities were laid upon Him by the Lord.
When therefore the servant of the Lord in Isaiah 53 is said to bear iniquity or that the chastisement of our peace was upon Him or that the Lord has laid or literally caused to fall on Him the iniquity of us all, the idea expressed is that Christ bore the punishment of our sin vicariously, its guilt having been imputed to Him. Well, let's read that passage in Isaiah and see what it actually says.
Now I'm going to be reading from the Septuagint, which is the Old Testament that the apostles virtually always quote from, and it's also the Old Testament that the early Christians quote from. But the rendering of the Septuagint in this passage is not very different from the King James Version. It says," He bears our sins and is paying for us. Yet we accounted him to be in trouble and in suffering and in affliction. But he was wounded on account of our sins and was bruised because of our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And by his bruises we were healed, King James would say by his stripes." All we as sheep have gone astray, everyone has gone astray in his way, and the Lord gave him up for our sins." That's Isaiah 53:4-6. Okay, let's put on our title lawyer hat again. Does Isaiah say that the guilt of mankind was imputed to Jesus? No, it does not say that, does it? Does he even use the word guilt? No, he doesn't even use it. Does he use the word impute? No.
The word doesn't even appear there. What exactly does he say? What he says is he bears our sins. He was wounded on account of our sins. He was bruised because of our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. By his bruises or stripes, we were healed, and the Lord gave him up for our sins." Now, is it possible that those expressions mean that the guilt of mankind's sin was imputed to Christ and that God punished him in our place?
Yes, I think you could reasonably interpret that passage that way, particularly if you're not looking at anything else in Scripture just in that passage. I think that's a reasonable theory. But to elevate a theory to a dogma that this is the Christian faith, well, that's what I have a problem with. Now, is there another way to interpret that passage? Yes, there is.
We talked about it last night, that the early Christians understood this to mean that Jesus gave up his life as a ransom to Satan, to the forces of darkness, that he bore the punishment for us, not from God, not from the Father, that the Father was punishing him, but that Satan was, that the penalty that we should have paid because we had indebted ourselves to Satan, we had become slaves to sin, and slaves to the master of sin, Satan himself. And so on our account, he was wounded.
He bore the burden of our sins that we should have borne. Out of love, he did this for us. And the Father worked with Him in this. It broke the Father's heart to see His own Son suffer. But He gave him up to this because He loved us as well. Isaiah does not imply that our guilt was put upon Jesus and that the Father punished Him in our place. We can infer that. We can come up with a model or theory that that's what this verse means, but it's not the only way to be read.
I find the early Christian understanding to be a lot more in harmony with what I see in Scripture about a loving God. Now I want to move to the third section of the doctrine of imputation, and that is the righteousness of Jesus being imputed to believers. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says this, concerning this doctrine of imputation of Jesus' righteousness.
It is not meant that Christ's people are made personally holy or inwardly righteous by the imputation of His righteousness to them, but that His righteousness is set to their account so that they are entitled to all the rewards of that perfect righteousness. In other words, it's a bookkeeping transaction in heaven. His righteousness is transferred in the ledgers of heaven to us so we get its benefits without being personally holy. All right, where's the proof for that statement?
Well, this is what the encyclopedia says." The righteousness upon the ground of which God justifies the ungodly is according to Paul witnessed to in the Old Testament. The nature of this covering by the vicarious bearing of the penalty of sin is made clear in Isaiah 53. It is moreover the teaching of the Old Testament that the righteousness which God demands is not to be found among people. That's quite a statement. The righteousness which God demands is not to be found among people according to the Old Testament.
After reading that, I did a computer word search under the word righteous. And I found more than 100 Old Testament references to humans being righteous. I'm going to just read to you a handful of these quotes. Genesis 7:1," Then the Lord said to Noah," Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation." Exodus 23:7," Keep yourself far from a false matter. Do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked.
How could you kill the righteous if they didn't exist?" Psalm 11:5," The Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence his soul hates." Psalm 33:1," Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous.
For praise from the upright is beautiful." Psalm 34:15," The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry." Psalm 37:16," A little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked." Psalm 37:25:" I have been young and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread." Psalm 37:30," The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom, and his tongue talks of justice." Psalm 146:8," The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord raises those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous." Proverbs 10:3," The Lord will not allow the righteous soul to famish, but he casts away the desire of the wicked." Proverbs 10:11," The mouth of the righteous is a well of life, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked." Proverbs 10:16," The labor of the righteous leads to life, the wages of the wicked, to sin." Well, I could go on and on.
