Sovereign Grace Church

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

(ROMANS 4:8)

Many people understand imputation like this: God imputes the righteousness of His Son to me so that I have a legal righteous standing before God even though I am not really righteous. Such a view is dishonoring to God! In 1 Corinthians 4:1, Paul said, “Let a man so account us as ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” The word account is the same Greek word that is translated impute. Paul is not telling us to account him a servant and a steward even though he really is not a servant and a steward. Impute this to me because that is what I am. We have righteousness imputed to us because we are righteous!

All that Christ died for have no sin, no guilt, and are perfectly righteous before God. When Paul said, “Reckon (impute) yourselves to be dead to sin” (ROMANS 6:11), it was not that we are to reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin though we really are not. By Christ’s work on our behalf we are dead to sin! It has nothing to say to us. That is realized by faith.