Orange Moon Cafe “Imputed Sin, Imputed Righteousness"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe… 

(Friends: I can think of no doctrinal consideration or understanding that surpasses the importance of the New Testament subject considered in this message.  Every believer must be solidly secured in the bedrock of this truth.)

          "Imputed Sin, Imputed Righteousness"

    

   After a person becomes a born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, God never again places sin on his or her account.

   "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin" (Romans 4:8).

    The basis for such complete exoneration and guiltlessness lies in the truth that on the cross of Calvary, God imputed our sins to the Lord Jesus:  "He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21).  May the breathtaking wonder of such grace  fill and thrill our hearts, even as we properly mourn the price paid for our acceptance with God.  Our Heavenly Father accounts the sacrificial atonement of His Son as so effectual and complete that it utterly obliterates our debt of sin.  Note the Apostle Paul's language: "the Lord will not impute sin."  This does not imply merely inclination, as blessed as it is that God desires our condition of spotlessness before Him.  The matter also involves imputation, again, the placing of our sins on the account of the spotless Lamb of God, and the imparting of  Christ's pristine righteousness to us as a free gift.  This is God's view of every born again believer in the Lord Jesus.  As the hymnwriter Isaac Watts penned, "And lest the shadow of a spot should on my soul be found, He took the robe my Savior wrought and cast it all around!"

    Of course, believers still possess the potential for sin, and sometimes commit the actuality of it (I John 1:8).  If unconfessed and allowed to linger on our conscience and in our conduct, God deals with us as a devoted Father who disciplines His children for their benefit.  "Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth" (Hebrews 12:6).  Such discipline never jeopardizes our relationship with God.  Again, He "will not impute sin" to us.  He will, however, discomfit us by whatever means necessary if we wander and linger on paths of unbelief and disobedience.  Paul indicates in his first epistle to the Corinthians that some believers experienced God's scourging to the degree that "many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep" (I Corinthians 11:30).  Moreover, it was about Christians that the writer of Hebrews warned, "the Lord will judge His people.  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:30-31).  Thus, we do not take lightly the hand of God that wields the necessary rod, even as the truth of imputed sin to Christ and imputed righteousness to us secures and assures our hearts.

   We must view the atoning work of the Lord Jesus as God the Father views it, that is, perfect, in the absolution of sin and the application of righteousness.  We must also view our Father's love with not only grateful wonder, but also proper fear.  He loved us enough to save us by freely given grace, purchased by the terrible sacrifice of His Son on the cross of Calvary.  He also loves us enough to hurt us when necessary, not as a matter of wrath, but of devotion to the glory of Christ, our best interests, and the best interests of those with whom we live our lives.  Indeed, salvation in the Lord Jesus is the freest gift ever given.  However, it was purchased by the highest cost ever remitted, the lifeblood of our Savior.  Thus, we must not take the matter lightly because we can be sure our Father does not.

"And being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform.  And therefore it was imputed to him (Abraham) for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him.  But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."

(Romans 4:20-25)

Weekly Memory Verse

    God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.

 (John 4:21-24)

  

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