Please turn in your Bibles to
Romans chapter four. Over the last couple of years, it seems that in my family and various situations,
the Lord has been pleased to send trial and testing. And it's not so much that I've
had any more than anybody else, it's just that I'm so weak that
it seems more pronounced. And I was reading the other day
in the book of Job concerning those early things that happened
to him. And there was something in the
verses that stood out to me Because after each trial it said, and
while he was yet speaking, something else happened. And
while they were yet speaking to Job telling him that, something
else happened. And I've often likened what happens
often in a believer's life as standing down there on the beach
where I live, and knowing that it's not a matter
of if another wave is coming, but when it's coming and how
bad will it be. But always in the midst of trial,
when we're shaken down to our very boots, we begin to question things. And we begin to question the
things that we believe. And with a preacher, we not only
begin to question what we believe, but we begin to question what
we preach. And I've questioned a lot. As a matter of fact, the title
of my message tonight is a question. And that question is, is imputation
real? And that question has been on
my mind of late, and I ask that because I sometimes hear things
that make me think that some feel that it really isn't. It's a nice theological term. It's a nice Bible word. But some seem to view it in this
way. That imputed righteousness is not really righteousness. Not really righteousness. And it sometimes is expressed
like this, that God would not be actually just in declaring Christ's death a
satisfactory death if he was not actually a sinner. And he would not be just in declaring
us righteous if we were not actually righteous. And that's what I
want to know. Am I, as a believer, believing
what God said and says actually righteous? Someone asked me once if I believed
in imputed guilt. And I got to thinking about it. Though I think I know what guilt
means, maybe I ought to go back and actually see what it really
means. And I was a bit surprised in
a way because when I actually began to look at the word as
it actually is in the original, one of the definitions was accountable. And so I had to conclude that
if guilt, the word that we find in this book, if it means accountable,
Yes, I do believe in imputed guilt because God in His great
grace and purpose made the Lord Jesus Christ accountable for
the sins of His people. And this word imputation or impute
is what that's all about. And we find this word, which
is translated here a couple of times in this chapter as impute,
we find it actually in this chapter something like eleven times. That tells me something about
the importance of it. That tells me that you and I
need to know something about it. You see, according to Strong,
that most generally acceptable scholarly work as far as the
Greek language and definition is concerned, he defines that
word impute as to take inventory. He defines it as to conclude. He defines it as to account,
or to esteem, or to reckon, and as it is in a modern translation
most often, to count. or to a credit. And so when we come to this text,
we come to it with that knowledge and that understanding as to
what these words actually mean and how and why God has given
them to us in this book, His words. These are Bible words. These are language that has been
given by God, and they are given by God who describes himself
as a just God and a Savior. I think I see some distaste in
our day for these words that are described as legal terms, words that seem to connect to
the court, words that some described as just being empty head knowledge,
words like imputation. Is imputation real? Is righteousness by imputation
actually righteousness? I'm here to tell you tonight
it absolutely, 100% is. And the man always seems to be
looking for something more or better. And by the way, those
who do usually find it, as far as they are concerned. And it
always has something to do, it seems, to be something that they
find themselves made to be or becoming. that makes them acceptable in
their person. You see, the truth is that the
only righteousness there is for a sinner is this imputed righteousness. I was reading a bulletin article
that was in Brother Bruce Crabtree's bulletin recently. And it was
just a few statements that were made by an old Scottish preacher
by the name of John Duncan. But I read these words. He said, ìLet us seek to have
the well grounded marks of saintship. But when the push comes, nothing
but imputed righteousness will stand the day. It was there we began, and it
is there we must end. He is saying that what we ought
to do, we ought to do and seek by the grace of God to be in
our lives, in our conduct, in our dealings with others and
all these things. But when the push comes, nothing but imputed righteousness
will stand. Now, it seems that in this book,
the Bible, I see, and I have very limited vision, but I see
