Imputation 101

0:00Welcome everyone to Systematic Theology. I'm glad all of you decided to attend class today. Come on in, find a seat. Make sure you have a notebook, a pencil, maybe a Bible. You don't even need a Systematic Theology textbook today. You don't even need it. I know I know I know we've been working through an introduction to Systematic Theology by Paul Zeron. It's good that you have the book, but you don't need it right now. In fact, we're going to be doing something very important, very basic, very simplistic. However, it's going to prove to be extremely controversial. And here's the statement I want to make. Many Christians, many churches, they claim to believe in the doctrine of

1:02imputation or being justified by imputed righteousness. They claim that. They teach that. And then five seconds later, they contradict it and deny it. So we're going to look at the doctrine of imputation today and our Systematic Theology class. And we're going to follow it logically to see where logically the doctrine of imputation should lead you. And it will actually lead you against probably the church you attend. Controversial? Not really. Factual? Far more than you'll ever want to admit. And we're going to do all of that right after I say, good morning, everyone. It is Friday, September the 18th, 2026. It is currently 11.33 a.m. Central time. And I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central classroom. Now, students, I haven't I haven't received payment for

2:06your enrollment. So, you know, yeah, I mean, come on. I need you to submit that or I'm going to okay, now I'm joking. All right. But are you ready? You know, this is the Theology Central podcast where basically it's a theology, it's a theology class. But for free. Okay. Are you ready? Are you ready to do this? So let me remind you of kind of something important because this is going to I like things to be somewhat organized. But in the other, there's another part of me that doesn't really want anything to be organized because of the way I do things. So let me explain. Okay. We started a series for this podcast called systematic theology. Now, the original idea was that the series would be kind of a catch all anytime I'm talking about something related to systematic theology, just put it in the systematic theology, you know, series. And now, I did it did start because I came across a textbook introduction to systematic theology by Paul Zero. And the reason I went with this book is because you can get it for free online 483 pages

3:08for free. And I thought it was amazing that the author and publishers, they made it available for free. Now, you can buy a hard copy, which a listener bought for me. So I'm very grateful for that. So, but I'm like, hey, I've got the hard copy. Everyone else can look online, have a PDF copy of the of the same systematic theology. Great. And so I was kind of thinking, I'll just open pages at different times and just cover whatever at any given time. Don't really follow it through. But you know what? Ultimately, what happened? I got the textbook and I'm like, let's start on page one. And we've just been working in order through it. All right. And we were doing pretty well. And then I decided to cover one section that just was like, man, alive. We're never going to finish this. So then we kind of moved ahead just a little bit, started talking about the doctrine of inspiration that someone sent me an email. And so we just kind of, it's kind of, we're still kind of following through it, but in a kind of a more loose way. But it never really, the series has not

4:10yet kind of just, well, I'm just going to talk about this element of systematic theology. Well, what happened recently? As I received an email, it was kind of an email conversation back and forth and regards to imputed righteousness versus infused righteousness. Now I haven't really been able to talk about imputed versus infused righteousness because in their email, there was kind of a a presupposition kind of justice idea that, hey, whether you believe in imputed righteousness or whether you believe in infused righteousness, you believe this. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't even accept that premise. So then I did the entire episode about it. But then I was like, you know, I think the reason there's so many problems on this is because I don't think people actually understand the doctrine of imputation. I don't think they really understand it. So what we're going to do is we're going to do basically just imagine you've just come to systematic or systematic theology class, right? And I'm going to say, and I have on the board,

5:14imputation 101. This is like an introductory level. I mean, this is like, now, I hate to say this. I know Christians get mad at me, but man, the young people in your church, and if you homeschool your kids, they should know everything we're about to talk about in regards to the doctrine of imputation. And if you go to church, everyone in your church should know this. Now, what they would claim is, oh, no, no, we believe in the doctrine of imputation. But I believe they don't. And I believe they contradict themselves. So we're going to take basically a work, not, not, now, listen, we're not going to follow a systematic theology. I'm setting the book down. What we're going to do is we're going to take the doctrine of imputation, what it actually teaches, what it actually means, and then what are the logical implications from that? If we follow them to their natural, logical conclusion, right? Sounds fun. Now, I really, you really should take some notes today. But let's begin with a very important doctrinal statement. And that is, we're going to open up the

