Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

Romans 5:18

To understand how God sees the world, we must understand that He not only sees us as individuals, but as part of the entire human race.

When Adam sinned, we all sinned.

He is our federal head and there is a sense that we are actually in him as the father of the human race. This is the concept of “imputation” and it is crucial to understanding Christianity.

Here is the definition:

im·pu·ta·tion | ˌimpyəˈtāSHən |

noun

1 a charge or claim that someone has done something undesirable; an accusation:

"there are grounds for inquiring into the imputations of misconduct against him."

• Theology: the action or process of ascribing righteousness, guilt, etc. to someone by virtue of a similar quality in another: 
• "the writings of the apostles tell us that imputation of the righteousness of Christ is given to us if we receive Christ."

We might feel it is not fair that Adam’s sin is imputed to us even though we have done nothing to earn it.

We get the consequences for Adam's failure to obey God.

All that is true of Adam is now true of us. We might feel we would have liked a shot at it (but You would have done the same thing!)

Because of this imputation

we are born in sin and

sin corrupts everything

we know.

But the Gospel of Christ also works this way!

Jesus, through his perfect life, death on the cross and the resurrection from the dead, undoes what Adam did. We have done nothing to earn it.

We get the consequences of Jesus' 

perfect actions as if we

had done them ourselves.

“That’s not fair!” someone might say.

Well it’s not fair… it is grace.

Imputed Grace.

God treats us as if we did everything Jesus did.

Amazing!

But don’t stop there.

We can also choose to impute this grace to each other. Christians treat each other and the world as if there has been an imputation of grace. They didn’t earn it, many of them are still immature, unreasonable, selfish, judgmental and rude.

But when you treat someone with grace they can begin to change. After all, this is what God did for you!

May you walk in the glory of the imputation of Christ today.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Harvey