Three Imputations (part 2) - [Romans 5:12ff]

Bethlehem Bible Church

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This is my last sermon before I go to California for a while, to be with my wife and kids. Sammy will be here next week.

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I'll be here as well, but he'll be preaching as our missionary. And if I had one sermon to deliver before I went to California for quite a while, this would be the sermon.

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If I could take the Bible and open it up and see a 3D perspective of the

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Bible and to see certain mountain peaks arise. It's almost like when you open up one of those kids pop -up books and things just pop up.

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The more you open the spine and they just pop up. Three peaks pop up with those books when it comes to the

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Bible. And if you get these three, you understand who God is, the gospel, and life.

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And as you open up the Bible and see these three peaks protrude, you will see these three imputations.

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And as the bulletin rightly says, three imputations today, taking a detour from 1

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Corinthians chapter 12, excuse me, chapter 7. The detour from 1

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Corinthians because this is such an important topic. If you get this right, you get it all right.

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If you get this wrong, there are many ramifications. And so this morning we'd like to talk about imputation, the three biblical imputations.

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If you weren't here last week, I could ask you the question, what are the three biblical imputations? You need to know what these three are.

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There's a debate in evangelicalism, what should we call ourselves? In the 30s, maybe you called yourself a fundamentalist because you believed in the fundamentals of the faith, literal resurrection, virgin birth, etc.

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But what do we call ourselves now? There are feminist evangelicals.

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There are all kinds of other evangelicals. What do we call ourselves? And so when R .C. Sproul was asked the question, what do you call yourself now since evangelical is so nebulous?

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It doesn't really mean anything. R .C. Sproul said, I know what word I'm using. I'm calling myself an imputationalist.

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What is imputation? Instead of going to one passage and working our way through,

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I'd like you to get your Bibles open first to Philemon verse 18, only one chapter.

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So Philemon 18, I'd like to first give you the definition and then we'll look at the three great imputations.

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First the definition, then the three great imputations, and then some implications of that truth.

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That is to say, if you know something, it should change the way you think about life. And in this particular situation, what you think about God, how you think about God, and this topic makes

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God big. He already is big, but it helps our perspective to see that God is

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God and there's no one like Him. If God sits on the throne, He does whatever He pleases. This is not small

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God theology. This is not keep God over here in a little box until Sunday morning when we need Him. You see these three imputations and you think only

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God. And matter of fact, I'd even go so far to say if it wasn't for God, you would probably not accept these imputations.

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But what is an imputation? And I think Philemon verse 18, as Paul gives Philemon some instructions,

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I think it helps you to understand what imputation means or to impute.

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Philemon 18, if he has wronged you, Paul is telling Philemon that if Onesimus has any debts, if he has wronged you or owes you anything, and here comes the definition of imputation, charge that to my account.

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Count that to my side of the ledger. Charge it to me.

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Reckon it to me. Count it to me. And that's exactly what imputation means.

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To count it to someone else. To take something into account.

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To credit it to someone else. To look upon something as someone else's.

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And so when you see imputation, when you see if you have King James, a reckon or count, it's to take something and charge it to someone else.

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It's very simple. And it's very important theologically for lots of reasons. Here's the main reason it's important.

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This is the way God does things in the world. He works by the process of imputation.

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He's a kind of God who says in my wisdom, in my authority, in my sovereignty, I take things and charge them to other people's accounts.

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You say, well, I don't really like that. I love that. It doesn't matter if you like it or if you don't. It's important. It's a biblical truth.

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And God takes things and charges them to someone else. He makes people into representatives that affect other people.

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There's a solidarity to the human race. And God has certain people who lead.

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And what they do affects other people. Would you think that's a biblical principle? The sins of the father are visited on the children.

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But the fathers do affect the children. That's federal headship. The curse of Canaan lands on all his descendants,

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Genesis 9. Egyptians, all the Egyptians were punished for Pharaoh's sin.

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Achan's family died for his crime. All Israel suffered for David's sin.

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Leprosy was visited to Gehazi's seed forever. You say, well, that was back in the

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Bible days. We're different. We don't go for federal representation. Oh, we don't?