6:21London Baptist confession of faith of, I believe 1689 is the one that I'm using. I believe it is. Let me, let me go back and pull this up. I want to make sure I give you the right one. London Baptist confession of faith of 1689. Yes, that's the one I'm using. The 1689 London Baptist confession of faith, or sometimes known as the 1689 Baptist confession of faith. You can look at up online right now if you would like. The 1689 London Baptist confession of faith, or the 1689 Baptist confession of faith. It's the same one. And you'll notice you'll have the introduction. Chapter one is about the scriptures. Chapter two is of God and the Holy Trinity. Chapter three deals with God's decrees. Chapter four is about creation. Chapter five is of divine providence. Chapter six is of the fall of man, of sin, and of the punishment thereof. Chapter seven is of God's covenant. Chapter eight of Christ the mediator of chapter nine of free will of chapter

7:2210, of actual calling. And then you have the famous chapter. I mean, all the chapters are somewhat famous. The whole document is famous, but we have chapter 11, which is of justification. Oh, here we go of justification. And let me just be I'm going to be fully transparent. I have taught the London Baptist confession of faith. I have quoted it. I have cited it. I have even taught this entire paragraph from the London Baptist confession of faith of 1689 on the doctrine of justification. And then at the very same time, I held to doctrinal theological ideas that contradicted it. And I did not even realize it. It took me a while to do so. Now, the reason why I contradicted it, I know I'm kind of getting a little bit of head of myself, but this kind of gives you the whole context is when I first became a Christian, you have to kind

8:28of go back to when I first become a Christian, 1980, what, six, 85, okay, it was a fall revival. I think it was like 85 maybe, maybe 86. Okay, so somewhere around that, I don't know the exact year. I can figure it out if I took a moment, but it was fall revival. I go and I, you know, realize I'm a sinner. I need Christ. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm saved. Okay. Now soon after my salvation, everybody knows how I went home that night, read the entire New Testament within a week. I'd read the whole Bible. I started out reading. I had a million theological questions. I need information. I need information. And I took, and I was like, I'm a new Christian. Okay, where do you get stuff? Right? And I ended up at the Bible bookstore, Abolene, Texas. Now, I don't know exactly how long I'd been a Christian. It was very early on that I started coming home from school. And then I would listen to Charles Swindall, Chuck Smith from Calvary Chapel and John MacArthur. Right? I had three notebooks, and I filled them up with notes. So that was my first

9:33introduction to John MacArthur. Right? I can't tell you exactly the day, but it was relatively early in my Christian life. And I don't know which came first. I either bought the gospel according to Jesus by John MacArthur or he had a study guide on first John. I can't tell you which was which. I just remember encountering his view of, of, you know, basically, so, theology or his view on salvation. And I remember it was very quickly going, well, then who's really saved? Who's really saved? Because it was basically like, if you're really saved, you'll do ABCDFGHJK. And then it's like, well, who's really saved? But I, I did not realize at the time that I was kind of, I was kind of right in the middle of the storm known as Lordship Salvation. I did not understand. I'm a teenager, I'm a new Christian. I don't have anyone guiding me. I'm just trying to

10:33figure it out. And I just kind of accept, well, this is the view of salvation. I didn't think of the theological implications or, or there any other views. I just, okay, MacArthur's view is the right view. And anyone who contradicts MacArthur is wrong. So I just kind of, MacArthur kind of became the D, the default pope, the default, he's right. The end, right? And so I kind of went with that idea. Now I can go through all my struggles. And we could get into a lot about it. But that was kind of my default position. So I had very much, we'll call it Lordship idea. But at the same time, I'm beginning to understand justification by imputed righteousness. I did not realize that I think ultimately what was going to happen. I was going to find myself in a, the, the theological how could we say, a theological collision was about to take place. It took a long time. But once

11:35that theological collision took place, I was like, I am holding two contradictory ideas in my mind at the same time. And I'm not even realizing this. So then I had to start trying to figure it out. Once you start trying to figure it out, well, guess what? If you're in a church context, you're not allowed to figure it out because you got to stay on one theological team. And if you start trying to figure it out, people get mad at you and leave your church. Okay. So, but that, hey, that's what happens. But what's more important, people leaving your church, people staying in your church, or the pursuit of truth, the pursuit of truth is always more important. Okay. So just that kind of gives you some framework. Now, I know what you're saying. I don't see how they're contradictory. I know you don't. I know. But that, this is going to be where we're going to go. But let's start with the London Baptist Confession of Faith. All right. Here we go. London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689, what chapter 11 on, on, of justification. Those whom God affectionately calls. No, we could

12:43spend, we could spend a couple of months on that general call versus an effectual call. What's the difference? Okay. Right there. I mean, that's the logical gold right there. He also freely justifies. So the ones he affectionately calls. God freely justifies. Now, you can already tell this is a very God-centric confession of faith. Who does the calling? God. Who does the justifying God? Nothing to do with us. God does the calling. God does the justifying. Now, how does he justify us? Not by infusing righteousness into them. It specifically tells you God does not justify you by infusing righteousness into you. However, how does he do it? But by pardoning their sins and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous. So we are accounted to be righteous.

