Imputation

“I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.” _{(Isaiah 61:10)}

The dictionary definition of imputation is: “to credit to a person or a cause.” This term is most associated with Justification. It is related to the atonement of Christ, because two imputations occur as a result of the atonement. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross brings a credit to the believer and it also brings a credit from the believer to Christ. This is known as the Double Imputation. Most believers understand that those who have faith in Christ have their sins imputed to Christ, who paid the penalty for those sins by His death. However, many don’t know that the righteousness of Christ is also imputed to the believer thorough his faith in Christ.

To better understand the need for this double imputation, the following excerpt from Prof. Joel Beeke is helpful.

“For a sinner to stand before God, two things are required; first his iniquities must be forgiven; and second, he must possess a righteousness that will meet the requirement of God’s justice.”

In the first imputation our sins are transferred to Christ, where He pays the penalty and we are forgiven by God. In the second imputation, His righteousness is given to us so that we possess a righteousness that meets God’s justice. The righteousness that we receive from Christ is the righteousness that He obtained through His perfect keeping of the law during His

Here is the account of John Bunyan’s experience when he discovered the “imputed righteousness” of Christ as told by John Piper in his book, Brothers, We are not Professionals.

“Consider 1 Corinthians 1:30. John Bunyan said that after the experience in the field where the imputed righteousness of Christ hit him so powerfully, he went home and looked for Biblical support. He came upon 1 Corinthians 1:30. “[God] is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” “By this scripture,” Bunyan said, “I saw that the man Christ Jesus … is our righteousness and sanctification before God. Here therefore I lived for some time very sweetly at peace with God, through Christ.” Bunyan’s text (1 Cor. 1:30) says that Christ became for us “righteousness.” And the reason Christ is our “righteousness” in this way is that we are “in Christ Jesus.” “You are in Christ Jesus who became to [or for] us … righteousness.” Christ, not faith is our righteousness. Faith unites us to Christ so that God’s righteousness is reckoned to us.”