In recent years I’ve encountered an increasing number of individuals who claim to be “evangelicals,” or “Biblical Christians,” or “born-again believers,” etc.—but who deny the core doctrine of “imputed righteousness”: the teaching that believers are credited with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
In some cases, naturally, it’s just a matter of misunderstanding; the problem is easily solved with more training in God’s word. But one person I bumped into lately on social media was at peace with jettisoning the doctrine—apparently unconcerned that this could also mean jeopardizing his own salvation.
“Imputed righteousness was Old Testament righteousness,” this “believer” claimed.1
That’s just not true. First off, the language of “imputation” comes from Genesis 15: “Abram believed [Yahweh], and [Yahweh] counted him as righteous because of his faith.” (v. 6) The Hebrew term for “counted” is ḥāšaḇ; the Greek translation, along with the New Testament, uses logizomai. It is these two verbs that theologians often represent with the English “impute,” or, in older Bibles like the KJV, “reckon.” The concept established in the fifteenth chapter of the Bible is that Abram wasn’t actually righteous, but God counted him as righteous, simply on the grounds of his trust in the Lord.
In other words, God gave him credit for a righteousness he didn’t actually have.
The Apostle Paul builds a heavy edifice on this foundation:
For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners. . . .
Now, is this blessing only for the Jews, or is it also for uncircumcised Gentiles? Well, we have been saying that Abraham was counted as righteous by God because of his faith. . . . So Abraham is the spiritual father of those who have faith but have not been circumcised. They are counted as righteous because of their faith. . . .
So the promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift. And we are all certain to receive it, whether or not we live according to the law of Moses, if we have faith like Abraham’s. For Abraham is the father of all who believe. . . .
And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. [Rom. 4:3-5, 9, 11, 16, 23-25]
Do you see the train of thought here? . . . The bolded lines indicate that what Genesis 15:6 enshrined was a principle that is still in force. Indeed, Paul calls it a “law of faith.” (3:27) So, “imputed” or “credited” righteousness is rooted in the Old Testament, yes, but carried forward into the New.
What has changed is that “God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ,” which He “did not reveal . . . to previous generations” (Ephesians 1:9; 3:5). In other words, the Son of God has been shown to be the proper object of our faith: He took on human form in order to render Himself the Ultimate Sacrifice, and thereafter to be our Intercessor in Heaven.
Until we get there ourselves and become actually righteous; actually perfect; without need of anyone to intercede for us.
Which naturally raises the question: How can we get there if we reject the indescribable gift of imputed righteousness?
“In New Testament righteousness, we ‘become’ the righteousness of God. A believer literally is righteous.”
This man is alluding to 2 Corinthians 5:21, but he’s ignoring several crucial elements in the context and in verse 21 itself. First, Paul used the Greek verb logizomai, “impute,” just two verses earlier: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.” (v. 19)
Which implies that if God didn’t impute sin to us, then He must have imputed something else. But what?
Verse 21 provides the answer in a weird sort of arithmetic: “He [God the Father] made the One who did not know sin [i.e., God the Son] to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Question: Did Jesus literally become sin? . . . Of course not! He continued to be what he already was before his crucifixion: the sinless God-Man. By the same token, then, neither did we literally “become the righteousness of God.”
So, it’s a metaphor, but what is the metaphor for? That’s revealed in the last phrase of the sentence: “in him”—i.e., in Christ.
When the Bible speaks of being “in” someone, it’s referring to a kind of identification: one person is representing another, or a group, such that the “representee” acquires the status of the representative—whether good or bad. In 2 Corinthians 5:21 the dynamic works both ways: while on the cross, Jesus took on our status—that of sinners—so that we, by faith in Him, could take on His status: “without sin.”