three imputations. And the first one I see is the
imputation or the charging or the reckoning of Adam's sin to
all his race. All you have to do is look over
in the next chapter. And there in Romans 5, beginning
with about verse 12, we find that God states that this is
actually what happened. When Adam sinned, when he fell
in the garden, all his race had his sin imputed to them insomuch
that God says that when he sinned, they sinned. Look over 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, or all sinned. So here is all of the race now
fallen, and all because of this imputation of Adam's sin to their
account, and I'm talking about always before God. And then the second imputation
that I see in this book is the imputation or the charging of
all the sins of all of God's elect to the Lord Jesus Christ. We have passage after passage,
especially in the Old Testament where we find that picture again
and again when the priest lays his hand on the head of the offering. Here is this picture of a transfer
of responsibility, a transfer of sin, and all of them picturing
what he says in Isaiah, the fact that the Lord hath laid on him
or imputed to him all the sins of all God's elect. And then I see a third imputation. And that third imputation is
the imputation or the charging of the righteousness of Jesus
Christ to those same sinners, to all of God's elect. He imputes to them the very righteousness
of God in Christ. Now let me ask you this. When Adam sinned, when he sinned and fell in that
garden paradise. And the things that took place
as a consequence of that sin, and God imputing that sin to
all His people, was that real? Was that real? Well, we still
look around us to this very day, not only in the faces of each
other, but in everything about this creation. And we know that
what happened as a result of that imputation of his sins to
us, we know that's real. That's as real as it gets. That happened a long time before
I was born. That happened a long time before
I ever heard the gospel. But without any shadow of a doubt,
when that imputation took place, the consequences of it, the state
in which it put all of his race, it was real. And then look at the death of
Christ. When the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world, this perfect,
gloriously sinless God-man walked here on this earth and demonstrated
that He was that holy and harmless and undefiled One, the One who
knew no sin. And here He is now taken and
hanged on a cross How do we know that He really, on the basis
of imputation, God charging the sins of His people to Him, how
do we know that that was real? Because He died. Because He died. The reason that
we know that God really did charge him, hold him accountable for
the sins of his people, the reason that we know that this just God
did slay His own Son is because He died. The wages of sin is death. The
soul that sins shall surely die. And here is the Son of God, this
perfect, gloriously holy One, the One that no fault could be
found in whatsoever, and yet He is lifted between heaven and
earth and put to death at the hand of divine justice. That was real. That was absolutely real. And if we didn't know anything
else, we'd have to know that if God says that He made His
people the very righteousness of God in Him, it has to be real. And it was all, it was all on
the basis of imputation. God holding some other one accountable. God dealing with another on the
basis of something done outside of themselves in the person of
another. And the reason why, as has been
so wonderfully expressed tonight, the reason that we have such
a trouble with this and the reason why we keep going back and try
to see if we can't do something better and offer up to God than
an imputed righteousness, the reason why that's always being
challenged is we don't really think it's real. I mean, you can't see it. You can't feel it. You can't
measure it. Oftentimes, you can't describe
it. All God's people can do is believe
it. You see, this is what faith is
about. Faith believes. Not what we feel
like we are, but faith believes what God says that we are. It begins with that. You see, we by nature do not
feel like we're sinners. I know, we'll give an inch there
maybe. You know, I'm not perfect. by
a long shot. I know I'm not the best person
in the world. We find out really that we're
sinners when God enables us to believe that He says we're sinners. I can tell you this, if God says
you're a sinner, brother, you're a sinner. I don't care who you
are. I don't care where you're from.
If God says that I'm a sinner, you see, we find out what's true
and what's right by being brought to believe what God says is true
and right. He says I'm a sinner. And see, this is the message
of the gospel. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the Gospel. I'm ready to preach it. It doesn't
matter whether it's to Jew or Gentile. I'm ready to spread
this Good News. I'm looking for some of God's
sheep to tell them in this message about the righteousness of God. He said, I'm not ashamed of it.
