Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I have two passages that I want you to look at today.
The first one is in the Old Testament. It's Psalm 32. The 32nd Psalm,
which is the Psalm of David, concerning the issue of imputation. The title of the message is the
truth of imputation. And then the second passage is
Romans chapter four. where the Apostle Paul was inspired
by the Holy Spirit to quote from this passage in the Psalms on
the doctrine, the truth of imputation. Now, if you've listened to this
program at any at all, you know that just about every program
I talk about the imputation of the sins of God's people to Christ
and the imputation of Christ's righteousness to God's people.
and it's so important. You know, not many preachers
today preach on this but it's really the heart of the gospel
I want to talk to you about and I always tell you what the word
impute means. It means to charge, to account, to reckon. It's like
reckoning the debt of a person to another, a surety. or reckoning
the payment of a debt to a person. If you go run up a debt, that
debt is charged to you. But if somebody comes in to the
one you owe the debt to and says, put their charges on my account,
put their debt on my account, I'll repay it. That's what we're
talking about here. And that's what Christ did for
His people before the world began in the everlasting covenant of
grace. He was made the surety of God's people. And a surety
is one who takes upon himself the debt of another to pay it. And last week I dealt with this
on the essentials of justification. Who shall lay anything? This
is Romans 8, 33. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifieth. Who
is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died. In other
words, God's elect are those who are justified before God.
They cannot be charged with their sins because Christ took their
charges. and He paid the debt with the
price of His blood. And He brought forth a righteousness
that has been charged to them. You can read about that in passages
like 2 Corinthians 5.21 where it says, for He, that is God
the Father, made Him, that is God the Son incarnate, the Lord
Jesus Christ, to be sin or made Him sin for us who knew no sin. Now, the who knew no sin refers
back to Christ. Christ knew no sin. He was not
a sinner. He didn't become a sinner. He
was never corrupted with the sins of His people. He remained
sinlessly perfect, impeccable in all that He thought, said,
and did. But He was made sin. How? Christ was made sin by the imputation,
the charging, the reckoning of the sins of God's people, His
sheep, God's elect, to His account. And that's why He came to earth.
Hebrews 2 and verse 17 says, it behooved him to be made like
unto his brethren, that's the elect, that's his sheep, that
he might be a faithful and merciful high priest, that he might die
for their sins. That word behooved is the Greek
word for dead. The debt that he paid, he paid
my debt in full and gave me an everlasting righteousness. So
2 Corinthians 5 21 now, for God the Father made God the Son incarnate
to be sin, Christ who knew no sin for us that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. So anytime in the Bible when
you see the non-imputation of sins, That is, God doesn't impute,
charge, account, reckon my sins to me. It also means that they
were imputed to Christ because the debt had to be paid. That's
what he did. He's the surety, the substitute, the redeemer
of his people. And his righteousness, the very
righteousness of God, which is the entire merit, worth, and
value of his obedience unto death for his people. is imputed, charged
to them. Now look at Psalm 32. And I want
to show you this in scripture. We'll do a little exercise in
biblical interpretation. And incidentally, there are rules
of interpretation for the Bible. And I wrote a book on that if
you'd like to get that, you know, rightly dividing the word. So,
but look at Psalm 32. David begins, I'm just going
to read the first two verses of this Psalm. He says, blessed
is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Now, he says blessed, if you're,
the forgiveness of sins, I dealt with this last week, that to
be justified before God, it means that all my sins are forgiven
on a just ground. And the only just ground is the
blood of Jesus Christ. His blood beareth away all the
sins of all his people, he is elect, given him before the foundation
of the world. That's why he said, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to
me I will in no wise cast out. But now this forgiveness of sins,
it's not just arbitrary. It's not just that God zaps you.
