IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS
The expression, “Jesus Saves” contains great truth. When the angel announced Christ’s birth to Joseph, he said, “You will call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). The name Jesus means Savior, so inherent in his name is his ability and willingness to save.
God’s method of salvation is imputation. If you don’t know what that means, bear with me, for it is not difficult to learn. Faith is accounted for righteousness in God’s means of dealing with sinful humanity. In Genesis 15, we read that God made a promise to Abraham concerning his descendants and Abraham believed the promise. God then credited (imputed) righteousness to Abraham.
Righteousness is synonymous with salvation in the Bible. To be made righteous is to be saved. Righteousness means perfection. To get to heaven, one has to be perfect. But none of us are perfect. That is why we need a savior. So the imputation of righteousness means that God gives us righteousness.
Abraham believed a promise of God and God credited righteousness to him. He gave it to him as a gift. The same is true with us today. We believe God‘s promises that he has made to us concerning his Son Jesus. When we do, God gives us righteousness. He imputes righteousness to us. It is like someone putting money in your bank account. When something is credited to you, it is given to you. Imputed righteousness is given or credited righteousness. God makes you holy and perfect before him (Eph. 1:4).
This point is revealed in Genesis and expounded by Paul in Romans 4—that God credits righteousness today just as he did with Abraham. God’s method of saving man has never changed. It is always in response to faith. If we come to God, he is not concerned with how good we have been, but how good he can make us. And perfection is the key to consider.
God can make us perfect and that is exactly what we are and have in Christ. God gives us the perfection of Christ as a gift, which is what “righteousness” is. And it is given in response to faith. The latter part of Romans 4 ties Abraham’s experience to our own. God made Abraham a promise that, humanly speaking, was impossible—namely, that Abraham would be the father of a multitude although he had no children and was too old to father any. But Abraham believed this promise simply because God made it, and Abraham’s faith was credited as righteousness.
Paul says that, like Abraham, God has made a promise to us—that Christ died for our sins and was raised because of our justification (Rom. 4:25). If we, like Abraham, believe this promise, we too will receive righteousness as a gift. Righteousness will be credited to our account just as it was to Abraham’s. The only righteousness we will ever have is that which God gives us.
“But from him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). Everything that we need to be saved is already ours in Christ. Salvation, righteousness, sanctification, redemption—these are all speaking of the same thing: being saved from our sins and being right with God. It is because of Jesus. Perfection and holiness and salvation are given to us as a gift when we trust in Jesus. That is imputed righteousness.
Dewayne Dunaway