Why? For therein is the righteousness
of God Now, I'm not a scholar, I'm not a
great preacher, I'm not any of these things, but I'll tell you
one thing that I know about the gospel. The righteousness of
God is revealed therein. You see, salvation is not only
something that God does, but salvation in Jesus Christ and
Him crucified is salvation in Him, and God is right to do it. What happened to Adam? That's
an act of God, and he was right to do it. He says to Adam, in
the day you eat thereof, you'll surely die. God's right to deal
with him on that basis. And viewing him as the federal
head of his race, he's right to plunge each and every one
of them, impute to them Adam's sin, and therefore let them bear
the consequences of it. But when God's Son hung on that
cross, put there by God, though slain by wicked hands. He's delivered
there by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge, foreordination
of God. And there the Lord has imputed
all the sins, charges him with all the sins of his people. So when he drops the sword of
divine justice, thrust it in the heart, to the hilt, in the
breast of our Savior, he's right to do it. As a matter of fact, now, since
that has been done, when it says that we are made the very righteousness
of God in Him, He wouldn't be right if He didn't make His people
righteous. Why? Because He's a just God. I like that line out of that
old hymn when the hymn writer says, Payment God cannot twice
demand. First at my bleeding surety's
hand, and then again at mine. That wouldn't be just. It wouldn't be just for God to
receive any sinner into His presence and hold them in favor if they weren't righteous, really righteous. So when did he do that? Well, since all the purpose of
God, that purpose of grace, is wrapped up in the salvation
of His people, this decision not to impute the
sins of His people to them and to charge them to the Lord Jesus
Christ as their substitute and their surety had to be before
the world began. You see, don't ever be confused
with what God says in this word about what we are in Adam. and what we've always been in
Christ. Now, he says, blessed is the
man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity. And here is
the whole purpose of God resting on the salvation of these sinners
to the praise of the glory of His grace It's all bound up in
that. And so it says that he blessed
them with all spiritual blessings. That's a lot, isn't it? That's
more than a lot. That's all. He blessed them with all spiritual
blessings, righteousness being one of them, before the foundation of the
world. And the only way that a righteous,
holy, just God could confer such totality of blessings on such
wretched sinners as we are, is if we are really righteous in
the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, He accounted us, viewed
us, loved us, chose us in the Righteous One, the Lord Jesus
Christ. You say, is that really right? Some say we weren't righteous
till the cross. But do you ever remember some
fellows that we read about in the Old Testament, long before Christ ever came
into this world, and the living God called them
Righteous. That's right. Before all this happened, there
was a man by the name of Abraham, and the Scripture says in Genesis that he believed in the Lord,
and he counted it to him for righteousness. How could he do that? Because
he believed on Christ. His believing is not righteousness,
although a sinner is right to look for forgiveness and every
blessing in Christ. But Christ Himself is and always
has been, and I've got news for you, always will be the Lord
our righteousness. You see, actually, before I got
worse, I was already better. Before we ever fell, It was already
a Savior. And a will to save. And an unchanging
purpose to save. So that when speaking of such
wretched sinners as we are, and such as Lot was, you know about Lot? I'll tell you, he's a little
bit of a colored character. in Scripture. But in the New Testament, the
Spirit of God leads Peter to refer to him as just or righteous
lot. I was preaching on that one night
in a little country chapel in North Carolina, and a lady came
up to me afterwards, a schoolteacher. She said, I know what it said,
but she said, I just can't see Lot as righteous. I said, well, it doesn't matter
whether you can see it or not or whether I can see it or not.