13:57We are accepted as being righteous, but no righteousness has been placed inside of us. We have been accounted righteous. We have been accepted as being righteous. That's far different than being made righteous. Right. I'm accounted as being righteous. I'm accepted as being righteous, but I have not been made righteous. The document goes on to say, not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone. Not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing or any other evangelical obedience to them as righteousness. So no, you're not counted righteous or declared righteous because of any obedience. Has nothing to do with that? But by what? This is very important. But by imputing, there's the word imputing Christ

15:00active obedience unto the whole law and passive obedience in His death for their whole and sole righteousness by faith. My whole righteousness, my sole righteousness is dependent on the passive and active obedience of Christ. Nothing I do is accounted as righteousness. It is Christ righteousness. Which faith they have, none of themselves is the gift of God. So even my faith, God has to give me the faith. He has to even give me the faith. He calls me. He justifies me, not by anything I can do, could do, would do, should do, but by accounting righteousness, accounting me as righteousness and accepting me as righteous, but not making me righteous, but declaring me to be so. Not infusing righteousness into me. All right. Now that's the London Baptist confession of faith, the Westminster confession of faith, and I would argue anyone who's not

16:06Catholic would hold to that understanding of justification. Now this is the thing. They do so in theory. They'll stand behind a pulpit and say, this is what we believe about justification. Five seconds later, they will contradict it. Now if you believe in infused righteousness, if you believe righteousness is placed inside of you, well then ladies and gentlemen, that's Roman Catholicism. All right. I cannot stress this enough. Okay. So do we have that down? That's a very good standard definition, a very good standard definition. And you should, you should know that definition forwards, backwards, and understand every single part. But I'm here to even break it down and making it as simple as possible. So here is my basic thesis. All right. Here's here's my thesis statement. Are you ready? If we say,

17:07all right, notice that if we say, if we say justification is based entirely upon a righteousness outside of us that is imputed to us, we cannot then turn around and look inside of us for the righteousness that proves we are justified. Let me give you the thesis again. If you say, if I say, if your church says justification is based entirely upon a righteousness outside of us, and that it is that it is imputed to us, you cannot then turn around and look inside of you. You cannot even look to what you do or don't do for the righteousness that proves you're justified. In other words, the righteousness that proves you're justified is not found in what you do or don't do.

18:07It's found in Jesus Christ. So you can already see how the modern church contradicts itself. It will say, you are justified by an imputed righteousness five seconds later. How do you know you're saved because you will do a b c d e no, no, no, no, you can't do that. You're contradicting it because the righteousness that proves my salvation is found in Christ. It's not found in what I do or don't do. If you are looking for righteousness inside of me, something I'm doing to prove that I'm justified, then I would have had to have been justified by an infused righteousness, but I wasn't. An imputed righteousness doesn't make me righteous in practice. It declares me to be righteous. It allows me to be accepted as being righteous, even though I am not righteous. So if your church does anything about, well, this is how you know you're saved. This is how you proved your say. This is where you

19:09look, how, how can you have assurance by doing if they even mention anything like that? I'm sorry, they don't believe in imputed righteousness. They believe in infused righteousness. I don't care how mad you get at me. That's just a logical fact. And I'm going to prove that. All right. So there's my thesis. Now if, and I'm going to say if justification by imputed righteousness is true, and that's what we, that's what us as non-catholics, this is what we claim that we're justified by imputed righteousness. If you don't believe that, then I'm sorry, you're just basically a Roman Catholic who doesn't want to submit to the Pope. Okay. You're, you're just, well, we're not Roman Catholics. Well, you are in your so tearyology. If you hold to any idea of an infused righteousness, but if justification by imputed righteousness is true, then here's what we have to decide. What logically follows from it. So if you would like on your paper, I've given you the London Baptist

20:16confession of faith. I've given you my thesis. Now here's what you have to simply do. Put justification by faith and then put what logically flows from it and then just start right, just follow me here and you can see everything that logically flows from the idea of justification by imputed righteousness. All right. Now listen, I do not care what theological tradition tells me. I don't care. I don't care what your church tells me. We are what logically follows from it because here's the idea. I can go to your church and teach justification by imputed righteousness. Everyone will sit there and say, amen. And then five seconds later, completely contradicted because they follow a theological system. And the theological system is like, hey, this is imputed righteousness. But this is how salvation works. And they don't care if it contradicts each other. I do. So we're going to follow it logically.

