Charge
it to My Account
“Charge it.” “Charge it to my account.”
Those are words we hear every day in the business world.
But did you know that those words have eternal significance, too?
“Imputation” (logizomai) is a word the apostle Paul
used meaning, “to reckon,” “to charge to one’s account.”
In Philemon 18 the apostle asked Philemon to have Onesimus’
debts transferred to Paul. “If he has wronged you,” Paul said, “charge that
to my account.” One who has something imputed to him is accountable under the law.
In the New Testament the believer in Christ receives the “alien
righteousness” of God as a “free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus
Christ” (Rom. 5:15). God reckoned Abraham as righteousness on the basis of
Abraham’s faith alone (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3). Similarly, God does not impute the
iniquity of the believer who trusts in Christ’s death (Rom 4:7-8). This act of God is
based, not on our human merit, but on God’s love and saving grace (Rom. 5:6-8). We
stand in the need of God’s grace (Rom. 3:23; 6:23).
In Adam, God judged the entire human race guilty, but only in Jesus
is this fact fully understood (Isa. 53:4-6). But not only has humanity been declared
guilty; it has acted out its personal guilt.
Jesus said charge it to
My account. The apostle Paul wrote, “He [God] made Him [Jesus Christ] who knew no sin
to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in
Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
"God made Him to be sin for
us, who knew no sin." God took all of our sins and "imputed" them
to His Son, put them on Him, i.e., put them to His account. He charged
them to Jesus' account. That is the meaning of
"imputation."
When you charge to someone's account you take something that belongs to one person and you put
it to the account of another. If someone owes you a debt you take it out
of his page in your ledger and put it to the page belonging to another
person in the ledger. Therefore, you have "imputed" the debt to another.
That is what God has done with our sins. He has imputed our sins to His
Son, and He has punished them in His substitutionary death on the cross
(Rom. 5:6, 8).
Moreover, that is not all God does. We need
something else. Just to
take away my sins is not enough because before I can stand in the presence of God I must be
positively holy. I need to be positively righteous. The Bible teaches us
that God is righteous, just and holy.
"God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all" (1 Jn. 1:5). Now
anything less that His standard of righteousness cannot
stand in His presence. I need to be positively righteous. God does
something marvelous out of His grace. The moment you and I
believe on God’s Son and His work for us He "imputes" His righteousness to
us, He imputes that perfect observance of the law to us. We stand guilty
before God because we have not kept the law. However, Christ
has kept it perfectly and He is righteous before the law. God "put to my
account," i.e. "imputes to me" righteousness of His own Son.
When we stand before a righteous and holy God we
are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. He clothes us with it. He
puts it all to our account. Therefore, when the believer stands in the
presence of God, God does not see you, He sees the righteousness of His
Son covering you, clothing you completely and absolutely. That is grace!
That is something only God can do.
This is one of the most important doctrines in the Christian faith.
The imputed righteousness is Christ’s perfect righteousness attributed to me.
It is
imputed to me or put upon me by God. When God looks at me clothed in the
righteousness of Christ, God pronounces me to be a just man, a righteous
man, and the Law cannot touch me!
No wonder the apostle Paul declared, “There is therefore now no
condemnation to them that are in Christ” (Romans 8:1). As a believer in Jesus Christ
you are covered by this perfect spotless righteousness of the Son of God Himself, and have
on the "breastplate of righteousness.”
Selah!
Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006
Click for printer friendly page
SELAH INDEX
CLICK to E-mail SELAH! to a friend.
|
![[Valid RSS]](../gra/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
