We are in Psalm 32. Let me read
those two verses to you. Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. So that's the first two verses
of Psalm 32. And that's why we're studying
this matter of imputation, because it says here, the man is blessed
to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. And this was explained
in Romans chapter four, which was the first place we looked
when we began understanding Psalm 32, verses one and two. And we
saw there in Romans 4 how that the Lord teaches imputation throughout
scripture. He obviously was teaching it
in Romans 4 when he was explaining Psalm 32. And in Romans 4 he
explains how that God imputed righteousness to Abraham. And
then he goes on and he quotes from David from Psalm 32 to prove
that God imputes righteousness to those who are sinners. To whom the Lord imputeth not
iniquity, that man is blessed. So here we have imputation of
righteousness to a man named Abraham. and the imputation of
righteousness to those who are sinners. And it's stated this
way in Romans chapter 4, to him that worketh not, that means
he doesn't do something in order to become righteous, but believes
on him that justifies the ungodly, and this is what the next few
verses are going to prove, his faith is counted for righteousness.
And so that's what we've been looking at, this matter of imputation. And it took us to 2 Corinthians
chapter five in verse 21. you probably have that text of
scripture memorized. And 2 Corinthians 5 is in the
context, of course, of the whole book of 2 Corinthians and the
chapter of chapter 5, where in verse 7 it says that, let me
just go there, in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, because I'm trying
to get us back on track where we were. He says in 2 Corinthians
5, 7, we walk by faith, not by sight. So the imputation of righteousness
has to do with God's act, and those who believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ are those, God says, he has imputed the righteousness
of Christ to. And so in 2 Corinthians 5, 21,
to get to that verse that's so familiar, for he hath made him
to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. And last week I tried to emphasize
the importance that in this verse, as is true of all of the gospel,
what God is saying here is meant to direct us to the Lord Jesus
Christ. If we miss that, we've missed
the whole context here. We've missed everything. But
God is directing us to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's why
in this verse he says, he hath made him sin to be sin for us,
or just sin for us, who knew no sin. He knew no sin, but God
made him to be sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. So our hope, all of our hope
and our faith and our assurance is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We love Him. We trust Him. We hope for Him. And in Him, we have everything. God has made Him to be everything
for us in Him. And so that's where we're at
here, is looking at what God has made Christ for us. But in
understanding this thing of imputation, We need to look at this in the way that we have been
going here. I want you to see something tonight, namely, I
want you to see the effects or the consequences of imputation. Okay, so we understand that imputation
from what we've read in scripture means it has to do with one thinking
of another in a certain way. And when this has to do with
us and God, God thinks of us in a certain way. And so that's
the meaning of the word impute. God regarding or counting or
considering us as either sinners or as righteous. And there's
always a basis for imputation, and we looked at the basis for
imputation. Imputation has to do with God
attributing to us either guilt or righteousness. And our guilt
is attributed to us by God or imputed to us by God because
of three things. Number one, our relation. Number
two, a covenant or an agreement that was made. And number three,
an act or an action that was performed. Now, in our relation
to Adam, God is the one who made that
relation, obviously. In fact, God is the one who made
the covenant, and God is the one who does the imputing on
the basis of an action. So, let's think about this for
a minute, these three things. The basis of God imputing to
us our guilt or our sin in Adam. Our relation to Adam, who made
it? Well, God did. How did he make it? When he created
Adam, he created him, male and female, created he them. God
created male and female. He created everyone in Adam. Even Eve was in Adam. Remember,
he took a rib from Adam's side and made Eve. So everyone, all
of mankind, every individual born into this world except the
Lord Jesus Christ was in Adam when God created Adam. So God
made the relationship. And God also made a commandment,
or you could call it a covenant. It was a covenant God made, a
conditional covenant. God said in the day, he said
he made every tree in the garden, and he made the tree of life,
and he made the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he said,
you can eat of every tree, but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, you cannot eat of that. Thou shalt not eat
of it. It was a commandment. In the day you eat of that tree,
you shall surely die. Now he gave that commandment
to Adam. And he gave that commandment to Adam before he created Eve. It was in verse 17 of Genesis
chapter two. And then he created Eve, and
then, of course, Eve was under the commandment. And we know
the story. The devil tempted Eve. Eve was
tempted by what the devil said to doubt God, and to, in her
pride and desire to be wise, she ate of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. But it doesn't say in scripture
that the sin of Eve came upon all men to condemnation. In fact,
it says explicitly that in Romans chapter 5, if you want to turn
there, in Romans chapter 5 and verse 12, notice the way God
puts this in Romans 5 and verse 12. He says, wherefore, as by
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. In this text of scripture, it
tells us how the human race, how sin came into this world.
