Psalm 32. Now, last week we started
in Psalm 32, and I'm going to continue along that line. In
Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2, let's read that together again. Blessed
is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is
no guile." So you can see here that this is talking about the
non-imputation of our sins and this is a great blessing and
it's called forgiveness, covering of our sins and God not charging
us with our sins, but in that one who's blessed, his spirit
has no guile. So that's why I want to stop
right there, because this is where we picked up last week.
In Psalm 32, it opens with these two verses, and this is quoted
in Romans 4. If you remember, in Romans 4,
where the explanation of this was given by God through the
apostle Paul, it explains that The text in Psalm 32 is talking
about an imputed righteousness. So justification by the righteousness,
not of ourselves, but of someone else imputed to us. And so that
led us to look at Romans 4 and some overview that Abraham found
out through God's instruction and through his life that he
was not justified before God by his works. That's shown in
verses one and two. But the scripture said in verse
3 that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.
And verse 4 says in Romans 4, endow to him that does not work
or that worketh. I'm sorry, now to him that worketh
is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt, but to him
that worketh not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. So Abraham is clearly set up
here as an example for all believers. He did not work. He believed
God. So here it's clear that believing
God unto justification and working are two opposites. So if you
work, you're not believing. If you're believing, you're not
working for salvation. And it's gotta be, therefore,
of grace. If we're saved, we're gonna be
saved by grace. There's no possibility of being saved any other way.
And then in verse six, it quotes from Psalm 32, even as David
also describes the blessedness of the man, to whom God imputeth
righteousness without works. So here he's underscoring this.
In Abraham's case, God said, in verse 3 here, that God counted
righteousness to him. But in verse 6, David describes
the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness
without works, and he says it this way, Same thing as Abraham,
but then he adds this, blessed are they whose iniquities are
forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. So in David's, in Psalm 32, in
David's case, he's showing that not only are they counted righteous
by God, without works, but in spite of their sin, they're counted
righteous. And that was something that has
a huge impact on us because we're sinners. And it's one thing to
be counted righteous if you don't have any sins or maybe few sins. You think, well, God will overlook
those and consider righteousness. But it's another thing altogether
when you have sins and then God doesn't impute those sins to
us. So this led us to consider what imputation means, and that's
where I want to pick up tonight. Imputation. That's a big word,
imputation. We don't often use that word
in our everyday speech. I don't tell my wife, I'm going
to impute to you a good deed." I don't say that. I don't say
the opposite, either. And I don't say that to my children.
I just don't talk that way. People just don't talk that way.
But we do use words that are like the word impute. And the
Bible does, too. The Bible takes the one word
that's translated impute and also translates it in many different
ways. So that's what we want to look
at tonight, is this work of imputation. And what does it mean? Since
it says here in Romans chapter 4, looking on further, he says
in verse 22, it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now, it
was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to
him, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe
on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. And he gives
the basis of that, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised
again for our justification. God will impute righteousness
to us also if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what
he's saying in that part of Romans 4. Now, this word impute, what
does this mean, and what does the Bible mean by this word impute? Now I looked it up, and I looked
at every verse written in the New Testament that has this word
in it, and there's quite a few. I'm not going to read them all
to you, but you can get a sense of what the word impute means
by looking at the way it's translated by the translators. Let me see
if I can find that. I'm going to get to that page. Let me just list them for you
and give you the number of times each of these is used as a translation
for the same word, which is translated in Romans 4 as impute. Remember,
the goal here is to understand what does this mean. It's translated
at one time as reasoned, another time as numbered, six times as
reckoned, nine times is translated as think or thinkest, and once
as thought, four times as counted, another time as count, one time,
concluded as one time, accounted or accounting four times, to
suppose twice, and laid on or charged with as one, one time,
and to esteem as another time. That's in the New Testament.