Let me just read one or two more, Ezekiel 3:20," When a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you did not give him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness, which he has done, shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand." Nevertheless, in verse 21," If you warn the righteous man that the righteous should not sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live because he took warning.
Also, you will have delivered your soul." In the passage we saw in Ezekiel 18:20 earlier, where it says," The Son shall not bear the guilt of the Father, nor the Father bear the guilt of the Son." It goes on to say," The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself." These are just a handful of examples. As I said, I counted over 100 references in the Old Testament talking about righteous or righteousness involving humans.
But that was just under that expression. There are other words the Old Testament uses, such as blameless. Job 1:7 says," The Lord said to Satan,' Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil." So how could this encyclopedia possibly say that the Old Testament teaches that the righteousness which God demands is not to be found among people? Anyone reading the Old Testament would come to just the opposite conclusion.
Now, against all of those verses, supporters of the imputation doctrine, Augustine and later Luther, they put forth one or two Old Testament verses, which supposedly cancel out all of these other verses that we've just read. But the one that's most notable because Luther mated that is Isaiah 64:6, where it says," But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags." I'm sure you've heard that verse quoted many times. I know I have.
But let me ask you, who is the speaker there in Isaiah 64:6? Who is the one who says that? If you look it up, you'll see that the speaker is not God. It's Isaiah. It's part of a prayer of penitence that Isaiah was making on behalf of the unfaithful Israelites. And it follows the typical form that the penitential prayers of the Israelites were modeled after. When they petitioned God for mercy, they invariably amplify their wrongs and magnify their smallness in comparison to the greatness of the Lord.
And so we have to read it in its context. I so often hear people quote Isaiah 64:6, and they say that God says that all your righteous works are nothing to Him but filthy rags. But God has never made a statement like that. If that's how he truly felt, how could he have made the statement to Satan about Job that we just read? The New Testament writers never quote Isaiah 64:6 at all. And the early Christians never understood that passage to be a statement of how God views righteous deeds of humans.
Instead, what really happened is that Luther built a whole theological system on that one verse and a handful of verses like it, while ignoring literally hundreds of other verses that show that God did consider men and women of old to be righteous. In my book, that's a poor way to rightfully divide the Word. It's simply not spiritually honest. Now obviously, in an absolute sense, none of us are righteous. Paul said that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
John tells us that if anyone claims that they have never sinned, that that man is a liar. So no one is righteous in an absolute sense. But God in His loving-kindness has always considered His faithful ones who have walked obediently, not perfectly, but have walked in an obedient faith. He's always viewed them as righteous. And that's the true biblical sense of imputation that He will treat us as righteous, even though His perfection could demand perfection of us, which we would not be able to meet.
We've looked at a lot of Old Testament passages that would demonstrate that God does view His faithful servants as righteous. But did all that change with the coming of Jesus? Not at all. Right at the beginning of Luke, we read Luke 1:5 and 6. It says," There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. So Zacharias and Elizabeth are called righteous, blameless, walking in all the commandments. And this is before Christ died. And so Luke is not talking about Christ's righteousness having been imputed to them. So the New Testament writers don't have a different perspective than the Old Testament ones. Matthew 13:7, this is Jesus speaking.
He says," For assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it." Matthew 23:35, again, Jesus is speaking. He says," That on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar." And you can go through the New Testament under the word" righteous" and you'll see other examples as well. But what about Paul?
All right, let's look now at what Paul says. The passage that is usually quoted as the foundation piece of the doctrine of imputation is Romans 4:5 through 8. Let's read that. Paul said," But to Him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.
In quoting from David, it says," Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin." Okay, that's the passage. Now, the International Bible Encyclopedia says this about that.
It says," This idea is taken up by Paul who makes explicit the way in which this righteousness comes to sinners and who puts the idea of imputed righteousness at the basis of his doctrine of justification." By the righteousness of Christ, Paul means Christ's legal status or the merit acquired by all that he did in satisfying the demands of God's law, including what has been called his active and passive obedience. Okay, let's look at this again as title lawyers.
The encyclopedia makes the assertion by the righteousness of Christ, Paul means Christ's legal status or the merit acquired by all that he did. Does Paul say that anywhere in there? I mean, you can read all the verses before there and all the verses after that passage. You're not going to see that anywhere expressed. He says nothing of the sort. All right, let's look at the passage in Psalms that Paul is quoting from.
