"25 …How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself."
A stranger made these remarks to two disciples who were on their way to the village of Emmaus a few days after the crucifixion of Jesus. The disciples did not know it at the time, but this was very Jesus, the one who had just a few days earlier gone through such a horrifying ordeal in Gethsemane and on Calvary. Yet He (love personified) said what He had endured was no more than would be expected of Him! This was the love of Christ speaking.
The more you look at what Jesus said to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, the more wondrous and resplendent the love of God appears. As a case in point, consider this:
We know that strict justice, which is a trait of God Himself, required the death of the sinner. It was simple and equitable: man sins, man dies. The Almighty God of all creation, who was the epitome of righteousness, would not and indeed could not tolerate any breaching of His righteous law. Such lèse-majesté or disdaining of God's royal personage was unthinkable and unpardonable. So, to repeat, man sinned, man had to die. That was simple justice in a world that had been perfect before man defiled it.
But God is not merely righteousness and justice. He is also love; and love viewed the situation through the lens of – what else? – love. The facts remained the same: man sinned, man dies. Simple enough. But the love of God examined the facts through lenses that were rose-tinted with divine hope and they imparted to the basic hard facts an aura of expectancy.
We can see now that, although Justice had made the decree (man sins, man dies) from an eternity ago, the same Justice, urged on by Love, had to – in all justice and equity – consider the righteous decree of Imputation, which, biblically, is the attributing of something "in a judicial manner, so that the thing imputed becomes a ground of reward or punishment." (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia) Imputation is as old as Righteousness and Justice and Love: It is from forever. Regarding the matter of imputation, the Scripture tells us, in two separate passages, the following:
"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord IMPUTETH not [does not charge with] iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." (Psa 32:1-2)
"And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not IMPUTING [charging or reckoning] their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." (2Co 5:18-19)
In the scriptures above the doctrine of imputation is applied to persons who had been sinners and were literally guilty of a host of sins, but God, through the atoning blood of Jesus, reckoned or imputed them to be without sin. After their sins were in this manner taken away, the same righteous God imputed to them the righteousness of Christ. This was either an extreme oxymoronic act or the dizzying heights of Love. By all means it was the latter.
We have seen how Love intervened to spare man from an eternity in hell. But Love is not yet through. Despite what I have said here, some of you have yet to see its greater brilliance. And that would be that man was rescued from damnation by God's decision that He Himself would have to "die" for man! What other "god" in what other religion would wrap Himself in a body of flesh and condescend to come to this otherwise insignificant planet so that He could "die" – for what? – a caricature of divinity, the grotesque creature who was once made in the image and likeness of God! What an embarrassment to the great Creator man had become! What a mockery it was that the man who was next to God, or eventually would be, was about to be asphyxiated by his own moral vomit!
But God persistently loved man with a love that would not be repelled by man's disgusting condition. There has never been, and there can never, never be, a love that comes even a distant second to the love God has for man.
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God…" [This is an astounding turn of events!] (1Jo 3:1)
Note this further definition of imputation:
"…the term "imputation" has been used in theology in a threefold sense: 1) to denote the judicial acts of God by which the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to his posterity; 2) by which the sins of Christ's people are imputed to Him; and 3) by which the righteousness of Christ is imputed to His people." (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
It could only have been the love of God that fashioned the doctrine of Imputation. At first glance it may seem somewhat strange that item 1, that Adam's sin was imputed to his posterity, was propounded by Love, but that was the only way that dimwitted man could see the beauty of love in action as evidenced by items 2 and 3. And what a beautiful, thrilling show it was and has been and shall be throughout the never ending ages! We shall never tire of this Grand Spectacle.
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