So a lot of different words, reasoned, numbered, reckoned,
despised, thinketh, or thinkest, thought, counted, count, conclude,
impute, reckon, to count. And so all these words show us
that to impute to somebody is that, to impute one thing to
somebody is, it means that the person who's doing the imputing
thinks of them in a certain way, okay. So to impute is to think
of another in a certain way and to lay to another's account or
charge or to consider, suppose, or conclude, or reason, or number
that person with others having that same either guilt or righteousness. So in the Old Testament, it also
is translated very similarly as regard, thought, think. And
so you can see that it's an act of the mind. on the person who
does the imputing concerning the person they are imputing
this to. All right, well, that seems kind
of abstract, so I like to get to things that are a little more
concrete so I can get a hold of it. I can't remember abstract
things very well. Well, let me give you an example
or some examples of how men naturally think or like to think of others
in terms of imputation. It turns out that, as I thought
about this, that in our everyday lives, we tend to impute to people. things and therefore we're using
the concept without realizing it. And so I read an example
given by Lance Heller, who is a missionary to Papua New Guinea.
And this was a good example. So let me give you this one.
There was a man in his Bible studies or his conference whose
name was Amos. And Amos, when he went to a place
there in Papua New Guinea, he met another man. And that man
went up to him and he pointed his finger at him and he said
to Amos, you killed my father. Well, Amos didn't know his father. He had never seen his father.
He had never hated his father. Never. He had no goodwill or badwill towards his
father. It was just another man, you know. But Amos told Lance,
the missionary, Lance Heller, the missionary, he said, I did,
I killed his father. Because in that culture, if one
man killed another, then the man who committed the murder,
either he had to die or one of his sons had to die. And until
one of his sons died, that other clan in the Papua New Guinea
culture would hold every son of that man guilty for the murder. So this is this is imputation,
isn't it? So in the in the culture of these
very, what would you say, primitive people until the Australian government,
according to Lance, until the Australian government came in
and sort of set things straight, they were at war and they killed
one another. And there's a who knows how many
different clans there are in Papua New Guinea, hundreds. And
so it was just families over centuries who were killing one
another, brutal, and they were actually cannibals too. So they not only killed you,
but it was a cruel, merciless way of dying. And they did it
a lot of times because of this concept that they held, which
was imputation. They imputed the crime of murder
to the descendants of the one who committed the crime. So that
helps us get an example in everyday life. Now, I want to give you
some other examples. These are more recent history.
In the US, in the United States of America, it has been suggested
that descendants of the original settlers from Europe because
their fathers wrongly took lands and consigned the Native American
Indians to reservations that their descendants should compensate
the American Indians, and that's called reparations. You may have
heard that term. Not only that, but in a similar
way in the present day, present day descendants of the people
in the U.S. who during the 1700s and 1800s
of the U.S. government, those descendants
of those people who owned slaves are considered to owe the slaves,
the African slaves, reparations because their parents did something
to those slaves. Now that's kind of a scant way
of thinking about amputation, but it shows you that even in
our everyday thinking in our lives, we tend to hold people
somehow responsible for what their fathers did. And that's
seen in Papua New Guinea and the two examples of the American
Indians and the slaves in America. But there are other examples
outside of scripture in which it can be seen in natural, everyday
things, the consequences that one representative person brings
upon others under their stewardship or rule. So for example, in the
US, You may be aware of this, and it's kind of unsettling to
think about it, but the President of the United States can make
treaties with foreign countries. And the people in the US are
all bound to what the president does as a representative of all
the people. So there's an example of a federal
headship, where the president acts as a federal head in the
American government and can make treaties with foreign governments,
and we're held responsible. Now, thankfully, over history,
Nothing strictly binding on the American people to too much negative
consequence has been made. But in modern times, that is
happening. And I won't go into those politics.
