The Penalty for Sin; Imputation of Soul
Life; Gal. 2:16; Gen. 2:17
Genesis
Romans
The doctrine of divine imputation (cont.)
There are three factors
involved in an imputation: a) the source: God Himself; b) the nature of the
imputation: what is being imputed; c) the recipient of imputation; where is the
imputation going? who is receiving it?
There are two categories
of imputation: real imputations and judicial imputations. Real imputations are
where the justice of God imputes something that has an affinity, agreement or
correspondent to its object. In real imputations the key word to remember is
correspondent; that God is imputing X to Y and there is something in X and Y
that has affinity or correspondence. There is a similarity there, a home in Y that
is fitting. There is something there that will jell together; there is
correspondence. In judicial imputation the justice of God imputes something where
there is no correspondence or agreement between what is imputed and the object
to which it is imputed. For example, there is the imputation of our personal
sins to Jesus Christ on the cross. There is no affinity or agreement or
correspondence between our personal sins and Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is
perfect righteousness. When Jesus Christ was on the cross He was perfect
righteousness; what was being imputed to Him was our sins. There is no
agreement between the two, no correspondence. This is just an act of God
judicially.
Another category of judicial
imputation: We are sinners and when we put our faith and trust in Christ alone
His perfect righteousness is imputed to us. There is no affinity between His
perfect righteousness and its home in us. We are minus righteousness. That is
why that is called a judicial imputation. In a real imputation there is correspondence
between X and Y, and so when Y as us and we are minus righteousness because we
have a sin nature, and what is being imputed is Adam’s original sin, then there
is correspondence between Adam’s original sin and our sin nature because it was
Adam’s original sin that created or generated the first sin nature. That is the
difference between a real and a judicial imputation.
There are two judicial
imputations. These are, first our personal sins to Jesus Christ on the cross,
and second is His perfect righteousness to the believer at the point of
salvation. Remember that every believer is born condemned in three categories.
First of all he has the sin nature, second he has Adam’s original sin imputed
to that sin nature, and third he then commits personal sins. At the instant we
are born we have a sin nature because that is transmitted genetically involved
in every chromosome in every cell of our bodies. To that sin nature is imputed
Adam’s original sin. As a result of that we are born physically alive and
spiritually dead and we will commit personal sins. But we are sinners because
we are born with a sin nature that has Adam’s original sin imputed to us, not
because we commit personal sins. We sin because we are sinners; we are not sinners
because we commit personal sins. That is a very important distinction to
understand. By nature we are sinners
before we ever commit the first personal sin.
In terms of real imputations
there are five. 1) First of all there is the imputation of human life to the
soul; 2) Adam’s original sin to the sin nature; 3) is eternal life to the human
spirit—at the point of salvation God the Father imputes His very own eternal
life to our human spirit. There is a correspondence between eternal life and
the believer’s human spirit; 4) blessings in time to perfect righteousness. God
imputes to perfect righteousness imputed to the believer blessings in time; 5)
blessings in eternity to the resurrection body.
These imputations form the
basis for God’s plan for the human race. The plan of God begins with human
birth when the imputation of human life to the soul takes place. The plan of
God begins then, not at the new birth or regeneration (which is when the
spiritual life plan begins), and it results in God’s glory in eternity future
by every person who…[sound missing in tape].
How do these imputations
take place?
The first imputation is the imputation
of human life to the soul
1. The imputation of human life to the soul and the
imputation of Adam’s original sin occur simultaneously in time. Logically they
occur in sequence but in actual chronology they are simultaneous. Human life is
imputed logically before the imputation of Adam’s original sin.
2. To understand the imputation of human life we have to
understand that the Bible distinguishes between three categories of life. The
first is biological life. It begins for us in the womb. In the womb the foetus
is mother dependent. The foetus has a number of reactions, a number of reflexes
that are biologically oriented and do not necessarily indicate that a soul is present.
In Genesis 2:7 we see the development of biological life. NASB “Then
the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground…” He took the chemicals in the
ground and formed the physical body of man which is his biological life. Then
we see the second category which is soul life. “… and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” So then there is
full human life. Biological life plus soul life equals human life. The critical
word here is the Hebrew neshamah.
It is translated in a number of passages “breath” or “breath of life.” Job 33:4
NASB “The Spirit [breath, neshamah] of God has made me, And
the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” So Job is talking not about the
biological life which is created through procreation between the male and the
female—that is physical life or biological life—he is talking about his soul,
the real Job. So when the foetus emerges from the womb and takes that first
breath is when God, following the pattern established with Adam in the garden,
God breathed the soul into biological life. At that instant of physical birth
there is human life. At that same instant there is in biological life the
transmission of the sin nature.
Note: In about the second
to early third century Tertullian gave us a little
heresy called Traducianism. Most people don’t know this about Tertullian but he was a materialist. He believed that the
human soul was material, not immaterial. Because he believed it was material Tertullian taught that the soul was passed on through
procreation—the soul, being physical, was passed on physically. That would mean
that from the moment of conception on there would be full human life in the
womb. But Traducianism was even declared a heresy by no one less than Thomas
Aquinas who was one of the greatest theologians of the Roman Catholic church. When he discusses this issue he is firmly a
creationist and he states that it is heresy to claim that the soul is
transmitted in the semen. Up until about 50 years ago the majority of
Protestant theologians were creationists. It has only been in the last
generation for a variety of different reasons, none of which have to do with
exegesis, that they have shifted over to a Traducianist position. So there is a
very rich theological heritage among orthodox theologians of creationism, that
it is at birth that God imparts the soul to biological life at birth that there
is full human life.
The early church always
felt that biological life was in the womb and apart from any tragedy that might
take place would eventually culminate in full human life. Therefore they always
felt that it was important to protect the biological life within the womb
unless God would override the process and end the pregnancy. They always took
the position of creationism but always thought that because God was involved
with biological life (Psalm 139) that man must treat it honourably.
It is Adam’s original sin that is
imputed to us that is the basis of our salvation
1. At the same instant that soul life is imputed to
biological life the second imputation occurs which is Adam’s original sin to
the sin nature.
2. This is a real imputation because there is an affinity
or correspondence between the two. That correspondence lies in the fact that it
was Adam’s original sin, when he ate from the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, that immediately generated
a sin nature in Adam. That shows a relationship of affinity and correspondence
between Adam’s original sin and the corrupt nature that resided in him.
3. The result of this is that we are born physically
alive but spiritually dead. Soul life is imputed to biological life which
results in human life, we are born physically alive, but at the same time Adam’s
original sin is imputed to the sin nature and we are born spiritually dead. Adam’s
original sin plus a sin nature equals spiritual death.
4. Objection: Adam made the decision, so what does that
have to do with me? The answer lies in two solutions. Theologians have divided
this into two categories, the first is called a federal relationship with Adam
and the second is a seminal relationship with Adam. The biblical basis for the
federal relationship with Adam is Romans 5:12ff. Adam was our representative in
the garden. But we are also seminally or physically in Adam, and the basis for
this is found in Hebrews 7:9, 10 (The subject is the superiority of Christ’s
priesthood to the Levitical priesthood) NASB “And, so to speak,
through Abraham even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes,