“Imputation” is a theological word that can be defined as something like “the act of regarding something or someone as having qualities that it or they do not naturally possess.” Imputation is HUGELY important in Christian theology; it is no exaggeration to say that its importance cannot be overstated. For sinners such as us to stand before the judgment seat of God and be declared righteous, we must be regarded as righteous (via the “imputation” of the righteousness of Christ to us). God’s word, of course, is creative (as in, “Let there be light”), so when he regards someone as righteous, they actually become so. In this way, imputation can be said to “work,” that is, imputation is the mode by which life can come from death. Imputation, therefore, is so important and so very full of grace that Christians are overwhelmed by the desire to “pay it forward” and “impute” to each other.
That’s how we get situations like this:
As Joe House said in his piece on Grantland.com
I have watched the “GOOD JOB, GOOD EFFORT” video 391 times since Tuesday night. Because I can’t believe the kid is being sincere with that sentiment. Tuesday night’s Heat performance was not a “good job” and it was most certainly NOT a “good effort.” I know this because I performed a very scientific study (i.e., scanned YouTube for five minutes) of the 10 hustle/effort plays that could have gone either way in the game, and my conclusion is the Celts won Every. Single. One.
So. Humans generally “impute” when they want it to “work” in the same way it does when God does it. When we want to encourage, or cajole, or build up, we “impute” in the same way the kid in the video did. We don’t actually think that the Heat did a good job, but we want them to be more likely to do one next time. But it rings hollow, just the way the video kid’s words do. Note the expressions on the faces of the departing Heat. No new buoyancy, no encouragement. They know that what the kid is saying just isn’t true.
And this is the key: Human words are not creative.
Try it sometime. Walk outside at 3:30 in the morning (in temperate latitudes…no cheating) and command light to come forth. See what happens. The same failure is true when we tell someone that they’re successful when they know they’re not, that they’re thin when they know they’re not, or that they’re a “good person” when they know they’re not.
During a summer that I spent as a hospital chaplain, I came across a dying man. When I asked him how he was doing, he said that he thought he’d lived a good life. After a pause, he looked at me and said, “I’m just not sure it was good enough.” Hearing the story later, my supervisor told me that I should have assured the man that his life was good enough; that he didn’t have to worry. In other words, that I should have “imputed” righteousness to him. In the moment, I felt differently. I told the man that Jesus had come for those of us who hadn’t lived lives that were good enough.
That man wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told him that his life was good enough; who was I, anyway? How would I know? He didn’t need faux-imputation…and it wouldn’t have worked. Though humans can’t impute (we can only, like the “Good Job” Kid, pretend), we can announce that true imputation, through the creative word of God, has come.
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24 responses to “On the (Im)Possibility of Human Imputation”
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Nick, I’m not so sure that the analogy of the Heats fan quite fits, or at least there is a little ambiguity here in terms of what is meant by imputation. Imputation isn’t just a declarative statement (or treatment) between two unrelated persons – in this instance, a random inconsequential fan.
Instead, it matters who the speaker/recipient is. Theologically speaking, God is able to impute to us because he has forgiven on account of Christ. This imputation has the character of forgiveness and the substitutionary assumption of cost on our behalf. God’s declaration of forgiveness is significant because this forgiveness silences his deserved judgment.
Moving to the interpersonal, if I fail as an employee (or minister!) a random person on the street can’t impute to me and imbue me with confidence. Who are they to me? But if that imputation comes from a parishioner, or a head pastor, or a bishop, or a spouse, etc. then I can be given varying degrees of comfort. The more their opinion matters to me, then the more powerful their words are! In Les Miserables, the Bishop’s imputation of the thief matters because the crook had stolen from the bishop himself and was liable to jail.