He was quoting from Psalm 32:1 and 2, which says," Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin, and in whose mouth there is no guile." Now, if we use the word impute to mean this business of transferring debits and credits in heaven, we run into a real problem with what the Psalmist says here.
For he says," Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." I mean, is he suggesting that God sticks us with sin even when we haven't committed it? That he just picks people out and says," Oh, I'm going to impute sin to that person even though he's not guilty of it." Is that what we think the Psalmist is saying? And please don't argue that he's talking about imputing the sin of Adam because the Psalmist is saying that some people don't have it imputed to them, while others do.
Otherwise, how could he say," Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin?" The Psalmist is using the word impute in its natural sense. Blessed is the man whose sin is not taken into account, whose sin is not attributed to him. And why is it not attributed? The Psalmist explains, because his sin has been forgiven. He doesn't say because God has received satisfaction for his sin from a third party, but rather blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven.
Our International Standard Bible Encyclopedia continues, saying," The truth is explicitly affirmed by Paul who speaks of God's imputing righteousness without works and of righteousness being imputed." The idea of the imputation of righteousness here is made clear by the context. Okay, it says it's made clear by the context what Paul is talking about, that he's talking about this doctrine that we've been explaining or discussing the doctrine of imputed righteousness. Let's look at that context.
That was Romans 4, verses 9 through 12. There, Paul, he just finished talking about Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. We read," Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only or upon the uncircumcised also?" For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it accounted while he was circumcised or uncircumcised?
Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had while still uncircumcised, that He might be the Father of all those who believe. Though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also. And the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our Father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.
So what's the context of this passage here where Paul talks about imputing sin and imputed righteousness? Paul is expressly talking about being declared righteous apart from circumcision. He says it so explicitly. And just reading the other books of the New Testament, particularly Acts and the other letters of Paul, we see that this was a raging issue. Do the Gentiles have to be circumcised? And so when he talks about works, he's talking about circumcision.
To take that passage and say that he's talking about living a godly life is simply twisting Scripture. He uses Abraham as an example. Was Abraham an ungodly person? Not at all. He was a man who walked obediently, who did what God told him to do. He left his home in Ur of Chaldea, a civilized place, and he traveled to a far distant land, lived in tents, spent his life as a sojourner, in obedience to God, was willing to offer up his own son as a sacrifice to God?
Paul's point is that he was declared righteous by God before he was circumcised. So circumcision is not what brings on righteousness. In fact, when you read the rest of Romans and when you read the rest of Paul's letters, you'll find that when he talks about our being declared righteous apart from works, it is always in the context of the works of the Mosaic Law or the work of circumcision.
In contrast, when he discusses the commandments of Christ, he never says that obedience to Christ's commandments do not affect our salvation. To the contrary, we have passages like 1 Corinthians 6:9 through 11, which says," Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God. All right, let's look at what Paul said there in that passage. He says," There is such a thing as the unrighteous in contrast to the righteous." Because he said," Don't you know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom?" And who are those unrighteous that he's speaking of?
Does he talk about those who have not had Christ's righteousness transferred to them in the books of heaven? Is that what he's talking about, the unrighteous? No, because he enumerates them. He says idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, et cetera, et cetera. So he clarifies what he means by unrighteous and its people doing ungodly deeds. But he says that some of those Corinthians used to be those type of people. But what changed? Again, was it a transfer in the ledgers of heaven?
No, he says," But you were washed. You were sanctified or made holy." Now, washing someone is quite different from making a bookkeeping entry in heaven. When you wash a baby, you get the dirt and all the soil off of him. That's what washing is. You don't mark in a ledger somewhere. Well, little baby Johnny now is washed because I've wrote it here in this ledger, but he's really actually filthy. Last night, we talked about the illustration of the skunk, a man who's been sprayed by a skunk.
Could his friend say," Okay, I will account you as clean, even though you've been sprayed by a skunk. Come on over to my house. I'm going to count you." No. He's going to have to be cleansed. And when he's cleansed, he's not going to smell like a skunk anymore. If he still smells like a skunk, he hasn't been properly cleansed. It's the same way with sin. We're still living in sin and we haven't been cleansed.
