WHAT THE CROSS DID FOR US
Imputation: God gives us Christ’s Righteousness
Romans 5:12-21
Jerry A Collins
SCC
v What does the use of imputation mean?
v What is imputed from Adam to us?
v What is imputed from Christ to us?
The dictionary
defines imputation as ‘to ascribe to or change (a person) with an act or
quality because of the conduct of another over whom one has control or for
whose act or conduct one is responsible. To attribute
(righteousness, guilt, etc.) to a person or persons vicariously.” In
Romans 5:12-21 is the argument of the consequences of this imputation. Through
imputation the believer is both condemned and justified—the former because of
the sin of Adam, the latter because of the righteousness of Christ. Just as God
imputed sin to mankind because of the transgression of Adam, so also He imputed
righteousness to the believer because of the propitious death of Christ. Here
is an explanation, then, of how death and life originated in man’s relationship
with God and how the cross made possible that change.
DEATH COMES
THROUGH ADAM 5:12-14
1. Sin
entered the world through one man 12a
He never tells us how
sin originated but says it ‘entered’ into the world implying that it existed as
an entity before Adam. It did not begin with Adam—we
know it originated in the heart of Satan in heaven. It merely entered the world
of the human race through Adam. This sin then passed on or through the whole
race of man—spreading out, diffusing—because ‘all sinned’. In what sense did
the sin of Adam result in all sinning? Adam’s in implicated the entire human
race. In other words, we are guilty by association with Adam as a human being.
This happens all of the time in our justice system. People are implicated as
accomplices because of their association with the crime or the criminal. What
is the outcome of this association we have with Adam and his sin?
2. Sin caused
death for all of us.
It is the sin of Adam
that is responsible for death in the race. If people did not sin they would not
die. Death is the penalty for sin not the consequence of the way God created
man. This passage is teaching us that there is a connection between Adam’s sin
and the death of all people. So first, death passed upon all because all sinned
vs 12, and second, death is on all because of the sin
of one vs 13. So there is a
singularity and a plurality. One acts for the all, but
the all sin; and they sin because of the one.
3. Death
supposes transgression.
I hate death and all
it represents this side of the grave. Death comes to us because it is the
consequence of sin. Death has been an ever-present reality for the human race
as long as the race has existed. Death is inescapable. God regards and treats
all men from the moment of their existence as having forfeited His favor
because all fell in Adam. Some mite protest that it is
not fair that they should die because of the sin of Adam. One argument against
this is that Adam’s sin does not have to affect your eternal destiny—just
believe in Jesus Christ and there is no condemnation. The act of Adam is not
the final determinant of our eternal destiny. Here we are merely shown how sin
arose in the human race, and because it happened at the beginning, it is
universal—all sinned. The first human was contaminated with radiation poisoning
and the poisoning has been infecting all of his offspring. Fair or not it is a
reality of life since we all have to deal with death resulting from sin. From
God’s point of view, we all were born with the desire to sin and rebel against
Him—and so we must be born again to circumvent that tendency and escape it’s
consequences. People do what they want to do and it is dishonest and
self-centered to whine and complain that since they were born that way God
should accept them that way. No. From the very beginning the race is
contaminated, lives in rebellion by nature, and dies as a result. Blaming Adam,
or parents, or human nature, can change nothing. Only a new birth is designed
to change our nature and our destiny. 4. Sin was there even before law 13-14 Adam had a
Law in the garden. When he broke it he was placed on trial, not just for
himself but for the whole race—even though all people did not break the same
Law. The evidence for this guilt is that people still died under the death
sentence after Adam to Moses. Why did death reign? Because of Adam, who is a
type or a corresponding reality, one sinful act affected the whole race. But,
as we will see, in Christ, the last Adam, His righteousness is imputed to us
issuing into eternal life. So God imputed the sin of Adam to the human race
even though God did not charge the race with the sin of breaking the Law until
after Moses. So our association with Adam has condemned us to a death sentence.
LIFE COMES THROUGH CHRIST
1. God’s grace makes possible a free gift
to us 15
Everything turns on
the word ‘but’. This free gift is unlike the transgression in the sense of
consequences. This gift comes through Jesus obedience to God while death come s
to us through the transgression of Adam. All died in Adam and all are made alive
in Christ. The ‘all’ means ‘all who are represented by’. As
Adam represents all who die, so all who are represented by Christ are made
alive. The Virgin Birth means that Adam’s sin was not imputed to Christ
in His incarnation. So, too, when faith is applied to the gospel, a person
receives this gift. Christ death made all men savable. We can now receive the
free gift of salvation so much so that Jesus can say, I am the resurrection
and the life he who believes in me though he were dead, yet shall He live and
whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die! God’s grace makes this
reality possible.
2. God’s
grace makes possible our justification 16
There are only two
possibilities for the human race now. The first is to experience the eternal
consequences of our association with Adam’s sin. That is judgment followed by
condemnation at the Great White Throne judgment. If one does not accept the
free gift God offers based on His grace in Christ there is no hope at all. The
second is deliverance from these consequences by taking this free gift—it is
free because it costs us nothing—it is a gift because God offers us deliverance
from judgment. This results in justification, which is God’s declaration that
we have Christ’s righteousness imputed to us changing our legal standing from
guilty to not guilty.
3. Jesus not
only delivers us from death He also gives us eternal life
What would have
happened if Adam had not sinned? We would all remain under the conditional
covenant that Adam lived under before he sinned. It would mean that if we
sinned, we would die. It would be as though each individual were on a perpetual
probation. One sin and death would result. When Jesus delivered us from the
penalty of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he
also applied to us the life from which we had been previously barred. Now when
we sin, we still live, due to the work of Christ. Thus, what was gained in
Christ is MUCH MORE than what we lost in Adam. This is what God’s grace
provides!
1. Every human being
in every generation is lost and dies imputed with the sin of Adam.
2. Only when Christ’s
righteousness is imputed to us can we be saved.