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Excerpts on Divine Imputation

Editor's Note:  All of these books are still pointed to by Don Fortner's website.  They can be found on Grace E-Books.  In them, Bro. Fortner is explicitly clear that justification and Christ being made sin was ONLY by imputation. 

 

The Following are Excerpts from The Glorious State of God’s Saints In Heaven by Don Fortner, Published in 2007

  1. When the righteous perish from the earth, they live in uprightness forever (Isa. 57:1-2). When the righteous die, they are taken away from evil, enter into a world of peace, and rest in their beds. Their bodies rest in hope in the grave, in hope of the resurrection. Their souls rest in the arms of Christ, their Redeemer. Our departed friends have entered into everlasting rest (Heb. 4:9-11). There they walk in their uprightness. God reckons the righteousness of Christ imputed to us to be our righteousness. And he makes it ours personally in heaven. There our departed brethren walk in their uprightness, in spotless purity and holiness, in shining robes of bliss and glory.
  2. The souls of believers, redeemed sinners, men and women who have been made righteous before God by the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, the souls of God’s saints return to God at death.
  3. The fruit of this Tree of Life is abundant at all times. From it we obtain abundant, perfect righteousness, (both for justification and for sanctification), plenteous redemption, (from the curse of the law by Christ’s atonement, from the dominion of sin by the power of his grace, and from the very being and consequences of sin by the resurrection of our bodies), and eternal life, with all its blessedness in time and eternity. The leaves of this Tree are for the healing of the nations, The leaves of this tree are the blessed doctrines of the gospel: Substitutionary redemption and imputed righteousness.  
  4. Our sins have to be put away. We must be justified, made righteous, by divine imputation (Rom. 3:21-24).

 

The Following are Excerpts from The Names of God by Don Fortner, Published 2010

  1. We can only be saved, healed of our souls’ plague, when the work of Christ is imputed to us
  2. Those who oppose and fight against the doctrine of Christ, his eternal Deity, effectual atonement, imputed righteousness, free grace salvation, sovereign rule over all things, or almighty intercession in heaven, are our enemies.

  3. Divine imputation is the very foundation of the gospel. We fell and became sinners by the imputation of Adam’s sin to us, without anything we had done personally. And it is only by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, apart from anything done by us, that we rise to the justification of life (Rom. 5:12-19; I Cor. 15:21-22). This is the only true grounds of our acceptance with God - Christ Jesus is the Lord our Righteousness. The Law-Giver has obeyed the law in our stead; and his obedience is sufficient for us. When he died as our Substitute our sins were imputed to the Son of God. And now, in his resurrection life, his righteousness is imputed to us“He was delivered for our sins, and raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Christ is the Sun of Righteousness who has risen with healing beneath his wings for the healing of the nations. He finished the transgression. He made an end of sin. He made reconciliation for iniquity. He brought in an everlasting righteousness. He magnified the law and made it honorable. And he is “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (II Cor. 5:21).

  4. We have a better righteousness than Adam had in the garden. His was the created righteousness of innocent man. Ours is the earned, purchased, imputed righteousness of the perfect God-man.

 

The Following are Excerpts from The Mysteries of God by Don Fortner, Published 2010

  1. When he was resurrected from the dead, he was by the Holy Spirit justified from our sins that had been imputed to him. He was slain because he had been made to be sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). When he arose from the dead three days later, his resurrection was God’s public declaration that all the sins he bore in his body on the cursed tree were forever put away. Thus, his resurrection vindicated and justified his claims; and he was justified as our Representative and Surety (Rom. 4:25)

  2. He shall be our Substitute still in the day of judgment. Just as he stood condemned in our place before the bar of God, bearing our sins imputed to him, we shall stand accepted and blessed before the bar of God, being redeemed from all sin and having his righteousness imputed to us (Jer. 50:20; Rev. 21:27; 22:11).

 

The Following are Excerpts from Life After Pentecost, by Don Fortner, Published 1995

  1. If Christ who was made to be sin for us is now exalted with everlasting glory upon the throne of God, then our sins that were imputed to him are gone forever!
  2. God will not punish sin where he will not impute sin; and God will not impute sin to his elect, whose sins were imputed to Christ (Rom. 4:8; 8:33-34). 

  3. When the pearls of the gospel (free forgiveness, effectual atonement, imputed righteousness, and infallible, irresistible grace) are cast before swine, they will trample the pearls in the mud to get at the one who preaches God's free grace in Christ, and will destroy him if they can.

  4. We are completely forgiven of all sin, perfectly righteous, and approved of by God through the sin-atoning blood and imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

  5. The resurrection of Christ is God's public declaration that he is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Son of David, that he has put away the sins of his people which were imputed to him by the satisfaction of divine justice, and that the "sure mercies of David", (the sure mercies of God in Christ), shall be bestowed upon all his people.

