What’s in a word?
Last week, as part of our sermon, we looked at these two words. There are only 2 letters different between them but their meaning couldn’t be more different or significant. The implications of the difference is quite simply ‘Mind Blowing’!
We are talking here about how we receive Christ’s righteousness.
Is His righteousness imparted or imputed to us?
IMPARTED – this is what teachers attempt to do everyday. They try to get some of their knowledge into the children’s heads. This is an inherently slow process and the results are limited. What tends to happen is that a small amount of the teachers knowledge is imparted. Adding to the child’s existing knowledge.
There is a danger that we think Jesus adds some of His righteousness to us in this way.
So we might think to ourselves ‘I’m essentially a sinner with a bit of Christ’s goodness added on’
This is not what the Bible teaches.
IMPUTED – this means I have the total and complete, fully formed, all-in-one-go righteousness of God at the moment I believe in Jesus. If teachers could do this at school the lessons would be very short indeed.
It’s not that I have had a little bit of righteousness added to my sinfulness, rather he has taken my sinfulness away and replaced it with His righteousness, completely and forever.
So I am no longer a sinner but a saint!!
This is grace and it changes everything.
And yet the claim “I am no longer a sinner but a saint!!” is deeply controversial among many Christians who are afraid to say this…
I think I want to go even further with Athanasius…
“Salvation, according to Athanasius, is not about being given a ‘saved’ status or a catalogue of blessings by a distant God; it is about entering the very communion of the Father and the Son. “ (Michael Reeves on Athanasius)
Not a sinner, not even just a saint – but in Christ, caught up in intimate relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – not because I’ve worked my way up, but because of the outrageous magnitude of his grace!!
December 4, 2009 at 3:52 pmI think it would also help if you did a word study on imputation.
In my study on this topic, the Greek term “logizomai” is the English term for “reckon/impute/credit/etc,” (all terms are basically equivalently used) and when I look up that term in a popular Protestant Lexicon here is what it is defined as:
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QUOTE: “This word deals with reality. If I “logizomai” or reckon that my bank book has $25 in it, it has $25 in it. Otherwise I am deceiving myself. This word refers to facts not suppositions.”
http://tinyurl.com/r92dch
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The Protestant Lexicon states this term first and foremost refers to the actual status of something. So if Abraham’s faith is “logizomai as righteousness,” it must be an actually righteous act of faith, otherwise (as the Lexicon says) “I am deceiving myself.” This seems to rule out any notion of an alien righteousness, and instead points to a local/inherent righteousness.
The Lexicon gives other examples where “logizomai” appears, here are some examples:
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Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude [logizomai] that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Rom 4:4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted [logizomai] as a gift but as his due.
Rom 6:11 Likewise reckon [logizomai] ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Rom 8:18 For I reckon [logizomai] that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
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Notice in these examples that “logizomai” means to consider the actual truth of an object. In 3:28 Paul ‘reckons’ faith saves while the Law does not, this is a fact, the Law never saves. In 4:4 the worker’s wages are ‘reckoned’ as a debt because the boss is in debt to the worker, not giving a gift to him. In 6:11 the Christian is ‘reckoned’ dead to sin because he is in fact dead to sin. In 8:18 Paul ‘reckons’ the present sufferings as having no comparison to Heavenly glory, and that is true because nothing compares to Heavenly glory.
To use logizomai in the “alien status” way would mean in: (1) 3:28 faith doesn’t really save apart from works, but we are going to go ahead and say it does; (2) 4:4 the boss gives payment to the worker as a gift rather than obligation/debt; (3) 6:11 that we are not really dead to sin but are going to say we are; (4) 8:18 the present sufferings are comparable to Heaven’s glory.
This cannot be right.
So when the text plainly says “faith is logizomai as righteousness,” I must read that as ‘faith is reckoned as a truly righteous act’, and that is precisely how Paul explains that phrase in 4:18-22. That despite the doubts that could be raised in Abraham’s heart, his faith grew strong and convinced and “that is why his faith was credited as righteousness” (v4:22). This is also confirmed by noting the only other time “credited as righteousness” appears in Scripture, Psalm 106:30-31, where Phinehas’ righteous action was reckoned as such.
December 5, 2009 at 1:34 amgreat post as usual!
May 3, 2010 at 8:50 am