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World War II. Here's an illustration of federal representation that I think is quite fascinating. The Japanese attack

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Pearl Harbor and the U .S. Congress calls a vote to declare war on Japan. There was one no vote.

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One no vote. Do you remember the no vote? Jeanette Rankin voted no. And she said, as a woman,

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I cannot go to war and I refuse to send anyone else. And she thought behind the scenes Roosevelt was strategically planning all this and he wanted the war.

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Well, the United States Congress voted to go to war. And when that happened, there were binding implications on everyone else, including

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Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin. And she, later that day, went to war with Japan.

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How? Because of federal representation. Everything about representation is important, specifically in the

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Bible. It determines whether you believe like Roman Catholics or Protestants. It determines what you think about Adam and then the last

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Adam, Jesus. And some people like N .T. Wright say that this is, in a mockery, he says, imputation is like a substance or a gas just passing through a courtroom.

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Is that true? Let's find out. Biblical imputation number one. Adam's sin was imputed to all his descendants.

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That's number one. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, if you would. Adam's sin was credited to, reckoned to, counted as our sin.

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The old New England primer, you repeat after you, you fill in the blanks. In Adam's fall, we sinned all.

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But how exactly? That would be a good primer to study with your kids, by the way. In Adam's fall, we sinned all.

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How? It wasn't our personal sin, it was Adam's sin credited to, imputed to, our account.

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1 Corinthians chapter 15, you see the language here of the two Adams. 1

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Corinthians 15, 21, For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

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For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.

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Through what process? Through federal representation and imputation.

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Adam, as the Puritans would call him, was a common man, a public man. He was the stand -in, and what he did affected all of us.

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He wasn't just the father of the human race, but he was the legal agent of God. Now let's go to Romans chapter 5, because 1

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Corinthians 15 doesn't show us the extent of imputation, it just makes a connection between Adam and us.

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Romans chapter 5, verse 12, this is the verse, this is the issue of imputation for Adam's sin.

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I covered this last week a bit, but I want to double up on it because it is so important.

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If you don't get Adam's imputation correct, then it will spill over into imputation of our sin unto

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Christ, which is the second imputation, and Christ's righteousness into our account, the third imputation.

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So look at this, Romans 5, verse 12. This is great. All week I've just been studying, and I thought,

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I cannot wait to preach. I can't wait to come in with the B -29 super fortress bombers and come over here and just drop the payload and carpet bomb all of you, and then fly to California and let

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Steve pick up the pieces. This has just been the best. This is world -rocking, and there's only one way we can think this way, and that is through special revelation, the word of God.

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You cannot look up at the stars and figure out federal representation. He's just been talking about justification, chapter 3, and the effects and the benefits and the fruit of justification, chapter 5.

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And now he says, in case someone says, how can someone who is a federal representative save anybody else?

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How can Jesus as a federal head save anybody? And then he says, well, it's nothing new. There's nothing novel about federal representation.

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There's nothing new about imputation. Romans 5 .12, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all because all sinned.

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Adam was a federal representative, and what he did affected everyone by imputation.

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His sin was credited to everyone else, and you go, I just still don't like that. What would be a different option?

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Well, I guess God could have said, every person that's born, they now get tested. So you get born, and then you have a test, and what do you think you probably would do, by the way, in that test?

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And then you fail, and then your next kid's born, and then they fail, the next kid born, and they fail. Listen to what

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G .S. Bishop said. The race must either have stood in full -grown man with a full -orbed intellect or stood as babies, each entering his probation in the twilight of self -consciousness, each deciding his destiny before his eyes were half -open to what it all meant.

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How much better would that have been? How much more just? But could it not have been some other way?

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There was no other way besides imputation. It was either the baby, or it was the perfect, well -equipped, all -calculating man.

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That man was Adam. And by the way, if we could have all gone to the

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Garden of Eden, and we all would have stood there, and we said, you know, God is going to judge us, I think we all would have said, if we voted, let's take a little vote, congregational vote, who votes for you, yourself, to stand before God and be on probation and decide whether you're going to sin or not?

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Would you have voted for you? Who would you have voted for? I think I know who

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I would have voted for. I think I would have voted for that man who? Adam.

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And if Adam would have succeeded, we all would have clapped for Adam.

