In the world of sports, trades are a core aspect of a team's plans and future aspirations. A team may trade future assets in order to “win now”, or may trade current players in an effort to build for long term success. In fact, the New York Giants recently shocked the football world by trading their superstar wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. as part of their rebuilding process.
The key to trades is that both parties are receiving something of relatively equal value, depending on what their goals are.
What's unique about the doctrine of double imputation is that it represents what is quite certainly the most lopsided “trade” in all of history.
Martin Luther has a wonderful quote regarding this concept, calling it the “Great Exchange”:
“That is the mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours but Christ’s and the righteousness of Christ not Christ’s but ours. He has emptied Himself of His righteousness that He might clothe us with it, and fill us with it. And He has taken our evils upon Himself that He might deliver us from them… in the same manner as He grieved and suffered in our sins, and was confounded, in the same manner we rejoice and glory in His righteousness.”
The terms of this trade are as follows:
- Christ receives: the sin of all his people, and just punishment for that sin.
- Sinners receive: the perfect righteousness of Christ and justification before God.
Pretty clear who got the better end of the deal?
Double Imputation is glorious news for those who are in Christ; it is a central truth of the gospel.
Imputation?
Before we move any further, it would be prudent to examine precisely what we mean by the word “imputation”, because I'd be willing to bet that you've never used that word in a natural conversation before.
Imputation comes from the root verb “impute”, meaning “to ascribe to someone by virtue of a similar quality in another.” Theologically, double imputation says that the righteousness of Christ is ascribed, or credited to our account, and our sin is credited to Christ’s account.
We can draw the analogy of a checking account: imagine that as we live our lives, our sin accrues more and more debt, and our bank account is $1 million negative. Then Jesus comes and lives a perfect life, and amasses a $10 billion fortune through all of his righteous acts.
These amounts are imputed, or transferred, from one account to the other. $10 billion now resides in our account and negative $1 million in Christ's. What's crucial is that the $10 billion was not something that we earned or built ourselves, it is entirely a gift.
Imputation differs starkly from “infused” righteousness - the official doctrine of Roman Catholicism. Continuing with the checking account analogy, infused righteousness says that the funds in our account fluctuate based on how well we follow the sacraments or participate in worldly pleasures. If our account hasn't accrued to the “full amount” we would spend time in purgatory. Despite their similar sounding names, imputed vs. infused righteousness is one of the most fundamental differences between Catholic and Protestant theology.
My Favorite Verse in All of Scripture
Every Christian has been asked what their favorite verse of the Bible is. Yet, for a long time, I didn’t have a concrete answer to this. Sure I had favorite books and passages, but just one verse? I couldn’t nail one down.
At long last, however, I found it! I’ve claimed 2 Corinthians 5:21 as my favorite, in large part due to how much it packs into one quick sentence. Let’s break it down:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
- “...he made him to be sin”: Here we have one half of our double imputation puzzle. He (God the Father) made him (Jesus) to be sin. How? Jesus never sinned himself, we know this and discussed it in the Hypostatic Union article. Jesus became sin by having our sin imputed to himself; it was credited to his account.
- “...who knew no sin”: This section starts to build the other half of our puzzle. Jesus knew no sin, he lived a perfectly sinless life. This leads into the last portion of this wonderful verse.
- “...that in him we might become the righteousness of God”: Now we have the full picture. When we are saved, we see our sin being imputed to Christ and the righteous works of Christ imputed to us. So not only is there no sin on our account, there is also perfect righteousness, granted to us by Jesus!
Our Sin Imputed to Christ
Let's just expand a bit on the two sides of this doctrine.
First, the side that everyone is familiar with. If you ask your everyday evangelical why they're saved, you'll likely get an answer along the lines of “because Jesus forgave my sins”. And this answer is absolutely correct.
It's important to note here that in Jesus forgiving our sin, it wasn't a forgiveness that just “swept it under the rug”. Consider the case of a boy playing outside and throwing his baseball through a house window. If that homeowner chooses to forgive the boy, there is still a price to be paid; the window still needs to be fixed. The homeowner is choosing to pay that price himself.
This is what biblical forgiveness looks like, and we see this in the doctrine of double imputation. Our sin demands a price, a high cost. And Jesus decides to take that price upon himself, by having our sin placed on his account and facing the wrath of his Father in our place.
This is some of the best news we could ever receive. If our sin has been imputed to Christ, and God's wrath towards that sin poured out on Christ at Calvary, then there remains no wrath for those who are in Christ! We can live our lives with the freedom of knowing that God looks upon us with delight instead of anger, all because of the sacrifice of his Son in our stead.
Christ's Righteousness Imputed to Us
Now for the part that often gets overlooked.
It’s commonly known that Jesus lived a sinless life, but why he did is what’s important. Why did Jesus live on the earth for 33 years instead of just showing up to die on the cross and be raised again?
Jesus lived a righteous life because that righteousness was to be imputed to us. Jesus says in Matthew 5 that we “must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”, so the standard for entering heaven is as high as it gets. What does it look like to be righteous like God?
We must conclude that righteousness means more than just the absence of sin, although that is part of it. Having our sin forgiven erases all of the negative acts on our account, but there are still no positive, or righteous acts on our account.
So can we start doing righteous deeds to make our account “positive”? Not if we want to achieve the standard of perfection that Jesus talks about in Matthew 5. Even our best actions are not “perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. For us to achieve even one action that is done with a love as full and perfect as God’s would be an impossibility. Only the perfect, righteous life of Christ will suffice, and he graciously grants that to our account.
An Indivisible Doctrine
Thus far we’ve looked at two other core doctrines of the faith: the doctrine of the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union. And just like those two, double imputation is a doctrine that is indivisible. In the Trinity, you can’t have the Father without the Son and Holy Spirit. In the Hypostatic Union, you can’t have the full divinity of Jesus without his full humanity as well. Similarly, the doctrine of double imputation requires both the sin of man to be imputed to Christ and the righteousness of Christ imputed to man. Without one or the other, we are without hope. But praise be to God that he has taken our sin upon himself, and has given us his perfect righteousness in order that we can live with him forevermore!
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