The doctrine of imputation

1. Under the concept of imputation Abraham is the pattern for the Word of God. Abraham received divine righteousness at the point of salvation — Genesis 15:6. Abraham believed in the Lord and it was credited to his account for righteousness. Imputation, therefore, recognises one of the problems of the old sin nature. We are all born on the debit side of the ledger. We are born with the sin nature which produces sins; we are born with human good which can produce only -R. Therefore, we have a problem. When Jesus Christ went to the cross He cancelled this debt — Colossians 2:14; He cancelled the IOU that was against us on the cross. That takes care of the problem of sin, but we also have the problem of relationship with God. God is +R, we are -R. Therefore, He credited to our account +R, the righteousness of God. This righteousness is received by each one of us at the point of salvation.

2. Divine righteousness is only imputed on the basis of faith in Christ — Romans 3:22.

3. Many Gentiles in the Old Testament times found God’s righteousness by believing in Christ, while many Jews who were hung up on the Mosaic law missed imputation — Romans 9:30-33.

4. The imputation is the basis for justification — Romans 4:22; 5:1.

5. Imputation encourages faith in Christ — Romans 4:24,25.

6. Imputation also becomes a motivator for the function of GAP — Philippians 3:8,9; Hebrews 11:4.

7. Imputation is based on the work of Christ on the cross — 2 Corinthians 5:21.

The doctrine of imputation

— the function of the justice of God toward mankind and related to the plan of God for mankind. Imputation functions as an act of condemnation or blessing.

There are two kinds of imputations: a real imputation and a judicial imputation. In a real imputation the justice of God imputes under the principle of antecedents or affinity. In other words, in a real imputation there are two factors. Factor one: what is imputed to factor two with which it has affinity. Factor one: what is imputed from the justice of God; factor two: the home or the target for the imputation. In other words, there is an affinity between the two factors.

In a judicial imputation the justice of God imputes what is not antecedently one’s own. In other words, in a judicial imputation you have factor X imputed without affinity, there is no real affinity, there is no home or target for the imputation. Therefore there is only one factor which is in existence, that which is being imputed. Consequently great emphasis is placed on the source of judicial imputation which is always the integrity of God.

The seven imputations in the plan of God are primarily related to the Church Age. They also have application to believers in the Tribulation. But you never start with the believer. The first imputation in history is the imputation of human life immediately after birth to its target which is the human soul. This is a real imputation, it has two factors: factor one is human life. We receive human life, it was given to us at birth or, you might say, after birth. There is no human life in the womb. God imputed human life in each case. The fact that God imputes human life to its home or the target, the soul, after birth implies that God has a plan for every member of the human race. Whether that plan is realised or not depends entirely upon the volition of the individual.

The life that is imputed to the human soul resides there forever. There is no cessation of life in the human soul. That is true in time as well as in eternity. Human life is in the soul. At physical death the soul leaves the body and goes to its designated place, heaven or Hades. In other words, when God imputes human life and it resides in the soul forever it is indestructible. There is nothing man can to do to separate the life from the soul and that includes suicide. Furthermore, even God Himself cannot and will not separate human life from the soul. God made the imputation. The fact that you and I have life is a gift from God.

Conclusion from the first imputation: God has a plan for your life; God has a plan for every person, and only negative volition at the point of God-consciousness and gospel hearing can hinder the fulfilment of that plan. Simultaneously there is a second imputation that occurs. Imputation number one: human life is imputed to the human soul, therefore human life resides in the soul forever. Imputation number two: Adam’s original sin is imputed to its home, its target, the genetically-formed old sin nature. There is affinity between human life and the soul; there is affinity between Adam’s sin and the old sin nature since Adam’s original sin is the origin of the old sin nature. The justice of God takes Adam’s original sin and imputes it directly to that to which it has affinity, the genetically-formed old sin nature. Just as there is affinity between life and the soul so there is affinity between Adam’s original sin and the old sin nature. Romans 5:12 gives us the fact that Adam’s original sin is the original old sin nature. Adam’s original sin is the origin, it created, as it were, the old sin nature. Therefore there is an affinity with antecedents dating back to the original sin of the Garden of Eden.

While the woman was just as guilty she was deceived in the transgression and therefore her sin is not the basis for that imputation, it is Adam’s sin. The old sin nature originated, then, from Adam’s sin because Adam knew exactly what he was doing and it is now transmitted to 23 male chromosomes which fertilise the female ovum at the point of copulation. The female ovum has 23 perfect chromosomes; the male has 23 sinful, imperfect chromosomes. The imputation of Adam’s original sin to the old sin nature is a facsimile of Adam at the time of his fall. This is a real imputation because it has two factors. Factor one: Adam’s original sin; factor two the old sin nature which is genetically-formed from the 23 male chromosomes. Therefore, human birth or the beginning of human life consists of two simultaneous imputations from the justice of God. This is the wisdom of God for condemnation must precede salvation, and because of that anyone who doesn’t have the opportunity of personally believing in Christ — they die too soon, they do not reach accountability — is already condemned. They were condemned at birth and that condemnation of Adam’s original sin, being imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature, guarantees that if they die before reaching accountability they automatically go to heaven because condemnation must precede salvation. There is no need for salvation apart from condemnation.