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Way to go, Adam! And no amount of fame and worship and adoration should ever be given to such a creature.

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Only the Lord is worthy of that. Here's Thomas Watson's catechism.

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Did all mankind fall in Adam's first transgression? Answer, the covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression.

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One deed affects many. Genesis 2, here's the history. Romans 5, here's the theology behind the mystery.

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Through one man, Adam, condemnation. Through one man, Christ, righteousness.

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You are saved in the exact way you're lost. You are saved in the exact same way that you're lost.

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Adam's sin credited to all of us. One act credited. Christ's righteousness credited to our account.

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Exact same way. Through the act of another. Now look at that passage again.

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Because all sinned? What does that mean? Because all sinned. We were sinning in Adam? Well, I ask you a question.

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Were you in the garden sinning with Adam? Some of you look old, but not that old.

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But if you were in the garden sinning with Adam, I guess you were at the cross making righteousness and forgiving sins in Christ.

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No, we weren't there in the garden and we weren't there at the cross. Imputation of Adam's sin to us.

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Imputation of Christ's righteousness to us. Say, well, you know what?

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Some people said what Adam did was just a bad example. The Pelagians think this. He just was a really bad example.

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And like Charles Barkley, you know, don't have a bad role model like that. Well, he was a very bad example.

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I know that. But if you follow the bad example of Adam, then

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I guess you're following the good example of Christ. Helping to contribute to your salvation.

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And by the way, why does everybody follow the bad example? Shouldn't someone in the last 6 to 10 ,000 years be good?

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Of course, we get our depraved nature from Adam. But that is not Romans 5. Romans 5 is imputation.

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Immediate representative imputation. Look again in verse 15. I know it's review, but you've just got to get this.

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Verse 15. For if by the transgression of the one. See that in the second sentence.

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The one, the many died. That's imputation. Five times. It's the one act affects the many.

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Look at the middle of the verse 16. The judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation.

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Verse 17. The transgression of the one death. Verse 18.

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So then as through one transgression. Verse 19. So as the one man's disobedience.

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When you look at Romans chapter 5. All sinned. It's past tense. It's point in time. Who in the past at point in time sinned?

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Adam did. And then we get credit for that. All men die because they sin personally?

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No. That's not what he's primarily after. Because then everybody would have eternal life because they're personally righteous.

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All right. Now let's think about this for a second. We'll just stop and detour.

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Are you saved because of your faith? I hope not because then it's a work. You're saved because the love of God.

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The triune God, Ephesians chapter 4. But because of this great love in which he loved us. But you're saved through faith.

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Faith doesn't initiate. Faith is not the cause. Faith is the result.

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And so too, Adam's sin given to us, imputed by God, isn't the consequence.

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Isn't the fruit of. It is the cause of our sinful nature.

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We don't sin and then all of a sudden God says, well, I guess you're a sinner. No, we are federally declared as sinful because of Adam.

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And then because of that, we have the sinful nature, depraved nature. The cause of our sinful nature is imputation.

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Look at verse 13. We need to get on to the second one, but just a little review. Paul proves himself in verse 13,

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Romans 5. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. Sin is not counted where there's no law.

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Why did anybody sin between Adam and Moses? There's no law. Sin is a transgression of the law, 1

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John 3. There was no law. How could anybody sin? Conclusion God wants you to make.

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There was an earlier law that was broken and Adam broke it and you got credit for it. And so did the people between Adam and Moses.

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How could anybody die between Adam and Moses when God didn't say do this or don't do that? Answer, because there was a law broken by Adam and you got credit for it.

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Yes, but through no personal fault of my own, God gives me credit for sin.

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That's right. And for no personal merit of your own, you are going to get credit for Christ's righteousness.

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Deal? Sign up for that? I'd sign up for that. Massachusetts Bible Society wouldn't sign up for that.

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Don't ever believe what the Massachusetts Bible Society declares it to be. It sounds like it's a good name. It's a tricky name.

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Here's what it says. It provides a bridge between the faithful and the skeptical by promoting biblical literacy, understanding, and dialogue in a safe, nonjudgmental environment.

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Through small groups, lectures, video, and the web, we provide a safe place to explore the Bible in the context of the many voices of Christian interpretation.