There was no sin, but sin entered into the world. How? By one man. And which man was that? Well,
obviously it was Adam. So he says in this verse, as by one
man sin entered into the world. So the entire human race, every
individual in the human race, without exception, is born into
the world, how? Through Adam. We weren't created
directly from God. We were born and we were conceived
through the natural process of reproduction that God created
and was passed on to us through Adam, through his children. So
in this scripture it says, actually in 1 Corinthians 15, 22, it says,
in Adam all die. Notice the words, in Adam all
die. But this scripture says that
it was by one man that sin entered into the world and death by sin,
so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned. So
what we learn from this verse is that, first of all, sin entered
through one man, Adam. Second, that death entered the
world through that one sin of that one man, Adam. And it also
says that death passed on all men, Because all sinned, therefore
God charged the one sin of the one man to all men. And what's
the proof? Death. Death. Death is the proof. The reason for death in the world
and the reason that all of Adam's children die is that God imputed
Adam's sin, that one sin, that disobedience of God's explicit
command, don't eat. He said that by that one sin,
all of his children became sinners. That's what verse 12 is stating
here. And it's expanded in the verses
that follow. So we know that death is the wage of sin. And
where there is death, there must be sin, therefore, because death
is the consequence of the wages of sin. And here it says that
death passed upon all men for that all have sinned. All sinned. in that one disobedience of Adam,
and why did God charge all men with Adam's one sin? Why? Well, He charged all men because, first
of all, it seemed good to God, and we know that whatever God
thinks is right, whatever He does is just and true, and he's
holy, he can't do wrong, because it seemed good to God, therefore
it was right that God charged us with Adam's sin. We could
just stop right there, since scripture says it, and we should
be done. That should be enough for us.
But first of all, let's consider the fact that the basis, as we
said, the basis of imputation begins with our relationship. And how were we related to Adam? Well, we were related in creation,
as I said. And when he said he created Adam,
he called them Adam, male and female, created them. And then
he said that Adam gave birth to a son named Seth after his
own likeness. And so all of us were created
by God when God created Adam. And so that relationship there
that all people would be born through Adam. That established
the relationship we have to Adam that God used to impute his disobedience
to us, all of us. Alright, so the second thing
we know is that God made a covenant with Adam. He said, as I already
quoted, the Lord commanded the man, saying, of every tree of
the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Now he gave this
command to Adam, But we were in Adam when he gave him that
command. And Adam was our representative head. I don't know how else to
say that. It's a big word, representative
head. It just means whatever he did in that first commandment
that God gave to him, we were placed under that commandment.
And whatever he did in either obeying or disobeying it, we
were in him when he either obeyed or disobeyed it. And so God made
this arrangement with Adam. And Adam, it doesn't say that
he accepted it, agreed to it, but obviously he was put under
it because he was created by God and everything God did with
Adam was by God's will. And so he was accountable to
God for it, just like we are. So the law was given in that
way to Adam and we were placed under this conditional covenant
under our representative head. a conditional covenant under
our representative head, Adam. We could talk about what these
two trees represent, but I'm not going to do that right now.
But the other thing here is the third part of this imputation,
not only relationship that God established, and not only this
covenant or this agreement that God made with Adam and us in
Adam, but third, there was an action that was imputed. Adam
disobeyed God, and that action was imputed to us as our act. So this representative man broke
the covenant by his act of disobedience, and it was the sin of that act
that passed on all men. The one sin of Adam is the reason
that death entered into the world. The one sin of Adam. By one man,
sin has entered into the world, and this explains how sin entered,
but it was not merely the first sin of all men, like we would
think, well, he sinned first, and then we ended up sinning
too, because he was the first in sinning. It wasn't that, and
it wasn't that he just set a bad example, and we ended up following
his example. The fact is, is God is teaching
us here that in that act, we acted. It was an act of disobedience
by the man God had made a representative head of all mankind. And since
God imputed this sin to all mankind, what was the result? What was
the result of that imputation, which is what I'm trying to get
to here? Well, let me ask this. Why did death pass upon all men?