Some theologians have called this “the Great Exchange,” language that can be traced back to the early-Church author of the Epistle to Diognetus (c. 150 AD):
For what else but His righteousness would have covered our sins? In whom was it possible for us lawless and ungodly men to have been justified, save only in the Son of God? O the sweet exchange, O the inscrutable creation, O the unexpected benefits; that the iniquity of many should be concealed in one righteous Man, and the righteousness of One should justify many that are iniquitous! [9:3-5]2
All of the above harmonizes with what Paul had written the Corinthians in an earlier letter: “you are in Christ Jesus, who became . . . our righteousness” (1 Corinthians 1:30). To put it another way: we’re credited with the righteousness of Christ; treated as if we were righteous ourselves, when in fact we’re only righteous in Him.
“1 Peter 1:1 calls it the sprinkling of the blood of Christ.”
The assumption here is that Peter means we’re now actually righteous. But Peter doesn’t actually say that—so what does he actually mean? For that we need to consider how the language of “sprinkling” is used elsewhere in the Bible.
The idea originates with the law given by God to Israel, through Moses. Exodus 24:8; 29:21; Leviticus 4:6, 17; 8:30; 14:7, 51; Numbers 19:4 and similar passages refer to the sprinkling of sacrificial blood on persons and objects in order to perform a ritual cleansing and absolution from guilt.
But as the author of Hebrews points out, “it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (10:4) He goes on to explain:
Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. But our High Priest [Jesus] offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. . . . For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. [10:11-12, 14]
Now, at the present time, are we actually perfect? . . . Any honest person knows that’s not true, and in fact the same verse implies this, for it says that believers are “being made holy.” The word holy literally means “separated” or “set apart.” So, when we’re fully and permanently set apart from sin, will we be actually perfect.
In other words, believers are in process, and this is reflected in the way Hebrews talks about “sprinkling”: “our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean” (Hebrews 10:22). And: “you have come to . . . the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel.” (12:22, 24)
The phrase “sprinkled blood” makes the connection between the death of Christ and the symbolism of the Old Testament animal sacrifices: they all pointed to Him. Secondly, His sacrifice absolves us of guilt, as was argued passionately by Paul:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus . . . who died—more than that, who was raised to life—[who] is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. [Romans 8:1, 34]
If you’re “literally righteous,” you don’t need an intercessor. Jesus acts as our go-between precisely because we’re not actually righteous. But because He—a righteous man—represents us to the Father, it’s as if we’re righteous.
The context of Hebrew 10 reinforces this understanding:
For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. . . . And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. . . . And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood [10:14, 19, 21-22].
As we can see, the other elements attached to the “sprinkling” are likewise figurative. We don’t literally “enter heaven’s Most Holy Place”; that’s what Jesus did. “We” enter figuratively in the sense that Christ represents us before the throne of God. Hence the Father treats us as if we ourselves had entered His glorious presence.
Paul describes it this way:
. . . God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. . . . For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. [Ephesians 2:4-6]
Back in Hebrews, chapter 12 offers a similar context for the “sprinkling”:
Jesus “sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (v. 2)
We aren’t yet actually righteous, because God “disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness,” and His process of discipline “produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” (vv. 10-11)
We aren’t yet actually righteous, because for now we need to “[m]ake every effort to . . . be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.” (v. 14)—the same holiness we’ll eventually “share” with God as the outcome of the spiritual “gymnasium” in which He’s put us.3
We are said to “have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly . . . . You have come to God, the Judge of all, . . . and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” (vv. 22-24) “The blood of Abel cries out a curse for vengeance (Gen. 4:10–11; cf. Heb. 11:4), but Jesus’ blood brings forgiveness and atonement.”4
Much of this passage refers to things that Christ, as a glorified Man, has literally experienced—but we only figuratively, because we are “in Him.”
“Titus 3:5 calls it the washing of regeneration.”
“Another word for regeneration is rebirth, related to the biblical phrase ‘born again.’ ”5 It’s also equivalent to what the Bible calls “new life,” “eternal life,” and similar terms.