21:22I want to make this very clear. I am following it logically. I'm not following it according to any specific theological system or team. I don't care if it offends the reform people. I don't care if it offends the non reform people. I don't care. There has to be a logical understanding of the implications when you stand and tell everyone you are justified by a righteousness that is not your own. It is imputed. It is based on the passive and active obedience of Jesus Christ. Something logically follows from that. And if you don't follow that logic, then it's your problem. It's not my problem. However, if you try to get people to follow the logic of it, they end up leaving your church. Okay. But here you go. What is imputation? Now, I've already given you a definition from the London Baptist confession of faith. But now we're going to break it down. So let's start with what it is. Imputation is simply to impute, to reckon, to credit, to count, or account something to someone.

22:39So think of it this way. You are reckoned to be righteous. You're reckoned to be holy. Righteousness is credited to your account. It's counted to you as righteousness. You account something, you account something to someone. So righteousness has been accounted to you. Now, the crucial feature of imputation, now this is important. This is a crucial feature of imputation. It does not, oh man, I got to stress this. I want to start hating something. It does not describe any kind of moral transformation of said person. I am justified by an imputed righteousness. That does not in any way describe a moral transformation. In fact, it's the opposite because I'm being justified by an imputed righteousness. It is clearly denying any moral transformation of that

23:44person. A legal transformation has occurred because I'm now declared to be righteous, even though I am not. If you want some scriptures, Romans chapter four, Romans chapter four, I'm not going to go heavy here and and all the scriptures because I'm just going to try to take you through a logical progression here. But Romans chapter four, verse three, what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. He believed God and it was accounted unto him to righteousness. It's not because he's not accounted righteousness because, well, Abraham did this or Abraham did this or Abraham. No, he believed in it was accounted him to righteousness. All right. And if you look at Romans four, five, but to him, now listen, but to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

24:55Now, and I want you to see this. Okay. And I'm going to read, I'm going to read, I'm going to read Romans four, five again, because I want to stress one thing here. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, who does he justify the ungodly? Does he make the ungodly godly? No, he declares the ungodly to be godly and to be righteous by an imputed righteousness. So the person being justified is ungodly. Yet righteousness is accounted to him, accredited to him. So therefore, you have to maintain two realities. Okay. The person who's being justified is inherently ungodly. However, that person is now reckoned to be considered to be accepted as being righteous.

26:01That distinction is absolutely essential. Are you destroyed? Christian? Are you destroyed? This form of Christianity, you don't destroy Roman Catholicism because Roman Catholicism is going to know that the ungodly is infused with righteousness. So therefore, there's a moral transformation that they now have to, you know, work with. But no, no, no, the distinction is, hey, I'm ungodly, but I am declared to be righteous. Now I know what you're going to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're going to do something. You're going to do something. You're going to be a good person. You're going to, you're going to do, yeah, and you're going to make 5,000 excuses. But then you destroy imputed righteousness. The person who is justified is ungodly. However, righteousness is accredited to him. So the person is ungodly yet they're reckoned to be righteous at the exact same time.

27:10If God first makes the person inherently righteous, then declares him righteous because he actually possesses that righteousness, imputation no longer exists. I'm declared to be righteous, but notice it's imputed. Therefore, it's not doing anything inside of me. All right. So did you get the basic idea of what imputation is? All right. Number two, justification by imputed righteousness. Now we should be able to state it very simply. I know I've repeated this like 17 different ways, but you're going to know this by the time this episode is over. But time class lets out. You're going to know this. Okay. By the time the bell rings, you're going to know this. Okay. You're ready? God declares the ungodly sinner righteous, not because of any righteousness inherent in the

28:10sinner, but because a righteousness outside the sinner. Christ righteousness is reckoned to the sinner. Let me say it again. God declares the ungodly sinner righteous not because of any inherent righteousness within the sinner, but because of a righteousness that is outside of the sinner. And it is Christ's righteousness that is reckoned to the sinner. So there's the sinner, but he is reckoned to be as righteous as Christ is because it's Christ's righteousness accredited to his account. So he is perfect. Holy. There's no sin. However, he's still a sinner. Now I know you don't like that, and I know it goes against your evangelical leanings and the way your church teaches us, but your church literally undermines it. Most churches do better than Catholics and undermining the doctrine of imputed righteousness. So think of it this way. How, how dogmatic do I want to be? How,

