Imputation is one of those words you generally only come across in theology. It and its cognates are used in the context of how one is justified before God. The theology of justification (I'm boring you already, aren't I?) most Christians who read this blog have been brought up on is something not unlike the following:
We have The Law, but no matter how hard we try to keep it we will never be made right with God in that way. God's standard is perfection, and all fall short of it. Therefore in order for us to be made right with God, Jesus lived the perfect life, died on a cross, which led to this exchange: Our sin was laid on Him so that by faith His "righteousness" or perfection could be laid on us.
This exchange is what is known in geeky Christian circles as double imputation: Our sin is imputed (or attributed) to Christ, and His righteousness is imputed to us. For those of you still with me, this sounds reasonable, right? Perhaps you would use different words, but I imagine you'd be describing the same process as the one I have outlined when talking about our justification.
Up until just over a week ago I'd have signed up to this description of justification without a second thought. Me bad. Jesus good. Jesus gives me His goodness meaning me not considered bad anymore. All done by faith. Yay.
That all sounds rather lovely (and it is, don't get me wrong), but as Tom Wright (aka N.T. Wright) shows in his book Justification (I know - a whole book on Justification), this notion of imputation does not appear to be as scripturally sound as those sola scriptura Reformers once thought, and as sound as most of the Protestant Church thinks today. This may appear to be pointless theological sparring, but if so then why not just erase the first half of most of Paul's letters, which deal almost exclusively with Christian doctrine? Because pointless theological sparring is sometimes important. Of course I don't pretend that any of what I say on the matter is interesting or correct, but surely these theological debates have a purpose, right?
Anyway, I think one of the most obvious places where double imputation falls down is the entire New Testament, which doesn't once mention "the righteousness of Christ" or the "righteousness of Jesus". Surely if Jesus' righteousness or moral perfection was imputed to us we would see the phrase somewhere, but alas, it is conspicuous by its absense.
The theory of double imputation also runs the risk of presenting God as somewhat of a legalist, which is ironic since legalism is what Luther battled so hard against in coming up with this divine exchange. In this view, what God requires of us is perfection. Since we couldn't deliver, God, out of sheer grace, decided to send someone to earth who could. Therefore we stand before God on the basis of Jesus' moral perfection and our gettin' some of that by faith in Him and His sacrificial death. Perhaps that's an unfair caricature, but when I boil my own thoughts on the matter down I end up with something not disimilar to it, and it just doesn't seem to fit with the metanarrative of Scripture.
In this line of reasoning, the story of our justification starts with our inability to keep the Law. I don't deny that inability for a second, but as Scot McKnight says and as N.T. Wright implies, God is a covenant maker before He is a Law maker. Therefore the basis on which we are justified was never intended to be on the Law, but on the covenant. It's not a case of the Law not working, therefore God coming up with plan B instead. There is no plan B. God's dealings with us are based on plan A: His covenant with Abraham in which He promised that He would bless all the nations of the world through Abraham's seed. This is where double imputation -- while not completely wrong -- again falls down, or at least short. For me, it's emphasis is still on Law, and our standing before God is seen in terms of moral perfection, albeit Christ's and not ours. As Wright says however, the basis for our justification is God's covenantal faithfulness, which he basically equates with "the righteousness of God".
Therefore what is revealed in the gospel (Rom. 1:16-17) is not primarily the moral perfection of Christ made available to us by faith, but the faithfulness of God to the covenant He established with Abraham, which finds its fulfilment in the Messiah Jesus, who remained faithful even unto death so that God's plan A -- His plan to reconcile the world to Himself through the seed of Abraham -- might be accomplished.
A third issue I have with double imputation is the distance it creates between the Messiah and His people. I've seen it illustrated through the use of two circles, with our sin being shown to hop over to Jesus' circle and His righteousness coming over to ours. Almost like the equivalent of swapping Ricardo Scimeca for a "shiny" in the Merlin Premiership Sticker Collection of yesteryear. As Wright argues however, it is our being "in Christ" that justifies us. Transferal of merits doesn't quite do justice to the relational nature of our justification, whereby we are declared right with God on the basis of our intimate connection with His Son.
I'm only scratching the surface of a topic which has produced countless books over the years and quite a few recently. And what's more, I'm still thinking through this stuff myself, having been fed on double imputation for so long. I know there is a paucity of Scripture references in this post, but believe me - Wright's book is full of them. I'd be interested to know what others think. Does any of this matter when it comes to Christianity? Clearly Tom Wright and John Piper think it matters, since they've dedicated books to proving the other misguided. And what's more, they approach the topic as pastors as well as scholars, indicating concern for the sheep God has given them to look after. I'm not quite sure of the pastoral implications of all of this, but when I find out I'll let you know. I'm sure you'll be thankful for another post on double imputation [?].
