Imputation (Part 2)

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Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is

Mike Abendroth, and for some reason, I don't seem loud enough in my headphones. That means maybe

I'm not talking loudly enough. Well, as you listen to the show, my second book is almost ready for publication.

It should be out just in time for the Wretched Radio Conference here at Bethlehem Bible Church, the

Psalm 119 Conference on Discernment. I think that's in late September, September 23.

If I'm correct, you can go to wretchedradio .com, is it .org,

.com, and find out more, but we're working with the publisher day one for my new book on the

Sovereignty and Supremacy of King Jesus, a book about Jesus the King. And if you understand what it was like to live under a king back in the

Bible days, you will understand God better. And so for those of you who are interested, you can probably go to Amazon.

You can go to, I don't know if it'll be Westminster or not. It should be. I want it to be. Or you can probably go to day one and order it there as well.

Probably have some information on the website by the time you listen to this for the book. So I'm excited about that.

Topic for the day, topic du jour, is going to be imputation. Last time we talked about imputation and we got barely into it.

What is imputation? I didn't say amputation. I said imputation. And the idea of imputation is important for every one of you listeners out there.

We often say, oh, I'm an evangelical, but now there are feministic evangelicals.

There are Arminian evangelicals, Calvinistic evangelicals. There are global warming evangelicals, evangelicals of every stripe.

So what do we call ourselves? Maybe you like the word fundamentalist. Maybe that was good in the 30s if you ascribed to five fundamentals of the faith, virgin birth and substitutionary atonement, literal resurrection, that kind of thing.

But today it's difficult to have one word that labels us. I still like evangelical because we're about the good news that Jesus Christ saves sinners.

But R .C. Sproul was asked the question when it comes to how you associate yourself and with whom do you associate.

And so the word that R .C. Sproul said he would now use, he said, quote,

I'm calling myself an imputationalist. Would you like that?

Oh, what do you believe? Well, I'm a Christian. Oh, what kind of Christian? I'm an imputationalist. Okay, past the ketchup.

Well, what is imputation? If you missed last show, A, shame on you. B, it means to impute.

Oh, that's funny. My kids would say, well, dad, you can't define something with the word that you're trying to define.

Okay, I know. To impute means to reckon. It means to credit. It means to attribute.

It means to set someone, set something to one's account, to charge it to the account of another, to credit something, to credit something or someone, to consider, to look upon someone as.

And so we remember from our last session, that there are three great imputations.

If you look at the Bible, there are three great imputations. There's lots of imputation words there, but the three great ideas are

Adam's sin credited to all those in Adam. That is each and every person except for Christ.

Christ's perfection credited to our account, if in fact we do believe. And our sins credited to Christ's account, if in fact we do believe.

And so imputation is very, very important because it basically helps us understand how does

God deal with men? Now he deals with men by grace and by justice and by mercy.

There are attributes that we could talk about, but he deals with men very often by federal representation.

That's what happens. It's important because if you don't get federal representation, you don't get imputation.

And so if Adam is our federal head, what he did was imputed to our account, that we are responsible by imputation for what

Adam did. And so if you don't get federal representation, you can't get imputation.

And so when it comes to federal representation, think about some of these verses that show us how

God deals with men by federal representation. Remember in Exodus 20 that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children?

How about Genesis 9, 25? The curse of Canaan lands on all his descendants.

The Egyptians were punished. That's Genesis 9, by the way, verse 25. The Egyptians are punished for Pharaoh's sin.

That is found in Exodus. Adam's, excuse me, Achan's entire family dies for his crime,

Joshua 7. Israel suffers for David's sin, 2 Samuel chapter 24.

Gehazi's leprosy is passed on to his seed, 2 Kings 5. The blood of the prophets exacted on the members of Christ's generation,

Luke 11. We have federal representation. And even in our government in the

United States of America, and probably where you're listening now, unless you're our listener in Saudi Arabia or other places, most of the

Western world, you have federal government representing you. And so we have implications of what our federal representative does.

