It’s time for a mega-thread on the doctrine of “the imputation of Christ’s active obedience” (IAO). The doctrine is spelled out in various ways by those who adhere to it, but basically it goes something like this: Christ’s actively obeyed the law, thus accumulating righteousness (or merit, on some formulations); that righteousness is then imputed — that is, transferred — to believers, who are then justified (decalred righteous) on that basis.
For some Reformed people, this has become the litmus test of an orthodox doctrine of justification. But that’s a novelty — and an unhelpful one. Luther and many of the great early Reformed/Calvinistic theologians did not use this formula — or if they did, they did not treat this particular formulation as a sole test of orthodoxy for the doctrine of justification. Calvin’s best formulations are somewhat different and the IAO doctrine did not become “a thing” until after his death, with his successor Beza. It was not until the 1580s that IAO (and the corresponding doctrine of the meritorious covenant of works) were clearly articulated, and even then it was hardly unanimous amongst the Reformed. Even in the 1640s, Reformed theologians were still debating the proper formulation of these doctrines, and there was plenty of latitude allowed for varying expressions. The Westminster divines debated and ended up producing a document capable of being read with or without IAO by design. Some of the most highly regarded divines believed in the imputation of Christ’s passive obedience (his death) only; others proposed various understandings of the Bible’s imputation language. Reformed orthodoxy on this issue, even for Westminster, was more of a box than a pinpoint. We can agree on the glorious truth of justification by faith, which debating within certain parameters the underlying mechanism by God forgives us and declares us righteous.
Those involved in the so-called Federal Vision (FV) conversation have never wanted to make their own doctrine of the covenant or imputation a test of orthodoxy or even Reformedness. We fully acknowledge that there have been a range of views in the tradition on these issues. Not everyone needs to use the exact same formulation; indeed, the truth is so rich, it can be expressed in various ways. But because some of these discussions over the last couple decades got overheated, FVers have at times had to defend their Reformed credentials, and this thread will continue that. Even more important, of course, than being Reformed is being biblical. And so the most important question is always, “What do the Scriptures say?” Thus, this thread will mix a bit of exegesis in with the historical theology and systematic theology issues.
1/9
Let’s start with the meaning of the word commonly translated as “imputation” — the Greek term logizomai. Paul uses this term and its various offshoots in several places, but Romans 4 is usually the key passage in these discussions about justification.
Here are the meanings of logizomai in a standard concordance:
to take an inventory, i.e. estimate (literally or figuratively):–conclude, (ac-)count (of), + despise, esteem, impute, lay, number, reason, reckon, suppose, think (on)
I’m happy with any one of those meanings. Plug them into Romans 4:3: “Abraham believed God and God thought of/counted/reckoned/declared him righteous.” Those are perfectly acceptable readings. I take “imputed as righteous” to be another way of saying “declared righteous” or “justified.” In other words, God does not impute (transfer) righteousness from Christ to us, and then on that basis declare us righteous – as if justification was the result of a multi-step process. Rather, the imputation of righteousness IS justification. God imputes/counts/declares/reckons us righteous when we trust in Jesus. To say “God imputes faith as righteousness” is just another way of saying “God justifies us by faith.”
Logizomai could mean “to charge to one’s account” in certain technical contexts (e.g., financial or accounting contexts). Whether or not that context is present in Romans 4 is debatable; it is certainly not the context in the NT in some other places where logizomai is used. But, that being said, I am fine with that reading of the term in Romans 4. To put it another way, in legal contexts, logizomai means “to declare” or “to count” or “to reckon.” In economic contexts, it can mean “to charge to one’s account.” We can debate which fits Romans 4 (or any other passage where the logizomai word group is used) best. What the term *cannot* mean is “to transfer.” And that has been the crux of the debate for 20+ years now.