There's no question that in Romans 5.12, the reason that all sinned
is the reason that God has given why death passed. The fact that
all sinned, it says, for that all sinned in Romans 5.12, that's
the reason God has given why death passed upon all men. Let
me read it. Death passed upon all men for
that all have sinned. So that's the reason. All sin,
therefore death, passed upon all men. And that sin was the
one sin of Adam and his disobedience to God. That is imputed to all
men, without exception. So they sinned in His disobedience. They became sinners by His disobedience. And because they were sinners
in that sin, therefore death passed upon them because death
is the wages of sin. Now consider these things in
these verses in Romans chapter 5. If you have Romans 5 open,
look at verse 15. Notice it says in verse 15, I'm
going to highlight some sections here. I'll read the whole verse,
but not as, notice, the offense, so also the free gift, for if
through the offense of one, many be dead. You see that? The offense,
one offense, of one Adam. Notice, many are dead. And then
look at verse 16. And not as by one that sinned
the gift, for the judgment, the judgment was by one to condemnation. So judgment by one to condemnation. Okay. And look at verse 17. It says, if by one man's offense,
death reigned by one. Okay. So it's clear. This is
Adam's offense, one offense. Okay? And then look at verse
18. He says, therefore, as by the offense of one, judgment
came upon all men to condemnation. Okay? The offense of one, judgment
by God, God made a judgment, and the judgment was condemning
all men because of that one offense of that one man. All men became,
came under judgment of God and were condemned. And then in verse
19, it's spelled out in very clear language. Notice the same
thing. It says, for as by one man's disobedience, many were
made sinners. Okay. So there you have it. There's
the doctrine of how our sin, how we became sinners in the
disobedience of Adam. He was made a representative
man in creation, and God gave him a commandment, that was the
agreement, and he did an act, he performed an act, and that
act, that sin, that disobedience, was charged to us as our sin. And now, I wanna ask, This, what
were the effects, okay? What were the effects of God
imputing the sin of Adam to us? Because it was our sin, we committed
it because God said so. God regarded it as ours. He counted
it as ours. He put it down as our disobedience
because we were in Adam. So, we know that God imputed
Adam's sin to all of his children, and we know that death passed
upon all of them, because they all sinned in that one sin. That's
the teaching here in Romans 5. But imputation has consequences. What God thinks is the way things
are. We tried to emphasize that in
the second lesson, I think, or the first lesson, I can't remember
which. Imputation is how God sees things, and whatever God
sees, whatever He thinks about it, that is the way that it is.
It doesn't do us any good to act as if that's not true. That
is the way things are. The consequences that passed
on all mankind prove the truth that God has stated. Imputation
brought consequences. God said before Adam's disobedience
would result, before he disobeyed, he said that his disobedience
would result in his death. And clearly what God said to
Adam applied to all of his children. So death followed immediately,
just as God said it would. Adam lost his spiritual sight,
he lost his spiritual trust, he lost spiritual life. He was
he lost the hope of life. And when God came to him in the
garden, notice he was afraid. He was afraid of God and not
a healthy fear of God, but terror. He was afraid of God. Why? His
fear was the result of sin and guilt. And sin brought guilt
and guilt brought fear and guilt and sin and guilt brought shame. These were consequences. Why? Why were these consequences necessarily
following? Because God imputed guilt to
Adam for his disobedience. Remember, Shimei asked David,
don't impute my sin to me. I did perversely. So Shimei,
like a sinner, pleaded with David, like sinners need to plead with
Christ, don't impute my sin to me. And throughout scripture
we see this, God either charges us with our guilt or he credits
us with righteousness based on this action that he imputes to
us. But because of what God imputed
to him, his disobedience was guilt before God. It's sin. You've
transgressed the law and the consequences are going to follow.
God's not going to change. And so he was afraid because
he was guilty. He knew the consequences that
would naturally follow. According to God's word, he was
afraid, he was guilty, he was ashamed. And he was, as I said,
he was terrified. He knew he had done wrong, but
he couldn't admit it. God had to confront him before
he could admit it. These are the consequences that
God imputed his sin to him. You see how the imputation has
consequences? So just as the imputation of
Adam's sin was not limited to Adam, but to all of his children,
even so the consequence of his sin applied to them as well,
okay? God describes our condition in
Ephesians 2, verse 1, as dead in sins. Dead in sins. He says
in Romans 8, 10, the body is dead because of sin. And also
in Romans 8, 7, the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is
not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And Jesus
told Nicodemus, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. That's all it is. It's not spirit.
So we're limited. That's a consequence. We are
limited by our sin in Adam. We are flesh only. We are not
spirit. We are natural. We are not spiritually
minded. We're just natural men, men of
flesh, men of fleshly mind, apart from a salvation. Okay? In Adam, we're natural. In Adam,
we're fleshly. We're not subject to the law
of God in Adam. And this is the consequence of
that imputation. The consequences came upon us.
