Just reviewing some things on Imputation, being it was said that if justification is the hinge of which the church swings, then Imputation is the hinge pin, without it the rest does not matter. I also had stumbled across an old statistic (about a year old) that 66% of evangelical pastors do not even know what the term means.
So kinda just using you all as a sounding board here.
Logizomai (transliterated) is the Greek for “Imputed.” So it is the verb form of Logos (Word). The lexicon I’m using has this to say as part of the definition.
“This word deals with reality. If I "logizomai" or reckon that my bank book has $25 in it, it has $25 in it. Otherwise I am deceiving myself. This word refers to facts not suppositions.”
So this is the Word or Speech in action. So if I understand this correctly then it is about the same as in the beginning when God breathes into man the breath of life. God calls life into being, where their was none. There is no righteousness in us, but when God justifies those who are His own, His power in that legal declaration actually produces in us exactly what it's stating to be there. So that which is spoken into us, also exorcizes out of us, our sin. The sin is not swept under a rug anywhere, but is directly also imputed to Christ.
I guess what really caught my attention in reviewing this was in the definition that it is in relation to facts. So Justification can never be a legal fiction, because God is calling into being, in us, that which we did not have. This makes it clear that the righteousness we had to have was that of perfect obedience, which is what we are given in Christ’s perfect life. The great exchange as Luther called it. He answers for our sins, we get the reward of His obedience.
Would it not then, in just this term, over throw the Arminian point of view that if God imputed the sins of the world (universal sense) to Christ, as the word definition indicates, then all would have been imputed with righteousness. But I guess their reply would be that such is the case which renders men open voids of which they are left with the ultimate choice to believe or not. But it would also beg alot of questions about there not being anything in scripture about spititual neutrality, or of the removal of all sins but the one of unbelief....
That's a very base view of it, but I think that enough to start some conversation, maybe.
So kinda just using you all as a sounding board here.
Logizomai (transliterated) is the Greek for “Imputed.” So it is the verb form of Logos (Word). The lexicon I’m using has this to say as part of the definition.
“This word deals with reality. If I "logizomai" or reckon that my bank book has $25 in it, it has $25 in it. Otherwise I am deceiving myself. This word refers to facts not suppositions.”
So this is the Word or Speech in action. So if I understand this correctly then it is about the same as in the beginning when God breathes into man the breath of life. God calls life into being, where their was none. There is no righteousness in us, but when God justifies those who are His own, His power in that legal declaration actually produces in us exactly what it's stating to be there. So that which is spoken into us, also exorcizes out of us, our sin. The sin is not swept under a rug anywhere, but is directly also imputed to Christ.
I guess what really caught my attention in reviewing this was in the definition that it is in relation to facts. So Justification can never be a legal fiction, because God is calling into being, in us, that which we did not have. This makes it clear that the righteousness we had to have was that of perfect obedience, which is what we are given in Christ’s perfect life. The great exchange as Luther called it. He answers for our sins, we get the reward of His obedience.
Would it not then, in just this term, over throw the Arminian point of view that if God imputed the sins of the world (universal sense) to Christ, as the word definition indicates, then all would have been imputed with righteousness. But I guess their reply would be that such is the case which renders men open voids of which they are left with the ultimate choice to believe or not. But it would also beg alot of questions about there not being anything in scripture about spititual neutrality, or of the removal of all sins but the one of unbelief....
That's a very base view of it, but I think that enough to start some conversation, maybe.