Imputation, The Transfer is Legal Union With and Because of that Christ Died
The Bible sometimes has imputation without transfer. For example, Psalm 106: 30-31 tells us that “Phinehas stood up and intervened and the plague was stayed and that was counted to him as righteousness.” Nobody replaced Phinehas or did his killing work for him, nor is the idea that something not really righteous got counted as righteous.
God counted Phinehas killing the two people as righteousness because it was righteousness, not to justify him but as sufficient cause to stop the plague against Israel. The story of Phinehas is not gospel, because it has no transfer to or from Jesus Christ.
God is righteous always and God imputes righteousness for what it is.
The Bible also has imputation, and transfer, and still no gospel.
When the sin of Adam is transferred to every human person (not when they are teenagers but when they are born), this transfer of guilt is not good news. God does not transfer the guilt of Adam to us because we are united to Adam in sharing the same nature.
United to Adam by his guilt transferred to us, we share Adam’s nature. To make the union something prior to the guilt keeps begging several questions. Unless we know that a transfer of guilt is unjust, we have no reason to define our union with Adam in metaphysical terms about the organic essence of the one and the many.
Transfer of guilt is union, and results in depravity and death. This depravity is not for the elect alone, because the guilt of Adam is not for the elect alone.
The gospel has a glorious transfer , but It is not a transfer of depravity. Christ was not imputed with the depravity of the elect, but with their guilt. Even though depravity is part of the punishment for imputed guilt, Christ was not imputed with depravity but with guilt.
Even though many Calvinists focus on the supposed “spiritual death” that Jesus experienced in the three hours before He died (see Michael Lawrence in It Is Well, or Harold Camping, or W. E. Best), the Bible itself never says that Christ Jesus experienced depravity, not even for three hours. Christ Jesus bore the guilt, the sins of the elect. The result of that was death.
The entire human race is now born guilty and depraved in nature. Christ was born truly human but not depraved. He did not have to be depraved to be human. Nor did He have to be guilty to be human. This means that Christ can be and was imputed with the guilt of the elect alone, and not with the guilt of the non-elect.
I do not know for sure when this guilt of the elect was transferred. Because of Christ’s lifelong suffering, I tend to agree with Smeaton that God transferred the guilt at His birth. Surely that guilt was not satisfied though until Christ died on account of the sins of the elect.
But what we can say for sure is that not only punishment for guilt, but that guilt itself was transferred to Christ. The gospel talks about election, because the gospel talks about Christ bearing sins.
Isaiah 53:5 speaks of the punishment which brought us peace. But Isaiah 53:6 also tells us that “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us.” The servant Christ bore not only punishment but also iniquity.
There is no biblical reason to isolate three hours of existential agony from all the rest that Christ suffered. As God uses Satan to cast out Satan, God can and does use sin against sin. We do not have to look for something direct and without the involvement of humans.
God ordained specific sinners to sin against other specific sinners. And God ordained specific sinners to sin against the One who had been imputed with the sins of specific sinners. Using the power of the nation-state-empire, God punished Christ who was legally charged with all the sins of the elect alone. This is not unfair. It is good news but only for the elect.
Explore posts in the same categories: atonementTags: descent into hell
You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
For the Elect Alone 
April 15, 2014 at 2:24 am
ob 38: 16 “Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
Revelation 1:5 Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood
Revelation 1:18 I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.
