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,” we agreed and now, 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.” That's the translation of the Greek word "logizomai" in Scripture.  Unger’s Expository Dictionary (highly reputed and reliable) defines "logizomai" as: “To reckon, to put down to a person’s account;” “to charge with, or credit with.” The three imputations that the Satisfaction view derived from the word are defined by them as: (1) The guilt of Adam’s sin is imputed to all mankind; (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. This is a critical distortion.

Let’s look at the verses in the New Testament where "impute" appears.  First, here's Romans 4:11:

And he (Abraham) 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,

Does Abraham's title of "father" mean his righteousness could be transferred to the next generation?  Of course not.  If they believed, they get the same righteousness before God that he did.  Clearly pointed out in Scripture.  No transfer there.  Next, on the same subject, Romans 4:21-24:

²¹ and (Abraham) being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. ²² And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.” ²³ Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, ²⁴ but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead,

Abraham's conviction in God's faithfulness, is also credited to our account IF WE BELIEVE, as you can see.  Again, Abraham's belief doesn't transfer to us.  Finally, the last usage of the "logizomai" is in Romans 5:13:

¹³ (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

This verse does not have a first person and a second person for a transfer, so this verse does not help the transfer argument suggested by the Satisfaction folks.  (I don't want to get into a discussion about when sin is credited to Old Testament people before law).

That's it, the only verses with the word logizomai.  You know, the Jews of Jesus' day believed in transfer of righteousness. Jesus has a few things to say about that in John 8:37-44:

³⁷ “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. ³⁸ I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have [ar]seen with your father.”

³⁹ They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.”

Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. ⁴⁰ But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. ⁴¹ You do the deeds of your father.”

Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.”

⁴² Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. ⁴³ Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. ⁴⁴ You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do

They insisted that they were OK with God since Abraham was their father (ie, in his lineage). They had circumcision, further "proof" of their righteousness.  But He assures them they they were lost in unbelief--after all, they slandered His fatherhood, a blasphemy, and killed Him. He bluntly tells them that they obtained no righteousness from Abraham. No transfer, no credit to their account.

The real meaning of "impute" should not be distorted on the guilt side of the ledger, too. But the Satisfaction folks have done it. The word "logizomai," remember, is not used outside of Romans.  But the Satisfaction folks took their distorted definition and applied it to other places too--such as, to Adam and his descendants for sin.

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:  they make it look like a gigantic cross-generational curse that God has attached to Adam's descendants. 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.  Thinking carefully, Adam was created with the ability to not sin; he could make a free choice to sin or not.  Unfortunately he chose the latter.  The result is:  We are born with a tendency to sin.  This is a disadvantage that we got from Adam.  It is a tendency, it is not a guilt transfer.  They are different words. The fact that we all sin is from our choices.

  Well, you might ask, how does the Classic theory deal with Adam's sin?  They maintain this is what we got from Adam: (1) his mortality and (2) our leaning toward sin.  Let's look at the first item, mortality being transferred to everyone. (We already dealt with the second).  It was necessary for God to put mortality on us, because we're stuck with the second feature.  Think about it:  If we live in sin forever, our abilities to sin will have no limit. And sin would become immortal in us. Bad thought. We prefer release from that bondage, and immortality in heaven, assuming our belief and our following in Abraham's faithful action.

Despite our inheritance of corruption, assuming we are accountable, we decide--on our own--whether to sin in a situation or not.  No cross-generational curse; we are responsible from our own sins, not Adam's.  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, in summary, here is that our tendency to sin does not mean that we inherited guilt. Believing falsely may have a dangerous consequence: ie, some people believe  that they are 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 takes too much of the meaning of "thus."  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 for sin that we chose to do. 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, too. 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 is easy to divert responsibility for our 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, we all die because we have his sin guilt on us? No. It simply says mortality is passed on. That is one leg of the Classic theory.

 

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. That includes a transfer, thank God. 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; it was a legal ability that he got from God when he got us to sin.) So it’s true that God allowed Satan temporary control over Our Lord--and us. Satan agreed with God to swap control over us to control over Christ--temporarily, as it turns out.  In the end, God is “at fault.” But for a greater good--because through the deal, we are enabled to be saved.

On to the third claim of Satisfaction theorists: The righteousness of Jesus being imputed to believers. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, a  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 it means 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 on eternal security know where I’m going with this. Dietrich Bonhoeffer would call this theology “cheap grace,” and I wholeheartedly agree. The Satisfaction theorists sometimes also say, in essence, that to think God expects us to behave righteously to go to heaven is expecting too much. The Old Testament, in particular, seems to teach us that. For instance, the Encyclopedia also says, “The righteousness which God demands is not to be found among people.” Is that so? Well, try typing the word “righteous” in a Biblical search engine (such as biblegateway.com). You’ll find over a hundred references of verses that dispute that, 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.

God told Noah he was righteous.  This is not meant only for the "super-saints," folks.  There are over a hundred verses, Old and New Testaments, just like that one. Then search for “blameless.” Lots more. Sorry, Encyclopedia, defending the Satisfaction argument should not have to include twisting the word "righteous." Having God call us "righteous" is attainable.  In fact, 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.  Believers can sin now and then, and still be "righteous."  He does commend His believers to strive to make their lives a righteous living for Him, to be sure of heaven. If we do not abide with Christ, we are denying Him.  He will then deny us (John 15:1-6).  I have other blogs on that subject.

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, to plead for God's mercy. It follows the typical form that the penitential prayer of that culture does: When a repentant Jew petitions God for mercy, they invariably amplify their wrong and magnify their smallness, which amplifies the greatness of the Lord for even considering mercy upon us. 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? Scripture must be taken in context, and with the assumption that every word is originally God's Word, and that any errors are not significant to salvation.

Now it so happens that this verse was a favorite verse of Martin Luther. It seems he went, from a few verses like these above, 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.”

There are many wonderful stories in His Word about His patience with stumbling mankind. As I point out in another blog, this theology does not lead you into sweaty uncertainty.  Be fearful of God to know how bad each sin is.  Do some things that intentionally stomp on them in our lives, so we can bear the fruit of sanctification.  Confess known sins, and repent of them.  Believe that God forgives.  Those eliminates most uncertainty.  You can't, Scripturally, expect certainty that we would all like to have.  Easy believism, again.  We would get complacent--like the Jews did.

We thus conclude that of the three imputations, the Satisfaction theorists were biblically incorrect on two of them--by emphasizing one or two Scriptures, and ignoring many other ones. They demean righteous behavior, 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, better, read Scripture!

Acknowledgements: David Bercot, Atonement #2.