Bird on imputation

Michael Bird's excellent short book 'A Bird's Eye View of Paul' is really a very good piece of work - especially to a non-Pauline-specialist like me. Pauline studies has really suffered from a plethora of disagreeing experts in the last twenty years, which leaves trials of confusion.

One area on which I have felt particular disorientation is that of the imputation of Christ's righteousness. In the teaching of a John Piper, this teaching becomes a crux. But, as NT Wright points out - where is the NT on this subject? Where is it explicitly taught? Even if we decide that imputation is a necessary inference from the theology of the NT, it is surely the case that it can't be as focal as Piper seems to make it.

Anyhow, here's Bird:

...what about the imputation of Christ's righteousness as the basis of justification? That is the notion that God imputes the obedience and merits of Jesus to believers and in turn imputes their sins to Jesus on the cross. Well, the fact of the matter is that we cannot proof-text imputation. If we think we can cite 2 Cor 5:21, Rom 4:1-5, 1 Cor 1:30, Phil 3:6-9 and find the entire package of the imputation of Christ's active obedience and the imputation of our sin to Christ embedded in all of these texts, we are sadly mistaken...

At the level of the text, then, Paul argues that we are justified by union with Christ through what I have called 'incorporated righteousness.' Jesus is justified in his resurrection, and by faith we have union with him so that we share in his justification. Through incorporation into Christ by faith, what is his becomes ours and what is ours becomes his...

The imputation of Christ's righteousness is a necessary and logical inference to make, as it allows us coherently to hold together a number of ideas and concepts in Paul's story of salvation. Although no text explicitly says that Christ's righteousness is imputed to believers, nonetheless, without some kind of theology of imputation a lot of what Paul says about justification does not make sense. Imputation is a synthetic way of holding together a number of themes...

I concur with Leon Morris, who said that imputation is a corollory of the identification of the believer with Christ. (p. 96-8)

Imputation: a conversation

charles says:
the fruit of the cross is forgiveness
Steve says:
yes
charles says:
...some people contrast forgiveness and the imputation of His righteousness as if forgiveness is a merely a negative thing and the other is positive are you with me so far?
Steve says:
forgiveness is just 'getting off the hook'
charles says:
but that cannot be true; if forgiveness is real it must be positive and just be another way of saying that righteosness is credited to us etc etc
charles says:
you can't be cleansed and yet waiting still to be declared righteous
charles says:
are you with me?
Steve says:
no indeed.
Steve says:
by which I mean, yes I am with you!
Steve says:
so: even though there are very few imputation texts
it is implied in the notion of forgiveness
Steve says:
or, it is a corollory of forgiveness
charles says:
so: forgivenss is a sufficient way of talking about the effect of the cross
Steve says:
I would add union with Christ to forgiveness
charles says:
well what is union with Christ but the attrribution of all Christ's accomplishments to us?
Steve says:
well, it is much more!
Steve says:
Holy Spirit? adoption into the family of God?
Steve says:
participation in the divine nature (2 Peter)
Steve says:
life
charles says:
and that is precisely why the great Calvin begins the second part of theology with union with Christ even before we arrive at justification etc
Steve says:
(and Luther does too)
charles says:
my point is however. not that there are not many blessings through union
Steve says:
really?
charles says:
but that one of those blessings is the attribution of Christ's righteousness to us
Steve says:
got some text for me?
Steve says:
2 Cor 5 (though this is disputed)
charles says:
of course it is disputed because it proves the point!
Steve says:
well: it seems to me that the Tom Wright difficulty with imputation stems from a caricature
Steve says:
(surprise surprise)
charles says:
true ...
charles says:
start from the top: is righteousness imputed to us?
Steve says:
whose?
Steve says:
well, it ain't ours.
Steve says:
it is alien
Steve says:
so, yes
Steve says:
well, it depends on what 'righteousness' itself means of course
charles says:
does 1 Cor 1:30 help?
Steve says:
well, yes... though: can't you say
Steve says:
Christ was perfected in his obedience in order that he could be our perfect representative...
Steve says:
I mean, does the 'our' imply something actually given to us, or attributed to us?
charles says:
go back to union with Christ
Steve says:
ok. I am back there
charles says:
I presume we come into union with Christ through faith and not our own works
Steve says:
tick
charles says:
I presume eg that forgiveness redemption etc is a free gift to those who are unoted with Christ?
Steve says:
again, a tick
charles says:
i presume that this is made possible by the penal substitutionary death of Christ?
Steve says:
yes
Steve says:
though, explained carefully
charles says:
i am told in romans that although i lack any righteousness of my own i have now been creditied with righteousness
Steve says:
you are
Steve says:
credited with, or credited as
Steve says:
?
charles says:
it being on account of my faith ie the point being faith alone and not works
Steve says:
true
charles says:
am i not forced to say that this righteousness (alien) is a gift from God on the basis of the death of his Son?
Steve says:
I think so.
Steve says:
(I am not much of a Boso, to your Anselm, am I?)
charles says:
give it a break !
Steve says:
well: it depends a bit what you understand righteousness to be I guess. Can I substitute forgiveness or vindication for it?
Steve says:
as a word?
charles says:
no they are not synonyms and I wonder why we would do that in the light of Rom 4
Steve says:
well, what is it?
charles says:
start with Rom 3:19,20
charles says:
Forgiveness language works in the realm of the personal and is needed for a complete picture
charles says:
but righteousness language works in the realm of the public and legal
charles says:
thus law, accountability, sin = transgression
Steve says:
yes, all good, I mean, all bad
charles says:
bad and accountable
charles says:
therefore needing not merely forgiveness but righteousness
charles says:
hence necessarily he then talks aboiut the death of Jesus in redemptibve, sacrificial and legal terms
Steve says:
righto
charles says:
and vindicates the righteousness of God for acting in what may seem to be an unrighteouss manner
Steve says:
ah, yes, that is the brilliance of it
Steve says:
both. and.
Steve says:
that is, it is forgiveness without injustice
charles says:
now turn to 4:4-9
Steve says:
ah, I love the 'before he was circumcised' bit: it is a great rejoinder to Reformed people who want to make us all legalists
Steve says:
Abraham never observed the law!
charles says:
dont be diverted
Steve says:
oh sorry.
charles says:
if you look at his quote from the psalm
Steve says:
yes
charles says:
it covers forgiveness in the first part and righteosness in the second
Steve says:
'not count his sin'
Steve says:
= righteousness?
charles says:
that is not to have your faults counted against you is the freedom from accountability which is righteousness see 3:19, 20
charles says:
yes, righteousness is the word we are using when we think of the relationship bettween God and man (as we must) in legal or judgement terms
Steve says:
covenantal?
Steve says:
or this the point that much confusion enters?
charles says:
I think it does: I was always a bit disappointed that the NT was not more explicitly covenantal; I think that the attempt to read it in is confusing the categories
Steve says:
ooooooooooo yes
charles says:
he justifies the ungodly ie those outside the covenant without Gofd and without hope in the world
Steve says:
but 'covenant' is where Tom W smuggles in his ecclesiology of course
charles says:
true ...

(How does it finish?)