29:19how, how I'm going to be pretty dogmatic. Justification is forensic. It's forensic. It means it is a it's a judgment. It's a declaration concerning the sinner standing before God. No, it's about my standing before God. So here's what happens. You're justified. So you're, you, a legal declaration has been made about you. And what's that legal declaration? Just holy righteous, godly, perfect. Why? Because Christ's righteousness has been given to you, has been declared, has been accredited to you. I say given to you, you're going to say, well, no, I'm righteous. No, no, no, you're not righteous. And not one thing changes in you. Not one thing. You're a sinner standing there. Boom. The wrath of God abides on you. Now you believe in Christ. Boom. The wrath of God no longer abides on you. And the perfect righteousness of Christ is accredited to your account. You're the same

30:23person you were before you believed. You're the same person after you believe, except for your legal standing before God has now totally been transformed. And now you're completely changed and you're standing before God. So what is my legal standing before God's judgment? My legal standing now is I am perfect. Holy and righteous. I'm obedient because all of the obedience of Christ has been imputed to my account. Now this does not have anything to do. Well, what kind of person am I becoming experientially? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Whatever you're becoming experientially has nothing to do with imputed righteousness. I cannot state it again. Imputed righteousness doesn't have anything to do with what you're becoming experientially because it's an imputed righteousness. So therefore it doesn't change you experientially.

31:36So justification does not equal moral transformation. Moral transformation has nothing to do with justification because justification is on the basis of a passive and active obedience of Christ being accredited to my account. And because it's an imputed righteousness, it doesn't lead to moral transformation. It leads to a legal change in my status before God. I go from condemned center where the wrath of God abides on me to declaring to be perfect. Holy not because of anything I've done, but by faith alone, apart from works. That's why people who are justified and saved can commit and do commit heinous sin. And they commit all kinds of sins whether heinous or not so heinous whether socially acceptable or not socially acceptable. That's why two thousand years of Christianity has

32:37proven one thing. Christian sin, Christians are hypocrites blah blah blah blah blah blah. The minute moral transformation becomes a part of the righteousness upon which God's verdict depends, you have destroyed the entire concept. The minute moral transformation becomes a part of the righteousness upon which God's verdict depends, you have destroyed the premise and you say, well, I don't do that. Yes, you do. Because how do you know you're saved? You're going to do A, B, C, D, E, E, E, well, well, well, well, well. Now you're saying that my my verdict, the verdict that God's going to declare on me has something to do with what I do. Now you'll say, no, no, it doesn't make you save it proves you're saved. Well, how can you prove salvation by imputed righteousness by what you do? What would be the proof of salvation on the basis of imputed righteousness? It would be the obedience of Christ, not the obedience of me. The minute it becomes based on my

33:42obedience, then you're talking about an infused righteousness and you've destroyed the the idea of imputed righteousness. All right. So we've talked about we we we we we we're following a logical progression here. I'm building the entire thing out. Okay. What is imputation? Justification by imputed righteousness. Now we come to here we got we'll just we'll stay at this way. Number three, behavior cannot constitute my justifying righteousness. Behavior cannot constitute my justifying righteousness. You can't look to behavior to have anything to do with the righteousness that justifies you. All right. If Christ righteousness is the righteousness by which I am justified. If you say, hey, what righteousness justifies you? It's Christ righteousness. Then this listen, obedience, repentance, improvement, spiritual

34:51disciplines, victory over a particular sin, church attendance, prayer, life, Bible reading, generosity, love, patience, purity, cannot constitute the righteousness upon which my justification rests. Now you'll say, no, you're justification and I know you're going to play the game. No, I'm not saying you're justification rests on it, but it proves you're justification. It can't prove my justification because my justification is based off an imputed righteousness. So here is the game I would play. All right. Here's the game I would play. I became a Christian and I again was greatly influenced by John MacArthur. He's the one who basically discipled me. I say that all the time, right? And when I started understanding the gospel according to Jesus, Lordship salvation, it became obvious. If you're truly saved, then Christ will be Lord of your life. If he's not Lord of all, he's not Lord at all. So your life is going to do this and this and this and this. And if you don't, it proves you're never saved, which by argument logically, if I don't do these

35:55things that I'm not saved. So I have to do these things in order to be saved. Now, but no, where all of selfish him becomes about, it's about what you're doing or not doing. Whether you say it makes you saved, it proves you're saved, you're saying the same thing. So here's what I would do. Man, I was a teenager and man, I was struggling with lots of kinds of sin. I don't have to go through all the my dirty laundry. I don't have to play, you know, Don Henley's song, dirty laundry. I don't, that's a famous song in music. Okay. All right. You from the Eagles, Don Henley, dirty laundry, okay. All right, you can go listen to it. It's actually about news media, but all right. But I don't have to air my dirty laundry. Let's just say there was a lot of sin of all different kinds, thought, words, deeds, actions, you know, sin. So I would be like, man, alive. So am I really saving my not saying and I had lots of struggles. I'm in fact, I got so discouraged and depressed and didn't understand I even considered the possibility that I had demonic, I was trying to blame Satan. You know, why can't I stop committing this sin? So I can't think, well, maybe I'm not safe. I don't know.