Justin Martyr wrote about this passage, said," If they repent, all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God." The Scripture foretells that they shall be blessed, saying," Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin." That is, after repenting of his sins, such a man can receive remission of those sins from God. It is not as you deceive yourselves and some others who resemble you in this, for you say that even though they are sinners, the Lord will not impute sin to them, for they know God.
And this he was talking to unbelieving Jews as in volume 1, page 270 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. As we talked about last night, the early Christians believe that we are truly cleansed from our sin, that a genuine Christian is holy. He's not just counted as holy in the books of heaven. It transforms our very lives, our nature, our souls when we are truly born again and are truly walking in the light. It's not a mere bookkeeping entry. Cyprian wrote," At his coming, the Lord cured those wounds that Adam had borne.
He healed the old poisons of the serpent. Thereafter he gave a law to the sound man and bade him to sin no more, lest a worse thing should befall the sinner." Those sins that had been previously committed are purged by the blood and sanctification of Christ. It's in volume 5, page 476. So he, like the other early Christians, understood, yes, we are purged. Our past sins are cleansed, but Christ says to sin no more. He does give us commandments.
It's not a bookkeeping entry that then we can go on and live however we want, and yet we'll still be credited as being righteous. Origen wrote," For the death of Christ reduced to weakness those powers that war against the human race, and it set the life of each believer free from sin through a power beyond our words.
He takes away sin until every enemy will be destroyed and death last of all in order that the whole world may be free from sin." Therefore, John pointed to him and said," Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." We talked about that last night. John didn't say," Behold the Lamb of God who will cause everyone to be treated as though they were not sinners." He says," The one who takes away the sin.
My sin is taken away that I can't still be living in sin." Before closing, I want to address the issue of seeking the righteousness of Christ instead of our own righteousness. I hear that said a lot, that if we are trying to live a godly life, then we're seeking our own righteousness instead of trusting in the righteousness of Christ to be imputed to us. You know In reality, the phrase the righteousness of Christ is never used in Scripture.
That's not even a biblical expression, and yet you hear it so much you'd think it was a foundational teaching of Scripture. Actually, the expression, and we can read it, it's Romans 10, verses 3 and 5 is," For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God." For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law, the man who does those things shall live by them.
Okay, the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says this about this passage. The idea clearly stated in this last passage of a righteousness which is objective to the sinner and which comes to him from God, i.e. the idea of a new legal standing given to the believer by God explains the meaning in most cases of the Pauline phrase" the righteousness of God." Oh, really? Now, did Paul say anything there about a new legal standing?
Why would we think that living by the commandments of God means seeking our own righteousness, and that submitting to the righteousness of God does not mean submitting to His commandments, but instead doing nothing and trusting Jesus' righteousness to be imputed in the ledgers of heaven to us while we live an ungodly life? I mean, what is in there that would make you think that that's what it's saying?
Isn't this one more example of what I was discussing last night that once we've been indoctrinated that a particular verse means a specific thing, then every time we go back and read that passage in Scripture, we're not hearing what the Scripture actually says. We hear that interpretation that has been indoctrinated into us. I gave you some examples of that last night with Jehovah's Witnesses. Let me give you another example.
John 17:6, Jesus says," I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given me out of the world." Now, Jehovah's witnesses say that that proves that Jesus taught His apostles to always address the Father by the name Jehovah because He says," I've made your name manifest," or" I've manifested your name." Well, I don't think anyone else reading John 17 would even remotely think that's what Jesus is talking about since we've got four gospels of Jesus' teaching and he never brings it up.
He always addresses God as Father, or God, never as Jehovah. Well, I think it's the same with Romans 10:3 and 5. In fact, let's read what Paul really says on this subject. He says," Do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey? You are that one slave whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? Having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
But now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and the end everlasting life. And I was reading there from Romans chapter 6 verses 16:20 and verse 22, but you can read the whole chapter. I mean, Paul makes it clear that we're no longer slaves to sin, but he says," You are a slave to whatever you're obeying. If you're obeying sin still, then you're a slave to sin." And what does he say leads to righteousness?
He says," Or you're a slave of obedience leading to righteousness." So Paul doesn't know anything about this doctrine that you live ungodly, but Christ's righteousness will be imputed to you in the ledgers of heaven? He talks about being set free from sin, not about a bookkeeping entry, being slaves of God, of bearing fruit of holiness in our lives. And the early Christians understood it the same way that Paul explains it there.