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That kind of stuff grates on me. And one of the people in the

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Massachusetts Bible Society said, Adam and Eve didn't exist. Get over it.

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Michael Ruse said, Aristotle thought that some people were born to be slaves.

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He was wrong. St. Paul thought we were descended from Adam and Eve. He was wrong. The disappearance of a literal

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Adam and Eve is not only possible, but something of a relief. The Augustinian scenario always leaves a bad taste about why we should be blamed for the sin of someone else.

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Christianity Today, Ruse said, should quit fretting. The president of Calvin College should be proud of his faculty.

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People that are denying Adam. This is not only the right way to behave. There's no

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Adam. Listen to this. This is worth it. It's the Christian way to behave. It's the

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Christian way to behave, to not get all caught up in a literal Adam. Friends, no literal Adam. Here's my point.

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No literal Adam. No literal imputation. Then no need for a second, last

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Adam. And the need for him taking our sins by imputation and us receiving his righteousness by imputation.

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Of course, unbelievers don't like this doctrine. If you only say

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Adam's sin credited to our account, well, I know it's not really likable, but you have to say there's two things going on here.

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I get credit for something I didn't do, sin, and I'm also going to get credit for something

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I didn't do, salvation. Imputation number two.

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The imputation of the sins of God's people to the Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

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So we've got Adam, sin, credited to our account. Christ, though not a sinner, has our sins credited to his account.

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This is the concept of substitution. Legal standing.

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Jesus was not made a sinner. He was just counted in a legal way as a sinner. And this is not an unusual idea, transferring sins by representation.

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Just listen to this and ask yourself the question, from what book is he reading? And when he had made an end of atoning for the holy place and the tent of the meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat.

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And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel and all their transgressions, all their sins.

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And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness.

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The goat shall bear all the iniquities of itself to a remote area and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.

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Transferring, reckoning as it were, the sins of the people onto the scapegoat, Leviticus 16.

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It's not a new idea. Let's turn to 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21.

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This really is the passage when it comes to the second and third imputation. 2

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Corinthians 5 verse 21. If you're trying to get caught up to speed again mentally, A, you're going to need your

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Bible open, and B, we're trying to figure out how God works. God works this way by having people represent other people.

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God works by having Adam do something that's credited to our account even though we didn't do it, even though we weren't alive.

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And likewise, He has Jesus do things that even though we weren't alive and even though we didn't do it, it's credited to our account.

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So this is just the way things work. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21. For our sake

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He made Him to be sin who knew no sin. Let's just stop there.

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For our sake He made Him, the Father made the Son to be sin, and by the way, comma, who knew no sin.

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That is Jesus Christ. The sins of the people were set to the account of the

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Lord, and He bore those sins on His body on the tree. If He would have had

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His own sins, He would have had to bear His own sins, but He did not have any sins. 1

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Peter 2 says He committed no sin and no deceit was in His mouth. Remember when

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Jesus challenged the Jews in John 8? Prove me guilty of my sin.

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I was telling Steve in my study earlier, there's a story of Bronson Alcott, the New England dreamer, who had a conversation with Carlyle.

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And he said to Carlyle that he was just as much one with the Father as Jesus was.

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Carlyle said, well, that may be so, but Jesus got men to believe Him. I thought that was pretty good.

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The Jews even knew there's no sin in Him. That's an amazing statement. No sin, no guile, no anything.

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And so here's what happens. Imputation says Jesus didn't sin, but the sins of all the people who will ever believe will be placed into the spiritual account, not infused in, not imparted in, not making

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Jesus a sinner. Was the Holy One ever a sinner by nature? No, but was the

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Holy One ever declared to bear sins? You say, yes, that's imputation.

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That's why it's so important. An accounting thing doesn't change the nature of something. People say, well,

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God judged sin on Jesus, therefore Jesus must have been defiled by it. The mistake is not understanding imputation.

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Declaration, forensic judge kind of language. The judge doesn't make the criminal good.

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He declares him not guilty. So here we have sin imputed to Christ, to His account, as if they were

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His, as if He committed them, as if perpetrated by Him, but He didn't.

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Turn to Galatians chapter 3 for a moment. This is one of those passages where you think, can't

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I use this to talk to my neighbor who thinks that they get to heaven by being good? Answer, yes.