It implies that it happens to us as well. And like it or not, this is an important topic because of other reasons as well.

And those reasons are, are you a Roman Catholic believing in infused righteousness, poured in righteousness as it were, or imputed righteousness that is righteousness that is credited to your account.

And so Rome talks about making just. That's not all they mean when it comes to justification, but it includes that, making just.

And Protestants talk about to declare or to reckon or to count as just.

And so it is very important that we understand federal representation, imputation, because it affects the way we look at justification.

One of the people that many evangelicals love is N .T.

Wright, the Bishop of Durham. And I don't promote N .T. Wright at all. That doesn't mean he hasn't written some things that would probably be edifying, but he is so smart that you begin to buy everything he says, including the things that I think are

A, unbiblical and B, liberal. And he mocks imputation. He compares the historic view of imputation to a, quote, substance or gas, end quote, that passes through the courtroom.

And you can find that in his commentary in the letter to the Romans, page 522.

And so this is an important topic because A, it's in the Bible. 10 times imputation is discussed in Romans 4 alone.

Imputation determines whether you view justification as a Catholic would or a Protestant, and it's an attacked thing.

Furthermore, it's important because it will really help you when it comes to assurance of salvation and other things when we get there.

I don't know if we're gonna get there today on No Compromise Radio. You can write us at info at nocompromiseradio .com, and I will personally read your email.

If you write us, I will read your email, and then I'll decide to do one of several things.

A, delete it. Which I've done. If you're gonna be nasty,

I'll just probably delete it. B, I'll respond to it. C, I'll send it to someone else.

I'll send it to Tuesday Guy. I'll send it to Ray. I'll send it to Tim. I'll send it to someone else who can respond for me, and then we'll send it back to you.

And so if you wanna write us, we will respond. We're not so big like those guys over at Wretched that couldn't care less about who writes to them.

Sorry, Todd. No, I'm sure they write to you at Wretched as well. When I email Todd Friel, he emails me back.

How's that? Since we're name dropping, the other day I had something that I needed an answer to, and I thought

I would get some help because I am not an island, and so I had talked to one of my elders, and I talked to, actually that elder was

Steve, the Tuesday Guy, but within an hour, I had called both Steve Lawson and Phil Johnson on the phone and talked to them both directly, and I was pretty proud of myself.

I thought I was a pretty big shot with my cell phone. They're not on speed dial. They're not on my top five or whatever that is for T -Mobile.

None of that, but I did have their phone numbers, and I called them, and they answered, and when I said, this is

Mike Evendroth, they said, hello. I thought they were gonna hang up on me. So back to imputations.

Three biblical imputation, and the one that we just initially looked at last time was the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity.

That is imputation number one. The old English New England primer, rather, in Adam's fall, fill in the blanks, in Adam's fall, we sinned all.

In Adam's fall, we sinned all, so that's the letter A for the New England primer, but my question is how exactly did we fall in Adam?

And the answer is Adam's sin was not his alone, but it was placed to your account.

If you're not Jesus, it was placed to your account. It was given to your spiritual bank account by imputation.

That's exactly what happens. Adam was, as the Puritans used to call him, a public person.

He didn't act as a private person. The result of what he did only affecting himself, he acted as a public person.

And he was, yes, the father of the human race, but he was more than that. He stood in for us.

He was our stand -in, and he was our legal agent. And it was the wisdom and sovereign pleasure of God for Adam to determine our fate.

That is absolutely true. You might not like it, but it is true. We don't see much of pure imputation in these verses, but before we get to Romans 5, 1

Corinthians 15, for in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Certainly what one man does affects the many, and that is whether it's Adam or whether it's

Jesus. Romans 5, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

Now, for those of you who say, well, I don't really like imputation. I don't like Adam's sin imputed to my account.