See this from a mere 19 years ago: https://pastor.trinity-pres.net/essays/opc-justification-reply-1.pdf…
2/9
To be imputed/declared/accounted as righteous is synonymous with being justified or acquitted. I stand by the argument I have made in numerous writings over the years and now on various podcasts. I also continue to insist that the biblical basis for sinners being accounted righteous is our faith-wrought union with The Righteous One, Jesus Christ. By faith, we are untied to Christ; indeed, this is faith’s special role and unique function — it is unitive, so that the one who trusts and the One who is the object of trust are joined. The truster and trustee are united in a bond of faith. Because Jesus is justified (in his resurrection), when we trust in him, we share in his righteousness, his righteous status, and so we justified in him. His resurrection is his vindication and justification; thus it is our vindication and resurrection as well (cf. 1 Timothy 3:16, Romans 4:25). This is what Paul means when he says there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We are in Jesus by faith; we believe *into* him. And once we are in him, we possess what is his, including his right-standing in the heavenly court.
What’s the problem with imputation as transfer?
Sin is not a “thing” that can get transferred. Neither is righteousness.
We fell in Adam, legally and morally, because we were IN him when he sinned. Nothing gets transferred; his act of sin belongs to us by virtue of a real and natural union with him as head of the race. When we are united to Christ, we receive new life and we are declared (or imputed, or counted, or reckoned) righteous since he the head of a new humanity. To repeat the illustration I’ve many times over the decades, when I got married, I did not transfer my assets over to my wife; rather I incorporated her into my account. Thus, my account became a joint account and my assets now belonged to her as well.
Jesus has a joint account. He is a corporate person. Just as David represented all of Israel when he faced and defeated Goliath, so that all of Israel shared in his victory, thus it is with Jesus and his people. All those who are in him by faith are included in what he has done. The only transfer that takes place is not of sin or righteousness, but of persons — we are transferred from Adam’s headship to Jesus’ headship.
In the Levitical system, which is a complete prefiguration of the gospel, there is no transfer. When the worshipper lays hands on the animal he is incorporated into the animal as his “head.” He is trusting in the one the animal points to (obviously the coming Messiah).
As for the active obedience doctrine, note that only Adam’s “one act” of disobedience is reckoned to his descendants in Romans 5. To preserve the parallel, many Reformed theologians say that Christ’s “one act” of obedience in going to the cross reverses Adam’s one act of disobedience for his people. This does not make Christ’s active obedience — his 33 years of fulfilling the law of Moses prior to his crucifixion — irrelevant. Obviously, in order to qualify as our substitute, he had to be the a spotless sacrifice, without blemish. Because he was actively and perfectly obedient, there was no way death could hold him. Death had no proper or just claim on him. The active obedience of Jesus is crucial to the gospel — there is no hope without it, as Machen telegraphed to Murray — but technically speaking, its not what gets imputed.
3/9
Now consider the issue of merit. We have to start with the covenant of creation (sometimes infelicitously referred to as the covenant of works).
FVers do NOT believe in “superadded grace.” We believe nature itself is always already a gift – nothing has to be added to it for it to be considered a gift. Adam’s sheer existence, each breath he took, every faculty he possessed, was a gift. None of it was earned or deserved – how could it be? Romans 11:33-36 is clear. Man was endued with the gifts of knowledge, righteousness, and holiness from the beginning. Man was a debtor to his Creator from the beginning, and he could never do anything to make God into his debtor.
There was no need for the Westminster divines to use the word “grace” to describe the pre-fall condition; terms like “endued” and “voluntary condescension” in 4.2 and 7.1 cover that ground just fine.
I agree with Bavinck who pointed out that God had already BESTOWED (that is, graced, or gifted) Adam with all he needed in order to keep the moral law from the beginning. Nothing had to be added/superadded; Adam had everything he needed to be a faithful son.
FV rejects a MERITORIOUS covenant of works in the Garden of Eden and this is consistent with the WCF. The Westminster divines intentionally avoided the word “merit” in that context. They also used the language “covenant of life” in the catechisms to show that “covenant of works” is not essential, or the only way to summarize the biblical teaching.
Go here for more: https://pastor.trinity-pres.net/essays/opc-justification-reply-3.pdf…
4/9
Consider Turretin:
“If therefore upright man in that state had obtained this merit, it must not be understood properly and rigorously. Since man has all things from and owes all to God, he can seek from him nothing as his own by right, nor can God be a debtor to him — not by condignity of work and from its intrinsic value (because what ever that may be, it can bear no proportion to the infinite reward of life), but from the pact and the liberal promise of God….”
