Is Adam's Guilt Transferred to Us?

Atonement #2: Is Adam's Guilt Transferred? Is Christ's Righteousness Transferred When We are Not Righteous?

Hopefully you read our first article on two theories about atonement. We put forth the idea that the "Classic" view, followed for the first 1000 years of the church's existence, was superior than the currently popular “Satisfaction” view, put forth around 1080 by Anselm, a Catholic church theologian. Reasons for the superiority of the Classic view were many, as we stated, and proved by Scripture. We proved, I believe, that the Satisfaction theory has a poor view of God.

Well, after listening and meditating on Dave Bercot’s CD on “Atonement #2,” let's have a go at another problem, and offer more good reasons for abandoning the Anselm Satisfaction view. The problem is, the twisting of what went on with the word “imputation.” That’s a big word, but easily defined. As I did in the first article, this paper is not meant for seminarians, it is understandable by the general reader. And the subject is vitally important.

First, let’s define the word “impute.” Unger’s Expository Dictionary says: “To reckon, to put down to a person’s account;” “to charge with, or credit with.” The three imputations that the Satisfaction view believes are: (1) The guilt of Adam’s sin is imputed to all mankind, making us all guilty before we have done anything; (2) The sins of Christ’s people are imputed to Christ; and (3) the righteousness of Christ is imputed to His people. (Note that the Satisfaction theory's definition of "impute"  also means a transfer from one person or party to another person or party).

Let’s look at their idea of imputations one at a time. On the first one, believed by Satisfaction theorists: Does Scripture indicate that Adam’s guilt is charged to all of his children, and grandchildren, etc. all through history? Satisfaction theorists say "yes."  Well, I think their flaw is this:  it looks like a gigantic cross-generational curse that God has attached to Adam's descendants. By each generation receiving his guilt, we're all hell-bound from the day we become accountable because of Adam.  However, Scripture denies guilt-transfer: Deuteronomy 24:16 says cross-generational curses can’t happen. Ezekiel 18:20 also says it:

“The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
These verses clearly show that cross-generational curses are not part of God’s plan for eternity.  The guilt of Adam’s sin being transferred to all humanity?! Doesn’t that ring untrue about God, especially in the light of clear Scripture from Ezekiel above?

  Well, you might ask, what did Adam transfer to humanity, if anything? Well, in the Classic theory, what was transferred was (1) his mortality and (2) his corruption--he leaned toward sin; these were imputed to later generations.  Let's look at the first item, mortality being transferred to everyone. It was necessary for God to put that on us, because if we live in sin forever, our abilities to sin will have no limit. And sin would become immortal. Bad thought.

 His corruption, his tendency to sin, was also passed on.  This is not the same as his guilt being imputed to us.  Yes, we often choose to rebel before we learn to walk. We seem born to say “no,” as any mother will tell you. (But that doesn't put a small child into danger of hell--only when he is old enough to be accountable).

Despite our inheritance of corruption, we decide--on our own--whether to sin in a situation or not.  No cross-generational curse; we are responsible for our sins.  Thankfully, God has put a void in everyone’s hearts that can only be truly happy by seeking Him. He gave us His Word, which points to the way of salvation; He gave us His Son, who showed us how to live--and died for our sins.  From all that wonderful love and mercy: Do we, seeing His love, cling to Him as Savior of our souls? Or do we choose to rebel all our lives against this mercy? We have choices to make, and mostly reasonable minds to make them. What’s important here is that the tendency to sin does not mean that we inherited guilt.  And the tendency does not mean we’re beyond getting saved.

But there are other favorite verses presumably backing the Satisfaction theorists that we need to deal with. Such as Romans 5:12.

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—

This verse seems to say that Adam’s guilt is passed on. But a simple study reveals a simple truth: Why is “death spread to all men”? As the verse says, because “all sinned.” Thus we are only responsible for our own sin.  We can’t blame Adam or God. We can only blame Adam for our tendency to sin. But the fact is, we each make the choice to sin; the responsibility is ours.

I should point out that the Satisfaction theory can lead to an evangelism problem. To some unsaved people who conclude, “God isn’t fair. Sticking me with guilt for Adam’s sin,” it's tougher to reach them with the Gospel.  But if you accept the Classic theory of atonement and God's forgiveness in that theory, as you will see, the easy tendency to blame God for unfairness is dispelled.

The other favorite verses for Satisfaction theorists are I Corinthians 15:21-22:

For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

In the phrase “as in Adam all die:” does it say, well, we all die because we have his sin guilt on us? No. It simply says mortality is passed on.

Now let’s take a look at the second imputation “leg” of Satisfaction theorists: The sins of His children are imputed to Christ. Their key verses: Isaiah 53:4-5:

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

Now I don’t have any argument here at all, since both theories of atonement have Christ’s substitutionary suffering as it is spelled out here—He is innocent, but He paid for our sin. Our sins were imputed, or laid on, Christ. Thank You, Lord. But I have one warning about this verse: The phrase “smitten by God” does not mean God punished His Son. (We had more to say on that in our first Atonement article; Jesus was the ransom paid to Satan for our sin. Satan was the punisher.) But it’s true that God allowed Satan temporary control over Our Lord, so in the end, God is “at fault.” But for a greater good--because thereby we are saved.  A different question is, Why did God allow sin and suffering?  That is beyond the scope of this little paper.

