Imputed Righteousness

imputation // legal term // "to apply directly to one's account"

2 Corinthians 5:21
"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so we might become the righteousness of God."

The basic question this doctrine deals with is directly related to the doctrine of justification. How can God declare us righteous as a perfectly holy and just Ruler, when we are guilty of "cosmic treason" because of our sin? The answer is found within the doctrine of Imputed Righteousness.

Before Christ, being dead in sin and under God's wrath (Ephesians 2), we owe a debt/penalty we could never pay.

During salvation, Christ's righteousness is "credited to our account." We don't just simply receive a "$0 due" balance, so to speak, but now our account says "righteous." Since Scripture is clear that Salvation is solely a means of grace, apart from anything we can do (Ephesians 2:8-9), we understand that this is Christ's righteousness that God will see when we stand in judgment before Him. When a believer stands before the judgment seat, our hope is found in Christ's righteousness on our behalf - as God's justice is satisfied by the payment. 

He takes our debt and credits us with His righteousness.

"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross." - Colossians 2:13-14

This happens during justification - when we are made right. This is how we are made right; how we are declared "not guilty." God can declare us "not guilty" because He imputes Christ's righteousness to us.

Wayne Grudem, in Systematic Theology, writes, 

"When we say that God imputes Christ's righteousness to us it means that God thinks of Christ's righteousness as belonging to us, or regards it as belonging to us. [..] 

This is the third time in studying the doctrines of Scripture that we have encountered the idea of imputing guilt or righteousness to someone else. First, when Adam sinned, his guilt was imputed to us; God the Father viewed it as belonging to us, and therefore it did. Second, when Christ suffered and died for our sins, our sin was imputed to Christ; God thought of it as belonging to him, and he paid the penalty for it. Now in the doctrine of justification we see imputation for the third time. Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, and therefore God thinks of it as belonging to us" (p. 888-889).

This is why Paul would write in Philippians 3:9 that he does not have "a righteousness of my own that comes from the law," but he has "a righteousness from God."

God does not declare us righteous because we "get our act together" or perform enough good that tips the scales in our favor, but rather He gives us righteousness not our own. This is solely a means of grace; a believer has no means whatsoever to boast. Paul exclaims in Titus 3:4-7, 

"but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

Praise God.