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And if you're here this morning and you think you're going to get to heaven by being good and doing good, you need to know this passage.

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Why kill Jesus if you can get there on your own? But look at what Galatians 3 .10 says. It's fascinating.

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The law can't save anyone. It's not meant to. It's impossible. You mean to tell me we're going to have a person with Adam's sin credited to his account and then he's going to get rid of that divine accounting by being good, by having some water splashed on his head?

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No. Look at verse 10, Galatians 3. For all who rely on works of the law, doing good and being good, are under what?

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Actually in America, people that obey the law, I'm glad for them. I'd rather have a next door neighbor who's a moralist than a licentious person, wouldn't you?

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Would you rather have someone who lives in a convent or someone who is a drug lord? For society, we know which one is nicer for us.

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But in terms of pleasing God, you can't get there from here. Are under a what?

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A curse. A curse. Society thinks that a prayed mind thinks the mind that's been affected by Adam's sin says,

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I'm just going to do good. I'm going to be good. And at the end, there'll be an accounting. I'll have more good than bad. And God says, if you think you're going to get to heaven by that way, you are what?

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Cursed. Then he uses Bible language, for it is written, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things.

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No bell curve. Written in the book of the law. And then with a climactic stress at the end, thrown in to demolish anyone here who thinks baptism is going to get you to heaven.

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Being good is going to get you to heaven. Going to church is going to get you to heaven. If you don't do all things, you're cursed.

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And do them. The tense is, and do them completely. And do them perfectly.

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We could have open mic day right here, and we have people come up. Have you ever seen churches and there's personal testimony time?

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And people come up and say, this is how God saved me. Well, we could probably have a personal testimony right now. Who in this room could come up and take this microphone and say,

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I have always loved the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Always loved my neighbors myself.

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I've always done the right thing. When God tells me to do something, I do it. When he tells me not to do it,

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I don't. And since in infancy, since in the womb, I am the perfect man. Maybe that's why we don't do personal testimonies in worship services.

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I don't know. I've never sinned in my past. I've never sinned in my future.

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I'm confident in my future that I'll never utter a word except Jesus is great. The Bible says that we've failed, we've fallen short of the law that God has demanded that reflects his perfect holiness.

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Verse 11, now it's evident that no one is justified before God by the law. That's evident.

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Go back to Habakkuk if you'd like. The righteous shall live by what? Faith. We can't do anything to please him.

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We look away from ourselves and look by faith to the one who has done it all. You know the song?

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Not the labor of my hands could fulfill thy law's demands. Could my zeal no respite know?

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Could my tears forever flow? These four sins could not atone.

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Thou must save and thou alone. Verse 12, by the laws, but the law is not of faith.

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Rather, the one who does them shall live by them. Give me the cure.

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Give me imputation. Give me substitution. Verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by what?

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By turning into a sinner? By having his mind and emotions and his inner man all corrupted?

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No. By becoming a curse for us. That is legally taking the curse that we earned.

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For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. The imputation of our sins to Christ Jesus who bears both the penalty and judgment of our sins.

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He didn't break the law. We did. Now in chapter 2, verse 20, he talks about how

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Jesus died for him personally. Now look at verse 14. It's expanded. Now substitution is available for all those people here who say, you know what?

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I've been trying to get to heaven on my own and I can't make it. So that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the

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Gentiles so that we, not just Paul in chapter 2, verse 20, so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith.

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And we know it worked because God raised him from the dead. All my sins and everybody else who would believe, including everyone in this room who believes, were placed to the account of Jesus and he bore those sins.

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The perfect man, alone before God, no longer calling him father but calling him my

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God, my God. You know the passage, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Answer, because it was in the plan of God and because our sins were imputed to the father and he can't look upon sin, even if it's on his own son.

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Imputation number three. So, so far Adam's sin declared to be to our account, even though we weren't there.

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Christ receives by imputation our sins, even though we never sinned.

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And now number three, the imputation of Christ's righteousness to his people. The imputation of Christ's righteousness to you if you're a

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Christian. This isn't your righteousness, this isn't what you've earned, this isn't what you've done.

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Let's go back to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 21 because we left you hanging. And there's two sides.