But I'm just trying to show you that it's not foreign to our
natural minds to think in terms of amputation. But a closer example
in our everyday experiences is often found in our country and
in other countries. So for example, if a father becomes
indebted to his creditors. What happens to his wife and
his children? They become impoverished, don't
they? So the action of the father affects his whole family. So
that's easy to see. So another example is if a father
dies before he has children, maybe he has an accident or he
died in his youth. All of his descendants who would
have been born died in him or with him when he died, so he
has no children. So in that sense, he stops having
any children after that, and so all
of them died when he died. Now that seems a little bit hypothetical,
but nevertheless. Another example is, what if a
man through substance abuse ruins himself and destroys his livelihood,
his reputation, and his property, and finds himself in whatever
condition? He brings his entire family into
ruin for his failure He's not able to instruct his family.
He's not able to provide for them. And it results in their
loss of monetary things and in their standing in society. So you can see how these things
do have a correlation in everyday life. But let me give you, more
importantly, scriptural examples of imputation. These are examples
from the Old Testament. And of course, the most The first
example God gives and the most important example of imputation
is Adam and his descendants. Now we know from Romans chapter
5 that Adam as one man and Adam's one sin against God was imputed
by God to all of his children. And that tends to rub people
the wrong way. I know it does me naturally to
think, how could I be held responsible for what Adam did? But the fact
of the matter is, is Adam was the best. that we could possibly
have been. He was created directly from
God. God did create him sinless, but it didn't create him so that
he couldn't fall. He was mutable. You could think
of mutable as he could change. God doesn't change, but Adam
could. The angels could. And Adam did. And so and that's
what happened. He sinned. And because then God
was dealing with the entire human race in that one commandment
not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, all
of his descendants in that sin became sinners. In other words,
they became guilty before God. And that's called the imputation
of Adam's act of disobedience to them. It became their guilt.
So it says in 1 Corinthians 15, as in Adam, all die. Because
they sinned, death is the wages of sin, therefore they died because
they were in Adam when he did that sin. And we weren't there
personally. I wasn't thinking about the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil when Adam did that. I wasn't
even born yet, but I was in Adam in that sense. So that's an example,
and we'll get into that a lot more in a moment. So that's the
first and most important biblical example given in the Old Testament. But then there's another one.
Remember, Jacob had a son named Levi, and Levi was the head of
the tribe, I mean, he was the head of the tribe that was the
priesthood. And Levi, being the head of the
priests throughout the nation of Israel, he was considered
their first and foremost. They were called Levites. Only
the Levites could be priests. In fact, only the sons of Aaron.
Aaron was a son of Levi. But in the New Testament, in
Hebrews chapter 7, it says that Levi was actually already in
subjection and owned that the priesthood of Melchizedek was
greater than the priesthood of Levi, because God said in Hebrews
chapter 7 that Levi, in verse 10, that Levi paid tithes in
Abraham when Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek. And by giving
tithes to Melchizedek, according to Hebrews 7, Abraham acknowledged
that Melchizedek was greater than he was. And since he was
greater than Abraham, and Levi was obviously Abraham's son descending
through Isaac, Jacob, therefore Levi was giving tithes to Melchizedek
and Levi was owning the fact that the priesthood of Melchizedek
was greater than his own. In fact, he was paying tithes
to Christ. because Melchizedek was the Lord Jesus Christ. So
those examples help us to see two prominent cases of imputation
in the Old Testament, but there are others. Remember how Goliath
told, he proposed to all of the nation, the army of Israel, he
said, just let one man be chosen out of our the Philistine army,
and another out of your army, the Israelites. And we don't
need to go to battle, those Philistines and the Israelites, all of us,
just have one of each fight. And whoever wins, the entire
army of the winner becomes, or I could say it this way, the
loser of that battle between those two men, their entire army
would become the servants to the other, the victor. And that's
exactly what happened at the cross, isn't it? The Lord Jesus
Christ stood alone for his people and went into fight against the,
he bruised the head of the serpent and he destroyed the kingdom
of Satan, overtook it because he answered God for our sins
and God rewarded him with the justification of his people and
all the blessings that come with that. All right, so there's another
one, and that's in 1 Samuel 17. But then there's another example
in 2 Samuel chapter 19. I want you to turn to this one.