He says in 1 Corinthians 2.14, the natural man does not receive
the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. Neither
can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. So
all these things are consequences of that imputation. Okay, God
imputed Adam's sin to him and to his seed and in Adam all die. That's the principle that God
states in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 22. This death extends to our
spiritual life. We died spiritually in Adam.
And when we were born, born through Adam, we could not receive spiritual
life from Adam because he had none. All he was was flesh, natural
man, carnally minded. He couldn't pass that on. Jesus
said only until we're born or unless we're born of the spirit,
we have no spiritual life. We're not born of God. He was
he was fallen in his nature, sinful. And David confesses this
when he says in Psalm 51, 5, I behold, I was shapen in iniquity
and in sin did my mother conceive me. OK, so the consequences of
the imputation of Adam's sin to all mankind brought death
in our body. death in our spirit, as we saw
in Ephesians 2 and Romans 8, 10, and the limitations of a
fleshly mind that is unable to yield obedience to God, a mind
that cannot know spiritual things, and unless, as Jesus said, we're
born of the spirit, we can never see the kingdom of God, and we
cannot enter it. We can't enter the kingdom of
God because the kingdom of God is where Christ reigns in the
heart, And he reigns over the children of God who are born
of God, and he reigns in their heart. And so that can't happen
unless we're born of God. We can't see, we can't enter,
we're already condemned, Jesus said in John chapter 3 and verse
19. He says there that, this is condemnation,
that light is coming to the world and men loved darkness rather
than light because their deeds were evil. That's our condition.
In Adam, in Adam we die. Now that's the effects of it.
Now, unless here, that would seem
like, so far all is bad news, right? All is bad news, except,
there is salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because notice
in Romans chapter five, if you happen to be there, in verse
14, it says, nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even
over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's
transgression, who was the figure, or who is the figure of him that
was to come. There's the hope. There's the
light of the gospel. Adam was but a figure. and he
was a figure of Christ. In other words, he was a symbol,
a living symbol, a symbol that had consequences of death. I
mean, this is a real tangible symbol, isn't it? But just a
symbol, nevertheless, because God, before Adam was created,
made him to be a figure, a representation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that's the hope. Remember, everything is about
Him. God directs us to Him, to put
our trust in Him, to call upon Him, to come to Him, and to find
our life and assurance and all in Him. Okay, so when we talk
about righteousness, we have to go to Him for it. When we
look for life, we look to Him for our life. When we look for
wisdom, it's to Him we look. In fact, he says in Colossians
2.9, I love to quote these texts of scripture, he says, the fullness
of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily, and you are complete
in Him. So nothing lacking, all that
God is, is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And all that God is in
Christ, he is for his people and they are in him. OK, that's
that's the wonderful thing. Now, let's move to the imputation
of our sins to the Lord Jesus Christ, because there are three
imputations in scripture. One, Adam's sin was imputed to
us. God charged us with that disobedience. And that disobedience, God said,
was sin. And that sin, God said in his
judgment, was to be condemned. And then it led to death. The
condemnation was death. So disobedience, God said his
sin, he imputed that sin to us, and that sin comes with a judgment
by God, condemnation, and that condemnation is death, okay?
Now the Lord Jesus Christ is the figure of him that was to
come. Just as Adam disobeyed, the Lord Jesus Christ obeyed.
in contrast to Adam. And just as Adam's disobedience
was sin, in contrast to that, Christ's disobedience was counted
as righteousness by God. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, thank you
Denise. Sometimes I say not what I mean. Let me say it again. Just as
Adam disobeyed God and that was counted as sin, so the Lord Jesus
Christ obeyed God and that was counted as righteousness. His
obedience is righteousness before God. And just as Adam's sin was
imputed to us, and God judged that as condemning, so the Lord
Jesus Christ's obedience and righteousness is imputed to us
and that obedience and righteousness is credited to us so that we're
justified. In Christ's case, it's obedience,
righteousness, and justification. And just as in Adam, all die
because the condemnation God passed on all men for that disobedience
that He imputed to them in Adam was death, and so in the Lord
Jesus Christ, life. obedience of Christ, his righteousness,
our justification, our life, all in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what it says in Romans
chapter five, where he says in verse 15, not as the offense,
so also the free gift. For if through the offense of
one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded to many. The grace of God, abounded, the
gift, grace, ameni, all in Christ, you see it in verse 16. And not
as by one that sinned, the gift. So the gift of life, the gift
of righteousness, the gift of life, of justification, all those
things called the gift, is not like the one that sinned. Notice
in verse 16, for the judgment was by one to condemnation. Adam's one sin, all condemned. But notice, but the free gift
of many offenses, that seems like he would have said the gift
of one man's obedience, but he says of many offenses unto justification. Why does he say it this way?
