Imputation

Hello again. Here’s another Gem from the Scriptures which involves a word in the King James Bible which we seldom use today but of which is of major importance to our understanding of our standing and our walk before God. And how He feels about us now that we are IN Christ Jesus when we sin. And in the process, I will slip in a Misunderstood Text of the Bible. So pay attention.

The word I’m talking about is impute or imputing and I like to refer to this as the doctrine of imputation. Wow, now that’s a big word. The words impute, or imputed, or imputing are found 8 times in the New Testament and refer to two different acts of God. What God is imputing and what He is not imputing?

Now before I go any further, I like to define the meaning of this word and by that I mean the Greek word. Two Greek words are translated impute, imputed, and imputing, one is logizomai which means to charge or credit to one’s account, to account or reckon something to be so, or to take into account among other things. In other places this word is translated count or counted and reckoned and carries the same idea as impute or imputing. And the other Greek word translated imputed is ellogeo which means to charge to one’s account.

The english definition of the word impute is to ascribe or attribute something (usually a fault, credit, or motive) to a person, often by reckoning it to their account. And in the verses we will consider that’s the meaning it carries.

Think of what happens at the bank when you make a deposit. The bank charges to your account what you gave them and holds it to your account. This is the idea of imputation, to charge or hold something to one’s account and if I dare say, we do this all the time.

Now, as I said God uses this word in two ways, what He credits to our account and what He does not credit to our account.

In Romans chapter 4 verses 22 and 23 we find the Apostle Paul talking about how Abraham obtained righteousness or got saved. Starting in verses 20, he says Romans 4:20–25 “He [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it [Abraham’s faith] was imputed to him for righteousness.”

See that, God imputed or places to Abraham’s account righteousness because he believed what God had said. Paul says the same thing about Abraham in verses 3 and 4 but the word is translated “counted”. Abraham believed God, and it was counted or imputed unto him for righteousness. And in verse 5 we learn that to him that worketh not but believeth on Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is “counted” or imputed for righteousness”

Paul goes on to say, “Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed,

[he says this same principle applies to us today. God will also impute or placed on OUR account righteousness]

“if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”

See that, this is how we are saved. When we believe that Christ died for our sins and was raised again, God places righteousness on our account, in other words, He declares us righteous by faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is great! Imputation happens the moment we believe and we are saved.

But wait it gets better. Remember, I told you that there’s something God does not impute to us, or charge to our account?

2 Corinthians 5:19 says “that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself [that’s us Gentiles, He reconciled the Gentiles when Israel fell or was cast away see Rom.11], not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of [or about this] reconciliation.”

Wow, now in the Dispensation of Grace, God is not holding our trespasses against us; ever, every day. Remember Romans chapter 8 says that there is now no condemnation to those who are in CHRIST JESUS and later he says, who shall lay a charge [of guilt for sin] against us? NOBODY, because if God be for us who can be against us.

We are made the righteousness of God in Christ, and our life is hid with or by God in Christ and Christ is in us, the hope of Glory.

In fact, in all of Paul’s epistles he calls the believers saints, not sinners. Because that’s how God sees us.

That’s why in Romans 4:11 Paul quotes King David and says “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute [hold against us our] sin. Because God doesn’t hold the sins we commit each day against us. Wow, we are truly blessed according to King David.

That’s why this is called the Dispensation of Grace [the age of undeserved favor, favor that never fades or pauses or is put on hold]. And we are not under the law, which was when God was imputing trespasses, against them under the law. But God does not impute trespasses when there is no law. That’s what Paul says in Romans 4:15 “where there is no law, there is no transgression.” there is no imputing of transgression when there is no law. And in Romans 5:13 it says that “sin is not imputed when there is no law”. See, God cannot impute sin to our account when there is no law. Never forget that, we are not under law but under grace.

So, when God looks at us, He sees Christ, not our sins or trespasses. That means our sins have no effect on our relationship with the Father or Jesus Christ as far as God is concerned. So we don’t have to confess our sins over and over again for God to forgive us over and over again. Forgiveness is a once and for all event.

In fact, that verse in 1John 1:9 is not even addressed to the saved. It’s addressed to the unsaved, according to the context, as John says in verse 3 “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you [you who need to hear this], that ye also may have fellowship with us” and he continues in verse 5, “This then is the message which we...declare unto you”. You see John is addressing His fellow Israelites who have not yet trusted in Jesus as their Messiah and to acknowledge that they are sinning by not believing Jesus as their Messiah and if they confess or agree with John [that’s what confess means, to speak the same thing] God will forgive their sin and they will have fellowship with the rest of the Kingdom saints. So this passage was not written to tell us saved in Christ saints how to get back into fellowship with God. We are already and for always cleansed from all unrighteousness. There’s your Misunderstood Text of the Bible.

So then if that’s not what we are supposed to do, then how should we act when we sin? Paul describes that the proper reaction in the Dispensation of Grace is to respond in Godly sorrow as described in 2Cor. 7 verses 8 through 11 where Paul says, “For though I made you sorry [for the sins you committed as mentioned in his first letter to them], I do not repent” [or change my mind that I made you sorry]...Paul says, “now I rejoice...that ye sorrowed to repentence, for ye were sorry according to a godly manner”...”For godly sorrow worketh repentence … not to be repented of”

See that, godly sorrow, being sorry the way God wants you to be sorry, works or produces repentance or a change of mind about what you’ve done that was wrong and this change of mind we should not change our mind about. To say this another way, We should not change our mind about the change of mind that godly sorrow produces.

For when we are sorry in a godly way, sorry now that we know we sinned, we focus on how we despised God grace, the grace that does not impute sin to our account, and this change of mind changes us for the better.

Paul goes on to says that this godly sorrow caused a change of mind that resulted in “what carefulness it wrought in you”, “what clearing of yourselves”, “what strong desire [to do the right thing]”, what indignation’ [for abusing the liberty we have in Christ]… “In all these things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter”. That’s the change in behavior which is brought about by godly sorrow. And that’s how we should respond when we sin.

Be sorry for what you’ve done [so as not to do it again], be sorry towards those you’ve hurt by your sin, and bask in the knowledge that God never turned His back on you or got mad at you. Because it’s the goodness of God that leads us to repentance or a change of mind about our sinning, not HIS anger or silence.

There, That’s the doctrine of imputation. We all have righteousness charged to our account when we believe the gospel and our sin is not charge to our accounts when we do sin. What a glorious gem of the scripture is imputation.