Counted Righteous

Imputation and the end of spiritual anxiety.

Photo by Matthew L on Unsplash

I recently gave a talk during my church’s Sunday school hour explaining the ins and outs of the doctrine of imputation, which, I maintain, is one of the most crucial ingredients for a proper understanding of the gospel. Far from being a point of contention for academia, imputation is a biblical truth that shapes how we approach the life of faith. The difficulty, of course, is that the concept of “imputed righteousness” isn’t found verbatim in Scripture. At least, that’s what theological critics of imputation would have you believe. I wrote a lengthy essay a few months back on this crucial tenet of our faith (which may or may not be in the process of being published in the next edition of TGC’s Themelios journal!), highlighting a few of the arguments of its detractors, N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird among them. The point then, as it is now, is to reiterate the fact that tweaking the meaning of “imputation” doesn’t just modify Paul’s argument, in Romans 4 especially, it also alters the gospel itself.

Broadly speaking, this is the reason we had the Protestant movement in the 1500s. The long-gestating rift between the curia and local clergy reached a fever pitch when a curious Augustinian couldn’t loosen his grip on what was revealed to him in Holy Scripture, among which was the prevailing announcement that the righteousness by which sinners are made right with the Lord and Judge of all things isn’t one that is inherent to them, nor is it infused in them. Rather, it is a righteousness that is credited to them by grace through faith. The Reformers’ doggedness deepened the divide between the papacy and the Protestant factions of Wittenberg, Geneva, and Zurich, among several others. Rome’s misconstrual of justification generally, and imputation specifically, which emphasized a synergistic process, meant that a sinner’s status coram Deo was never secure. It was always in doubt — an up-in-the-air reality that was contingent on one’s cooperation with grace and consistency in following the sacraments.

The so-called “New Perspective on Paul,” though, attempts to do similar theological gymnastics by reframing Scripture through the lens of covenantal affiliation and membership. Instead of seeing justification as a definitive declaration of one’s righteous standing coram Deo based on the performance of the Crucified One, proponents of this “new view” argue that the thrust of Paul’s epistles is belonging to the community of faith, with an emphasis on the relational and familial features of this message and the requisite faithfulness that goes along with it. This effectively turns the message of the gospel into one where Jesus gets you “in,” but it is up to you to stay in. Assurance is, once again, a mirage, if not altogether lost. This is why the doctrine of imputation, otherwise known as “the great exchange,” is both so necessary and so practical. Without it, the life of faith becomes one of anxious timidity, leaving one to wonder if they’ve done enough. With it, one is assured of Christ in them and for them.

Accordingly, the reform movement of the 1500s can be understood as a rediscovery of the doctrine of assurance by recovering the biblical message of imputation. Without treading previous ground, the best place to understand this concept is Romans 4, where Paul, using the example of Father Abraham, explains his comment from the previous chapter, “that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Rom. 3:28). His insistence on this point is fully articulated by examining the Abrahamic narrative, especially the decree that he “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3; Gen. 15:6). “Imputation” emerges from the word “counted” (λογίζομαι), which can also be rendered “regarded” or “reckoned.” Before the law and even before the rite of circumcision, righteousness was imputed to Abraham on account of his faith in God’s word of promise, which, as Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, was the gospel in primordial form (Gal. 3:7–9).

As Paul goes on to say, just like Sarah’s barren womb (Rom. 4:16–22), even though sinners are as good as dead, they are counted as righteous when they “believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:24–25). Put another way, imputation refers to something being given that was absent or nonexistent before. It’s an act wherein one is credited with that which they haven’t earned, or, as the case may be, they’re not credited with something they have earned. This is immaculately illustrated for us in Zechariah’s fourth vision, where he gets a glimpse of Joshua the high priest, bedecked in excrement-ridden robes, receiving “pure vestments” from the Angel of the Lord himself (Zech. 3:1–5; cf. Isa. 61:10; Rev. 7:14). Likewise, consider Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, who is seen shouldering all of humankind’s sin and grief so that there might be a way for them to be “accounted righteous,” since he is “numbered with the transgressors” (Isa. 53:10–12).¹

The point is that a sinner’s only hope of non-condemnation resides in a verdict that is based on Someone else’s performance for them. This is what the doctrine of imputation captures so well — namely, the good news of Christ for us. As J. Gresham Machen expresses it, “Christ is offered to us not in general, but ‘in the gospel’; but in the gospel there is included all that the heart of man can wish.”² All that you need for life and godliness is found in the message and mystery of Christ for you. He touches us with a holy grace and renews us by his Holy Spirit. Even though we are woefully undeserving, worthy only of hell, by faith we are imputed the very righteousness of God because of what God’s Son accomplished on our behalf, thereby giving believers every occasion for confidence and assurance. Machen goes on to say this:

Christ touches our lives, according to the New Testament, through the Cross. We deserved eternal death, in accordance with the curse of God’s law; but the Lord Jesus, because He loved us, took upon Himself the guilt of our sins and died instead of us on Calvary. And faith consists simply in our acceptance of that wondrous gift. When we accept the gift, we are clothed, entirely without merit of our own, by the righteousness of Christ; when God looks upon us, He sees not our impurity but the spotless purity of Christ, and accepts us “as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone” . . .

We say, every one of us, by the strange individualizing power of faith, ‘He loved me and gave Himself for me.’ When a man once says that, in his heart and not merely with his lips, then no matter what his guilt may be, no matter how far he is beyond any human pale, no matter how little opportunity he has for making good the evil that he has done, he is a ransomed soul, a child of God forever.³

You and I can know where we stand coram Deo precisely because the good news imputation isn’t a peripheral theological tenet but exists as the beating heart of our hope. To lose this doctrine is to lose every ounce of certainty of our eternal destiny, which breeds anxiety-ridden Christians who are incessantly overthinking their spirituality instead of rejoicing in the freedom that Christ has won for them. May the church, then, forever sing, “His robes for mine, / O wonderful exchange.”

1. Not for nothing, “numbered” is the same word as “counted” from Romans 4 in the Septuagint.

2. J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith? (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1991), 153.

3. Machen, 143–44, 154.