By God Imputed to Us

The point: Refuse the laziness of letting 'imputation' become a foreign word; grapple with it until you can state it back to God with intelligent faith.

Quoting a modern author whose character Sweeney says, 'I gotta use words when I talk to you, but if you understand or if you don't, that's nothing to me.' Martin uses this to illustrate how a cheapened culture and cheapened theology both lose the precision needed to carry imputation.

A cheapened language both derives from and reflects a debased culture. He then goes on to quote a modern writer who reflects this disdain and contempt for language so typical in our society. This modern author has a character called Sweeney. And this is what Sweeney says. I gotta use words when I talk to you.

7:33 - 8:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Refuse the laziness of letting 'imputation' become a foreign word; grapple with it until you can state it back to God with intelligent faith.

In common speech we say, 'Please don't impute such low motives to me' - meaning don't lay those motives to my account or charge them to me. Scripture uses the word impute in exactly the same way, to lay something to someone's account and treat them accordingly.

Please don't impute those motives to me. What do you mean? You've been talking with someone and they suspect you of being jealous or envious and you say, Please don't impute such low motives to me. What do you mean when you use the word impute? Well, you mean simply, Don't lay such motives to my account. Don't charge me or reckon to me such motives.

10:22 - 10:50 Read in full sermon

Paul writes to Philemon about the runaway slave Onesimus, saying, 'If he has wronged you at all or owes you anything, put that to mine account.' Paul asks Philemon to transfer Onesimus's debt to Paul's record. That is imputation in action.

in which Paul writes to his friend Philemon concerning a runaway slave named Onesimus, who has subsequently been converted, whom he is now directing to return to his legitimate master. And then he says this to Philemon concerning Onesimus, verse 18 of Philemon, But if he hath wronged thee at all, or owe it thee ought, put that to mine account.

16:39 - 17:08 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I say that is some of the most shocking language in the Bible. The sinless one is made sin.

On the Day of Atonement, Aaron lays both hands on the live goat and confesses over him all the iniquities of Israel. The goat, having no moral consciousness, cannot bear sin by pollution or guilt - he bears them only by imputation, charged to his account and carried symbolically into the wilderness.

And when he hath made an end of atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat, and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins. And he shall put them upon the head of the goat, and And shall send him away by the hand of a man that is in readiness unto the wilderness. Now notice the language. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a solitary land. The goat shall bear upon him. Now how can a ...

28:51 - 29:46 Read in full sermon

Driving home: This reckoning is no legal fiction. This reckoning is real.

Christ was arrested, tried, and put to death as a criminal in the eyes of all humanity. He appeared as a malefactor because in the court of heaven He had been constituted a criminal by imputation - not by personal involvement with sin, but by having our sins reckoned to His account.

Jesus Christ is arrested as a criminal. He is tried as a criminal. He is put to death as a criminal. And he dies as a criminal in the eyes of all humanity. Why? Because he was a criminal. He was charged with sin. Sin was laid to his account.

36:41 - 37:10 Read in full sermon

Driving home: This reckoning is no legal fiction. This reckoning is real.

The imputation was as real as the blood that flowed from His holy pains, as real as the shrouded heavens that hid Him even from the comfort of the sun's warmth, as real as the pangs that wrung from His soul the cry 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'

My God, my God, why hast thou played games with me? No. Why hast thou abandoned me? How real was the imputation? How real was the treatment of the Father, of the Son, in the midst of the imputation? As real.

40:27 - 40:51 Read in full sermon