Jesus defined “eternal life” as “know[ing] the only true God, and . . . Jesus Christ, the One [God the Father] sent.” (John 17:3) Therefore, to be “regenerated” means to be brought into a new relationship with God.
And while that relationship certainly has practical ramifications (I’ll get to those in a moment), it doesn’t mean that we’ve now been made “literally righteous.” Paul described our new life as Christians this way:
You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. . . .
You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. . . .
Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. . . . For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. [Colossians 2:13-14, 20; 3:1, 3; cf. Ephesians 2:1-6]
Notice that our new “life” is completely bound up with the person of Jesus Christ. There aren’t two living beings—Jesus and me. There’s one living Being—Jesus—and His life flows into and through me. As Paul said elsewhere:
My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. [Galatians 2:20]
“The writer of Hebrews went to great lengths to highlight the imputed and temporary nature of righteousness provided by animals, versus the literal, complete and forever righteousness in the blood of Christ.”
This is misreading the author of Hebrews. He doesn’t make a contrast between imputation in the Old Testament and lack of imputation in the New. He makes a contrast between the means of imputation in the old and the means of imputation in the New, for “by that one offering [Jesus] forever made perfect those who are being made holy”—and therefore “we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus.” (10:14, 19).
We “enter heaven’s Most Holy Place”—i.e., Heaven—symbolically in Christ, who acts as our Representative. And why can He do that when we can’t? . . . Because He—not we—is literally perfect (2:10; 5:9; 7:28).
By contrast, we are still waiting to be actually perfect; that’s precisely why the author later says that the Old Testament saints “would not reach perfection without us.” All of God’s people across history have waited throughout their entire earthly lifetimes to be made actually perfect, which is why we must “strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up” and “run with endurance the race God has set before us.” And precisely because we’re not yet perfect, we must “struggle against sin,” and “endure this divine discipline,” since “God is treating [us] as his own children. . . . God’s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness” (11:40-12:2, 4, 7, 10)—because we don’t share it yet.
Which leads right into a discussion of the practical implications of imputation!
“But if you keep reading Romans into chapter 5 you’ll see it doesn’t stop at imputation. The Spirit does a work in our heart after that.”
Yes, He does: He works constantly in opposition to the impulses of our fallen nature:
God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. [Philippians 2:13]
The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other [Galatians 5:17].
In Romans, though, Paul doesn’t actually say much about the Holy Spirit’s ministry until chapter 8—but it’s chapter 7 that sets the table. Here Paul emphasizes the sad but unavoidable reality that believers continue to wrestle with sin precisely because we’re not “literally righteous” (7:15-24).
In chapter 8 he continues to describe our current wretched state, but also begins to involve the Holy Spirit: “For the mind-set of the flesh is death, but the mind-set of the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind-set of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit itself to God’s law, for it is unable to do so.” (8:6-7).
The Holman Christian Standard Bible, the version I’ve just quoted, does a good job here of bringing out Paul’s literal wording in the Greek: that our flesh, our fallen nature, has its very own “mindset”—or disposition, or bent—which is hostile toward God. This is in contrast to most translations, which give the reader the impression that Paul’s warning us against setting our minds on the flesh—i.e., in one category is your own mind, and in a separate category is the sinful nature. But no: he’s talking about the mind or attitude of the sinful nature itself.
And, in this life time, it never goes away: “keep away from worldly desires that wage war [continuously!] against your very souls.” (1 Peter 2:11) This echoes what I’ve already quoted from Paul: “The sinful nature wants to do evil” (Galatians 5:17)—a present, abiding reality in the life of the believer.
That is the very opposite of being “literally righteous.” But as Paul teaches, the Holy Spirit counteracts the fallen nature, for He has the opposite mindset: “life and peace” (Romans 8:6), thus enabling us to “walk in newness of life” (6:4). That’s why we must, “through the power of the Spirit . . . put to death the deeds of [the] sinful nature,” which is another way of saying that in our manner of life we are “led by the Spirit of God” (8:13-14).
