Imputation for Kids—and Grownups, Too

From Big Truths for Young Hearts by Bruce Ware:

Like a play that moves the story forward through its series of Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3, the salvation story of the Bible moves the plan of salvation forward through three acts.

In Act 1, Adam sins in the garden, eating the forbidden fruit, so that his sin is charged not only to him but also to all who have come from Adam (Romans 5:12-19) Just like if you used your dad’s credit card to buy something, charging the expense to him, so God charges us with the sin of Adam. In so doing, this brings to Adam and to us both the stain and bondage of sin in our inner lives and the guilts of sin before a holy God.

Act 2 involves God the Father taking all of that sin—both the sin we received from Adam and all of our own sin—and charging that sin to Christ. As we’ve thought about earlier, when Jesus died on the cross, he bore our sin and took the punishment that we deserved. Even though he was sinless and innocent of any wrongdoing, yet for our salvation, God the Father put our sin on his Son and satisfied his own just wrath against our sin through his Son’s death. As Paul states, “For our sake he [God the Father] made him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin” 2 Corinthians 5:21a).

Act 3 is crucial to the story of salvation, and it involves God the Father now crediting us with the righteousness of his own Son when we put our faith solely in Christ. To credit means to add something positive that increases the value from what was true before. When you deposit money into a savings account, you credit the account by the amount of that deposit, making the account more valuable than it was previously. God does this with sinners who turn to Christ in faith. At the moment that they trust Christ alone for the forgiveness of all of their sins and the only hope they have of receiving eternal life, he credits them with the righteousness of his own Son. The remainder of 2 Corinthians 5:21 makes this point. The whole verse reads, “For our sake he [God the Father] made him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

What do you think? At what age would a child be able to understand this explanation?

Theological Term of the Week

wrath
God’s perfection of righteous anger against sin; his “eternal detestation of all unrighteousness.”1

• From scripture:
  

  …because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. (Romans 2:5-8 ESV)

• From The Attributes of God by A. W. Pink:

  Now the wrath of God is as much a Divine perfection as is His faithfulness, power, or mercy. It must be so, for there is no blemish whatever, not the slightest defect in the character of God; yet there would be if “wrath” were absent from Himl Indifference to sin is a moral blemish, and he who hates it not is a moral leper. How could He who is the Sum of all excellency look with equal satisfaction upon virtue and vice, wisdom and folly? How could He who is infinitely holy disregard sin and refuse to manifest His “severity” (Rom. 9:22) toward it? How could He, who delights only in that which is pure and lovely, not loathe and hate that which is impure and vile? The very nature of God makes Hell as real a necessity, as imperatively and eternally requisite, as Heaven is. Not only is there no imperfection in God, but there is no perfection in Him that is less perfect than another.

• From Knowing God by J. I. Packer:

  No doubt it is true that the subject of divine wrath has in the past been handled speculatively, irreverently, even malevolently. No doubt there have been some who have preached of wrath and damnation with tearless eyes and no pain in their hearts. No doubt the sight of small sects cheerfully consigning the whole world, apart from themselves, to hell has disgusted many. Yet if we would know God, it is vital that we face the truth concerning his wrath, however unfashionable it may be, and however strong our initial prejudices against it. Otherwise we shall not understand the gospel of salvation from wrath, nor the propitiatory achievement of the cross, nor the wonder of the redeeming love of God. Nor shall we understand the hand of God in history and God’s present dealings with our own people; nor shall we be able to make head or tail of the book of Revelation; nor will our evangelism have the urgency enjoined by Jude—“save some, by snatching them out of the fire” (Jude 23 RSV). Neither our knowledge of God nor our service to him will be in accord with his Word.

Learn more: 

1. Blue Letter Bible, Don Stewart: What Is the Wrath of God?
2. Bob Deffinbaugh: The Wrath of God
3. Sam Storms: Justice and Wrath
4. From my attributes of God posts: God As Judge

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it.

I’m also interested in any suggestions you have for tweaking my definitions or for additional (or better) articles or sermons/lectures for linking. I’ll give you credit and a link back to your blog if I use your suggestion.

Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms organized in alphabetical order or by topic.

God As Judge

A repost of an old post.

Because of his righteousness (see last week’s attributes of God post), all of God’s thoughts and actions are morally perfect. One of the righteous ways he acts is as the perfect Judge of all things.

God stands in judgment over everything, discerning the exact truth about every thought and action of all of his creatures, impartially pronouncing and executing his judgments (Romans 2:6-11). In our legal systems, those who make the laws, those who sentence lawbreakers, and those who execute the sentences are separate. In God’s rule, however, those three functions are all carried out by God himself as the one and only righteous Judge of all the earth.