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There's two sides. Years ago I wrote a letter to a very well -known, famous evangelical.

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And I said, thank you for preaching at the church and I'm so glad there's double imputation. And this author wrote to me, he changes his mind now, but he wrote to me and he said, that's not the right way to talk about this language of double imputation.

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And since then I've found out that is the right language because Christ gets credited for our sins even though we never sinned.

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And we get credited for Christ's life even though we never lived it. That's double imputation. Should have saved that letter.

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Verse 21, 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21. For our sake He made Him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that...

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Here's the other side. We might become the righteousness in God or of God.

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We might become God's righteousness in Him. God says to Jesus, you bear the sins of your people and now

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I'm going to acquit your people because their sins are forgiven and they also have the righteousness of Christ.

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Listen to this old poem. God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, the righteousness and holiness of Christ.

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As if I had never sinned nor been a sinner. As if I had been perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me.

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Justification, just as if I had never sinned. Half right? God looks at me as if I've never sinned.

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That's imputation too. What's imputation three? God looks at me as if I've never sinned and He's looked at me as if I've always obeyed the law.

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That's amazing to me. He made, look back at 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

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He made, this is divine initiative, divine causation. He did it all.

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Here we have Jesus living the perfect life. Never sinning, always obeying.

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Credited to our account. Listen to this

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Q &A from 400 years ago. Did no man ever escape the sin of Adam?

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Yes, the man Christ Jesus did and He only. For such a high priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.

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Was not Christ tainted with it? Because He came into the world in an extraordinary way.

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The birth of Christ was on this wise when as His mother Mary was espoused to Joseph before they came together, she was with child of the

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Holy Ghost. Jesus had to be perfect because how do we get His perfection if He had sinned?

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I learned this week something brand new. I mean I knew about it but I never quantified it this way. There's four ways

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God can create humans. What are the four ways God creates humans? One, He creates humans by a man and a woman getting together and they're naturally born.

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I was naturally born and Steve and his wife are hoping for a natural birth soon, Megan and Joey.

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That's one way. Another way is what? In the garden,

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God makes Adam out of the dust. That's the second way. God made

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Eve, the third way, from a man, Adam. Took a part of the rib or whatever it was.

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What's the fourth way? God can make a man out of a woman. Out of the virgin womb of Mary, the

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Spirit of God hovers over, superintends, makes sure none of Mary's sin.

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Mary was a sinner. None of Mary's sin affects the egg and Jesus now is born from a woman.

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Four ways. He had to be sinless. And by the way, if it's true that God gives you credit for Christ's work, did you know everybody in this building, here's the first implication, everybody in this building is just as justified as everybody else.

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Nobody's more justified. If God grants you Christ's perfection, you look away from yourself and with eyes of faith you look to Christ's work and His finished redemption and His resurrection and you say,

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I look away from myself and God credits you with Christ's righteousness, who here is more justified than the next person?

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I love that. The mother of Jesus Christ, it's unfair to call her the mother of God, that's not true.

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But the mother of Jesus, Mary, the favored one, is just as justified from her sins as Mary Magdalene was or the woman at the well in John chapter 4 who had been with how many guys?

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Why? Because Christ's righteousness is placed to Mary as she believed in Christ by faith and to the woman at the well.

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I like that because then I say to myself, this whole idea, I disobey,

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God loves me less. That is a wrong idea. If you think when you disobey, God's like,

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I love you less. Well maybe you're thinking about how your father would treat you and if he treats you that way, shame on him.

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But God the Father doesn't love you less because He loves you as much as He loves His Son. If you look at your son and you say he's perfect, well let me ask you this question, how much did the

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Father love the Son in eternity past? How much did the Father love the Son during His life?

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How much did the Father love the Son at Calvary? How much does the Father love the Son now? And with the exact same love that I just talked about for the

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Son in eternity past, in the life, death, burial, resurrection, and now ascension to the right hand of the

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Father. God loves me that much. That is an amazing thing. That's John chapter 17.

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I don't want you to look there, but I'll look there. I'm going to read you John 17. Does God love me?

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How much does He love me? As much as He loves Christ because He sees you as always obeying.