I appreciate the post, and the totally agree about the all-together crucial imputation of God toward humans. But I think you are wrong to conclude that humans cannot ever make use of imputation to great effect. In some instances, a thing that looks like an attempt at imputation (such as the kid’s comments re: good effort) actually functions as the law. Thus, the ideal convicts. I’m reminded, for example of the scene in Band of Brothers, when he tells the nurse: “You’re a good nurse” and then the nurse breaks down in tears. The only proper response to imputation is repentance, because the gap between the judgment and the verdict is so huge. The affirmation of a father, telling his insecure teenage son: “you’re the man” is a powerful thing. It is a necessary ingredient to helpful parenting and does ultimately move a person away from their own self-understanding to viewing themselves through the eyes of another. I use imputation all the time in ministry and don’t know how I would do ministry without it. The denial of reality that would have occured if you had told that guy on his deathbed that he was good enough, is not what was called for in that situation and you were right to allow him to put his trust in God, rather than his efforts. But I don’t think it’s fair to assume or underestimate the ability of imputation (which is basically affirmation in spite of evidence to the contrary) to have a helpful, creative impact in the life of an individual too. Granted, it is a token, not fully equivalent by any stretch of the imagination to the real thing from God, but it is not counterproductive or completely infertile because of it. The power of analogy (i.e., human imitations of God’s imputation) is stronger than flimsy. Creative ministry depends upon it, I think.
Great discussion. I would like to stand, apparently, against the whole world and defend the young fan’s words as possibly being neither as incorrect nor as useless as some have suggested. On the first point, and granted this is a minority opinion, I think it is much too simple just to conclude that the Heat players were dogging it. It may be worth remembering the Louisville team that went to the Final Four in this year’s NCAA. They ran their opponents to bits, not just by physical effort, but by doing things that were smarter and more subtle than everyone else could do. Example: When the opponent gets one step ahead of you by guile, you must expend a burst of energy to make up the gap. After 48 minutes of that, the body can give out, creating what appears to be carelessness or even indolence, but is actually mental and physical exhaustion. So the young fan’s commendation of a “good effort” may be more on target than it appears. But on the second point, and here I suppose we do get into imputation, I don’t think the encouraging words should be considered useless even if the players “know” they are not true. (The players may or may not know that; I suspect the answer is a secret and we outsiders will never really know.) But leaving aside the literal accuracy of the fan’s words, he stood for his team at a bad moment, and “imputed” to them that they still have his confidence and affection. This is no small matter, and while unfounded praise can indeed be at times useless or even annoying, in some circumstances, if it is based in a relationship of sincerity, or even love, that changes the equation entirely. The comment in the original article about the creativity of God’s Word is elegantly stated, but let it be added that we, as St. Paul notes, have the (same!) Spirit of God dwelling in us, bearing some creativity that we may apply as well. Here’s a snippet I like from Kasemann’s commentary on Romans 8: “Christ as the prototype, as in Heb. 2.10ff., creates new sons (sic) for God, i.e., the bearers of the Spirit.” That’s us!
Good insights all around. I’ll basically let the piece speak for itself, but I do want to add that, in my personal experience, it has been so much more profound when someone told me “I love you” or some analog, rather than trying to “impute” to me. When I feel like a failure, I’d much rather be told that I’m loved than that I’m not a failure.
I totally agree with this. All I want is to be loved in the midst of my failure – to have it acknowledged and set aside by love. Any other form of “encouragement” leaves me feeling more worthless than I did before – patronizing added on top of failure…
Well said, Nick. Like John, I agree that imputation can be effective, creative, and necessary with regard to ministry on a human-to-human level (that there’s a difference between manipulation and imputation), but your point about honesty is crucial. In the kid/Lebron example, it rings hollow because he has no experience of Lebron, and it is unclear whether it’s love in spite of Lebron’s performance (i.e., taking us off the performance spectrum altogether) or love in ignorance of his performance, or perhaps based on past experience/future demand for Lebron to do well.
Christ says, “I know your insufficiencies, selfishness, and rebelliousness and love you anyway.” It seems to me like the Heat video acts as a cautionary tale against CHEAP imputation, which lacks any of the pain of acquaintance, forbearance, or forgiveness on the (human) imputer’s part.
Great post Nick. Imputation on the human to fellow human level is very often a subtle form of condescending fake praise. It sometimes “works” for a while at changing behavior but lots of things do that for a while.