We have The Law, but no matter how hard we try to keep it we will never be made right with God in that way. God's standard is perfection, and all fall short of it. Therefore in order for us to be made right with God, Jesus lived the perfect life, died on a cross, which led to this exchange: Our sin was laid on Him so that by faith His "righteousness" or perfection could be laid on us.
This exchange is what is known in geeky Christian circles as double imputation: Our sin is imputed (or attributed) to Christ, and His righteousness is imputed to us. For those of you still with me, this sounds reasonable, right? Perhaps you would use different words, but I imagine you'd be describing the same process as the one I have outlined when talking about our justification.
Up until just over a week ago I'd have signed up to this description of justification without a second thought. Me bad. Jesus good. Jesus gives me His goodness meaning me not considered bad anymore. All done by faith. Yay.
That all sounds rather lovely (and it is, don't get me wrong), but as Tom Wright (aka N.T. Wright) shows in his book Justification (I know - a whole book on Justification), this notion of imputation does not appear to be as scripturally sound as those sola scriptura Reformers once thought, and as sound as most of the Protestant Church thinks today. This may appear to be pointless theological sparring, but if so then why not just erase the first half of most of Paul's letters, which deal almost exclusively with Christian doctrine? Because pointless theological sparring is sometimes important. Of course I don't pretend that any of what I say on the matter is interesting or correct, but surely these theological debates have a purpose, right?
Anyway, I think one of the most obvious places where double imputation falls down is the entire New Testament, which doesn't once mention "the righteousness of Christ" or the "righteousness of Jesus". Surely if Jesus' righteousness or moral perfection was imputed to us we would see the phrase somewhere, but alas, it is conspicuous by its absense.
The theory of double imputation also runs the risk of presenting God as somewhat of a legalist, which is ironic since legalism is what Luther battled so hard against in coming up with this divine exchange. In this view, what God requires of us is perfection. Since we couldn't deliver, God, out of sheer grace, decided to send someone to earth who could. Therefore we stand before God on the basis of Jesus' moral perfection and our gettin' some of that by faith in Him and His sacrificial death. Perhaps that's an unfair caricature, but when I boil my own thoughts on the matter down I end up with something not disimilar to it, and it just doesn't seem to fit with the metanarrative of Scripture.
In this line of reasoning, the story of our justification starts with our inability to keep the Law. I don't deny that inability for a second, but as Scot McKnight says and as N.T. Wright implies, God is a covenant maker before He is a Law maker. Therefore the basis on which we are justified was never intended to be on the Law, but on the covenant. It's not a case of the Law not working, therefore God coming up with plan B instead. There is no plan B. God's dealings with us are based on plan A: His covenant with Abraham in which He promised that He would bless all the nations of the world through Abraham's seed. This is where double imputation -- while not completely wrong -- again falls down, or at least short. For me, it's emphasis is still on Law, and our standing before God is seen in terms of moral perfection, albeit Christ's and not ours. As Wright says however, the basis for our justification is God's covenantal faithfulness, which he basically equates with "the righteousness of God".
Therefore what is revealed in the gospel (Rom. 1:16-17) is not primarily the moral perfection of Christ made available to us by faith, but the faithfulness of God to the covenant He established with Abraham, which finds its fulfilment in the Messiah Jesus, who remained faithful even unto death so that God's plan A -- His plan to reconcile the world to Himself through the seed of Abraham -- might be accomplished.
A third issue I have with double imputation is the distance it creates between the Messiah and His people. I've seen it illustrated through the use of two circles, with our sin being shown to hop over to Jesus' circle and His righteousness coming over to ours. Almost like the equivalent of swapping Ricardo Scimeca for a "shiny" in the Merlin Premiership Sticker Collection of yesteryear. As Wright argues however, it is our being "in Christ" that justifies us. Transferal of merits doesn't quite do justice to the relational nature of our justification, whereby we are declared right with God on the basis of our intimate connection with His Son.
I'm only scratching the surface of a topic which has produced countless books over the years and quite a few recently. And what's more, I'm still thinking through this stuff myself, having been fed on double imputation for so long. I know there is a paucity of Scripture references in this post, but believe me - Wright's book is full of them. I'd be interested to know what others think. Does any of this matter when it comes to Christianity? Clearly Tom Wright and John Piper think it matters, since they've dedicated books to proving the other misguided. And what's more, they approach the topic as pastors as well as scholars, indicating concern for the sheep God has given them to look after. I'm not quite sure of the pastoral implications of all of this, but when I find out I'll let you know. I'm sure you'll be thankful for another post on double imputation [?].
No comments:
Post a Comment