He says, well, I'll just choose to forgive your sins today. No,
God must be just when he forgives sins. He's got to deal in truth. He can't act like that we're
something that we're not. We're sinners. But there's only
two types of people on earth, sinners lost in their sins and
sinners saved by grace. So how can God be just and righteous
and holy and remain so and forgive me of my sins? How can you do
that? Well, he says, blessed is he
whose transgression is forgiven. The forgiveness of sin is a blessing
of God's grace. It's not something we earn. It doesn't come to us on the
basis of our believing. I hear preachers all the time,
they say, well, if you'll believe, God will forgive you. Listen,
God has already forgiven his people. by the blood of Christ. And if you're one of them, you
will come to believe this. He'll bring you to believe it.
So what is the basis of it? Well, whose sin is covered, David
says. Covered with what? Well, that
word covered, he's not talking about hidden from view. He's
talking about covered by the blood. Now, back in the Old Testament,
they had the blood of animals. which brought forth a ceremonial,
temporal, and temporary reprieve. It was called an atonement. But
my friend, the blood of bulls and goats, as Hebrews 10 tells
us, could never take away sin, could never pay the price. That
blood of bulls and goats was given by God to picture, typify,
foreshadow, and prophesy of the only one whose blood could forgive
sins, and that's the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what the blood of bulls and goats pictured. And any Israelite under
the old covenant law of Moses who thought that the blood of
animals could bring about a spiritual and eternal forgiveness of sin,
they were totally wrong. In fact, it became idolatry.
That blood of the lambs, the Passover lamb, for example, that
was given in Egypt, Christ is our Passover, if you're a believer,
that the Passover blood that was spread upon the doors, doorposts
of the Hebrews in Egypt, It only temporarily and ceremonially
saved them from physical death. But it didn't last. It wasn't
eternal. But that blood over that doorpost
pictured eternal forgiveness and salvation by the Lamb of
God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see that? So when David
says, blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered,
he's talking about one and the same thing. My transgression,
my sin, my iniquity is forgiven because I'm covered by the blood
of Christ. Christ paid my debt. But now
look at verse two. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is
no guile. God doesn't charge His people
with their sins. He charged them to Christ. And
God charges His people with righteousness. We're gonna see that in Romans
chapter four here in just a moment. And that's justification. Forgiven
of all my sins on a just ground, the blood of Jesus Christ, declared
righteous in God's court of justice, based upon Christ's righteousness
imputed. And if that's my case, If that's
your case, at some point in time, God's gonna bring you under the
preaching of the gospel, and he's gonna make you an honest
person. Because before you hear and believe the gospel, you're
not honest concerning salvation. Now you may be honest in your
business dealings, and that's good, that's all right, but that
won't save you. I hope you, if you're a businessman
or a businesswoman, I hope you're honest. I hope you're honest
with everybody. in every area of life, but that
won't save you. But until you see salvation by
God's grace based upon the blood and righteousness of Christ alone,
and that if God didn't save you by His grace, you deserve nothing
but death and hell, you're not an honest person. You're lying
to yourself. If you think that God will save
you or bless you or keep you based upon your law keeping,
your works, Your wills, you're not honest, not before God. You
see, honesty before God comes by the work of the Spirit in
the new birth. And that's what he means when he says, in whose
spirit there is no guile. He's talking about the dishonesty
that man is by nature concerning how God saves sinners. Well,
look with me over in Romans chapter four. Now talking about the blessing
of imputation, the apostle in the first three chapters of Romans,
he had made it clear that salvation, all of it, justification, sanctification,
regeneration, conversion, the new birth, all of it is totally
by God's grace, not based upon the works or the wills of men
and women, but based totally upon the death, burial, and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. His obedience unto death. Grace
reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. And in Romans 4, he takes two
men whom the Jews held in high esteem One is Abraham and the
other is King David. And so he uses them as an example
of the very truth that he's teaching in the gospel. And he says in
verse one, this is Romans four. What shall we say then that Abraham
our father as pertaining to the flesh hath found? Now you understand
what he's talking about here. The unbelieving Jews basically
rested on three issues, three things. that they thought made
them right or just in God's sight. Number one was their physical
connection with Abraham. We be Abraham's seed, they said. Secondly was their physical circumcision. Now that was circumcision of
the men and they represented the women, the family. We be
circumcised. And then thirdly, their law keeping
and the law of Moses. They claim to have kept the law.
