A further objection is to the idea that Christ’s righteousness can be imputed to us. One person cannot be good in another’s stead. Transferring credit from one person to another is a very external and formal type of transaction inappropriate in the matter of our spiritual standing with God.
However, our relationship with Christ is not detached. The individual believer is actually united with him.
With regard to my spiritual status, a new entity, so to speak, has come into being. It is as if Christ and I have been married or merged to form a new corporation.
The imputation of Christ’s righteousness is not, then, so much a matter of transferring something from him to me, as it is of bringing the two of us together so that we hold all things in common.
In Christ I died on the cross, and in him I was resurrected. Thus, his death is not only in my place, but with me.
SOURCE: Millard Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, 2nd ed. (Baker, 2001), p. 264.
Good thing Erickson described a common view of imputation as “a very external and formal type of transaction inappropriate in the matter of our spiritual standing with God” rather than as a “cold piece of business,” because, if he had, that would have been highly naughty, and it would be the responsibility of those in control of Reformed micro-denominational webzines and professional Calvinist conferencers to spank him repeatedly, and try to keep anyone who read Erickson with any appreciation away from the ministry.
He must be the drunken father-in-law. 🙂
Well, come on, Mark. He’s not Reformed is he? Not being a confessional Reformed Presbyterian it’s not surprising that Erickson would fall into the trap of lifting his theology directly from the Bible.
More ruthless stealing!
the church has always taught that we don’t get “X into our hearts” but instead we step into His life
Sorry about the alias above. I keep forgetting to check my name before I hit “submit comment.”
So, then, I am saved by being a shareholder in this “spiritual corporation.” No thanks. I’d rather stand in fiduciary relationship to Christ, rather than being a co-shareholder in the same corporation.
If I stand in fiduciary relationship to Him, then I have confidence that my redemption has vested and that I stand free of the curse of the law (because Christ, my fiduciary, has paid the debt). In the corporation analogy, the debt is never paid, but I am simply insulated from the curse by virtue of my membership in the entity.
In the former, Christ’s death has effected propitiation; in the latter, it has effected only expiation. In the former, the Christian stands justified; in the latter, the Christian is only legally insulated from from the punishment. In the former, God loves His justified children; in the latter, He is simply prevented from dashing them to bits because of a legal technicality.
Thanks, you’ve helped me to see again that Federal Visionism is nothing more than an odd hybrid of Rushdoony’s theonomy and Jim Dobson’s gnostic moralism. We are children of God and co-heirs with Christ, not merely co-shareholders in some third-party salvific entity.
Ah, good ol’ pecuniary debt. Whatever the metaphor, Bobby’s position is bad news.
Can’t we go back to that 19th century Calvinism for this one? –
This objection again arises from confounding a pecuniary and a judicial satisfaction between which Augustinians are so careful to discriminate. This distinction has already been presented on a previous page. There is no grace in accepting a pecuniary satisfaction. It cannot be refused. It ipso facto liberates. The moment the debt is paid the debtor is free; and that without any condition. Nothing of this is true in the case of judicial satisfaction. If a substitute be provided and accepted it is a matter of grace. His satisfaction does not ipso facto liberate. It may accrue to the benefit of those for whom it is made at once or at a remote period; completely or gradually; on conditions or unconditionally; or it may never benefit them at all unless the condition on which its application is suspended be performed. These facts are universally admitted by those who hold that the work of Christ was a true and perfect satisfaction to divine justice. The application of its benefits is determined by the covenant between the Father and the Son. Those for whom it was specially rendered are not justified from eternity; they are not born in a justified state; they are by nature, or birth, the children of wrath even as others. To be the children of wrath is to be justly exposed to divine wrath. They remain in this state of exposure until they believe, and should they die (unless in infancy) before they believe they would inevitably perish notwithstanding the satisfaction made for their sins. It is the stipulations of the covenant which forbid such a result. Such being the nature of the judicial satisfaction rendered by Christ to the law, under which all men are placed, it may be sincerely offered to all men with the assurance that if they believe it shall accrue to their salvation. His work being specially designed for the salvation of his own people, renders, through the conditions of the covenant, that event certain; but this is perfectly consistent with its being made the ground of the general offer of the gospel. Lutherans and Reformed agree entirely, as before stated, in their views of the nature of the satisfaction of Christ, and consequently, so far as that point is concerned, there is the same foundation for the general offer of the gospel according to either scheme. What the Reformed or Augustinians hold about election does not affect the nature of the atonement. That remains the same whether designed for the elect or for all mankind. It does not derive its nature from the secret purpose of God as to its application.
C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2:557-8.
Bobby, no one has denied (but emphatically affirmed) propitiation. Because Jesus is the head of the corporation he has provided the “fiduciary” assets that more than pay for the demands of of the curse on sin for all those in a “relationship” with him. You have simply grabbed at some possible way to misinterpret everything being said in order to condemn the innocent. I see this in my children all the time. If they don’t want to like a teacher they manufacture grievances to justify their anger against him or her. It was exactly Satan’s strategy to get Eve to turn against God.
The irony here is that your tirade is a class A demonstration of contemptuous self-righteousness. But that seems to be the Genius of the “Reformed” in this late day–to rationalize true pharisaism (only without the Pharisees’ robust hope in the resurrection) as “living by grace.”
How sad.
wow, that’s a great Hodge quote.
I like this part
“it may never benefit them at all unless the condition on which its application is suspended be performed.”
“It does not derive its nature from the secret purpose of God as to its application.”