I love this, Nick! “Imputatuon” on a human level presupposes some sort of “view from nowhere” by the one doing the “imputing” that seems like it can only be patronizing. God may know what I want to be, should be, etc, but im not sure anyone—however well intentioned—can “speak” anything other than their own issues into my life. How ever much reverse psychology can get you to help someone feel better, the beauty of this post is that no human word is ever creative–even love, because our loves are so often tainted with our own self-interest (always?:) imputation certainly exists, but only in the word of God’s absolution of a sinner, not one sinner’s idea about what another needs to hear. This is why, btw, Luther (who coined the phrase) only considered the priestly absolution as the means of Imputatuon—FWIW:)
I think there might be a sense in which there is human imputation.
For instance, think of protection rackets. If I pay Don Corleone for protection, no one is going to bother with my store. Not because I’m scary in any way but because Don Corleone is. I have seen powerful politicians give cover to less powerful politicians on the ropes. No one goes after them because they would have to deal with the more powerful politician. Who knows what would have happened had Billy Graham come out in support of someone like Ted Haggard? Certainly, carrying the name of a respected individual is a form of imputation (and quite a good analogy for the Christian faith). What did JFK, Jr. ever really do aside from being the namesake of JFK?
I think the key for this kind of imputation is that the giver must have a lot more juice than the receiver. It can’t be a peer or it really is patronizing. As far as a Christian analogy, the best form of imputation is probably a father’s blessing to his child (as Rod Rosenbladt talked about at the Advent). The child really hasn’t done much but I would argue that blessing is creative.
I wrote a big essay about this topic while I was in seminary: ““What are the implications of the classic Reformational distinction between imputation and infusion for a theology of spiritual formation?”
It was posted on Steve Wood’s Treading Grain blog two years ago. Looks like the link still works (and perhaps, in light of the discussion, the material is “still” pertinent) –>
http://treadinggrain.com/2010/guest-blogger-john-zahl/
Perhaps the question is not whether we CAN impute in the way that God imputes, but whether we must or should impute in the way that God imputes. There’s obviously an huge distinction to be made between God’s work in Christ and our own attempts at forgiveness. And so, if like Jady, you wish to strictly define imputation according to the Christ-gift, then human imputation obviously fails to pass muster – as it should!
But distinctions, limitations, and definitions aside, I think there is a clear mandate for human relations to replicate or mirror the divine-human relation. And in this sense, we must impute – however imperfectly – as a consequence of our own imputation. The connection between the logic and shape of the Christ-gift and our own actions to our neighbor is directly correlated by both Paul and John. For example, Rom. 15:2-3, 7 “Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.’… Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” Or John 4:11 “Beloved, If God so loved us, we ought to love one another”.
The next question then is what it means for humans to impute – though again I wonder whether there is any consensus on what it means that God imputes, since in my mind the love and forgiveness from God are themselves a form of God’s imputation.
There is a Lutheran rhetoric (which goes back to Luther not only Forde) which tends to equate the legal death of Christ with the subjective conversion (the gospel killing and making alive, daily dying, etc). I don’t want to deny the importance of what God does in us, but I think it’s a mistake to identify that with Christ’s work outside us.
Romans 6:9 “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death Christ died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must impute yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
The first command in Romans tells Christians to count themselves dead to sin, to “reckon yourselves” dead to sin.
It’s important to not forget that imperative. But it’s even more important to remember that we don’t make the indicative come true by obeying the imperative. The justified elect do not become dead to sin because they count themselves dead to sin. Nor do the justified elect become dead to sin because they are daily dying to sin.
On the contrary, the justified elect are commanded to count themselves dead to sin because Christ has died for them as their representative and substitute. Christ died for the elect so that they ARE dead to sin, as soon as they are legally “baptized into this death”.
There are not two different “deaths to sin”. Christ’s death to sin becomes by imputation the justified elect’s death to sin. It’s one and the same death. It’s Christ’s death as satisfaction to God’s law. The death to sin of Romans Six is not the regeneration or renewal of the justified sinner.
But there are two different imputations, two different countings. The justified elect impute themselves as dead to sin, declare themselves dead to sin, but their imputing and declaring are not what cause Christ’s death to sin for the elect. Nor is it their counting themselves dead to sin that which transfers righteousness from Christ to them.
It is not their imputing themselves dead to sin which creates an exchange of their sin to Christ. Christ already died for the elect. Christ already did not die for the non-elect.