Irenaeus wrote," The commandments of men were the traditions of the elders that they themselves had invented. In upholding those traditions, they made the law of God of no effect. And they were on this account also not subject to His Word. For this is also what Paul says concerning these men. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God.
I mean, why would you think that obeying God's teachings means going about to establish your own righteousness and not submitting yourself to the righteousness of God? That's not even a logical inference from that passage. As Lactantius wrote," By walking in the way of righteousness and following his teacher, man can attain to eternal life." And as of volume 7, page 128, Irenaeus, the earlier quote was volume 1, page 476. I'm going to read another one.
He says," With respect to obedience and doctrine, we are not all the sons of God. Rather, it is only those who truly believe in Him and do His will. Now those who do not believe and do not obey His will are sons and angels of the devil. Those who do not obey Him being disinherited by Him have ceased to be His sons." Isn't that what Paul has said that we just read in Romans 6 or 1 Corinthians? 2 Clement says," Let us then practice righteousness so that we may be saved until the end." Practicing righteousness.
Not sitting back and thinking it's going to be transferred in the books of heaven when we live an ungodly life. This is volume 7, page 523, the last one I read to you. And again, being a believing man, if you seek to live as the Gentiles do, the joys of the world remove you from the grace of Christ. Volume 4, page 214. That's what the early Christians believed about imputed righteousness. They believed that righteousness is imputed to us only if we abide in Christ, only if we obey His commandments.
And if you think what they said there is too strong because it does go against what Luther taught and the other Reformers, listen to 2 Peter 2:20 and 22. He said," If after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome. The latter end is worse for them than the beginning. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, a dog returns to his own vomit, and a sow having washed to her wallowing in the mire.
But how could that passage from Peter be true if we're not actually cleansed? If it was all just a heavenly bookkeeping entry? How can we end up in the mire again if we've never left the mire? If it's all been just something imputed in the accounting in heaven. There is an imputing of righteousness, and that is those who live obediently, who love God, who walk in faith, they're considered righteous even though they are not perfect.
But it's important that you understand that it's not just the early Christians who did not believe in this modern doctrine of imputation. None of the kingdom Christians through the centuries, groups like the Donatists and the Novatianists, the Waldensians, the Lollards, the original Anabaptists, the brethren. None of these groups taught that because they didn't see it being taught in the Scriptures. And even after the Reformation, there have been plenty of Christians who have decided this is not scriptural.
For example, John Wesley. Let me read to you what he said about true righteousness versus imputed righteousness. He said," No one who is not saved from sin here can be saved from hell hereafter. No one can see the kingdom of God above unless the kingdom of God be in Him below. Whoever will reign with Christ in heaven must have Christ reigning in Him on earth.
And yet as sure as this is, and as clearly as it is taught in every part of the Holy Scripture, among all the truths of God, there is probably none which is less received by men. Yes, professing Christians invariably invent one way or another to get to heaven without holiness. In the place of holiness, some have substituted penances, pilgrimages, and praying to saints and angels.
Thousands of professing Christians have no doubt but that by a diligent use of these things, without any holiness at all, they shall see the Lord in glory. However, the Protestants will not be satisfied in that manner. They recognize that such a nominal Christianity is not sufficient. They correctly say that such a religion does not stand on the right foundation. However, they go on to say that Christ has already accomplished and suffered everything for us. They say that His righteousness is imputed to us.
Therefore, we need none of our own. Since there is so much righteousness and holiness in Him, there needs to be none in us. In fact, they claim that to think we have any holiness or to desire or seek any holiness is to renounce Christ, that from the beginning to the end of salvation, all is in Christ, nothing is in man, and that those who teach otherwise are preachers of legalism and know nothing of the gospel. What evasion! For wherever this doctrine of easy grace is received, it leaves no place for holiness.
It forbids all such exhortations as might excite a desire for holiness. Nay, it makes men afraid of personal holiness, afraid of cherishing any thought of it, for they fear that any step toward holiness might be a denial of the faith and a rejection of Christ and His righteousness. So that instead of being zealous for good works, good works are a stench to their nostrils. In short, they are infinitely more afraid of the works of God than the works of the devil. Oh, you simple ones, do not be deceived.
For as assuredly as the Lord lives, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. The inward power of the Spirit has made you free, really, actually free from the law or power of sin and death. This is liberty, true gospel liberty, experienced by every true believer.
