The righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer for his justification. The word impute is familiar and unambiguous. To impute is to ascribe to, to reckon to, to lay to one’s charge. When we say we impute a good or bad motive to a man, or that a good or evil action is imputed to him, no one misunderstands our meaning. Philemon had no doubt what Paul meant when he told him to impute to him the debt of Onesimus. “Let not the king impute anything unto his servant.” (1 Sam. xxii. 15.) “Let not my lord impute iniquity unto me.” (2 Sam. xix. 19.) “Neither shall it be imputed unto him that offereth it.” (Lev. vii. 18.) “Blood shall be imputed unto that man; he hath shed blood.” (Lev. xvii. 4.) “Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” (Ps. xxxii. 2.) “Unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works.” (Rom. iv. 6.) God is “in Christ not imputing their trespasses unto them.” (2 Cor. v. 19.)
The meaning of these and similar passages of Scripture has never been disputed. Everyone understands them. We use the word impute in its simple admitted sense, when we say that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer for his justification.
It seems unnecessary to remark that this does not, and cannot mean that the righteousness of Christ is infused into the believer or in any way so imparted to him as to change, or constitute His moral character. Imputation never changes the inward, subjective state of the person to whom the imputation is made. When sin is imputed to a man he is not made sinful; when the zeal of Phinehas was imputed to him, he was not made zealous. When you impute theft to a man, you do not make him a thief. When you impute goodness to a man, you do not make him good. So when righteousness is imputed to the believer, he does not thereby become subjectively righteous. If the righteousness be adequate, and if the imputation be made on adequate grounds and by competent authority, the person to whom the imputation is made has the right to be treated as righteous. And, therefore, in the forensic, although not in the moral or subjective sense, the imputation of the righteousness of Christ does make the sinner righteous. That is, it gives him a right to the full pardon of all his sins and a claim in justice to eternal life.
That this is the simple and universally accepted view of the doctrine as held by all Protestants at the Reformation, and by them regarded as the corner-stone of the Gospel, has already been sufficiently proved by extracts from the Lutheran and Reformed Symbols, and has never been disputed by any candid or competent authority. This has continued to be the doctrine of both the great branches of the Protestant Church, so far as they pretend to adhere to their standards. Schmid1 proves this by a whole catena of quotations so far as the Lutheran Church is concerned. Schweizer2 does the same for the Reformed Church. A few citations, therefore, from authors of a recognized representative character will suffice as to this point. Turrettin with his characteristic precision says: “Cum dicimus Christi justitiam ad justificationem nobis imputari, et nos per justitiam illam imputatam justos esse coram Deo, et non per justitiam ullam quæ nobis inhæreat; Nihil aliud volumus, quam obedientiam Christi Deo Patri nomine nostro præstitam, ita nobis a Deo donari, ut vere nostra censeatur, eamque esse unicam et solam illam justitiam propter quam, et cujus merito, absolvamur a reatu peccatorum nostrum, et jus ad vitam obtinemus; nec ullam in nobis esse justitiam, aut ulla bona opera, quibus beneficia tanta promereamur, quæ ferre possint severum judicii divini examen, si Deus juxta legis suæ rigorem nobiscum agere vellet nihil nos illi posse opponere, nisi Christi meritum et satisfactionem, in qua sola, peccatorum conscientia territi, tutum adversus iram divinam perfugium, et animarum nostrarum pacem invenire possumus.”3
On the following page he refers to Bellarmin,4 who says, “Si [Protestantes hoc] solum vellent, nobis imputari Christi merita, quia [a Deo] nobis donata sunt, et possumus ea [Deo] Patri offere pro peccatis nostris, quoniam Christus suscepit super se onus satisfaciendi pro nobis, nosque Deo Patri reconciliandi, recta esset eorum sententia.” On this Turrettin remarks, “Atqui nihil aliud volumus; Nam quod addit, nos velle ‘ita imputari nobis Christi justitiam, ut per eam formaliter justi nominemur et simus,’ hoc gratis et falso supponit, ex perversa et præpostera sua hypothesi de justificatione morali. Sed quæritur, Ad quid imputatio ista fiat? An ad justificationem et vitam, ut nos pertendimus, An vero tantum ad gratiæ internæ et justitiæ inhærentis infusionem, ut illi volunt; Id est, an ita imputentur et communicentur nobis merita Christi, ut sint causa meritoria sola nostræ justificationis, nec ulla alia detur justitia propter quam absolvamur in conspectu Dei; quod volumus; An vero ita imputentur, ut sint conditiones causæ formalis, id. justitiæ inhærentis, ut ea homo donari possit, vel causæ extrinsecæ, quæ mereantur infusionem justitiæ, per quam justificatur homo; ut ita non meritum Christi proprie, sed justitia inhærens per meritum Christi acquisita, sic causa propria et vera, propter quam homo justificatur; quod illi statuunt.” It may be remarked in passing that according to the Protestant doctrine there is properly no “formal cause” of justification. The righteousness of Christ is the meritorious, but not the formal cause of the sinner’s being pronounced righteous. A formal cause is that which constitutes the inherent, subjective nature of a person or thing. The formal cause of a man’s being good, is goodness, of his being holy, holiness; of his being wicked, wickedness. The formal cause of a rose’s being red, is redness; and of a wall’s being white, is whiteness. As we are not rendered inherently righteous by the righteousness of Christ, it is hardly correct to say that his righteousness is the formal cause of our being righteous. Owen, and other eminent writers do indeed often use the expression referred to, but they take the word “formal” out of its ordinary scholastic sense.