Look at 2 Samuel chapter 19. This is a man named Shimei. You've probably heard that name
before, Shimei. I don't know if I'm actually
pronouncing it correctly. It's the way I've always pronounced
it. But Shimei was of the household
of Saul, and when Absalom didn't overthrow, but he led a coup
against King David. And David and his family and
his men fled from Jerusalem and ran from Absalom and his men.
So there was this overthrow of the kingdom. And during that
overthrow, Shimei, who was of the household of Saul, was emboldened
to come out and kick up dust and throw stones and curse David. And he called him a bloody man
and all sorts of things. And at the time, David's men
wanted to kill Shimei. Just let me have it. I'll quiet
him down. But David said, no, no. God sent
him to curse. And you just let him curse. And
who can tell if that God will not turn his curse into a blessing? What a demonstration of faith
David exercised in God's blessing him. But in 2 Samuel 19, In verse
19 of chapter 19, notice what it says here, because this was
obviously something that Shimei did. David recovered his kingdom
from Absalom. You know the story, Absalom was
killed by David's captain Joab, and they went back into Jerusalem
and everything was restored. But in verse 19 of 2 Samuel 19,
it says, Well, let me read verse 17. There
was a thousand men of Benjamin with him and Ziba, the servant
of the house of Saul and his 15 sons and his 20 servants with
him. They went over Jordan before
the king and they went over a ferry boat to carry over the king's
household. They're bringing King David back into Jerusalem after
this coup and after Absalom's death. And to do what he thought
good and Shimei, the sons of Gera, The son of Ghira fell down
before the king. Okay, notice what's happening
here. Shimei, the one who had been cursing and kicking up dust
and throwing stones at King David and his men, shaming him, calling
him a murderer for occupying the king, the throne, instead
of Saul. And he clearly was wrong in all
that, but it says, In Shimea the son of Gera fell down before
the king as he was come over Jordan. You can see him like
a puppy dog, fawning before King David. And he said to the king,
Let not my lord impute iniquity unto me. Neither do thou remember
that which thy servant did perversely, the day that my Lord the King
went out of Jerusalem, that the King should take it to his heart.
For thy servant doth know that I have sinned. Therefore, behold,
I am come the first this day of all the house of Joseph to
go down to meet my Lord the King." All right. What is it saying
to us? Well, you can see here that Shimei
is on his face before King David. Don't impute iniquity to me.
Isn't that exactly what David was saying in Psalm 32? Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity. Remember? So here King David represents
the Lord Jesus Christ, doesn't he? Who was the son of David.
And this man Shimei represents the sinner who is coming to Christ
asking him not to impute iniquity to him. Even though, notice Shimei
says, thy servant did it perversely, don't let the king take it to
heart, which means if you think that I'm guilty, then I'm going
to be counted truly as guilty for my sin. It was my sin, like
Psalm 32, 1 and 2 said. But even though I have sinned,
he says, don't impute it to me. I know I have sinned. And that
was his only plea. How how could David not impute
this to him? He was guilty of it. Well, David
was the king, right? David was the king, therefore
he's the sovereign. He's the one who gets to decide
justice and right. And so, shimmy I, though truly
guilty, knowing only the king could sovereignly, through his
wisdom, not impute his sin to him, he committed himself to
David, and as we do, commit ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ. even
though we've sinned in the presence of Christ, in the presence of
God, and in the presence of all the on-looking earth of people
that we've lived with, and we say, only by sovereign grace
can I, by the King's righteousness, be accepted by the King and my
sin not be imputed to me. That would be a truly blessed
thing. You see that? Now, I'm going to give you two
more examples. Another one in the Old Testament
was by a man named Ahimelech. He was a priest and he had to
plead with King Saul because King Saul was furious without
warrant. He was furious against King David
because the people loved David more than him. He was jealous.