because our sins were imputed to Christ. Our sins were many. And yet that because our sins
were imputed to him, notice what happened. Justification. And
that's what Second Corinthians 521 says. He says, God hath made
him to be sin for us, Christ who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. Our sins were charged
to him, imputed to him. Because our sins were charged
to him, we're justified, we're made the righteousness of God
in him. And then in verse 17 of Romans 5, if by one man's
offense death reigned by one, like a king death reigns through
that one sin of Adam, much more they which receive abundance
of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life, how? By
one, Jesus Christ. That's why the Lord Jesus, I
mean, Adam was a figure of him who was to come to teach us the
principle of the imputation of Adam's action to all of his children,
and the imputation of what Christ did in being made sin for us,
that his righteousness in doing that would be charged or credited
to us as our justification. And notice he goes on in verse
18, Romans 5 18, after saying that they would
reign in life by one Jesus Christ because of the gift of righteousness.
In verse 18 he says it again, Therefore as by the offense of
one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so, notice,
by the righteousness of one the free gift came, those are italicized,
you can just skip over that, by the righteousness of one upon
all men unto justification of life. Do you see how justification
leads to life? Because righteousness, wherever
there's righteousness, there's life. Okay? So life, where there's
life, there's faith. And where there's life, there
had to be a righteousness. And that righteousness is the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. His obedience produced
that righteousness. And the obedience of Christ is
that he was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
That's what it says in 2 Corinthians 5.21. He stood in our place. He substituted himself. bearing
our sins in his own body on the tree. Therefore, we're dead to
sins and therefore we live unto righteousness because by his
stripes we're healed. And so in verse 19, he says it
again, as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteousness and made
righteous. And the word made there is the
word declared to be or shown to be righteous. It's not talking
about the fact that when they believe, then God's going to
make them righteous as if faith brings the righteousness, which
is the common teaching. But it's saying that the righteousness
that God imputes to us because we are in Christ is made evident. It's shown to be ours in believing
him because faith is the result of God's gift, which is the result
of his gift of righteousness to us and life by the Spirit
of God. And then he goes finally in verse
20 and 21, Moreover, the law entered that the offense might
abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that
as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What
is the object of our faith therefore? It's Jesus Christ our Lord, the
one who was made sin for us in order that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. We as sinners trust Christ who
came and died for sinners that he might make them in him the
righteousness of God. He didn't commit their sin. Their
sin wasn't infused to him so that he was transformed into
sin, but it was charged to him, and therefore their sin became
his, and there were consequences that follow that are part of
that imputation. Now, that's what I want to talk
about here, these consequences. And so, as I'm going to just
rattle through these three basis things again, remember, the first
basis is our relation to the one whose actions are imputed
to us. And what is our relation to the
Lord Jesus Christ? Well, we're in him. How did we
get in him? God chose us in him. He says
He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus according as He has chosen us in Him before
the foundation of the world. We were chosen in Him by God
the Father. We were adopted when He predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. That act of
predestinating us to adoption is our adoption. And in Galatians
chapter, I want you to turn to this, Galatians chapter 4, notice
how God puts it here, we were made sons by God's predestinating
act of adoption, but because we were sons, something followed. In Galatians 4, 4, when the fullness
of the time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman,
made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law
that we might receive the adoption of sons. So what happened here?
Well, Christ redeemed those that were under the law in order that
they might receive the adoption of sons. It's not because we
reach out to receive Christ that we're made sons. No, God gives
us His Spirit And that giving of His Spirit is the reception
of the Spirit. God places the Spirit in us.