First of all, God is the one who has set the moral standards and declared them to us. They are called his precepts, his laws, his commandments, his statutes, his judgments—there are probably more terms I’ve forgotten—and he reveals them to us in scripture. And even those who’ve had no exposure to God’s word know instinctively what sorts of behaviour a righteous judge would require of us, because God’s righteous standards for human behaviour are written on their hearts and in their consciences (Romans 2:15).

God’s standard of righteousness is not arbitrary, but rather, it is the perfect reflections of God’s own holy character. He is morally perfect, and his standard for us demands that we “be holy as he is holy”—that we not fall short of his glory. We can’t complain that this standard is an unjust one, for its source is in the only perfect justice there is: the justice of God.

Secondly, God is the one who determines the just sentences for those who don’t live up to the standard of righteousness He has declared. He is the only one suited for this job. He has the wisdom to discern the truth in every situation of lawbreaking, and he knows a lie when he hears it and a cover-up when he sees it. He sees not only the actions taken, but the motives behind the actions. Everything stands in the open before his wisdom and his truth. And he loves what is good and hates wickedness, so he has a vested interest in seeing right win out over wrong. He can be counted on, then, to never overlook wrongdoing; he will always pass the perfectly deserved (and therefore perfectly just) sentence for all lawbreaking.

Lastly, as the righteous Judge, God is the one who executes the sentences. He is perfectly suited for this role as well, for he has the wisdom and might to enforce all of his judgments. There is no one with the wits or power to escape the sentence for breaking the moral standards set by God.

This brings us to one aspect of God’s activity as Judge that we probably prefer not to think about—the outpouring of God’s wrath. God’s wrath will be expressed against sin and sinners as the execution of the righteous sentence for all unrighteousness.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Romans 1:18 ESV)

Those who love God will want to know all facets of him, even the less comfortable ones, like his just wrath. His wrath is part of what makes him the absolutely holy God that he is; it is one of his perfections. If God had no wrath against sin, he wouldn’t be true to his morally perfect (or righteous) character.

And deep down, we all know that. We wouldn’t much like a God who simply overlooked the cruelty of heinous villians—of murderers and rapists and terrorists. We want God to express his wrath against what we feel is true, unequivocal evil, because we know that real justice requires it. What we have more trouble with is God expressing his wrath against the more ordinary sorts of lawbreaking like our own and that of people like us. It’s easy for us to see that history’s more evil men deserve God’s wrath for their moral imperfection, but scripture tells us that when it comes to what God requires of us—and remember, he can rightly require no less than that we be “holy as he is holy!”—we all fall on the wrong side of the line. We all fall far short of his righteous requirement; by our very nature, we are “objects of God’s wrath.” Some are more abominable than others, and a just God will take this into account, but we are all rightly placed in the cubbyhole labeled “evildoers”. What we deserve—the just payment or wages—for being the kind of people we are is to be on the receiving end of the expression of God’s righteous wrath against sin.

Even when God mercifully spares some from the execution of his just sentence for lawbreaking, he must do it in a just way. His morally perfect character places certain parameters around the way he can pardon us. He can’t overlook sin without a righteous ground upon which that can be done. This is what Christ’s death is all about. It is God’s righteous way of pardoning sinners. He displayed Christ publicly as a propitiation (a way to turn away God’s wrath)

to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.  It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3: 25, 26)

Christ’s propitiatory (or wrath appeasing) death proves before all eyes that God is righteous, because even his mercy upon sinners—his forgiveness of sins—is extended in a way that is in accordance with his righteousness. He justifies the faithful in a just way.

What does it mean to us that our God is a perfectly just judge and that he has just wrath against our sin? For one, it shows us the abhorrent nature of our unrighteousness. That the wrath of the only morally perfect One is called out as the correct—and only correct—response to what we might prefer to excuse as petty mistakes or small crimes of little consequence ought to help us see those sins in a their true light. That the one who know and sees it all as it is judges us as deserving of his terrible wrath ought to stop our excuse making mouths and cause us to cry out for his mercy.

Knowing that God has judged our sins as worthy of the outpouring of his wrath should make those of us who have experienced his mercy extremely grateful. We have been spared something utterly deserved, and the mercy that spared us wasn’t an easy mercy, for it required the death of his own Son in order for him to be justly merciful to us. It was costly and he spared no cost. In return, we are called to

serve the living and true God,
and …. wait for his Son from heaven,
whom he raised from the dead,
Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.
(1 Thessalonians 1:9,10 ESV)