I have tried doing posts on particular topics in the past and I have discovered that the language of the faith seems to bog down the conversation. It was not that many years ago when I was a Biblical illiterate as well. Biblical literacy is not just memorizing Bible verses. Biblical literacy is having a working knowledge of the story, the major themes, the main characters. When you studied Moby Dick in high school, your English literature teacher would not have accepted a synopsis of the novel that basically said that a whale ate Ahab’s leg, so he went on a revenge hunt. While it is true, it does not even begin to touch on the complexity of the story. If Ahab is an interesting character, the main character of the Bible is absolutely riveting. Still, we have to acknowledge that the vernacular of the Bible is largely unknown or lost in this day. My goal in the next few posts is first to introduce a few terms, then walk them through the various systems that we defined in the last few posts. Do not worry if you do not understand them initially. There will be a moment when it all clicks together. Remember, this used to be standard fair for catechism of young children. We can handle it.
Imputation. We have already seen this word in action. This word is a legal or accounting term in its usage. Webster says that imputation is the attribution or ascription of a quality to a person or an object. Webster goes on to give the word negative connotation with definitions such as accusation or insinuation, but this negative additional connotation is the result of the usage of imputation possible by a fallen creature than a quality of the term itself. Still, we can see that we are attaching a quality to the object of the verb impute. In its Biblical usage, imputation is a larger concept than this. There is a specific quality of one party that we are going to not only attribute or ascribe to another, but we are going to transfer this quality to the other. This is the legal or accounting aspect of this word. In Les Miserables, Jean Valjean steals candlesticks from the Bishop of Digne. When he is caught and brought back to face the Bishop, the Bishop imputes innocence to Jean Valjean, despite his clear knowledge to the contrary, in order that Jean Valjean is righteous in front of the magistrate. Now, let’s take this into the Bible and see where and how this imputation works.
Original sin. To understand this particular example of imputation, let’s consider a topic that is more familiar to us: inheritance. Most of us are familiar with a document known as the Last Will and Testament. If we are fortunate enough to have a wealthy family member who might have a bit of misfortune that results in his death, this document will distribute his worldly possessions to his family. Now, unfortunately, if he was a horrible manager of money, the family will instead inherit his debts. In the Biblical sense, this is the blessing and curses principle as it is applied to inheritance. Regardless of your belief concerning a historic Adam, clearly we can use the language of government to call him the federal head of mankind. In other words, Adam represents all of mankind in the Garden of Eden. When Adam commits his sin, the punishment is death. What is worse, his punishment under the curse principle is inherited by his family for a thousand generations (figuratively a very large number if you prefer.) The bottom line is that mankind has the guilt of that sin imputed to us for the rest of time. That’s a heavy inheritance. The whole Old Testament is trying to teach us about this debt and the fact that we are incapable to restore our account. The problem is that we have no access to the proper currency.
Jesus Christ on the Cross. In this example, there are two imputations occurring. This is sometimes called the Great Exchange. In the first of these imputations, the sin of Adam is imputed back from all of the true believers to Jesus Christ. In return, that capital that we so desperately require and have absolute no way to attain, righteousness before God, is simply given to us. This perfect righteousness before God of Jesus Christ is imputed back to those who believe in the saving work of His work on the cross. The amazing part of this double imputation is that is has already occurred. This transaction is past tense. It occurred 2000 years ago. Plus, it costs us absolutely nothing. It is completely free. By this accounting move, all of our sin is imputed to Jesus Christ, while all of His righteousness is imputed to us.
Therefore, on Judgment Day, we can bring either our own self righteousness before God for judgment, or as Rod Rosenbladt likes to say, we can bet all of the blue chips on this Great Exchange. We can be judged based upon the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. Clearly, not all of the systems that we have discussed in prior posts view imputation in this way. Therefore, let’s go through each of our systems and see what each makes of imputation.
Pelagian. There is no role for imputation in this system at all. Consider the first premise of the Pelagian: there is no original sin. If you start with a denial of the first imputation, what need have you for the other two? If Adam was a bad example, and Christ was a good example, we can work out our salvation without any of this legal or accounting funny business. Besides, how is it fair that something that was done by Adam could be imputed to me? How, in turn, is it fair that Jesus could die for anyone but Himself? We’ve been here before, but let me restate the obvious, in this system, if Jesus Christ only can die for Himself, why did He have to die at all? If Jesus Christ lived without sin, He should still be living and breathing and walking on this earth, encouraging all of us to do our best, to work our way to Salvation. If this system is true, why did Christ have to die?