They did not keep the law. And if you claim to have kept
the law, you're lying to yourself. You've got that guile still there. I know that I'm a sinner. All
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Well, what
is the glory of God? That's Christ and His righteousness.
You see, none of us measure up to the perfection of righteousness
of the law that can only be found in Christ. So he says, well,
let's talk about Abraham according to that. What did Abraham find
in his relationship with God according to his flesh? And he
says in verse two, for if Abraham were justified by works, if he
was forgiven of his sins and declared righteous in God's sight
by his works, he hath whereof the glory or to boast. He's got
reason about it. If you can be forgiven or declared
righteous, if you can be justified by your works, you got room to
brag. But he says in verse two, but
not before God. Now you can brag before men and
get away with it, but you're not gonna brag before God and
get away with it. God's way of salvation leaves
me no room to boast. that's why Paul wrote in Galatians
6 14, God forbid that I should glory both save in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me
and I unto the world. That's why he wrote in Philippians
chapter 3, we are the circumcision, talking about circumcision of
the heart, the new birth, which worship God in spirit and rejoice
or boast or glory in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the
flesh." So he says, Abraham, if he could have been justified
by his works, he'd have room to boast before me, but not before
God. Oh no, God sees everything. God
knows the truth. And that's why he makes us honest
before himself. I have to say before God, God,
if you were to judge me based upon my best efforts to keep
the law, I would be condemned. But I'm not condemned, why? Because
blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. And what does that mean? Well,
he goes on, verse three, this is Romans four. For what saith
the scripture? What does the word of God say?
Abraham believed God and it was counted, imputed, charged, reckoned
unto him for righteousness. Well now, is that telling me
that Abraham's believing was imputed to him for righteousness?
In other words, Abraham was a sinner, he couldn't make himself righteous
by the works of the law, so God accepted faith on a lesser term? No. Abraham believed God. What did he believe? He believed
what God promised him. And what did God promise Abraham?
Salvation by grace through the coming promised Messiah. Righteousness
in Christ. That's the promise that he made
to Abraham. He didn't say, Abraham, God loves
you and Christ died for you. Now, if you'll just do your part,
that'll all kick into gear. No, that's a concoction of man. He promised Abraham a seed. and that seed would find its
full fruition in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ
who would come through the miracle child Isaac as according to the
flesh and through the tribe of Judah according to the flesh.
So that's what Abraham believed. He didn't believe in his believing.
You know, a lot of people today have faith in their own faith.
They think that by believing, they made the difference between
heaven and hell, but that's not the case. Believing the truth
evidences that you're part of that people for whom Christ died
and made the difference. That's the key. So he said, Abraham
believed God, that's what God promised him, and it, what is
the it there? Christ's righteousness, Christ's
blood. was counted unto him for righteousness. And then he says, and somebody
said, well, how do you know that? Well, you can look over at that
faith that was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness, that righteousness
was imputed to him, all of that, it tells, read the whole chapter.
But let's go to verse four. It says in Romans 4 and verse
4, now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned or imputed
or charged or accounted of grace, but of debt. In other words,
if you can work in order to get it, it's because God owes it
to you. But God never puts himself in
a position where he's indebted to his people. Now Christ had
a debt laid upon him and he willingly took it. And He came to this
world to pay that debt as the substitute and the Redeemer of
His people. And the price to pay that debt
was His blood, His death, His obedience unto death on the cross.
So he says in verse five, but to him that worketh not, but
believeth on him. Now here's the key. Remember
I talked to you about Abraham believed God and it was what
was promised. Look at it again, verse five,
but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly. His faith, not his believing,
but the content of what he believed is counted for righteousness.
What is my faith? Well, my faith is in Christ.
Those who believe in Him look unto Him as the author and finisher
of our faith. We look to Him, we rest in Him.
The just shall live by faith. What is that? Looking to Christ,
resting in Him for all forgiveness and for all righteousness. God
justifies the ungodly. Now, is God pretending that I'm...