God said he was. And the real problem is you can't
see yourself as a sinner. I'll tell you when God deals
with a sinner to save him. He's brought to a point that
if God didn't say it so clear, he could never see himself righteous. What about old Noah? A wine-bibbing scoundrel, laid out in the nakedness of
his shame before his own family. What a pitiful. But it says, the Lord said unto
Noah, Thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. You see, that's what this business
of being made righteous is all about. It's God seeing us righteous
in another. There are two little words in
2 Corinthians 5.21 that you better never leave off. And that's the
last two. He says that God hath made Him,
Christ, who knew no sin, He hath made Him, sin for us that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And there is no righteousness
outside of Him. That's right. That's exactly right. And how
could he look at Abraham and call him righteous, and Lot and
call him righteous, and Noah and call him righteous? Because imputation is real. Because if God says a man or
a woman is righteous, he is righteous. He is right with God. He didn't
get right with God. God got him right in the person
and the work of His Son. He laid everything on the surety. He charged everything to the
account of the substitute. And when all that sin The sins
of his people, when he laid them all on him, they were no longer on them. You see, everything God does
is real. And he's the one who laid out
these terms in Scripture. whereby he determines us to know
this very thing. You see, the term justification
is a term, they say, of the court, a forensic term. And it simply
means that God declares a sinner righteous in his sight, which
is the only one that counts. He declares them righteous. He
views them as righteous because He has imputed to them, He has
charged to them the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why would I want to diminish
the language of this just, righteous, holy God? Dig for a feeling if you want
to. You can just wander out there
in this spiritual no-man's land chasing something that people
can talk about but they can't describe. Give me the paid in full invoice. Give me the Word of God using
terms of condescending grace wherein he puts it like a poor
sinner like me, if he give me grace, can understand it. Is justification real? If God's the judge, it is. Am I really righteous in his
sight? If he says, I am. And if it's the court of heaven, and if he's been just doing so, I am what I am by the grace of
God. And that grace, Paul says, is
that grace which reigns in righteousness. I heard a couple of preachers
talking one time about a fellow, and one of them said, Yeah, he's
got a lot to say about righteousness. I said, Yep. And so does every
other gospel preacher. It's real. It's actual. Because God said
it is. You say, well, you've not even
read this chapter. I am now. Paul, being a Jew himself, who
had been brought to cast all hope of his own righteousness
off and plead that righteousness which is the gift of God. He is led by the Spirit to write,
and he says, What shall we say then that Abraham our father,
as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? Abraham is obviously a pretty
important figure in the revelation of God. What has he found? Why is he used as such an example? He says, for if Abraham were
justified or declared righteous on the basis of his works, he'd
have something to glory in before God. But he couldn't glory in God
on that count. For what saith the Scripture?" What does the Bible say? You
say, well, I'll tell you what I think is no worth more than
what I think. He says, Abraham believed God. We kind of put something in there.
Abraham is something special. I mean, he has such amazing faith. Is that why he lied to the king,
told him that Sarah was his sister and not his wife? That doesn't
sound like such amazing faith to me. It just says he believed
God. And it was counted. There's that word the first time.
It was counted to him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the
reward not reckoned," there it is again, of grace, but of debt. If you work to gain God's favor,
if you work to be saved, God would have to pay you like He'd
pay a debt. He'd have to count that like
a debt. It'd be like you owed him something. No sinner will
ever owe him anything. But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, that declares ungodly
sinners righteous, his faith is counted. reckoned for righteousness. Even as David also describes
the blessedness of the man unto whom God, here it is again, imputeth
righteousness without works. Righteousness without works. I know there are people who have
a lot of different views on the law as it pertained to Christ. But there's a sense in which
if Christ actually obeyed the law for me, he wouldn't have
to die. I wouldn't have to die. He did obey the law. He did walk
in holiness before that law, but it was to show himself the
clean, pure, worthy sacrifice. Because the only way to deal
righteously with your sin and mine was for him to die. He imputes righteousness without
worth. And we always say, without our
words. That's right. But it's His death
that saves us. Saying, blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute Say, well, I've been
blessed, got a new car, a good wife, family, business. That's
nothing. That may prove a curse to you.
But blessed is that person to whom the Lord will not charge
or hold them accountable for their sins. Come at this blessingness then
upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcision also,
for we say that faith was reckoned or accounted to Abraham for righteousness."