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What kind of Father is God? He's a God who loves His people as much as Christ is loved by the

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Father. John 17. I in them and you in me that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

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Verse 26. I made known to them your name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.

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Not only is justification great because you're all justified the same amount. Second implication is this.

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If God says I've determined you are going to get credited with Adam's sin, but there's going to be a last

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Adam and I'm going to credit you his righteousness. Christ has been credited with the sins that you'll commit past, present, and future.

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I'd like to ask you this question. Can you lose your salvation? Because if you think you can lose your salvation, you think you earned your salvation.

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Now you might say, well, I believe in grace and I believe in grace alone. I believe in what Christ did.

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But I'm telling you, you don't understand imputation. If you think you can lose God's declared representative,

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Christ Jesus, and His sin, our sins credited His account, His righteousness credited our account, then you go, and I could lose that.

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You cannot lose this permanent fixed declared thing. Justified today, unjustified tomorrow.

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Justified, you know, today I'm a Peter, as one scholar said, and tomorrow I'm a

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Judas. How would you like to live like that? You say, yeah, but if you think that way,

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Mike, you're going to go off the deep end. And you're going to sin like mad. And if you can't lose your salvation and you have just as much righteousness now declared to your account as you had earlier and later, you're going to go off the deep end.

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Then I have you read Romans 6, verse 1, but that's another sermon. At least you understand the free grace of God if you ask the question.

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If you don't ask the question, then does that mean I can sin all I want? If you don't ask the question, you don't understand imputation.

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Never lost, always a member of Christ. There's nothing you can undo to make

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God not love you if you're declared righteous. And for me, that makes me want to praise the

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Lord. How could God figure out a way to uphold His holy law and standard, yet give me grace and forgive me?

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How could the judge justify me? How could he figure out a way to have the debt paid?

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How could I get righteousness? John Brine said, the Puritan, I know

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John de Brine is older, but this is a Puritan writer, we ought to adore the wisdom, purity, sovereignty, and grace of God.

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What a display of divine wisdom is there in these things. They that are wisdom of God in a mystery.

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No mind created could possibly have resolved how our guilt might be expiated, atoned for, and declared righteous.

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The law magnified, and every divine perfection shone forth in its brightest luster.

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Let me read you a couple verses, and you tell me if you believe in counted righteous. Federal representation, imputation.

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Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he will bear their iniquities.

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I hope you believe that, because that's Isaiah 53, 11. Make many to be accounted righteous.

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I read this last week, and I want to read this again. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom

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God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count sin. How much sin have you committed that God could count against you?

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I am a walking disaster nightmare full of sin. If you honestly knew my life, for the first 20 years of my life, you would never ever want me as your pastor.

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I hardly ever talk about it, because I don't want some kind of sensationalized thing. If I go around and tell you about all the drugs

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I've done, and all these other things, you're like, wow, that's cool, or whatever people might do. I just don't want to talk about it, and you want to know why?

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Because I am ashamed. I'm ashamed. There's something

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I'm more ashamed of than my first 29 years of life. I'm ashamed of the sins I've committed as a

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Christian. I have the Spirit of God, and the Word of God, environment to grow, everything.

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Has God withheld anything from me for my spiritual growth? Granted me everything pertaining to life and Godliness, and then still sin?

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And then forget being your pastor. How about standing before God and saying, even after salvation, these are the ways that I've sinned.

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This is what my mind thought. This is what my body has done. This is what I have done. This is what I haven't done.

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And my only hope, like J. Gresham Machen, dying at 55 years old in North Dakota of pneumonia, telegraphing

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John Murray at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. He said, there's no hope without the active obedience of Christ.

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There's no hope, in other words, without Christ's perfection credited to my account, because even as a sinner, my hands are stained.

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So I have good news today. If you're a sinner and God has granted you faith, and you've believed on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, you are perfect in God's eyes. Courtroom language, you're perfect.

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He sees you as perfectly obeying the law. And how great is it going to be to get to heaven one day and not have to slink, and not have to put your head down, and not have to say like Peter in the boat,

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Lord, I am a sinful man. If you want to put your head down and bow and worship in heaven, you go right ahead.

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But you won't have to bow because you've got sins and you're ashamed because somebody else has already paid for your sins.