Semipelagian. The first imputation is preserved in this system. Now, let’s look at Jesus Christ on the cross. Due to the first imputation of Adam’s sin to all of mankind, Jesus is going to rectify the situation by returning all of mankind to the same state as Adam and Himself: perfectly sinless creatures before God. The idea of cleansing the slate is that all of the sin of all of mankind is imputed back to Jesus at the cross. However, His perfect righteousness is not imputed back to us. We have to earn our righteousness. (I want to avoid conversations about eschatology for now, so let’s assume that we are only talking about from 33 A.D. going forward. Later, we will address the Old Testament times.) So, we now have two very important assumptions made by this system. First, all of mankind is restored to sinless perfection so that we are conceived and are born in perfection. Second, we are therefore responsible for our own salvation. Do you know anyone who is perfect?
Arminian. In this system, the assumptions of imputation are slightly different. The first imputation is again preserved. Now, before we continue, let me say that this section and the Roman Catholic section are a bit confusing. Remember that we have this little issue of Prevenient Grace. Do we assume that everyone receives this gift or not? If everyone receives this gift, then we have reverted back to the Semipelagian view of imputation. If this gift is only given to those in foreseen knowledge of their faith, then the imputation of Christ’s righteousness is only to those who come to saving faith. The imputation of our sin to Jesus Christ is still to all of mankind, but we are free to choose whether or not to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in order to receive the perfect righteousness of Christ or instead to continue in sin and lose our Salvation. If this seems slippery and difficult to pin down, then you have arrived at my position. I’m not even sure I’m explaining this position properly. The reason is that there seems to be inherent contradiction in the application of prevenient grace. If we cannot logically and consistently apply all of these Biblical terms to a system, then perhaps that system is flawed.
Roman Catholic. This is pretty close to the Arminian view. Sin is imputed to us. Our sin is imputed to Christ and Christ’s righteous is imputed to us based upon prevenient grace. This time, unrepented mortal sins will remove us from the grace equation, while a sin/grace deficit will send us to purgatory to complete our process of making ourselves perfect and righteous before God. Again, there is this problem that not all will be saved, therefore, for whom did Christ die? All sin was imputed to Christ, at least up until the moment of our birth. But who receives the righteousness of Christ? Perhaps, of these last two categories, it might be better said that while our sin is imputed to Jesus, His righteous is not imputed back to us. It must be earned, just as in the semipelagian position, but with the assistance of and cooperation with the Holy Spirit.
Calvinist and Reformed. The Calvinist position has already been explained: the full three imputation position with the Great Exchange as described at the outset. What is important is the distinction that is drawn concerning who the parties are in the imputations. The first is from Adam to all of mankind. The second two involve Jesus on the cross and all true believers from across all of time, but not any of the reprobate. Jesus accomplishes exactly His intention. In all of the other systems, the whole of mankind is included in the imputation of sin back to Jesus Christ on the cross. This distinction usually can be seen most clearly in a discussion of the familiar passage beginning with John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:16-21 ESV)
Look at the grammar of this passage. What you do not see are if-then statements. If-then statements are the structure of Law passages. This is a gospel passage such as the Matthew 5-7 passages that are so often abused in sermons. Did God love the world? Yes, that is a statement. Will those who believe in Jesus have eternal life? Yes, that is a statement. Does it say that “if you believe, you will be saved?” In one sense, yes, it does. But it does not say that you have the power over that belief and if you will just do the believing, you will be saved. This is a declaration, not an if-then statement.
Look at it this way. I like to put bananas on my cereal in the morning. In the fruit bowl in our kitchen are apples and bananas. If you are a banana, you will end up in a bowl of cereal. This is not suggesting that apples can turn into bananas or that apples have a choice in the matter. Apples are who they are, and bananas are who they are. Now, look at the passage again. Do you see the difference? This is the difference between the Calvinist and Reformed mindset and most of the rest of Christendom. There is an important distinction between Law and Gospel. The grammar of the passage is important.
Those are the three Biblical imputations. I expect that I have at least explained the meaning of the term, even if its application and to whom is still a bit fuzzy. The extremes are easy. There is no imputation in the Pelagian system, while there is very specific imputation in the Calvinist system. We will see how these fuzzy middle grounds truly operate in the next post on our next important term: justification.
– Troll –
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