As God justifies His people, You know, a lot of people say,
well, that's a legal fiction. That's what the Catholic church
calls it, because they don't believe that. They believe in
an imparted or an infused righteousness, that God puts it in you, makes
you righteous within, and then justifies you. But that's not
right. That's work, salvation. So when God justifies the ungodly,
is God pretending that I'm something that I'm not? And the answer
is no. Is that as what some preachers
today call it a legal fiction? I'm still a sinner, but as far
as my standing before God, my standing before I'm justified.
The three things that terms, when you think about the Christian
life, these three things stand true for God's people. Number
one, they have a righteous standing before God that never changes.
That's in Christ. Standing before God, washed in
His blood, clothed in His righteousness. Their sins cannot be charged
to them. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. That's
our standing before God. The second word about the Christian
life is state. We fell in Adam, even God's elect,
even those whom God justified in Christ before the foundation
of the world, we fell in Adam into a state of death and sin
and depravity. That's what Romans 5 talks about.
By one man, sin entered into the world and death by sin for
that all sin, Romans 5, 12. So we're born into a state of
spiritual death and depravity, lost, in darkness, deception. But that state will change for
God's people because at some point in time, as it pleases
God in His appointed time, they'll be brought under the preaching
of the gospel and they'll be born again by the Spirit. And
their state changes from an unbeliever, spiritually dead, to spiritually
alive, believing the gospel. But from then on, the third word
is struggle. Because they've been born again
and given spiritual life and knowledge and faith and repentance,
all those gifts and blessings of salvation. And because they
still have the remaining corruptions of the sinful flesh within. Life
is a struggle, it's a warfare between the flesh and the spirit.
Paul described it in Romans 7, he described it in Galatians
5. Standing that never changes, state that does change. And once
we're born again, that's the way we stay. And then we struggle. We persevere in the faith. We'll
mess up. We'll sometimes fall, but God
will pick us back up. He'll preserve us under glory.
And then our state will change again because once we die and
leave this world, we go to be with Him. Then we are sinlessly
perfect within ourselves. But until that time, we're in
a struggle, a warfare of the flesh and the spirit. But who
does God save? He saves sinners. Who does He
justify? The ungodly. That's what He says,
and it says His faith, that is, Christ's righteousness, is counted
to Him, imputed to Him for righteousness. Now, Remember back in Psalm 32
where David said, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputed
not iniquity, in whose spirit there's no guile. Well look at
verse 6 of Romans 4. Now Paul goes to David, he shows
that he shows the unbelieving Israelites that Abraham was saved
by grace, justified by grace, and imputed righteousness. But
even David was the same. Look at verse six. Even as David
also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth
righteousness without works. Huh? What did he say? Even as
David, King David, describes the blessedness of the man. of
the man unto whom God imputeth what? Righteousness, without
words. Now, whose righteousness did
he impute to David? To Abraham, to every believer,
Christ's righteousness. Well, when did David say that?
You know, I had a man talking to me about certain scriptures
in the Old Testament, and you might see a truth there. And
it's not spelled out in words, but it's there. and talking about
passages like this in Psalm 32. He said, but it didn't say that
there. Yes, it did. How do you know?
Because God, the Holy Spirit says it did. David was describing
the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness
without works. When did David say it? Well,
look at verses seven and eight. Look at it. saying, blessed are
those are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are
covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. That's when David talked about
the righteousness, but it's not written out there. Oh, well,
here's the thing about it. Here's what you guys have to
see. Whenever the Bible speaks of the blessedness of imputation, as it pertains to God's people
and a right standing before them. Whenever it speaks of the non-imputation
of sins, like over in 2 Corinthians 5, and let me show you that,
because this is a verse of scripture that's been under fire from a
lot of people in the last few, it's for years, but look at 2
Corinthians 5, verse 19. where it says, God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
The non-imputation of sins to me means my sins were imputed
to Christ, and if my sins were imputed to Christ, it means his
righteousness is imputed to me. That's the blessedness of imputation.
That's the story of the gospel. That's the righteousness of God
revealed in the gospel. And David spoke of it, Abraham
spoke of it, every believer does. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.