There are two imputations, one by God’s agency and the second by human agency as a result (not condition) of God’s imputing. For the sake of completeness, we should also remember that God not only credits the sin of the elect to Christ but also credits the death of Christ to the elect. In addition God once credited the sin of Adam to all humans.
And don’t forget the second command in Romans. 6:12–”Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those WHO HAVE BEEN brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”
Romans 4:17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
Many Reformed theologians, even though deny that forensic imputation is a “legal fiction”, nevertheless worry about the reality of “mere” justification by Christ’s righteousness “alone”. They say: don’t worry about that, because in the same “union”, God also “sanctifies” and that takes care of the reality problem.
That view of things tends to change the definitions of imputation, of righteousness, and of faith. It also locates the “ontological reality” in ideas like “infusion” and “impartation”. It misses the legal reality of the “as though” in Romans 4:17. Yes, Abraham didn’t die at the cross. Christ died for Abraham, as Abraham’s substitute, so that Abraham would not have to die the second death but be raised to life on Resurrection Day. And yet the legal reality is that Abraham did die at the cross, and that by imputation, so that Abraham was legally “constituted” as righteous many years BEFORE Christ died.
Let me quote from John Murray’s commentary on the phrase from Romans 4:17 which says “who calls the things that are not, as though they were”.
“It has been regarded as referring to the creative activity of God by which he calls into being things which had no existence prior to his fiat…But Paul does NOT say ‘who calls into being things that are not’ but “calls the things that are not as being’…
“The things in view are things that are not rather than things which are brought into being…It is gratuitous to assume that the ‘things which are not” are the things possible. Things possible cannot be regarded even by God as being.The ‘things which are not’ refer to the things determined by God to come to pass but which have not yet been been fulfilled.”
Abraham was justified by a righteousness which had not yet been “brought in” by Christ. But that does not mean that Abraham’s justification is a “legal fiction”. It does not mean that God in sovereignty declare the elect individual Abraham righteous before Christ actually became incarnate in history to bring in that righteousness.
God’s righteousness is not only about God’s justice. God’s righteousness is always about God’s sovereignty also. And when God chooses to justify Abraham on the basis of an atonement that has not yet happened, then that is both just and “real”. It’s not fake and it’s not arbitrary.
Abraham received by imputation the reconciliation before the reconciliation was even made. The elect who are now being justified are receiving the reconciliation long after the reconciliation was made, but that does not mean that God is being arbitrary or only sovereign.
God is just in God’s timing. It is not unjust for God to be sovereign in God’s imputing. Even though future sins have already been imputed to Christ, some of the elect have not yet been justified and therefore have not yet been “placed into His death”.
Romans 4:23-24 “Righteousness” was counted to him was not written for Abraham’s sake alone but for ours also. “Righteousness” will be counted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead our Lord.
Even when our justification has not yet happened, Christ was raised because of our justification. Romans 16:7 “Greet Adronicus and Junia…They are well known to the Apostles and they in Christ before me.”
As a person without a “ministry” I can only speak from the point of view of the putative intended recipient of pastoral “imputation”. I have found that no matter how well-intended the “imputation” is, it ultimately falls flat and the imputational efforts of the Pastor-Imputer begin to sound hollow and insincere at best and condescending and patronizing at worst. This “imputational” method means that any real personal relationship with the Imputer is impossible, because he/she has set themselves the task of “imputing” something to you that they feel you “need” but don’t in fact have, while at the same time not being willing to tell you this honestly. Words become meaningless in such a relationship…”Does she really think that I am ‘smart’,’gorgeous’, ‘insightful’, or is she just “imputing” these qualities to me??? What is behind the “imputation” mask??? It is impossible to know.
Also, I really don’t see Jesus doing this type of “imputing” in his ministry with people. I do see him being brutally honest with Peter (get thee behind me Satan)(you will deny me three times), the “woman at the well” (you are right to say that you are not married…) and a host of others. Of course, we are not Jesus, and are told not to judge, so I would not recommend this level of honesty out of a preacher either, at least if one might wish to stay in a position long enough to unpack a suitcase. But there is an analogy to be drawn between Jesus loving and dealing with people as he knew them to be, and our loving others in the midst of the reality of who they actually are, rather than attempting to make them into something we would like them to be by “creatively” attributing those qualities we deem desirable to them in the expectation that this will effect the change in them that we deem appropriate. Spare me that.