I wasn't there. I didn't do it. I wasn't born. Who does God think he is?

Let me ask you. I could easily assuage you by saying, I think you're going to like it when

Jesus has died in your place and then credited to you by imputation a righteousness that was not your own.

You like it then, don't you? You like it that your sins, if you're a Christian, were imputed to the account of Christ Jesus, even though he never sinned.

He was the sinless, spotless one. So if you want one side of the imputation, that is the good side, those two imputations, then don't you also need to be consistent and take this other one?

Well, the answer is yes. Even if you don't want to take it, the Bible's clear. This happened. And the other option would be this.

If there was no federal representative, Adam, if he was not going to be on trial, as it were, in the garden, what would be the option?

What would be the options? I guess instead of having Adam as our federal representative, when you were born, you could be put on trial.

Each person, when they're born, when they're a little tiny baby, little toddler, a little, you know, maybe

God says, I'll test you when you're a teenager. No, when you're really little. Imagine Adam, although fully grown man, he was young in terms of days old, but still

God, in his good wisdom and pleasure, has a rational, thinking, very intelligent man be our representative.

And I'm glad he was. Aren't you glad Adam was your representative? If you were in the garden, how would you have done?

I would say so far, I'd go so far to say, along with S. Lewis Johnson, that if we were all in the garden, all of humanity in the garden, and we said, let's pick somebody to represent us.

I think we'd all pick Adam. We would pick Adam. Listen to what G .S.

Bishop says. Listen carefully. 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.

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

There was no other way. It was either the baby, or it was the perfect, well -equipped, all -calculating man, the man who saw and comprehended everything, that man was

Adam. Just think if Adam would have succeeded. We're talking about imputation,

Adam's sin credited to our account, being responsible for what Adam did in the garden by God's declaration in Romans 5.

Just think if Adam would have obeyed. How long would he had to obey? 70 years, and then sealed, not able to sin any longer?

700, 7 million years? How long would he have to keep obeying? And if he fulfilled that time of probation and succeeded, he would have received honor, praise, adulation, and he would have received worship that no created thing should ever receive.

No created person should ever receive, even if that created person is without sin.

Even if Adam could have gone without sin, we should not ever want to praise a man like Adam.

Hosea 6, 7, God said of Israel, but they like Adam have transgressed the covenant.

There they have dealt treacherously against me. B .B. Warfield said that the sin of Adam was so set to the account of his descendants.

We have received the penalty and the guilt of Adam's sin.

By the way, if Eve was the federal head, then we would have received that upon the first sin, and Eve's sin would have been the first sin.

Actually, there was sin before that, angelic sin, but through, Romans 5 says,

Adam comes the sin. He is the federal representative. Eve's sin affected her and her alone.

She died spiritually and would die physically, but the planet was not raked with sin, and all of us did not get credited with Eve's sin.

Why? Because she was not the federal representative. If you believe in some seminal only, our natural way of receiving sin from our parents, then wouldn't she be the obvious one?

She's the one where sin first entered the world humanly.

Listen to what Thomas Watson, the great Puritan, said in a Q &A, in a catechism.

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 ascending from him by ordinary generation sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression.

Of course, we believe that our sin nature is passed down through our parents, but that's not what

Romans 5 is talking about. Romans 5 is saying the cause of all the sin is the imputation of Adam's sin.

We all sinned, and Romans 5 is talking about, because all sinned by imputation.

That is the issue. Sin entered the world and death through sin by the one.

We get condemnation by the one. And of course, by the one we get righteousness.

But the idea is this. Here's where we boil it all down if you're confused.

Here's how we boil it down if you don't like it. Man represents, is represented by another man, both with Adam and with Jesus.

And so one is saved in the same way as the other is lost.

In the same way one is lost, Adam, others are saved, Christ.