36:55So then this is what I decided to do. I know what I can do. We talked about one of the proofs of salvation is your love for the Bible, your love for God, Bible study, memorizing scripture. So I decided, you know what? Nobody. And I mean, no one is going to get anywhere close to how much I study, how much I read, how many sermons I listen to. Oh, you even come at me trying to question my salvation. I'll shove this so far down your throat. You'll back up because you're not going to be able to question me. Oh, I made a committed this thing. Oh, come at me, bro. Come at me. I've read more than you studied more than you. I've read more systematic theologies than you. I've listened to more sermons than you. I can run circles around you in God's Word and you're going to come to me. No, you're the one who's lost because I love God's Word more than you. And it became this way of almost overcompensating. I'm going to read and study more so that I then I don't have to feel

37:56so bad for these other sins because I've got to be saved because I read the Bible more than anybody. Study more than anybody. Well, everybody else is doing what they're doing. I'm at a at a library either at the Baptist University, the church of Christ University, the Methodist University with 15 stacks of books going through everyone reading everything about church history. I'm going to read, read, read, read, read, read, read. I'm going to memorize scripture. I'm going to do I'm going to listen to John MacArthur, Chuck Swindall. I'm going to listen to Christian radio. I'm going to listen to Christian music. So I did all of these things. But you know, I was doing a lot of these things to overcompensate from the fact that I was still a sinner because now I have some tangible proof that I'm saved. Look what I do. You know what I was never doing? I was never resting and looking to the finished work of Jesus Christ, which is where my entire justification is supposed to be found because I was listening to the garbage and the stupidity coming out of the world of Christianity, which was destroying the doctrine of imputation. And I didn't even realize because I was an idiot. And why was I an idiot? Because I went and bought Christian books.

39:04And I didn't catch on and I did not see that I was contradicting myself. I was like, no, yeah, of course I'm justified by imputed righteous. But if I don't do this and this and this and this, I'm proved that I'm not safe. No, you don't understand. That's not imputed righteousness. You are holding to an infused righteousness and therefore infused righteousness should produce change. And if there's no change, then there's no infused righteousness or at the very most, you've destroyed that infused righteousness. So therefore you're going to have to do something to get it back. So if Christ's righteousness is the righteousness by which I'm justified, then obedience, repentance, improvement, spiritual disciplines, victory of a particular sin, church attendance, prayer, live, Bible reading, none of it has anything to do. It cannot constitute the righteousness upon which my justification stands. The moment any of those things becomes the righteousness upon which the verdict depends. I want you to hear this again. The moment any of

40:08those things, obedience, repentance, improvement, all of those things, the moment any of those things, can't even just be one of them. The moment any of those things becomes the righteousness upon which the verdict depends. So how do you know you're saved? You do these things. Well now guess what? The verdict is depending upon righteous actions I do. Then you no longer are talking about imputed righteousness. So you just need to say you don't believe in imputed righteousness and you believe in impused righteousness and stop going to your little fake evangelical church or your little fake reformed church and just go join a Catholic church. I would have greater respect for you. I have no respect that you go to some church that comes that that starts coughing when they talk. I have no respect for that, but I have no respect when you go to your little fake church where you claim to believe in imputed righteousness and you deny it a hundred and fifty different ways. And then

41:10you act so smug or kind of a smug arrogance that you've got it all figured out and you can't even see the stinkin contradiction that I don't know is bigger than the grand canyon. And you try to point this out there. Oh, you're just easy. Believe in some. You're just believe in cheap grace. How about you stop throwing your little cliches at me and you think of the inconsistency that you are holding at least Catholics are consistent. There's an infuse righteousness. You must cooperate with it. Vinyal sins can destroy it. I'm sorry, mortal sins can destroy it. Vinyal sins can weaken it. They at least have a system. We walk around. We believe in imputed righteousness. However, if you don't do a B C D E F G, you're going to hell. Okay. All right. Well, then you don't believe in imputed righteousness. So how about you teach a false gospel? Oh, snap. You don't want me to go there now. Do

42:14you? And if you teach a false gospel, you are a nathema according to the book of Galatians. Now people say, well, it's not false. Gospels just a different understanding. That's diametrically opposed to the doctrine of imputed righteousness. So imputed righteousness has to be the false gospel or your version has to be the false gospel. But both of them can't be right. Because you're saying contradictory things. Maybe something you have to figure out. The moment any of those things becomes the righteousness upon which a verdict depends. You are no longer teaching imputed righteousness. I am not saying obedience, repentance, improvement, spiritual disciplines, victory over sin,

