If you grew up in an average modern day American evangelical church, you likely were taught the Doctrine of Imputation. Imputation is the belief that we are Justified before God because God no longer sees our "(un)righteousness", but rather, Jesus' righteousness. A well-known pastor put it this way: "God puts on special 'Jesus Spectacles' so that He no longer sees our sin."
No longer see our sin.
No longer see our sin?
Do I want the doctor to merely "no longer see" my cancer?
Do I want the Creator of the Universe to, essentially, play "peek-a-boo" with my sin, with my corruption?
Should I be satisfied with remaining in my sin and not being Sanctified by the Holy Ghost?
Shall I continue in sin, that Grace may abound?
Do I want to pretend to become the righteousness of God, or do I actually want to become the righteousness of God?
Should I want something more than mere Imputation?
I don't know about you, but I hate the fact that I sin often. An attitude, however, that does anything to minimize the importance of the fact that I still sin is an attitude that should not be had. Salvation is not merely about going to Heaven when I die. Salvation is a process that is meant to save us from our own corruption. Sin is our corruption; we should want to be rid of our corruption, right?
Why are we so comfortable with a minimalist "Gospel", wherein going to Heaven when we die is the only thing we care about?
Why do we constantly excuse our sin?
We are more than conquerors; we are fellow heirs with Christ. We have received God's Holy Spirit, and are being Sanctified day by day. We have a mission: to represent Jesus, to be the Face of Christ.
We should not be satisfied with a minimalist "Gospel".
We should live and embrace every atom of the Gospel.
The next time temptation comes, rather than allowing the back of your mind to tell you, "It's okay; I'm still going to Heaven when I die," allow your whole being to say, "No; I'm better than that."
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2 comments:
Perhaps one difficulty is that not enough explanation goes into differentiating our judicial and relational standings with God. Judicially, Christ's righteousness is imputed upon us. Relationally, our sin causes (among other things) a rift in our relationship with our Savior
There is no passage claiming that Jesus' righteousness is imputed to us. It's an assumption based on a particular way of reading Romans 4. But even if that were the case, the problem is that salvation needs to be so much more than mere imputation if we are to be saved from our actual sin and corruption. Imputation doesn't--in fact, can't--deal with sin itself. All it does is pretend that the sin is not there.
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