And so if you did something, you were sinning in Adam, then you are helping

Jesus make things righteous. Excuse me, declare things righteous. If you are there in Adam's loins, seminally somehow, then you are in Christ's loins, as it were, seminally helping

Jesus. But since Jesus saves us by imputation, then Adam loses us by imputation as well.

Thomas and Steele said the central idea of the passage is that men are saved in precisely the same manner in which they were lost, through the act of another.

Through the public person, Adam, we have been declared guilty based on his sin.

And through the public person, Jesus, we are declared not guilty based on his great work.

Jesus was not, excuse me, Adam was just not a bad role model. And if you follow his bad example, you're going to be in trouble.

That means if you follow Jesus's good example, you're going to get saved. No, that can't be.

The one act did much. The one act did many things, and that's imputation.

For if by the transgression of the one, the many died, verse 15, one transgression resulting in condemnation, verse 16, verse 17, for by the transgression of the one death reigned through the one, verse 17 says that, verse 18, so then as through one transgression that resulted condemnation to all, and then in verse 19, for as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

Five times we have this idea, one affecting all, and that all sin there in verse 12 is aristence.

It goes back to the past action. All men die because they sin personally.

No, that's not what we're talking about, because then all could earn eternal life because they're personally righteous and godly.

No, we're talking about federal representation. We're talking about imputation. God had

Adam represent you. It was smart. It was wise. It was good. It was sovereign, and the cause of Adam's sin, of course, then affected everything else.

I affirm that we receive our depravity passed on through our parents, but as one man said,

A .W. Pink, antecedent to any personal act of ours, we stand accursed by the divine law of imputation.

And so if you look at verse 13 of Romans 5, for sin indeed was in the world before law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law, yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

What's the conclusion Paul wants you to draw? That there was an earlier law broken. Adam broke the law.

If there's no law to break between Adam and Moses, why did anyone die?

Why did anyone die? That's the issue. People died.

Why do infants die? Because they broke some law? Because God credited to those between Adam and Moses, as well as children today,

God credited to them what Adam did, and that is he credited to them sin, the representative headship of Adam.

Yes, it is true. Through no personal fault of your own, because of Adam's sin alone, you have been given credit for that sin.

But remember, by no merit of your own, you have been given the righteousness of Christ through no merit of your own.

And here's what happens. You've got people who are out there saying now that Adam was not real, that Adam didn't exist.

And it is in Christianity Today, just back in June, that it doesn't really matter.

The Massachusetts Bible Society and a writer for the Huffington Post, professor of philosophy,

Florida State University, Michael Ruse, R -U -S -C, Adam and Eve didn't exist, get over it.

He said, Aristotle thought that some people were born to be slaves. He was wrong. St. Paul thought we are descended from Adam and Eve.

He was wrong. The disappearance of a literal 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.

Christianity Today should quit fretting. The president of Calvin College should be proud of his faculty. This is not only the right way to behave, it's the

Christian way to behave, end quote, Michael Ruse. Well, that is Ruse, I guess. If you don't have the literal

Adam, you don't have the literal imputation of Adam's sin to us, you don't have the literal last

Adam, Christ Jesus, who gives literal righteousness, his own righteousness imputed to our account, and we don't have our sins imputed to Christ's account.

Once you get rid of the literal Adam, you're done. You are absolutely done, because in the same way that God imputes our sin, imputes

Adam's sin to us, in the same way that is by imputation because of a federal head, we have the last

Adam's righteousness imputed to our account. So if you get rid of one, you get rid of the other. So today on No Compromise Radio, imputation, crediting, think charging to someone else's account.

Adam's sin was charged to your account. Get over it, because that's the way God has ordained it.

But likewise, if you're a Christian and if you have looked by faith, with repentance to the

Lord Jesus Christ, and knowing that he has died in your place and is raised from the dead and you believe the gospel account,

God credits to you Christ's righteousness and God has credited your sin to Christ Jesus.

Now that's something you can't get over. All eternity will not allow you to get over such a great

God who wisely imputes things. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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