He was envious. And so David eventually had to
run for his life all by himself. He ran for his life and he came
to the place where a Himalaya, the priest was, and he asked
him if he had well, actually, David had some men with him,
but he asked him if he had anything there, any weapons, because he
he said, I had to leave so quickly. The king sent me on this trip
so quickly. I didn't even have time to get my sword. And Himalaya
said, well, there's the sword of Goliath. And David said, yeah,
I'll take that. And then the Himelech also gave
him and his men some of the bread, the show bread. Remember Jesus
mentioned that in the New Testament. But then King David left with
his men and after David, King Saul came and he found a Himelech
and he questioned him and he found out that he had helped
David and he was going to kill Himelech and that's exactly what
he did do. But Ahimelech pleaded with King
Saul, and he said it this way, do not impute any sin to me or
to my father's house, because his imputation was to the relations
of the ancestors. or the relation of the children.
It always follows through that bloodline. And so Ahimelech asked
King Saul, don't impute sin to me. Now, in this case, Ahimelech
was not guilty. He was innocent. He had helped
David. He didn't know David that King
Saul basically was seeking David's life. He even reasoned with King
Saul, saying, who is more faithful to you than David? He's your
son in law. Good grief. He didn't say good
grief, but but, you know, that was implied in what he's saying
to him. He's trying to reason with the king, which you always
do very humbly when you're reasoning with a king because the king
has absolute authority. And and so He asked him not to
impute this. So you can see in the way that
God used it in that case of Ahimelech, that to impute may mean that
the one charged not only didn't do it, and is innocent of it,
but it also shows that to impute means the way that that person
who does the imputing thinks about them. He regards them as
guilty or innocent or righteous. So that was the case of Ahimelech.
And I'll just mention one more, because I love these examples
God has given us in Scripture. Remember the Apostle Paul. The
Apostle Paul wrote a letter to Philemon concerning the slave
Onesimus. And in that letter, Paul actually
owned the guilt of Onesimus as his guilt on behalf of Onesimus
to Philemon. And he said it this way in Philemon,
Verse 17, he says, if, he writes to Philemon about Onesimus, and
he tells Philemon this, if you count me, therefore, a partner,
receive him, Onesimus, as myself. I love that verse. Who could
not love that verse as a sinner? That God would teach in this
statement of Paul concerning Onesimus, that Paul reasoning
with Philemon, he said, you receive Onesimus, the runaway slave,
as you would receive me. Isn't that what Jesus does for
us? He reasons in the court of heaven, receive him, the sinner,
as me. And then he says, Paul says to
Philemon, if he has wronged thee, which obviously he did, or oweth
thee aught, if he owes you anything, Paul said, put that on my account.
I, Paul, have written it with my own hand. I will repay it. Now, this is Paul himself obligating
himself for the debt of Onesimus, the debt Onesimus really owed
Philemon. On behalf of another, he's stepping
in as a surety and he's taking that debt. He's imputing it.
He's asking the one that was offended to impute it to him.
I'll take it. And this is exactly what the
Lord Jesus Christ did in the imputation of our sins to him.