Notice that nowhere in this discussion does Paul state that our ontological nature has changed. We’re still fallen creatures. But because God has “justified” us—declared us righteous when we’re actually not (4:5)—He has also gifted us with the Holy Spirit, who in turn counteracts our fallen impulses.
Elsewhere Paul makes the connection between imputed righteousness and practical righteousness:
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light [Ephesians 5:8].
If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. . . . For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.
Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth [i.e., your fallen nature] . . . . Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator . . . . Christ is all, and in all. [Colossians 3:1, 3-5, 9-11]
Now that is calorie-dense with theological goodness. Ephesians 5:8 is very succinct: believers have a certain identity “in the Lord”—and therefore on a practical level we should live up to that identity. We aren’t literally “light,” or goodness; only in the Lord. But “[t]hose who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.” (1 John 2:6)
Colossians 3 builds a whole meal out of the morsel we’re given in Ephesians 5:
Jesus is “our life”: you don’t “invite Christ into your life”—He invites you into His.
Believers have “put off the old man” (our fallen “Adam-identity”)—and have “put on the new man,” our identity-in-Christ.
“Christ is all” in the sense that Jesus represents all of us before God the Father; Jesus functions as “our righteousness and holiness” (1 Corinthians 1:30), since we don’t have our own.
But the Bible also reveals that this is only a temporary situation:
For God [the Father] has put everything under [Christ’s] feet. . . . And when everything is subject to Christ, then the Son Himself will also be subject to the One who subjected everything to Him, so that God may be all in all. [1 Corinthians 15:27-28]
This is one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible, because of the supreme mystery and fulfillment it signifies. Right now, Jesus mediates between us and God the Father (the Supreme Authority), because we aren’t righteous on our own. But in “the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13), there will no longer be any need for a mediator. Right now, Christ is our “all in all” because He’s our heavenly representative—but in that unimaginable Era To Come, we’ll be in God the Father’s immediate presence, unspoiled by sin, actually righteous, and therefore without need of someone else to be “our righteousness.”
That’s what’s in store for those who, in this life, place their trust, their person, and their destiny in the hands of Jesus. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9)
That promise is my go-to motivator for walking in the footsteps of the Savior.
“It’s really a big deal scripturally to stop referring to believers as ‘under the blood’ or merely counted as righteous.”
Yes, it certainly is a big deal. It’s a big deal because to reject imputed righteousness—our positional status “in Christ”—logically robs Him of some of His rightful glory.
I’m not suggesting that that’s what self-identifying Christians, like this guy on the internet, actually intend. But if Jesus is doing something for us—acting as our righteous stand-in before God—and we deny He’s doing that, then we’re inadvertently robbing Him of the credit and praise we owe Him.
In addition—and here’s the scary part—rejecting imputed righteousness also puts one in danger of forfeiting salvation. It only makes sense: if God says to you, “Here’s how I’m going to save you,” and you respond, “No, I don’t like the idea of someone else being my righteous stand-in”—then what’s your backup plan?
There isn’t one.
Jesus is Plan A, and there's no Plan B. He is our righteousness. Our hope. Our life.
We have no other.
By putting “believer” in quotation marks, I’m not saying this person is a fake. I’m saying I just don’t know how seriously I should take his claim to be a true believer in Christ.
With minor reediting: the change of unnecessary capitalization to lower-case.
The Greek word for “trained” in Heb. 12:11 is gymnazō, from which we get “gymnasium” and “gymnastics.”
David W. Chapman (notes on Hebrews ), ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), Heb. 12:24 (accessed 5 Dec. 2023).
“What is regeneration according to the Bible?,” Got Questions Ministries (18 Aug. 2022; accessed 7 Dec. 2023). See also “What Does Regeneration Entail?,” Society of Evangelical Arminians (10 Nov. 2020; accessed 7 Dec. 2023).