This is not freedom from the law of God or the works of God, but from the law of sin and the works of the devil. I testify unto you that if you still continue in sin, Christ shall profit you nothing, that Christ is no Savior to you unless He saves you from your sins, and that unless it purifies your heart, faith shall profit you nothing. Do not stupidly and senselessly call holiness" legalism," a silly, meaningless word. Do not be afraid of being under the law of God. Rather, fear being under the law of sin.
Permit me to warn you of another silly, meaningless phrase. Do not say," I can do nothing." If so, then you know nothing of Christ, then you have no faith. For if you have faith, if you believe, then you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. You can love Him and keep His commandments, and to you His commandments are not grievous. Grievous to them that believe? Far from it. They are the joy of your heart.
In conclusion, I want to just step back for a moment and have you step back, and let's look at the big picture. We have two models, two theories of the Atonement, and of imputed righteousness that are quite different from each other. Let's look at the Reformation view of imputation and the Reformation and Roman Catholic view of the Atonement, the satisfaction model. These basically say that Adam and Eve sinned and they incurred God's punishment of death as a result of their sin.
God could not forgive them because the penalty he had declared could not be changed. But then in the ledger books of heaven, God imputed or ascribed the guilt of Adam to all of us who are his offspring, even though we had not yet been born. So we too are sentenced to die just like Adam because of his sin. And again, God could not forgive us either. His punishment had to be paid. So as a result, under this model, God sent His Son to earth.
And then in another gigantic heavenly bookkeeping transaction, He imputed all our sin and our guilt to His Son, Jesus Christ. And this was even though Jesus was totally sinless. God then punished Jesus with the punishment that He otherwise would have made us endure. Finally, under this model, God made a third heavenly accounting change. He imputed all of the actual righteousness of Jesus to everyone who believes in Jesus as their Savior.
They thereby acquire a legal standing of being righteous even though they may actually be living an ungodly life. Okay, have I exaggerated or misrepresented what the general doctrine of imputation and the general satisfaction model of the Atonement teaches? I don't think so. All right, now let's look at the early Christian model. It says," Adam and Eve sinned, bringing not only God's punishment on them personally, such as the pains in childbirth and earning your living by the sweat of your brow, etc.
But also, they brought death, a corrupt nature, and bondage to Satan to their offspring. Under this model, Adam passed this corrupt and mortal nature onto his posterity, as we've said. However, his offspring did not inherit his guilt, nor his sentence of punishment. Instead, we answer to God for our own sins, not for His. And God freely forgives the sins of those who truly repent. He does not demand satisfaction or payment. Now, under the early Christian model, Jesus bore our sins.
He died in our place just as He did under the satisfaction model. But He did it by giving his own life as a ransom price to Satan and to the powers of evil, in return for Satan freeing us from his clutches. Jesus also freed us from the power of Hades to hold us in death forever. So he did suffer vicariously for us, but his suffering was from Satan, not from the Father. It wasn't the father who had to punish him in our place. It was Satan who was willing to take him and let us go free.
Under this model, the blood of Jesus does not involve a heavenly bookkeeping transaction. Rather, His blood truly cleanses us from sin. It alters our very nature. Finally, under this model, the early Christian model, God does not require a life of perfection from His people, but He does require an obedient love relationship. As Jesus said," If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love.
If anyone does not abide in Me, He is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned." That's John 15:10 and verse 6. So according to Jesus, so long as we abide in Him by maintaining this obedient love relationship, or as John puts it," If we walk in the light, then Christ's blood cleanses us from all sin." That's the early Christian model. So let me ask you, which system makes more sense to you?
Which understanding of God's relationship to man speaks more to your heart, the historic view of the early Christians, or the view that was developed centuries later by Augustine, by the medieval theologians, and by the Reformers? I think you can make a case from Scripture for either one. You can argue either one. But which one speaks to your heart? You know, Jesus set forth a number of revolutionary teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. These were the commandments of his new kingdom.
At the end of that sermon, this is what he said. Now listen, he said," Whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell, and great was its fall. Now, is it believable to you that our Lord would tell us that, that our salvation was tied to keeping His righteous commandments? When the truth really is, if we strive to keep His commandments, we are actually seeking our own righteousness and thereby rejecting the righteousness of God. We are doing the very thing that He does not want us to do.
In other words, he was deliberately misleading his hearers when he preached the Sermon on the Mount. There are two models of the Atonement out there. Which one do you think is more believable?