190915 FAITH CREDITED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS

Abraham Timeline

Logizomai—Impute/Reckon/Count

Abraham’s faith was counted/reckoned/imputed for righteousness. ()

Example: If I owe a million dollars and have no way to pay it, someone else must pay it for me. This can be done in two ways:

a. They could put a million dollars into my account, I become a millionaire and then I can pay the banker.

They could put a million dollars into my account, I become a millionaire and then I can pay the banker.

b. Or, they can put my name on their account, giving me access to their riches in approved ways.

God counts our faith for righteousness in the second way, not the first.

He doesn’t take some of His Righteousness and put it into our account, making us righteous in ourselves and able to stand before Him.

Rather, He places the believing sinner in Christ, the only Righteous One, giving him access to His Righteousness, making us the Righteousness of God in Christ.

The Righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21)

Adding “ness” to an adjective turns it into an abstract noun denoting a state or quality. Ex. Happiness.

Being made the Righteousness of God in Christ, doesn’t mean we are made righteous. It means that what God has done with believing sinners In Christ displays the fact that HE IS RIGHTEOUS.

To count/reckon/impute Abraham’s faith for righteousness is for God to judicially declare that He has placed unrighteous Abraham in a state of righteousness (His Son’s Righteousness) before Him on the basis of FAITH.

This is not accomplished through the works of the sinner, not even the works of the Law, but through the Faith of Christ—His redemptive work for sinners on the Cross, and is received by Grace thru Faith. (; ).

Examples of Imputing/Accounting/Reckoning

—If an uncircumcised person keeps the righteousness of the Law God would impute/account/reckon him as though he were circumcised even though he is not.

In doing so, the man doesn’t actually become physically circumcised, God reckons him as such, even though he is inherently not.

If he actually became physically circumcised than God would not need to reckon or account him so.

— Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute/reckon/account Sin (Sin singular—a state of Sin).

The idea is that God is not putting the substance of the person’s sins into his account.

It is that God is not accounting or reckoning the sinner as being in a state of Sin even though he is a sinner.

— So when God says Abraham’s faith was counted for righteousness:

God did not put a substance called righteousness into his account, thereby making him inherently righteous.

Rather God accounted Abraham as being in a state of righteousness before Him on the basis of faith even though he is an unrighteous sinner with no righteousness of his own.

This is so for Abraham because he believed God’s Word/Promise to him that he would have innumerable progeny and be a father of many nations.

Because of his faith, God passed over and left unpunished the sin/s of Abraham because He knew that his sin/sins would be dealt with by Christ’s redemptive work on the Cross for him. (Rom. 3:21-26)