Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
II Corinthians 5:21
We have spoken concerning the imputation of our personal sins to Jesus Christ. They were poured out on Him on the cross. God’s justice carried out what his righteousness demanded. After our Lord was buried and laid in the tomb he was raised from the dead three days later. Justice had done more than provide the payment for our sins, justice was also providing the way for one half of the integrity of God to be imputed to our souls. Jesus Christ was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him,
II Cor.5:21.
When we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we receive divine forgiveness for our sins.
For a moment I want us to see the difference between human forgiveness and divine forgiveness. Some folks erroneously say justification means “just-as-if-I-never sinned”, but this is incorrect because we know we have sinned. Human forgiveness can do no more than pass over, or abandon any and all claims to any form of satisfaction which otherwise might have been demanded or imposed upon an offender. Such forgiveness so far as it exists is only a volitional gratuity in which the offended party surrenders all claim to compensation due the offender. However, under divine forgiveness God is infinitely holier. Righteousness demands righteousness, thus divine forgiveness cannot waive off satisfaction, and since no human being can render divine satisfaction for his sins, God in his mercy has provided all the satisfaction necessary for our sins. At the moment of salvation we are forgiven for all of our sins and no more satisfaction or payment for sins is demanded by God. I want all of us to see the pardon we have in Jesus Christ. It is complete payment for all of our sins for sins past and for the sins we will commit during the rest of our lives. And please remember, even the slightest of sins including a wrong attitude, is due punishment.
Being completely pardoned for our sins we instantaneously become candidates for the imputation of God’s divine righteousness. At that moment of salvation God’s +R is imputed to us. With this imputation we have more than eternal security in Christ, we are forever approved as acceptable unto God.
With this being an eternal and judicial imputation, God then has a target for which to direct all of his divine blessings. The +R of God abiding in the saved persons soul becomes that target. There is never any thing in any person that merits favor from God, and apart from God’s +R our best efforts seen in our good deeds or our moral living makes us no better than a filthy rag in God’s eyes, Isa.64:6.
But with the +R of God in the saved man and woman, boy or girl, God has a home for which to impute temporal and eternal blessings.
With God’s +R imputed to our souls God looks at every possible avenue to bless us. He constantly works to grow us and at times prune us to make us more fruitful. Every time he blesses us he is glorified because his blessings are a reflection of his grace, not our goodness. We have nothing of ourselves that reflects the glory of God except that which God instills in us as believers. As a matter of fact, God’s integrity demands that God bless his own righteousness. Please let that thought sink in. God wants to bless you.
The righteousness of God is the center of his essence; it is the secret part of God, Ps.25:14; Prov.3:32. His righteousness is his conscience; his standard’ and it is perfect in every way. “As for God, his way is perfect...” Ps.18:30 “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.”
He is always pleased with himself. And when we live righteous lives, he is pleased in us.
When we trust him this means we fully understand his presence, a presence that is constantly seeking ways to glorify himself through us. When we grow in our understanding of his imputed +R by taking in his word and adjusting our thinking and living according to his standards we become more at peace with ourselves. We begin to understand that we do not have to do anything to impress God. We stop trying to make a name for ourselves. We seek only to loose ourselves in Him and lift up his holy name.
The greatest object of God’s affections and personal love is his perfect integrity; this of course goes for God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Thus by God imputing his core attribute of divine righteousness to our souls at salvation, we become constant objects of his divine love. However, his love still is not the means by which the believer is blessed; it is his divine justice imputing blessings to us as we align ourselves with his divine righteous standards found in his word. This is why I harp on the importance of the word of God all of the time.
The word of God is being pushed aside for other things in the church today and there is no way God can be happy with this. God does not bless us because we are busy, he blesses us because we adjust our thinking to his way of thinking.
Believers are constantly looking to the love of God to bless them, but without divine knowledge we do not know how the love of God operates. It operates under the auspices; that is, the agency of the integrity of God. Righteousness demands righteousness. This is why his word says “that we should be holy and without blame before him, in love” Eph.1:4.
I Pet.1:15-16 read...
In all manner of life be holy. This is quite a challenge but because we have the imputed +R of God in us this is not only possible, it is also expected of us. We can live as holy a life as we chose, and to chose to live a holy life unto God in all manner of life leads to the imputation of many blessings in life. These we will look at when we study the imputation of blessings in time.