He stood before God, before the world began, and he said, I'll
be sure to charge me with their crimes. And then he also said,
receive them as myself. So you can see both sides of
this. And these are examples in scripture. And God doesn't
give these examples lightly. These are huge, huge examples. So I want to consider this with
you now, that to impute, therefore, means that the one doing the
imputing, in this case God, is regarding, he's counting, he's
making an account of a debt or a charge or even a
credit, even good righteousness to another. He's crediting them
with it or he's charging them with it. It's all in the mind
of the one who does the imputing. And here's a clarifying point
about this. What is happening is not happening
in the man who this is imputed to or the woman. Whenever you
impute something to somebody, you're not transforming the person. You are not making a change in
the person. You're making a change in the
way you think about the person. The person who's doing the imputing
is thinking about them this way. You're either charging them with
guilt, as Saul did, Ahimelech, or as David might have with Shimei,
or you are forgiving that iniquity as David seemed to do to Shimei,
or as some of these other examples, as Philemon no doubt did for
Onesimus on behalf of Paul. And so, and the basis of this,
though, the basis of this is, this is the question. So there's
many questions that come up on this, but I want to look at this
verse with you In Second Corinthians, we'll look at it. It's very deep,
and we may spend next time looking at it in more detail. Depends
on how I feel between now and then about whether I feel like
I've captured the essence of it tonight. But in Second Corinthians,
chapter five, look at these verses with me. I heard a man just today
on YouTube try to explain these verses. His explanation said,
in his explanation he said, Jesus died for the sins of everyone
in the world. And reconciliation occurs, in
fact, becoming in Christ occurs when that offer of salvation
is made to us and we believe it. Now, is that what his teaching
here? It's one thing to be repulsed
by such an explanation. It's another thing to be able
to say, that's not what God says. And so we want to look at this
here with you. But I want to look, I want to jump directly
to verse 21. Look at 2 Corinthians 5 and verse
21. And there's going to be a lot
of questions that arise out of this one verse here. It says,
for he hath made him to be sin for us, the one who has made
sin knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him." Now, some of the simple questions are, who made
who sin? Well, it's pretty obvious from
the context here that God the Father made Christ sin. Because if you read back up in
verse 18, all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ. God is God the Father. Jesus
Christ is his son. He hath made him, God the Father
made Christ, to be sin for us who knew no sin. So that's the
first question. Who made who sin? God the Father
made his son sin for us. Okay? And another question is,
what does it mean to be made sin? And this is a thorny one
here, because people have had divisions over this. But what
does the scripture say? Okay, that's really all that
matters. I don't care what position you hold here, but I do care
if you think if you want the answer, what does the scripture
say? That's what we need to know,
right? I don't care if you're Bob, Henry, Joe, or Bill, and
you've got PhDs after your name, or you have a big following after
your name. If God doesn't say what you think, then you're wrong.
And I'm wrong. It doesn't matter. We need to
know what God says about this. So that's why we ask these questions.
Who made who sin? God the Father made his son sin.
What does it mean to be made sin? That's one question. And
then it goes on, it says, he made him to be sin for us. Who
are the us? Is it everybody in the world? And made him who knew no sin.
In what way did Christ not know sin? That's another question.
What is sin after all? And what does it mean to be made
the righteousness of God? In fact, what is the righteousness
of God? So lots of questions here, right?
Now, this really is the core of the gospel. This is the core
of it. And it has to do with imputation. As I said before,
God made the Lord Jesus Christ sin, and we see this in different
examples. And the first and most important
example is Adam. God made Adam. God created man. Mankind, when he created Adam. This is what it says, in the
day that God created him, male and female, created them and
called their name Adam. When God created Adam and Eve,
he called them Adam. Man, mankind, because in them,
all of the human race was latent. It was there in them. All their
children would come from them. Everyone was created in Adam
in that day. So when Adam stood before God
with that one command, all of us stood before God. And this
is taught clearly in Romans 5, which we're going to look at
here. But the reason I point back to Adam is because God did
this. Adam didn't, Eve didn't, Satan
didn't. God did this. God is the sovereign. So imputation then, if we understand
it correctly, is the one who does the imputing thinks about
that person as he sees them. Now I've heard preachers say
it's not just that God thought of or regarded Christ to be a
sinner, he actually made him to be sin. You might have heard
that before. But understand this, if God thinks
of something, that's the way that it is. It doesn't get any
more real than that, that God thinks of it that way. That's
the truth of the matter, right? We need to really get comfortable
with that truth, that the way God thinks is the way things
are, okay? So when God imputes either sin
or righteousness, that's the way that it is, okay? So I have
to ask this question then, because this will help us to get to this,
and I don't have much time, because I feel like I've already exhausted
my time tonight, but let me ask this question here, and we'll
just touch on the answers to this, and then next time we'll
get into this more deeply. So here's the question, what
is the basis What is the just grounds upon which of imputation,
of imputation? What is the just grounds? When
I talk about imputation, I'm talking about there's three imputations
in scripture that are abundantly important. You can't overstate
the importance of this because as I said, this is the core of
the gospel. What it means to be in Christ
or in Adam. And so what is the basis on which
God imputes either sin or righteousness? Okay, that's the question. We'll
answer these other questions hopefully in the course of this.