43:18church attendance, prayer, Bible reading, generosity, love, patience, or guilty, or purity is bad. I'm not saying that it's bad or you're somehow guilty of doing something wrong by caring about any of those things. That's a completely different question. All right. So far so good. All right. Let's go through these again. All right. Number one. Okay. We started with the London Baptist Confession of Faith. I gave you my basic thesis. All right. We're trying to follow a logical flow here. What actually flows from the doctrine of imputed righteousness. So I gave you what is imputation. I gave you I gave you another definition there so you can really get it down. I know it was a little bit repetitive there. But I I wanted to be repetitive so that you try to truly understand this. Number two, justification by imputed righteousness. What does that mean? The number three, we looked at that behavior cannot constitute my justifying righteousness. That brings us to number four.

44:29Here we go. This will cut number four. Judging someone's salvation. Suppose you observe someone who professes faith in Christ. We'll call them. I don't know. Who do we want to call them? We'll call them Ken. All right. Ken and Barbie. We'll call them Ken and Barbie. All right. There's Ken and Barbie pulling up in their her Malibu. Wait, what's the what's her car? She's got the Malibu Dreamhouse. What's the name of the car? I don't know. But Ken and Barbie are in her little nice pink Corvette or whatever it is. Okay. All right. They we we notice them. Okay. They go to your church. Ken and Barbie. They sit on the third pew to the right. Okay. And you start noticing that Ken and Barbie. scandalous. I see terrible behavior. Oh, what is Ken and Barbie demonstrating? Everyone kids don't sit next to Ken and Barbie. Okay. You know what they've

45:33demonstrated by their terrible behavior. They've simply demonstrated terrible behavior. That's it. Have they demonstrated the absence of imputed righteousness? Don't no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't I know what you're going to say? You're like, yes. They they they've demonstrated that. I don't have imputed righteousness. Ken is now in a relationship with Bob and and Barbie is in a relationship with Sue. No, no, no, they they're scandalous or ungodly. All they've demonstrated is horrible, terrible, ungodly behavior. They cannot and have not demonstrated the absence of imputed righteousness. Because imputed righteousness by definition isn't something you can observe in their behavior. Or behavior. Okay. I'm really stressing that. In other words, behavior cannot be used to prove

46:35whether someone has or doesn't have imputed righteousness because it's imputed. If I look at their behavior like Ken and Barbie, what do you do it? You're going to break up with Bob or Tom or whoever Ken is in a relationship with. I forgot. And Barbie Sue, Kim, whoever you're in a relationship with. These are bad things. You can't be doing that. But you know what? I can't say you don't have imputed righteousness because if I'm going to judge that behavior, then I'm enjudging infused righteousness because infused righteousness should lead to a change in behavior. But imputed righteousness doesn't lead to a change in behavior because it's a righteousness outside of yourself simply accredited to you. Oh, I know that makes people so mad. But it's okay. Look, if you want to reject imputed righteousness, I got no problem. Reject it and then go to a Catholic church. Just stop playing your little stupid games that you're Protestant. We're part of the Reformation.

47:36Oh, shut up. Okay. You denied the Reformation so many times it's not even funny. You can play. You can act all pious and wear the reformed church in town. Yet whatever, you're the fake Catholic church in town is what you are. Imputed righteousness by definition isn't something you can observe and someone's I'm going to I'm going to really stress it out to be annoying behavior. All right. If I say look at Ken and Barbie, scandalous. There's no righteousness there. Therefore, Ken and Barbie, they're going straight to hell. The minute you say that, you have now changed the definition of imputed righteousness immediately. You've already changed it because you

48:36actually what you've done. Now, forget you've not changed the definition of imputed righteousness. You have completely rejected it and you now are teaching if imputed righteousness is right, you're teaching a false gospel. The doctrine of imputed righteousness says justifying righteousness is not located inside a person. So if Ken and Barbie have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, no righteousness is inside of them. It's only been accredited to them. So if that righteousness is not inside of them, yet you now look for that righteousness,

49:37which you cannot see, how can then you conclude that you couldn't find it because you can't see imputed righteousness. Now, I am not saying, listen to me. I am not saying that scripture never talks about conduct or discipline, fellowship, false professions. The Bible talks about all of those things. All right. And we can deal with those in each particular context trying to determine what is being said and not being said and trying to be honest and fair. But you can't go to those passages and just wholesale deny imputed righteousness. Somehow the doctrine of imputed righteousness has to coincide with these other scriptures. And the game the church plays as a set of really struggle with you just say, well, simple imputed righteousness. But this, if you don't do this proves whether you're saved or not saved and never think about how can these actions prove whether someone is saved because action can't prove imputed righteousness. That's why Jesus told the people of