  6. The gospel of the free grace of God in Christ is the message of redemption accomplished by the substitutionary sacrifice of the Son of God. It is the proclamation of the free forgiveness of sins and complete justification for all who believe upon the grounds of justice satisfied and righteousness imputed (I John 1:9; Rom. 3:24-26).

  7. Natural men are tolerant of every opinion and every religion of man's making. But the gospel of Christ, the truth of God, the religion of the Bible, the message of free salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, the message of salvation by blood atonement, imputed righteousness, and divine regeneration is offensive to all unregenerate men (I Cor. 1:18-25). 

  8. The message of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone offends man's pride because it exposes his sin, his intelligence because it can only be known by revelation, his righteousness because it declares his righteousness to be filthy rags and reveals the necessity of a substitutionary atonement for sin and the imputed righteousness of an infinitely meritorious Representative, the Lord Jesus Christ.

  9. He pressed home both the necessity of Christ's imputed righteousness and the moral implications of the gospel. 

  10. But since Christ did die for us and did rise from the dead, we are assured that...our sins which were imputed to him are gone, washed away by his blood.

  11. Those who stand before God in the spotless garments of Christ's imputed righteousness, whose sins have been put away by his substitutionary sacrifice will enter into and forever enjoy the glory of heavenly bliss in their bodies. But all who stand before God naked, polluted in their sins, without a Substitute will be cast body and soul into hell to eternally endure the torments of God's holy and just wrath.

  12. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. If you do but trust him, he is your righteousness. Your faith in him is evidence of the fact that he put away your sins by the shedding of his blood, that God has imputed to you his righteousness, and you are born of God. 

  13. The Redemption of God's Elect - Justice being satisfied, our sins have been purged from the record of heaven, and sin can never be imputed to a believer (Heb. 9:12; Rom. 4:8; I John 2:2).

  14. Christ, so that all who are Christians are saints, being made holy by the imputed righteousness of Christ in justification (Rom. 3:24-26; 5:19) and the imparted righteousness of Christ in regeneration (I John 3:9).  (Editor's note: I prefer not to call Holy Spirit Baptism imparted righteousness but I suppose in a way this is true.  I think the terminology should be avoided, but this is only a minor quibble from me.)

  15. By his obedience to the law as our Representative, Christ brought in perfect righteousness, which is imputed to all who trust him. By that righteousness, we are completely justified in God's sight (Jer. 23:6; Rom. 3:28-31; 4:21-25). Our works have nothing to do with our righteousness. We are justified by his work being imputed to us

  16. This can be accomplished only through the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ and the free imputation of his righteousness to us by the grace of God (II Cor. 5:21; Rom. 3:24-26).

  17. As he is pleased with Christ, so he is pleased with all who are in Christ by his grace (Matt. 17:5), because all that Christ has is ours in him by divine imputation.

  18. When the Word of God speaks of the resurrection of the just, it is referring to the resurrection of those people who have been justified and made righteous by the imputation of Christ's righteousness to them

 

The Following are Excerpts from Grace for Today, by Don Fortner, published 2003

  1. God made his Son to be sin for us. Christ had no sin of his own. He had no original sin and no actual sin. He was ‘holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sin.’ Yet he was made sin. By divine imputation, all the sin of all God’s elect was laid upon Christ our Substitute. Christ ‘his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree’. This transfer of sin from us to our Substitute was so real and complete that the Son of God became sin for us! He even claimed our sin as his own, willingly assuming all responsibility for the sins of his people. 
  2. Our sins are forgiven. We have the righteousness of God in Christ imputed to us. We are accepted in the Beloved. 
  3. He was made to be sin for us by divine imputation.  And, when he was made to be sin for us, our Substitute received the wages of sin ⎯ death. In him all who believe died under penalty of God’s law. Now God imputes the righteousness of his Son to every believer.
  4. There is no evil recorded against them because the righteous obedience of Christ to the law is imputed to them (Rom. 5:19).
  5. There was no possible way for the Lord of glory to be made sin, except by imputation. And there is no way by which any man can be made righteousness, except by imputation.
  6. All of God’s elect, without exception, will be glorified, presented before the presence of God himself, ‘holy and without blame’, being perfectly righteous through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to them (Eph. 1:4).

  7. By his obedience to God as your Representative, Christ did what you could never do. He magnified the law and made it honorable in his life. That righteous life God imputes to you.

  8. You have received of the Lord’s hand double for all your sins. The justice of God which demanded your eternal ruin has been satisfied by the blood of Christ so that in Christ you are not only pardoned but also made perfectly righteous by divine imputation.

  9. When God imputed the righteousness of Christ to us, he was ‘made unto us righteousness'; and we have been made the righteousness of God in him’.

  10. We have no righteousness of our own. But we trust the Lord Jesus who lived in righteousness as our Representative. And trusting him, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us (Rom. 3:22; 5:19).

  11. Frequently, the word ‘perfect’ refers to the believer’s positional holiness, sinlessness, and blamelessness before the law of God by the atonement of Christ and the imputation of his righteousness (Ezek. 16:14). 