What Turretin says here is EXACTLY the point FVers have made all along: there is no merit in the proper or rigorous sense in the original creation covenant; man owes everything (even his nature) to God; man cannot make God his debtor because even if he obeyed, his reward was a LIBERAL (or gracious) promise; man cannot demand the reward even if obeys because it not a matter of strict justice or merit; even man’s creational ability obey was a gift; etc. In other words, Turretin would most certainly say that even if Adam had obeyed and received the promised reward, Adam would have to say “thank you” to God. Obedience would not have somehow turned Adam into God’s peer with a rightful and absolute claim on God. Man, even perfectly obedient man, cannot make God into his debtor. Man is always God’s creature, always in God’s debt, always obligated to give God gratitude. This was true from the moment of creation onwards.
On this point, we are in line with the majority of the Reformed tradition which teaches a non-merit based covenant in the Garden. Even a proponent of the meritorious view,, Bill Baldwin, admits it: http://mountainretreatorg.net/other_studies/covenant-of-works-is-not-gracious.shtml…
5/9
Covenants in the Bible have both legal and relational aspects. Marriage is an excellent illustration of this. The father/son relationship is as well.
While biblical covenants are both filial and legal, we still have to specify how the covenant is legal (e.g., a son’s inheritance could be considered a legal matter, but it’s not merited in any strict sense). We do not deny a legal aspect of creation covenant – but a legal aspect does not require merit. Adam was created in a state of justification – he possessed knowledge, RIGHTEOUSNESS, and holiness, as the WCF says, from the moment of creation. When he sinned, he not only entered a state of moral corruption, he was also legally condemned. Obviously Jesus’ death and resurrection address both the corruption and the condemnation. In Christ, we receive new life/freedom and new status/legal standing.
What was at stake in Adam’s test (to not eat the forbidden tree) was not earning justification but entering into eschatological glorification. In Christ, we not only get back what Adam lost, but what Adam could have gained had he been faithful.
Again, note the catechism: Adam had knowledge, righteousness (justification), and holiness. What he did not yet have, at least not in its fullest sense, is glorification. A greater and higher glory awaited him if he would be faithful. The language “knowing/judging good and evil” associated with the forbidden tree elsewhere in Scripture is used in conjunction with kingly glory and rule. Had Adam remained faithful, presumably God would have eventually moved him from one degree of glory to a higher degree of glory, and he would have enthroned him as an eschatological king and judge. Of course, in Christ, this becomes the destiny of the new humanity — we are enthroned in glory with Christ and will judge good and evil (e.g., angels) at the last day.
6/9
A couple questions/objections:
1. I have been asked before if the scapegoat ritual from the old covenant Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) could serve as an example of imputation as transfer.
I do think the scapegoat ritual on the day of atonement is the closest you get in the Bible to something that could be construed as a transfer of sin (Lev. 16:21; see also Isaiah 53:6). There are at least a few commentators (such as Gill) who see the laying on of hands as a transfer of sorts, and popular preachers have certainly preached the text that way (eg, Spurgeon). But most commentaries understand the laying on of hands in the Levitical rituals as identification and incorporation, which I think is proper. The Pulpit Commentary on Leviticus puts it this way:
“This putting, or forcibly leaning, the hand on the victim’s head, which is the most essential part of the oblation of the victim, was a symbolical act implying ‘This animal is now for present purposes myself, and its life is my life.’ It was this act of identification with the offerer which made it be accepted for him to make atonement (literally, covering) for him. The sin offering is the sacrifice which especially symbolizes and ceremonially effects atonement, but the idea of atonement is not absent from the burnt sacrifice. The aspect under which atonement is presented here and elsewhere in the Old Testament is that of covering. But it is not the sin that is covered, but the sinner. Owing to his sin, the latter is exposed to the wrath of a just God, but something intervenes whereby he is covered, and he ceases, therefore, to attract the Divine anger and punishment. No longer being an object of wrath, he becomes at once an object of benevolence and mercy. The covering provided by a sacrifice is the blood or life of an animal, symbolically representing the offerer’s own life freely surrendered by him for his acceptance, and typically foreshadowing the blood of Christ.”