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How great is that? That's why Jude says in the doxology, he's able to make you stand in his presence with great what?

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Joy. Because if I had to stand before God, I mean, there are things that I've done

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I've told no one, and I never will tell anyone. Sometimes I'm frightened. What if I'm hooked up to a lie detector test or something?

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I'm just like, just imagine. My only hope, my only hope is my sins were forgiven and I get the righteousness of Christ.

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And I don't have to be cocky. I'm not going to stroll into heaven going, you know, I'm here, God. But I'm going to stand in his presence with great joy, knowing

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God has forgiven me for these sins. That's why Martin Luther calls this great double imputation.

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He calls it, listen to this, with just nice understatement. Here's Luther's language.

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Luther usually overstates things. He's usually this Deutsch guy who just goes crazy with statements.

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And here's the understatement that works well with Luther. When Jesus gets credited for our sins, even though he never sinned, we get credited with his righteousness, even though we never lived a righteous moment in our lives.

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Luther calls this, I've got you wondering what it is, don't I? A fortunate exchange.

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It's a fortunate exchange. Now, let's think big picture.

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Adam in the garden sinned. Christ in the garden obeyed.

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Can you just imagine Christ Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane? Where Adam sinned,

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Christ, the last Adam, obeyed. And they are linked together in the mind of God.

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We have federal representation, Adam who sinned in the garden, and then we have

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Christ Jesus who obeyed in the garden, who submitted to the Father's will, who did things in the garden that if God would speak again, he would say like he did at the baptism, this is my beloved

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Son in whom I am well pleased. Both Adams bringing eternal ramifications on the human race.

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Jesus' representation is far superior. That's true. That's in Romans 5, verse 15 and 19. But we have one man who sinned and infected all of us.

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And we have all the body of Christ's righteousness put together in one act, as it were, and placed to our account by imputation.

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And all our sins put together in one big ball, as it were, by our stripe.

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He's healed us, placed to Christ's account. First Corinthians says it this way,

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By His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, that is, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

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This is what the pre -orphans called the marrow of theology. This is the good stuff. This is the bone marrow.

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Say, well, you know, you don't understand my life. My life is falling apart, and you're up there talking about esoteric imputation.

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With all the kindness I can muster, let me just say, imputation will help you when you're hurting the most.

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And maybe that's the reason why you're hurting so much, is because you want some superficial balm that doesn't do any good long term.

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It's like if you've got L4, L5, L5, S1, bad discs, and you just keep putting on a little Icy Hot, it's not going to work.

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It's a temporary bandage. The real surgeon needs to get in there and take care of the issues.

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And here, for all of our life, does God love me? Does He care for me? I'm hurting. My friends, my family.

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Does God know? Does God care? We look to specially imputation two and imputation number three.

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You have a representative today, and if you're not a Christian, your father is not only

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Satan, but your father is Adam. You will be judged for Adam's sin on judgment day, plus all your sins.

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So what do I want to do? I want you to look away from that. You know, remember that song, Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had

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Father Abraham, I am one of them, and so are you. So let's just praise the Lord. And I always change it, because I thought, this is insipid insanity singing, so I always change it.

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It didn't really work too well, that's why I need Charlie's help. Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham, I am one of them, if you believe.

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So let's just praise the Lord right on. And I go, that's true. But Father Adam had many sons, many sons had

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Father Adam, and you are one of them. Unless by the grace of God you repent and believe in Christ's finished work, and you don't want to die with Adam as your father, believe me.

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Because you'll get credit for Adam's sin, and all yours. Adam's sin credited to our account exactly the same way that Christ's righteousness is credited to the account of all those who believe.

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You need to believe. Let's pray. Father in heaven, you're a great

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God. Who could come up with such a marvelous plan of salvation? A plan of salvation that when we get to heaven and have glorified minds, we'll still praise you forever and ever.

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Thank you that you have given us Christ Jesus. Thank you that it was out of your love that you sent your son.

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Thank you that you demonstrated your love towards us at Calvary. Thank you that the

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Son loved us. Thank you that the Spirit loved us. And we will gladly have your wisdom affect our lives.

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Adam's sin first, even though we weren't there. And then Christ's perfect righteous life, even though we weren't there.