Here’s an excellent quote from Alister McGrath (and his wife) on how an understanding of imputation (as opposed to infusion) positively impacts Christian counseling: http://johncampoxford.blogspot.com/2005/10/mcgrath-mcgrath-quote.html
The talks from Rod Rosenbladt which David Browder mentions are A+ and totally related to this material. Their available for a song from New Reformation Press: http://www.newreformationpress.com/audio/when-good-fathers-die-its-always-too-early.html
Thought-provoking as always, Nick – thank you. Needless to say, you’ve hit upon a point of some consistent divergence here on Mbird. I think you’re really wise to point out how “relational imputation” can serve as a euphemism for manipulation or wishful thinking or just plain Law (statement of an ideal), especially when it’s tied to an intended result – yuck! The examples you cite are spot on, too. Of course, as my many posts on the subject would attest, I’m one of those who believes in its reality (for many of the reasons stated above) – that we catch glimpses or echoes of horizontal imputation all the time, to varying degrees. And my own experience on both the giving and receiving ends of it (coaches, therapists, teachers, even pastors) lead me to see it as a positive and hopeful good. At least most of the time. Maybe it’s a matter of description vs. prescription, I don’t know. In any event, those Heat fans sure are cruisin’ for a bruisin’ (sorry Tullian!).
I think, in the McGrath piece, he is talking about the real imputation from God. Maybe he means we view difficult people as God views them… as clothed in the righteousness of Christ as we ourselves are. Sinners saved by grace as we are saved by grace. That certainly knocks down a lot of the self-righteousness that comes from the “righteousness of the law”.
My point in bringing up what I did was to affirm some sort of human imputation but I really wouldn’t call it “horizontal” imputation. It is more of a mini-vertical imputation that goes from fathers to sons; mafia to protectees; U.S. senators to local mayors, bank president to protege, etc. These are very specific instances, I think.
Is it “creative” when it goes from Nick Lannon to David Browder? No way. Because presuming to impute is a presumption of a much higher status. This way is actually relationship-breaking because of the unwarranted condescension and patronizing.
Mini-vertical imputation seems like a very thin line to walk. I don’t think the imputer really is even aware he/she is doing it. Peer imputation is just a catastrophe.
In the end, I find myself placing more value on what Nick and R-J said. When I fail, I don’t want people to turn away. I want the love to remain. That, to me, is the galvanizing thing. Confirm it when I ask “Did I eff up?” Then, stay my friend and don’t throw me under the bus. Encourage me, talk to me at parties, etc.
Good points, DB! I’m into those “mini-verts” (as I’m now going to call them) for sure, but I also dig friendship and parties and sincerity.
I have been rethinking this, and, to beat this almost-dead horse, I will add one little thing. One powerful result of real love for someone is to see the good things in them that are only potentially there, the things that God can and perhaps will do in that person, that are not yet there, or are there in such nascent form that they are invisible except through the eyes of love. This “seeing” the person through the eyes of love is similar to God’s “imputation”. But it is not a methodology or something we are tasked to do or something we should even think about doing…it is a natural result of love. If we have to gin up an “imputational” frame of mind toward someone and feel the need constantly to speak a word of “encouragement” into the lives of others whom we do not really love…it is best to forget it. That is not love. Pray that God will grant love…then the eyes of love will take care of the rest…and maybe even see the good thing in the beloved before God makes it a reality.
That’s very helpful to me Michael. I think that imputation, in the way that you mention, has great descriptive power for explaining the way lots of love “works”. So, theologically speaking, the way that God justifies sinners (the “how” of his love) is described using the word: imputation. It’s not surprising that a lot of love (esp. in the instance where one has the power to bless, as Todd pointed out, like in a father-son relationship. In other words not from a peer, but from one who is held in high esteem) seems to mimic, albeit imperfectly, imputation.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2018/06/guest-post-should-christians-declare-or-decree-things-over-our-lives/