Well, the first basis, it's threefold, I think, as I think about it.
First of all, God is sovereign. God imputes this. And in his
sovereignty, he is righteous, he is just. When God considered,
when he charged every person ever born to Adam with Adam's
transgression, that was right. That was just, that was holy. All the Lord does is righteous
and holy. Psalm 145, verse 17. Everything God does, all of His
ways and all of His works are holy and righteous. So the first
thing we must understand is the first basis, not the entire basis,
but the first basis, of course, is God is sovereign. Now, that's
really enough. If God does something, it's right.
God doesn't have an external standard by which he's measured
to see if he's just or right or good. He is the standard. If God did it, then it's right. It's holy. Justice is the way
God thinks. Right is what God does. It's
not there's a righteousness and God did this and measured himself
to it. No. So really, sovereignty is
a sufficient answer, but there's more. In God's sovereignty, there's
a second reason that imputation has a just and solid foundation. And what is that? It's relation. It's the relationship that you
have to the person. All right? What was our relationship
to Adam? And how did we get into that
relationship? Well, God created us in Adam, didn't he? God made
it so that Adam, in the one command, his obedience or disobedience
would be imputed to all of his children. God did that. But it
was only those who were in Adam that were counted as committing
that act when he did it. So not angels. Angels weren't
in Adam. So therefore, in Adam all die,
because by his sin they all became sinners. So the relationship
we have to the one who did the act is the other basis that God
used, which was obviously established by God. He created us in Adam.
But the relationship that we have to Adam was the basis by
which his disobedience was computed to us. And I will explain that
more when we get to Romans chapter five. But the other relationship
here is in Christ. Right. In First Corinthians 15,
20, it says, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive. OK, so there's only two representative
men with whom God treats the entire race of those men. Only two throughout history and
for all time. There never will be another two.
Either we are in Adam before God, or we are in Christ. Now,
we were in Adam, but even those who were in Christ, who are in
Christ, were in Adam when he committed that sin, okay? All
right, so that's the second one. The first one, God's sovereignty,
he did it. He's the one who does the imputation.
The second one, second reason, is our relationship. Now, how
did we get into Adam? God created us. How do we get
into Christ? How do we become related to Him
in such a way that what He did not only removed our sin from
us, because it says here, He hath made Him to be sin for us.
So when God made Christ sin, what happened? Our sins were
taken from us and laid upon Him. We didn't bear them anymore.
They were put upon Him, whatever the made to be sin means. And
secondly, he did this in order that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. That was the reason why he did
this, so that his obedience and satisfaction for our sins would
be credited to us by God as our righteousness. OK, so that's
the second reason, relationship. And the third reason that God
can impute sin to Christ and His righteousness to us is found
in this text, which is what? The redeeming work of Christ.