Colossians 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
June 5, 2015 at 6:40 pm
the difference between sharing and transfer
if there is sharing by transfer, then can be a complete and total switching
Christ took the guilt of my sins, I now have no guilt for my sins past or future
(and Christ now also has no guilt for any sins, having expiated by His death for all the sins He bore (not for all sins, not for all sinners)
But after transfer, there can be a sharing in which both parties still have what is shared
the righteousness of Christ belongs to us and to Christ
the merit and the value meaning of the death of Christ still belongs to Christ, and also belongs to us
saying it’s like a contract, or even saying it is a contract, is not a bad thing (take that Torrance)
Christ now belongs to us, because God has by imputation made the death of Christ belong to us
the union guys don’t like that, they say it’s not real and actual
the union guys say that the death belongs to us, because Christ belongs to us
but what is their problem in my saying—-Christ belongs to us, because Christ’s death belongs to us?
their problem is they won’t want transfer but only sharing, they want synergism
they don’t want only the legal, they always want more than a contract
(that’s not earnest enough for them–are you serious–enough)
which is their way of saying—-no contract
no contract for us, no law for us
July 18, 2016 at 6:45 pm
There are dangers to describing sin as corruption instead of guilt, because guilt is cause of inability. There is great error in describing “made sin” as the “spiritual death” of Christ. Christ did not become corrupt, and Christian do not become righteous by infusion or by impartation (of an extra nature to make two) but by God’s legal imputation. …..How many Deaths did Christ Die? , by J C Settlemoir, in The Grace Proclamator and Promulgator, July 2016
If Christ Died Spiritually Before He Yielded up His Spirit, Then His Sacrifice was not Acceptable. Philippians 2: 8 He was obedient to death. Christ could not be obedient in a swoon. Was Christ obedient all the Way? If so, Christ did not die before His death.
(mark–Of course there are many who teach that Christ’s death is not His righteousness or His obedience. They teach that Christ’s vicarious law keeping was His righteousness, and that His death (or deaths) was only for the purpose of remission or getting back to neutral).
At the Mount of Transfiguration, Christ’s physical death was the topic of discussion. He took along Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray. Luke 9: 29 As He was praying, the appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly, two men were talking with Him—Moses and Elijah. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of His DEATH which He was about to ACCOMPLISH in Jerusalem.
If Christ died spiritually, then Christ Needed to be Regenerated
February 22, 2018 at 3:21 am
was the old Arminian Billy Graham better?
if you haven’t made peace with God, you will go to hell and thirst for God forever
but God didn’t make hell for you
God didn’t want hell for you
Billy Graham understands and tells you
that before Jesus died all your sins were imputed to Jesus and then Jesus paid the infinite price for you in three hours it could have been just one minute but if you don’t accept the payment then you will pay it forever and that price is thirst for God separation from God—-the price is not death or destruction or perishing
Jesus loved you
and because of that love
now you need to make a choice between the bad things in your life
and accepting what Jesus did for you
Traditionalist —Christ didn’t suffer eternally. Jesus also was not annihilated. So in either case, Jesus’ punishment does not equally demonstrate the punishment of the wicked.While I do not holistically disagree with the conclusion, I also do not fully agree with the premise.
Jesus experienced God’s wrath for us on the cross. The punishment was not solely death, but suffering God’s wrath
Jesus should have died long before He hung on that cross because of the way He was beaten. But because He was sinless, and had not yet had sin imputed and placed upon Him the body He had was not yet ready to die.
Why would Jesus have to experience the Father’s wrath if the punishment is truly realized in His death as some teach?
It was only after sin was was imputed and laid upon He that He could cry, “It is finished!” And this was before he died physically. Jesus was able to endure sufficiently God’s wrath.
Because of who Jesus was, just one tiny drop of blood spilled from an open wound inflicted upon Him would have been sufficient to save infinite legions of depraved sinners. He could have just had His throat slit like the lambs of the Old Testament. He could have had a swifter execution. But instead He chose one of the most excruciating death, with torture.
Jesus was more than a substitute. He was THE Surpassing Substitute.. He didn’t just suffer a little of God’s wrath, but endured as much as was necessary to appease and satisfy His justice as a propitiation for our sins. And this was still infinitely more than He deserved. He endure more suffering, more pain, more sorrow, more agony not because of how long He was on the cross, but because He was on the cross!
The punishment was not exactly what we should have received in its duration. But it was way more than we’ll ever experience, because He was innocent. This finite duration of punishment was of infinite value. in a finite amount of time