The Christadelphian February 1933, C. C. Walker

“Our Sins Imputed to Jesus” 

P.H.—This, as you truly remark, is quite an unscriptural form of speech, and reflects upon the justice and goodness of God. God does not impute the sins of bad men to a good man. When Israel sinned in the matter of the golden calf, in the days of Moses, and Moses interceded for them, he said, “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me I pray thee out of thy book which thou hast written. And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Therefore now, go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless on the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them” (Ex. 32:31–34). There was no substitution. God would not accept the Mediator of the old covenant as a substitute. Neither does he accept Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant as a substitute. His ways are “equal.” “The soul that sinneth it shall die” (Ezek. 18.). The house of Israel misrepresented God by an offensive proverb which seemed on the face of it to have some show of scripture and reasonableness. But God rebuked them by the prophet, and exhorted them to repentance.

To “impute” is 1, “to charge; attribute; ascribe; reckon as pertaining or attributable.” And there is another dictionary meaning, 3, “to attribute vicariously; ascribe as derived from another: used in theology.” It is here that “theology” is wrong. In the New Testament “impute” is one of several different renderings of the verb logizomai, others being “numbered, reckoned, counted, laid to the account of,” etc. But among all the occurrences of “imputed” there is not one that speaks of “our sins being imputed to Jesus.” We read of righteousness being “imputed” or “counted” to Abraham (Rom. 4.; Jas. 2:23; Gen. 15:6). This was because of his belief in God’s promises. But we never read of God’s imputing our sins to Another.

In Hymns Ancient and Modern, No. 146, and under the text, “By his own blood he entered in once into the Holy place” there occurs the following verse, referring to Isa. 63.:—

“O Saviour, who for Man has trod

The winepress of the wrath of God,

Ascend and claim again on high

The glory left for us to die.”

According to this the crucifixion was the treading of the wine press!

In another book, Hymnal Companion (No. 55), we are exhorted to remember that, on Calvary,

“For us he bore the weight of woe,

For us he gave his blood to flow

And met his Father’s anger.”

But the death of Christ was the manifestation of the Father’s love for the world (John 3:16). And it is not “his blood” but “their blood” that flows from the winepress (Isa. 63:3); his enemies’ blood that is to flow to fulfil this word. And when one treads the winepress (“treading down peoples in anger”), he is not himself trodden to death!

But, it is retorted, Is it not written, “He bare the sin of many”? (Isa. 53:12). It is so written; but that is a very different thing from “our sins being imputed to him.” The contrast is drawn quite distinctly and sharply in the context. “Surely he hath borne our grief, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all . . . although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit found in his mouth.”

What is the New Testament exposition of this divine language? How did the Lord “lay upon him the iniquity of us all”? How did he “bear the sin of many”? There is only one true answer, In bearing the consequences or effects of sin, by obedience even unto death; and putting them away by righteousness in resurrection to life eternal. This is obvious even in the context of Isa. 53:12, “and made intercession for the transgressors.” “He ever liveth to make intercession” (Heb. 7:25); so by reason of his bearing of sin he is himself “saved out of death” (Heb. 5:7. R.V., marg.); “through death” (Heb. 2:14); “through the blood of the everlasting covenant” (13:20). Peter, referring to this matter, holds up the Lord as an example:—“Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow in his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who when he was reviled reviled not again; when he suffered he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.”

Originally the words were spoken by the Spirit in the prophet some seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus. The “we,” “us” and “our” of the prophet’s day were of course not the same as those of the apostles’ day, much less of our remote times. The thing in common to all these passing generations of mortal sinners is the flesh, and the prophecy concerned the manifestation of the long promised Lamb of God.

There was no divine “imputation of the sins of” any to the Lamb of God, either of past generations or of his contempories, and certainly not of generations to come centuries afterwards. But “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” says John. “He took part of flesh and blood, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb. 2:14). God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21). It is true that Jesus died “for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant” (Heb. 9:15); but upon a very different principle from that of the hypothetical “imputation of the sins of the fathers to Jesus”! Let us “speak as the oracles of God,” as we are commanded (1 Pet. 4:11) and not as the “oracles” of the apostasy.