Laying on hands on the animal – or really, leaning hands into the animal – while confessing sins, is a way of identifying the people with the sacrifice. The hands are placed upon the head of the animal precisely because the animal will be a representative head for the people. What happens to the animal from that point on happens to the people who are “in” the animal. The laying on of hands is a way of saying, “This animal is me. I am united to this sacrifice so that what happens to it happens to me.”
Note that if laying hands on the animal represents a transfer, the transfer only moves in one direction, from the worshipper to the animal, and not in the other direction. There is not a double transfer (or double imputation) of sin and righteousness in the sacrificial system. The animal never lays hooves on the worshipper.
If the laying on hands is understood as union/identification/incorporation, we can better make sense of what Scripture tells us about the work of Christ. When an animal was sacrificed, it was killed (for the worshipper’s sin, as his substitute), then it was transformed by Spirit-fire on the altar and then it ascended to heaven in smoke. Every sacrifice had this death/resurrection/ascension pattern. In other words, the sacrifices do not point ONLY to Christ’s death but also to what follows – his resurrection and ascension are also included in the sacrificial ritual. The sacrifices give us the WHOLE gospel in preview form, not merely the cross.
Under the old covenant, the worshipper was “in” the animal as it underwent death, resurrection, and ascension. That’s just how the NT unpacks our salvation – we are co-crucified, co-resurrected, and co-ascended with Christ. What Christ did works for us and counts for us because of our union with him. As Calvin said, it really doesn’t matter what work Christ accomplished unless we are united to him so that we may be partakers of that work.
2. Another question/objection: Some have also asked about the NT metaphor of clothing. If we are clothed with Christ’s righteousness, does that indicate imputation as transfer? If we are robed in Christ’s righteousness, does that change the way we understand imputation?
We need to be precise here. What the Scripture actually says is that we have Christ *himself* as our clothing (Galatians 3:27). Christ himself, not merely his righteousness, is our clothing.
This is the core of FV soteriology: There are no benefits apart from the Benefactor; Christ’s gifts cannot be separated from Christ himself. Christ does not transfer his righteousness to us; rather Christ gives *himself* to us, and in doing so, we possess his righteousness (and right standing) because we possess him. Again, think of a marriage – when I married my wife, our union meant her liabilities were now mine and my assets were now hers. So it is with Christ and his bride. Union with Christ is the key.
This may seem to be straining at gnats. But there are significant downstream implications to thinking of Christ’s righteousness (or any other of his benefits) as separable from Christ himself. See, eg, Wm Evans’ book Imputation and Impartation. American Christians have a long history of failing to hold together things that belong together, and creating dualisms when Scripture gives us integration. For example, if Christ’s righteousness can be transferred to me, as a discrete act, perhaps it is possible for me to be justified without being sanctified. Perhaps I can have Christ’s imputed righteousness without the impartation of his righteousness. And thus was born the “carnal Christian” doctrine with all its antinomian implications.
This is why Gaffin said that imputation has no discrete structure of its own. If Christ’s righteousness is separable from his person, perhaps it really is possible to have Christ for justification without also having him for sanctification, perhaps I can have him as my Savior without making him my Lord. But if the only way to get Christ’s righteousness for justification is to get Christ himself and to be united to him, then it is obvious justification and sanctification cannot be separated. Christ and his benefits are a package deal. The only way to get Christ’s righteousness is to get the whole Christ — and that means you are going to get a new transformed life as well. Imputed and imparted righteousness are tied together.
Some have compared union with Christ to a cut diamond that has many facets. Each facet — justification, sanctification, adoption, regeneration, etc. — can be looked at on its own, and yet each facet is inseparable from the whole diamond. You cannot get a facet of the diamond without having the diamond itself. In the same way, it is impossible to get any of Christ’s benefits without getting Christ, the whole Christ, and so not only are the benefits inseparable from the Benefactor, they are inseparable from one another.
8/9
To reiterate, I do not think my formulations are the only true way to express the biblical and Reformed doctrine of justification. But I certainly believe that my views fall within the pale of Reformational orthodoxy. Critics have not demonstrated otherwise.
I have not put all of my thoughts on these matters in one book or essay, but one of the best places to look for a summary is this chapter from the book A Faith That Is Never Alone: http://trinity-pres.net/essays/_published_Federal_Vision_Postcards.pdf…
9/9
TPC Pastor's Page 