You see, the truth is, he was neither. That God is wise, isn't He? How then, how was it then reckoned
or accounted or imputed when he was in circumcision or uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. No rite or act or ritual in the
flesh of any kind, including circumcision, including faith,
is the ground, because true faith looks to Christ. And he received the sign of circumcision,
a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had, yet
being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all them
that believe, though they be not circumcised,
that righteousness might be imputed unto them also. If Abraham's righteousness was
real, imputed righteousness is real, because God viewed him and made
him righteous in the Christ who had not even yet come into this
world. And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision
only, but who walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham,
which he had being yet uncircumcised. And the promise, the promise, that he should be
the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through
the law. but through the righteousness
of faith. For if they which are of the
law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none
effect, because the law worketh wrath. For where no law is, there
is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that
it might be by grace. To the end the promise might
be sure, to all the seed, not to that only which is of the
law, but to that which is of the faith of Abraham, who is
the father of us all. As it is written, I have made
thee a father of many nations before him whom he believed,
even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things
which be not as though they were. Somebody said, well, there's
no way that God can count a man righteous until Christ died on
the cross. Who are we talking about here? Number one, exactly that. He's
God and he can do what he wants, if it be just, if he be right
in doing it. But this transaction took place
between the Godhead. There was never not one iota
of possibility, or maybe, or could it be, or all these things
that Christ would not go to that cross and suffer that substitutionary
death. There was not a chance. All of
hell couldn't stop it, and they tried. So as the old theologians used
to say, when the Father and Son struck hands in that everlasting
covenant, it was a done deal. That's why it's called the everlasting
righteousness. That's why the gospel is called
the everlasting gospel. Who against hope believed in
hope, that he might become the father of many nations according
to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be." In other
words, humanly and physically impossible what God said Abraham
would be and what He would give him. It was an impossibility
for him and Sarah. And for what God says to us in
the gospel, that he counts us as really righteous
through the death of his Son, seems impossible. But it's real. Real. And being not weak in faith,
he considered not his own body, now dead, when he was about a
hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but
was strong in faith, giving glory to God." Is Paul here talking
about Abraham and Sarah's sex life
or family life? Is that his subject here? Is
he talking about believing for your children? No. He's talking
about the righteousness of faith. He's staggered not at the promise
of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory
to God. That's what faith does. And being
fully persuaded that he had he had promised, what he had promised,
he was able to perform, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. I'll tell you what, when you're
in trial, you're brought one more time
to the realization of what a weak, helpless, wretched, vile creature
you are. And in that hour, the devil comes
tiptoeing around and whispering in your ear saying, there's no
way that you could be righteous. There's no way that you could
be one of God's children. If you were God's children, you
wouldn't feel what you feel. You wouldn't in haste say what
you'd say. How in the world Could you ever
imagine that you are righteous before God? You know how holy
He is. Because God said so. If He said so, it's real. And then He says, now it was
not written for His sake alone that it was imputed to Him. Because the family that he's
talking about here belonging to Abraham, their big family,
he's the father of all that believe. He says, But for us also, to
whom it shall be imputed, or shall have been imputed, if which
is sense, we believe on him. that raised
up Jesus our Lord from the dead. What is the evidence of imputation? Those whose sins were laid on
Christ, those who are made of God, the righteousness of God
in Him, he brings them to hear the message
of the Gospel and believe. We believe on Him who died. We believe that He died according
to the Scriptures. We believe that God raised Him
from the dead. You say, what? What's all the
good news about God raising Christ from the dead? Because our substitute
The one whom the Lord imputed our sins to Him. And the one
who died on account of those sins. The evidence that God put
them away and accepted His sacrifice and that we really are righteous
in Him is the fact that God raised Him from the dead. Jesus, our Lord, who was delivered
for our offenses. and was raised again actually
because of our justification, because He declared us righteous
in Him. I love imputation. I love imputed righteousness because that's the only righteousness
there is. But bless God in the Lord Jesus
Christ, it's real. It's real. Say what you want
to. If God says I'm righteous, live
with it.