On to the third claim of Satisfaction theorists: The righteousness of Jesus being imputed to believers. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, a classic conservative evangelistic work, has this to say: “It is not meant that Christ’s people are made personally holy or inwardly righteous by the imputation of His righteousness to them. But that His righteousness is “set to their account” so that they are entitled to all the rewards of that perfect righteousness.” The phrase “set to their account” suggests it’s a bookkeeping transaction in heaven; His righteousness is transferred in the ledgers of heaven to us—without the necessity of our being personally holy, or doing a thing except accepting Christ. Those who have read my other articles know where I’m going with this. Dietrich Bonhoeffer would call this “cheap grace,” and I wholeheartedly agree. The Satisfaction theorists sometimes also say, in essence, that to have God expect us to behave righteously is expecting too much. The Old Testament, in particular, seems to teaches us that, For instance, the Encyclopedia says, “The righteousness which God demands is not to be found among people.” Is that so? Well, try “googling” the word “righteous” in the Old Testament (biblegateway.com). You’ll find over a hundred references, such as Genesis 7:1:

Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.

Over a hundred verses, Old and New Testaments. Just like that one. Then google “blameless.” Lots more. Sorry, Encyclopedia, defending the Satisfaction argument should not have to include twisting the word "righteous." God expects His children to behave righteously.  His demand for righteousness after we accept what Jesus did does not mean He expects perfection, praise Him.  But He does commend people to strive to make their lives a righteous living for Him.

To be thorough, we have to explain more of Anselm's favorites: Isaiah 64:6a:

But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;

This contempt for righteous behavior seems to try to contradict over a hundred Biblical verses that show God loves the people who seek to be righteous. So let’s analyze further to avoid accusing God for a Scriptural contradiction. One question is this: What is the occasion for Isaiah’s prayer here?  In context, it is a prayer of penitence and intercession that Isaiah was making on behalf of the unfaithful Israelites. It follows the typical form that the penitential prayer does: When a repentant Jew petitions God for mercy, they invariably amplify their wrong and magnify their smallness in comparison to the greatness of the Lord. Such magnifying distorts reality, but for a good purpose—to glorify God’s majesty. But let’s return to reality instead of this ritual: Does God have to agree with Isaiah's version of man’s smallness? No. Think about it: If God really felt this way, why does He go to the trouble of calling certain people righteous over a hundred times?

Now it so happens that this verse was a favorite verse of Martin Luther. It seems he went, from a few verses like this, to construct a theological system—ignoring hundreds of verses that disagreed with his theology. He concluded, let's forget works altogether--salvation is all about just belief in what Christ has done. True, in an absolute sense, none of us are righteous as God—we’re all short of the glory of God. But God, in His love, has always considered His faithful ones, who have walked in obedience, not perfectly, but enough to call them “righteous.” That God could call us righteous despite His hatred of sin, is His mercy showing forth. I love His self-description in Exodus 34:6:

And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”

I commented above on the last 26 words ("visiting the iniquity of the fathers," etc.), but you see the two sides of God. There are many wonderful stories in His Word about His patience with stumbling mankind.  As long as we don't give up trying to behave to please the Lord.

Maybe the best case for this third leg in the Satisfaction theory is in their third set of favorite verses, Romans 4: 2-11:

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt .5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, 6 just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; 8 Blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin 9 Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. 10 How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. 11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also,

Through verse 8, saying things like “him who does not work but believes on Him,” seemingly says works are not a part of ultimate salvation, so you can see why Martin Luther loved Romans and hated James, who made a case for works as a part of salvation. But I have many blogs on this apparent contradiction about works and faith, and they say the same thing: Multitudes of Scripture clearly point out that while initial salvation is mostly faith, it takes confession, obedience to His commands, and abiding with Christ—“works,” if you like to call them—to maintain salvation. Paul echoes this idea over and over, and is not contradicting James at all.

Then what’s the key to understanding Romans 4? He has a different idea of the word "works" than James.  The key is in verses 9-11—this is the context for the whole section: Abraham’s faith was “accounted to Abraham” as righteous--while he was uncircumcised. That word gives us a clue about his context:  This whole section of verses is an argument against the need to circumcise the believing Gentiles, or make them follow Jewish rules. He is fighting the “Judaizers” here and elsewhere. The “works” that he hates are those who try to attach Moses' law, or Jewish works--such as circumcision, to faith, upon initial salvation. Abraham exercised faith before he was circumcised, so circumcising had nothing to do with his initial salvation. So, he asks, how are you ahead with God by circumcising the Gentiles,or forcing them to do Jewish works? Paul quotes David, who blesses righteous men—who were declared righteous without any mention of Jewish “works.”

Whenever Paul says “works don’t have a part in salvation,” he always means the Moses' law doesn't have a part in salvation. It's like he's saying, "Adding Moses' law doesn't get you any more saved." But he never says obedience to Christ (things He said in the Gospels, like the Sermon on the Mount) has no part in salvation—just the opposite. In I Cor. 6:9-11, for example, Corinthian believers used to be unrighteous, having those ungodly traits, but they were washed, they were sanctified—that means their behaviors should be righteous. Keep in mind,  someone striving to sanctification—keeping their bodies clean (of sin)--is different than simply making a transfer in the books of heaven. Believers in Martin Luther can “call” someone washed when they aren’t behaving clean at all. Isn’t that what the Encyclopedia is affirming, without saying so? There’s that cheap grace again. A genuine Christian strives to be holy, he’s not just “counted as” holy. Becoming a Christian transforms our lives, our souls, our very nature, when we’re truly born again. Folks, unlike what’s suggested by “cheap grace” Satisfaction theorists, a godly life is required for ultimately going to heaven.

We thus conclude that of the three imputations, the Satisfaction theorists invented two of them--by emphasizing one or two Scriptures, and ignoring many other ones.  And they teach cross-generational curse, as well as the cheap grace of ignoring the necessity of a godly life to maintain salvation.The Classic theory doesn't have God loading us with guilt for Adam's sins.  Nor does it ignore the need for righteous behavior.

Read my other blogs to get more on this picture.  Or read Scripture!

Acknowledgements: David Bercot, Atonement #2.