  12. Imputed righteousness is an act of God’s grace in redemption. Because the Lord Jesus Christ lived in righteousness upon this earth as our Representative and died under the penalty of God’s law as our Substitute, the law and justice of God declare that we are righteous. The very righteousness of Christ, his perfect obedience to God as a man, has been imputed to us. That is to say, righteousness has been laid to our account. In exactly the same manner as our sins were imputed to Christ, his righteousness has been imputed to us. When God made Christ to be sin for us, he charged him with our sin. The Son of God became responsible to the law of God for the sins of his elect. And the penalty of sin was exacted from him. He died under the wrath of God. Even so, God having imputed the righteousness of Christ to us who believe, we have become responsible for righteousness in the sight of God’s law. And we shall receive the just reward of the law for righteousness, eternal life and everlasting glory. As our works of sin were made to be our Lord’s, so his works of righteousness have been made ours. As he received the reward of our sin, we must receive the reward of his righteousness. That is substitution. Our righteousness before God is perfect, unalterable righteousness. It is the righteousness of Christ, our Substitute. Child of God, can you realize this? Your standing, your acceptance with God never varies. God is always well pleased with you in his Son!

  13. That righteousness which God imputed to us in justification is the righteousness of Christ alone.

  14. Who can explain how the eternal Son of God could come to this earth in human flesh, live in perfect righteousness as our Representative before God, have our sins imputed to him, suffer and die as our Substitute in full satisfaction of infinite justice, rise from the dead in accomplishment of our justification and reign in glory as the God-man Mediator to save his people?

  15. Perfect holiness was legally imputed to God’s elect by the obedience of Christ. 

  16. The exaltation of Christ assures me that my sin is gone. By way of divine imputation, our sins were laid upon Christ. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. In his body our sins were nailed to the cross. Because he bore our sins, he died and was buried. Now the fact that he is risen and exalted to the throne of heaven is proof positive that our sins are all taken away. In the book of God’s law and justice not one sin is recorded against any believer!

  17. Yet in order to redeem us from our sins and to justify us before God, the Son of God had to be made sin for us. By a legal transfer and imputation, the Son of God was made to be sin for us. Our sin and our guilt were imputed to the Lord Jesus Christ and God’s holy law exacted from him the just penalty of our sins. ‘He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.’ ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.’

  18. We have been saved (2 Tim. 1:9). In one sense of the word, our salvation is eternal. God’s elect have always been viewed by him in Christ, ‘accepted in the beloved’. In the decree of God we were eternally called, justified and glorified. To be sure, all of God’s elect were redeemed, justified and sanctified at Calvary. Redemption was not only an act of mercy. It was a legal transfer. Our sins were imputed to Christ and his righteousness was imputed to us. 

  19. It is this perfect righteousness of Christ which God imputes to all who believe.

  20. The guilt of all his elect was imputed to him. God accounted him to be a sinner.

  21. God has imputed the merits of his own Son to your account, that you might be exceedingly rich through him, who for your sake became exceedingly poor.

  22. God made his Son to be sin for all who believe on him, imputing our sins to his Son. And God made every believer to be righteous, innocent, not guilty, imputing the righteousness of his Son to us. ‘He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him’ (2 Cor. 5:21). This is the vital truth of the gospel.

  23. Through the imputed righteousness of Christ, God has ‘made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light’ (Col. 1: 12).

  24. God has made all of his elect righteous by imputing the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ to us. This imputed righteousness is an act of God’s grace in redemption. Because the Lord Jesus Christ lived in righteousness upon the earth as our Representative and died under the penalty of God’s law as our Substitute, the law and justice of God declare that we are righteous. The very righteousness of Christ, his perfect obedience to God as a man, has been imputed to us. That is to say, righteousness has been laid to our account. In exactly the same manner as our sins were imputed to Christ, his righteousness has been imputed to us. When God made Christ to be sin for us, he charged him with our sin. The Son of God became responsible to the law for the sins of his elect people. And the penalty of sin was exacted from him. He died under the wrath of God because of our sin. Even so, God leaving imputed the righteousness of Christ to us who believe. We have become righteous in the sight of God’s law. And we shall receive the just reward of the law for righteousness: eternal life and everlasting glory. As our works of sin were made to be our Lord’s, so his works of righteousness have been made ours. As he received the reward of our sin, we must receive the reward of his righteousness. That is substitution.

  25. Your own righteousness is filthy rags in the sight of a holy God. He will never accept your righteousness, but he does accept the righteousness of his Son. This perfect righteousness of the man Christ Jesus is imputed to every sinner who believes on him.

  26. Yes, the Son of God took upon himself human flesh, according to the will of God our Father, and came into this world as a man, to save sinners. He lived in righteousness to establish righteousness as a man, even the very righteousness of God which is imputed to every believer

  27. God took all the sins of all his people and made them to be his Son’s, so that by divine imputation the Son of God was made to be sin for us. 

  28. It is this righteousness, performed by Christ, which God imputes to believers.

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