He gives His Spirit to us. We're passive in it. We didn't
do anything. We're dead in sins, but God,
who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, have quickened us and made
us alive together with Christ. And so this act of God in birthing
us and creating us in Christ and raising us from the dead
is the spirit of God being given to us. And that is because that's
because we were redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see
it in verse five? Christ redeemed them that were
under the law that we might receive in order that we might receive
be given. We might receive the experience
or the application of the sonship which God already established
in the predestinating act of adopting us in Jesus Christ. Because we were adopted by God
the Father in that predestination by Jesus Christ, Christ redeemed
us. He had to redeem us in order
that we might be given the Spirit of God, in order that we might
be brought to God. Remember, Judah pleaded with
Joseph to take him instead of Benjamin, that Benjamin and his
brothers might go back free up to their father again. That's
the result of redemption. And the result of Christ's redeeming
work in us is the Spirit of God is given to us. Now, these are
the consequences of Christ's imputation of his righteousness
to us. But what were the consequences
of God imputing our sin to the Lord Jesus Christ? What were
the consequences of that? Well, here are some of those
effects. the effects of that act of God by which he imputed
our sins to the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, we read this in
1 Peter 2, 24 last week, who his own self did what? Bear our
sins in his own body on the tree. He bear our sins in his own body. He bear them in his body. God
imputed them to him. and therefore he bore them in
his body." What does that mean? Well, it means that his body
was afflicted because of that imputation. God laid our sins
on Him. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and by His stripes we were healed. Okay, so it had
a consequence to it. There was a result that followed,
or a result that was part of that imputation. It was true. God said, our sins now are on
Him. The Lord Jesus Christ knew that
to be so. He was aware of it. He's the
wisdom of God. He knows what it means to have
the sins of his people imputed to him. In order that those sins
might be imputed, he had already agreed to this in eternity. He had already pledged himself
to lay down his life for the church, for his people, as his
bride, as his wife, He had espoused them to himself. He had pledged
himself to God for them on their behalf. He had joined himself
to them. They were one with him. He for
the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross to have
them, to present them to himself a holy and without spot in love. These are all things that God
has said concerning what Christ did. And he loved the church
and gave himself for it. So the reason that God imputed
our sins to him is because not only God established this relationship
with him, but Christ agreed to it. He wanted it. He wanted those
people and he willingly took their debt and their obligation
and he made it his own. And that had consequences. He
then bore our sins in his own body. That's what it says in
1 Corinthians 2.24. And then it says in Isaiah 53.10,
his soul was made an offering for sin. His soul. Not only his
body, but his soul. So we see the effects of this
imputation. God laid our sins on him in that
act. And the consequences were that
he felt it. His body bore our sins. His soul was made an offering
for sin. He told his disciples, my soul
is is heavy and sorrowful even unto death. He was weighed down
by it. It says in Romans 8 verse 3 and
4 that God condemned sin in his flesh. He was cursed of God according
to Galatians chapter 3. And in verse 13, he was cursed. He redeemed us from the curse
of the law, being made a curse for us. He was a holy man. We looked at that last time.
His father prepared a body for him, but he loved righteousness
and he hated iniquity, but he was made under the law to fulfill
the law, to do the will of God. And that will was what? to redeem
his people, to place himself in their place under the law
of God and answer God in satisfaction with himself as the offering
for sin. This was the consequence of that
imputation. And so when the sins of his people
were laid on him and he bore them in his body and his soul
was made an offering for sin, or as it says in 2 Corinthians
5.21, He was made sin for us. What that means is that God imputed
our sins to Him, but don't minimize what that means. Don't try to
think, well, imputation only means something less than the
fact that He had to bear our sins because God imputed them
to Him. What happened when God imputed sin to us that we committed
in Adam? all the consequences. We felt
the guilt and the shame and all that follows with sin. So when
we read about these things in scripture, we begin to see what
that imputation that God did, the
consequences that it had on the Lord Jesus Christ. So let me
do it this way. What effect did our sins being
imputed to Christ have on him? Okay, I'm going to ask that question.
I want you to hold in the back of your mind the corollary to
it, which is what effect on us did it have when by faith we
understood that God imputed the righteousness of Christ to us?
Okay, those two things, we're gonna consider these things.
The first thing is, what effect did the imputation of our sin
on Christ have? Well, what is sin? What is sin? And what arises
from sin? Well, according to scripture,
sin is filth. filth in the worst kind of way.
Listen to these scriptures. It says in Isaiah 4, verse 4,
when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters
of Zion and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the
midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of
burning. How did the Lord, how did the Lord Jesus Christ wash
away the filth of the daughters of Zion, which is the church?
How did he do that? Well, he had to first take that
filth from her, didn't he? He had to bear it in his own
body on the tree and his soul had to be made an offering for
it, didn't he? And what was it? It was filth.
And then there's another scripture in Job 15, verse 15, the heavens
are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and
filthy is man? which drinks iniquity like water.