There would be no imputation of our sin to Christ if Christ
didn't stand as our Redeemer. There would be no imputation
of His righteousness to us if He didn't accomplish the work
of our redemption. Look at Romans chapter 3. Romans
3, I just want to show you this. The three reasons that come to
my mind, at least. God is sovereign. In his sovereignty,
he established between his people a relationship to his son in
Christ. And then Christ accomplished
their redemption. In chapter 3, Romans 3, in verse
24. Remember, when God justifies,
he's declaring us to be righteous. And that righteousness that he's
declaring us to be is the righteousness he imputed to us. Okay. Verse 24, Romans 3, 24, being
justified freely without causing us, but freely. It all came from
God by his grace out of what God is. through, see that underscore,
underscore the next part, the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. So how are we justified? We're
justified by God. He doesn't act by considering
what we are, but he acts freely by his grace. And he justifies
us by or through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now,
redemption carries with it the whole concept of of Christ offering
himself as a ransom to God. We know from Hebrews 9, 12, that
he entered into the holy place and presented his own blood by
the eternal spirit. And and having presented himself
there in his own blood, he obtained our eternal redemption. So redemption
means that the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins, shed
his blood, and he made satisfaction to God, and that redeeming work
was the whole work that constitutes the righteousness of God that
he established through it, that obedience of Christ and that
redeeming work. So when we look back at Second Corinthians 521,
what we see here is that the basis of this of this transaction
is is God's sovereignty, our relationship to Christ and his
redeeming work, which he accomplished on the cross. OK. Now, there's this this answer
is really two paradoxes in scripture, two paradoxes. And I want you
to to take these with you next time because we're going to finish
this next time. The two paradoxes are this. How can God charge? Or how can he how can he justify
an ungodly man when God is holy? How can God do that? That's a
paradox, isn't it? The other paradox is how can
he charge a holy man with sin? He did no sin. It says in our
text here, he knew no sin. And in 1 Peter 2, 22, he says
he did no sin. In 1 John 3, 5, in him was no
sin. And in Hebrews 7, 26, he was
holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. He knew no sin.
He did not know sin by approval. He didn't approve of sin. He
didn't know sin by experience. He didn't know sin in his nature.
He didn't know sin by any act that he did. He didn't know sin
in his thought. He didn't know sin in his motive
or his words. He knew no sin. He committed
no sin. And yet, the one who in himself
was holy, harmless and undefiled, it says here, was made to be
sin. And the action by God here that
made him to be sin, here's the question. Did it transform the
Lord Jesus Christ into a sinner? Or did it charge him with sin? And remember my encouragement
here to you, whatever God says is so, that's the way it is.
And the answer here, as we're going to see next time, is God
imputed our sins to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that was enough
for him to feel and to be the man of sorrows, to know grief
in his soul, and to feel the weight of our sins upon him in
the eyes of God, because it's what God thinks of me. which
is actually the way things are. He moved our sins. He lifted
them from his people and he laid them on his son. That's the language
of scripture. And Christ felt the weight of
that. And he cried out in prayer to God to, in spite of or in
light of himself being unnumbered among the transgressors. He was
numbered among the transgressors. He called himself, he said about
himself, his own, the sins that were charged to him by God, mine
iniquities. He owned them. Of course he owned
them. Remember Paul? If he has wronged thee or oweth
thee aught, put that on my account. You see? Well, we'll get into
this a little bit more next time, because this is so essential
that we understand it, that we glorify God for his sovereign,
gracious work of imputing what Christ did to us. And this is
all of our salvation, is what God thinks, right? Isn't that
what we keep saying over and over again? It's not what God
thinks of me. It's not my tears. It's not my
sorrows. It's not my obedience. It's not
the works of the law. It's Christ's suffering and it's
his obedience. That's what God thinks of. He
counts what Christ has done as all mine. And that's the way
that it is because God said it. So let's pray. Father, thank
you for your word. Thank you for your goodness to
us. May we always be given by you grace to understand the truth
of the way things are concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, your only
begotten Son, and our salvation in Him. May we understand that
your sovereign will is both just and gracious. You justly charged
us with our sin in Adam, and you graciously credited us with
our obedience in Christ. and all the satisfaction he provided
to your justice and the fulfillment of your righteousness and his
one work of redemption. Thank you that it is his redemption
that is the basis of our justification and not our own works. But in
spite of our sin, the blessedness of the man is given in scripture
that to whom the Lord does not impute sin, that man is truly
blessed. because our sins were laid upon
the Lord Jesus Christ, who undertook and obligated himself for them
in the presence of God. Therefore, it was a righteous
act for you to charge him with them, since he himself was without
sin, and shouldered our guilt as his own, and bore it away,
and paid the debt for it, and suffered the penalty of it, and
gave us his own garments of righteousness to clothe us in all of the nakedness
of our need. In Jesus name we pray.