So the imputation of Adam’s sin at birth is the basis also for spiritual death — Romans 5:12-21. No one is condemned on the basis of his personal sins, and that becomes a very important factor. In Romans 6:23 it says. “The wages of sin is death.” That means that at the moment of birth Adam’s original sin was imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature. Notice: Personal sins are not the basis for the wages of sin. Personal sin is a reality but the thing that condemns us is the imputation of Adam’s sin.

The wisdom of God is quite obvious here because those who die after child birth are automatically saved. Those who die before accountability are automatically saved and those who never reach accountability because of some mental deficiency are automatically saved. That is because they were condemned before any of these factors became a reality.

The imputation of Adam’s sin at birth is the basis of spiritual death. No one is condemned on the basis of his personal sins and that means that all personal sins are not judged by God when they occur because they were all judged at one time, at the cross. They were reserved for the cross. All personal sins were imputed to Christ on the cross and that is when God judged them. That is the basis for the saving work of Christ on the cross, and that is a spiritual death, not a physical death. Christ died physically because His work of spiritual death was completed. So the non-imputation of personal sins to the individual reserved them for the cross. Therefore personal sins is not the basis for spiritual death, it is simply one of three manifestations of the old sin nature. Hence, we are born physically alive [the imputation of human life] and spiritually dead [the imputation of Adam’s sin]. These are the two imputations at birth.

There is one exception to this, the birth of the humanity of Christ. All the cells of the human race are contaminated by the old sin nature. There is only one exception and that exists through meiosis and the function of polar body. Through the function of meiosis and the function of polar body there are 23 chromosomes which are thrown off in the ovum leaving 23 uncontaminated chromosomes in the female ovum prior to fertilisation. These 23 uncontaminated chromosomes are free from the cell contamination of the old sin nature. This phenomenon in the female is based on the fact that the woman was deceived in the first transgression - but was still guilty. While both the man and the woman are carriers of the old sin nature only the man can transmit the old sin nature through fertilisation of the female ovum. But should the woman receive 23 uncontaminated chromosomes, i.e., virgin pregnancy, then the one who is born is born with the imputation of human life to the soul, but minus the imputation of Adam’s sin because there is no genetically-formed old sin nature. The old sin nature is formed genetically through the 23 male chromosomes.

Mary was a virgin when she became pregnant but she still had an old sin nature. She was not sinless. The virgin pregnancy was induced by God the Holy Spirit who fertilised the ovum of Mary with 23 perfect chromosomes. If that had not occurred then there would be no salvation. Jesus Christ had to come into the world without sin, He cannot bear the sins of the world if He has any sin of His own. If Adam’s original sin had been imputed to Christ at birth it would have to be imputed to the genetically-formed old sin nature. But a virgin pregnancy knocked out the genetically-formed old sin nature. The 23 chromosomes came from God the Holy Spirit. He produced them and fertilised the ovum. In the meiosis and polar body there were 23 uncontaminated chromosomes there, so the virgin pregnancy resulted.

At the moment of birth our Lord entered into the prototype divine dynasphere, designed for His protection but not to keep His volition from normal function. By living for 33 years inside the prototype divine dynasphere He was able not to sin, and because He was God He was not able to sin. Jesus Christ was tempted far beyond any human being who ever lived. He resisted so that He could go to the cross and bear our personal sins and be judged for them.

There is a third imputation. All the sins of the world were judged at the cross, the ones of the past and the ones of the future. They were all imputed and judged. But there wouldn’t be any Lord to believe in had He committed one sin, which He did not.

Men and women both have an old sin nature but the reason women have one is because they have a human father. The old sin nature is received through the man. Jesus Christ is the exception because of the virgin pregnancy.

Human good and evil could have been imputed as well since they are manifestations of the old sin nature but this did not happen. They were rejected at the cross so that human good and evil can continue to be an issue in history. Only sin was judged at the cross.

The second judicial imputation is the one which is described in 2 Corinthians 5:21 — “For he [the Father] made him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” All blessing that comes to the believer in any dispensation comes because of judicial imputation number two. In judicial imputation number two there is no antecedence, just as in number one. In judicial imputation number one our sins are imputed to Christ on the cross and judged. In judicial imputation number two God takes one half of His holiness or integrity [composed of His justice and righteousness] that is, His perfect righteousness, and at the moment that we believed in Christ He imputed that righteousness to us. By imputing that righteousness to us He set up the great pipeline. The justice of God is on one end and the righteousness of God is on the other end, the righteousness of God now indwelling us. All blessing of any category is imputed to us, not because we have lovely personalities, not because we live a good clean life, not because we give money to the church, not because we do any form of good deed, but because we have His righteousness. All blessing comes down this pipeline from the justice of God to the righteousness of God, and the blessings increase as we go from ignorance of doctrine to cognisance of doctrine because cognisance of doctrine increases our capacity and, therefore, because of an increased capacity God can bless us without destroying us. If God gave us everything we wanted right now it would destroy us. We would self-destruct without capacity.

This imputation makes possible the believer becoming the recipient of tremendous blessings from God. It also makes it possible for God to love the believer. That is because God loves His own righteousness. We possess His righteousness, God loves us. Grace, then, is the policy of the justice of God in imputing blessing to the righteousness of God. The principle is always the same: righteousness demands righteousness, justice demands justice; what the righteousness of God demands the justice of God executes. All of this is based on the fact that we have received at the moment of salvation this fantastic imputation.

The imputation of divine righteousness, the second judicial imputation, is also true in the Tribulation. This imputation of divine righteousness which sets up logistical grace blessing and supergrace blessing is the subject in the middle of Revelation 7:14.