So iniquity is another word, the way God sees it is filth. Filth. What was imputed to Christ? Our iniquities. And then it says
in Psalm 53, God looked down from heaven upon the children
of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek
God. Every one of them has gone back. They are all together become
filthy. There's none that doeth good,
no not one, that's in Psalm 53. So God examined everyone, he
examined me, he examined my heart, he examined your heart, he examined
everybody, and he concluded they're all filthy, filthy. And then
he says this in Isaiah 64 in verse six, we are all as an unclean
thing. And all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags, filthy. And we all do fate as a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. You
see, God is showing our iniquities, filthy. Our righteousnesses,
filthy. Now, did the Lord Jesus Christ
bear the sin of his people in his own body on the tree? According
to 1 Peter 2.24, of course he did. Did he also bear therefore the
filth of their sin and of their righteousnesses in his own body
on the tree? Of course he did. And if it was
filth, if he knew it, because he knew what it was and he agreed
to it, did he feel it? Did he have a sense of his own
filth in that, bearing that? It says in another place in Scripture,
in Zechariah chapter 3, Zechariah chapter 3 in verse 1, he says,
He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel
of the Lord, Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.
And the Lord said to Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, even
the Lord that has chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee. Is not this, pointing
to Joshua, a brand plucked out of the fire? Now Joshua was clothed
with filthy garments. And he stood before the angel
and answered and spake to those that stood by him. I mean, God
spoke or probably Christ spoke to those that stood by him and
saying, take away the filthy garments from him. And then to
him, to Joshua, he said, behold, I have caused thine iniquity
to pass from thee. Filthy garments, iniquity. I will clothe thee with a change
of raiment. Before God caused Joshua's iniquities
to pass from him, and before God clothed Joshua with a change
of clothing, the raiment, first his sins had to be removed. They
had to take away the filthy garments. And those sins had to be placed
on another. that one on whom they were placed
was the Lord Jesus Christ. God made Him sin for us that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He Himself must
first be without sin, He knew no sin, and He Himself must love
His Father and His people and with all-consuming delight do
the will of God in order to have them, and with joy of doing that
will and having them, present them to himself without spot
or wrinkle or any such thing in holy love. In order to do
that, He had to have the same mind as his father, love them
as his father, want them as his father. And he himself must be
able to not only because he was without sin, but he had to be
willing and able to bear their iniquities in his own body, to
bear their sins on himself and to fulfill that eternal will
of God and to repurge them, to wash them, to cleanse them and
clothe them. to cleanse them from their sins
and to clothe them in his own righteousness. And this is what
is represented in Zechariah chapter three. So sins are filthy. And
David says in Psalm 38, there is no soundness in my flesh because
of thine anger. Neither is there any rest in
my bones because of my sin for mine iniquities have gone over
my head as a heavy burden. They are too heavy for me. My
wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness." That's
the way that God sees it. That's the way the Lord Jesus
Christ would have seen it. And if he saw it that way, because
God charged him, imputed our sins to him, what did he feel?
Well, these words of David in Psalm 38, verses 4 and 5, these
were a prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. On the cross, the Lord
Jesus Christ said, my wounds stink and are corrupt because
of my foolishness. You see this? Imputation has
consequences. What God does in imputation is
the way things are. This is the way God sees it.
Because this is the way God sees it, and this is the way it is,
Christ experienced it that way. It brought not only this, because
God sees our sins as filth, it not only brought the awareness
of this to the Lord Jesus Christ, so he says, my wounds stink and
are corrupt, but it also brings guilt and
shame. There's no sin that either you
or I have committed. that we don't know that God knows
about. God knows about our sin. And
when that hits us, when that sense of that hits us, what do
we feel? Guilt and shame. Why? Because we know God has
imputed guilt to us. That's why we feel guilt and
shame, because God has imputed it to us. His imputation of it
didn't make us guilty. He just declared it to be so.
We were sinners. We committed the act. And we're
guilty of that, and God charged that act upon us. And so when
we commit sin, we have the sense and the thought that God views
us as guilty. Until he takes away that sense
of that by putting our sins on Christ and crediting us with
his righteousness, we can't do anything else. We're gonna bear
that dark cloud of guilt and shame. until He removes it. We'll feel it, won't we? You
know you do. But here, listen to the Lord
Jesus Christ in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 2. He despised, what? The shame. The shame of the cross,
the shame of our sins imputed to Him. The whole matter was
humiliation. He was stripped naked. He was
beaten. As a criminal, he was crucified
among thieves, numbered with transgressors. He was mocked,
spit upon, a crown of thorns jabbed into his head. All these
things were done because he was counted as a sinner. And so the
imputation had consequences. There's no doubt that Psalm 69
is about the Lord Jesus Christ. Read the psalm for yourself.
Convince yourself in reading it. The quotations in that psalm
were spoken directly by the Lord Jesus Christ. But notice what
he says in verse 19. Psalm 69, verse 19. Thou has
known my reproach and my shame. My dishonor, my adversaries are
all before thee. And then in verse five, Psalm
69, verse five, he said this, Oh God, thou knowest my foolishness
and my sins are not hid from thee. Do you see how the imputation
of our sins to Christ meant that he would bear our sins in his
own body, be made an offering for sins? He would own our sins
as his. It had to be because he took
our sins from us. He lifted them from us and owned
them as his. They're no longer ours. They
became his. He was made sin for us. That's
what this means. The Lord Jesus Christ substituted
himself for us. And so he says this and then
he also says this. Let not them that wait on thee,
O Lord of God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Let not those that
seek thee be confounded for my sake. This could not be the words
of David talking about all of God's saints. Don't let them
be ashamed for my sake. David couldn't say that, but
the Lord Jesus Christ could when he was offering himself to God
in satisfaction to God's justice, pleading with God to forgive
them for his sake. It was for his sake that he prays
this way. And so that's the second part.
The consequences of our sin imputed to Christ as he felt the guilt
and the shame of them. He felt the filth of them and
he was punished for them. And we don't have to elaborate
on that too much because it's easy to see that the Lord Jesus
Christ was afflicted by God. He was punished. It pleased the
Lord to bruise him. So throughout scripture, we see
that. Now, just in closing here, I want to get to this. What are
the consequences of Christ's righteousness then imputed to
us? What are they? Well, because God imputes the
righteousness to Christ to us, He gives us His Spirit, as I
tried to explain earlier. He has redeemed us, therefore
He sends the Spirit of His Son into our heart, crying, Abba,
Father. He gives us His Spirit. He births us. He creates us in
Christ by the Spirit of God. And the Spirit of God gives us
what? Faith in Christ. He says in John 3, as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be
lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have eternal life. That's faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ as the substitute who bore the sins and the curse of
God for us. That's faith in him. OK, that's
the he's the object of our faith. And that faith, what does it
see? That God-given faith sees what God has said as the way
things are, doesn't it? Faith enables us to say whatever
God has said, that's the way that it is. If God says that
we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
Therefore the blood of Jesus is all sufficient to give us
boldness to enter into the holiest, isn't it? Isn't it? It has to
be so. And God-given faith allows us,
enables us to look away from all that we are or for any contribution
on our part and find that God has provided. He saw our need. He provided for it. He's the
one who delivered him up for our sins and justified us because
of his righteousness. He raised him from the dead.
He's the one who did this. Now, what's the result of that?
Well, because God says in Christ, we're made the righteousness
of God. What flows then in our experience? What is the sense
that we have? What are the effects of that
imputation upon us? Peace with God, joy in the Holy
Ghost, hope, assurance, love to God, and this attitude of
humility that comes knowing we were saved when we were utterly
sinful and our hope is only in the Lord Jesus Christ. In other
words, the fruit of the Spirit. All those things listed in Galatians
chapter 5 and other places. So the effects of imputation
were, in Adam, guilty, condemned, separated, fearful, A sense of
being separated from God and therefore hating God. Can't submit
to the law of God. We walk around in this attitude
of hating God. What did God do when we were
in that state? He reconciled us to himself. We couldn't produce
that reconciliation. He removed the barrier that separated
us from him by the death of his son. He laid our sins on Christ. And what did Christ experience
because of that? Shame. Guilt. The filth of our
sins made his and the punishment of God so that he satisfied God's
justice. He bore it all away. And what
is the result of that? God gives us grace, faith, life. And in that faith that God gives
to us, we find peace with God, joy and access to God, hope. And we have all the things that
flow out of all of it because God has viewed us in, he's given
us a relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ himself
put us in that relationship when he took us for his own, his own
sheep. And then because the Lord Jesus
Christ acted, he fulfilled the will of God, he did what God
gave him to do in order that we might be made in him the righteousness
of God. What a blessing this is. And
this is all a matter of the core of the gospel, isn't it? And
all the benefits that flow. As in Adam all die, even so in
Christ all shall be made alive because we're in him. And so
as a sinner and as a believing sinner, when you consider the
fact that you will one day stand before God, what are you going
to say when the books are open? Well, you're not going to say
anything. If the Lord does ask you, give
an explanation here for what you did here. What are you going
to say? In the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all I have. I have nothing
to plea but in the Lord Jesus Christ. Look upon him. Receive
me for his sake. That's it, isn't it? Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your goodness to us, having seen our great
need and being pleased to show forth your glory in the Lord
Jesus Christ. You have made known your perfections
to the uttermost in him who was crucified for us so that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him, all that he is He
is to God for us in all that He is. He is God in all of His
fullness for us, to us, and we thank you for this. Thank you
for the Lord Jesus. We pray, Lord, that we might
be enabled to see Him and live to Him all the days of our life.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.