50:41Matthew 7 who said, Lord, Lord, didn't we do all of these things? Depart for me. I never knew you because doing can't prove what you are not. Conduct cannot logically become the righteousness that establishes justification while at the very same time claiming justification rest upon an alien imputed righteousness. So now that now we looked at Ken and Barbie, now I said to go looking at Ken and Barbie, go grab a mirror and look at a mirror right quick or turn on your phone camera, flip it around and look at yourself. What is this now? Have to say number five. What, what, how does this logic apply to you in your salvation? How does it apply to you? Ken and Barbie, they can, all right, you're okay,

51:44Ken and Barbie. Don't worry. I look, I know everyone in the church thinks you're going to burn in hell and that you're, you're all, you're horrible and they don't want you coming to the potluck and they don't want you coming back to church and they don't want you near the kids. So I'm sorry, you know, most likely you probably just don't go to church anymore because you know, you know, how Christians are. So you cool Ken and Barbie, okay? All right. So Ken and Barbie, we, we, we've already decided how to handle that. But what about you? Someone can say something like or ask something like, how do I know if I'm justified? Well, and most churches are going to give you a test. Usually it would be something like 10 points, sometimes more or something like that. It'll be something like, what do you love, God? Do you hate sin? Are you growing? Are you becoming holier? Do you desire scripture? Are you producing fruit? How is your life sufficiently changed? Do you preserve enough? Look carefully at what just happened when that kind of test is given. The person is being told to do what?

52:51Well, if you think they're being told contradictory things, on one hand, they're being told, don't look to yourself for the righteousness that justifies you looked at Christ. And then literally five minutes later, now look at yourself to determine whether you possess the justification that depends upon Christ's righteousness. And they will see these contradictory things at the very almost within five minutes apart, sometimes in the same sermon. Let me give them to you again. You'll be told, don't look to yourself for the righteousness that justifies you must look to Christ. And everybody in the church will say, Amen, praise God. And then five minutes later, the pastor will say, you need to look to yourself. You need to see, you need to examine yourself tonight to determine whether you possess the justification that depends upon the righteousness of Christ. And everybody in the church will be like, Amen, praise God. And it's like, and someone is

53:52sitting in the back going, that's it. I got to get out of this place. I'm going down to the local bar and hang out with some atheists because this place is insanity because they hold to logically contradictory concepts and their mind at the same time. And they don't see a problem. And when you try to point out a problem, they get mad at you. If my assurance ultimately depends upon discovering sufficient righteousness inside of myself, the practical assurance has now moved from the objectivity of Christ righteousness towards the quality of my own spiritual condition, which is totally subjective. I mean, how much evidence do I need? If perfect obedience is required, guess what? Nobody passes. If you say, well, how do you know

54:54you're saved? Obedience. Perfect obedience immediately. They're going to be, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't need perfect obedience to prove it. So then how far do you lower the standard? So then it becomes how little can I love to prove that I'm saved? How little repentance is required? How little fruit? How little one? Because you've already said it doesn't have to be perfect. Well, then how little can it be? And I still be getting still proved that I'm saved. How much love? How much repentance? How much fruit? How much improvement? How much victory over sin? How much perseverance? How much Bible reading? And so either you maintain the standard high and then almost nobody can be saved or you have to so lower the standard that what's the stupid point of even having this standard because anybody could pass it. And guess what? It will fluctuate because it's subjective. It's stupid. Does anyone

55:56know how to how to Christians not get called out for this ridiculous game? And does the Bible give you a percentage? So the test is hopelessly subjective. See, the Christian can always say, but wait, I mean, I'll put it this way, the Christian who takes this stuff serious will always be saying, but is my repentance genuine enough? I don't know if I really love Christ enough. Have I changed enough? Maybe my fruit proves I'm saved, but maybe I'm deceiving myself. Now the rest of the Christians will be like, I'll just shut up and get over it. It's not that big a deal. I know it's not that big a deal because nobody actually really cares. Okay. If if okay, I got a notification. I thought we got disconnected. It's from Kendall. All right. If assurance arises from examining your imperfect righteousness, then assurance encounters an imperfect and fluctuating answer. Right. I mean, if you're if you're assured, supposedly arises

57:03from your imperfect righteousness, that's what they literally want you to do. How do I find a assurance by looking to what you do and don't do? But everything I do and don't do is imperfect. I know, but that's what you have to look to to determine if you're saved. That makes no sense. Why would I look to my imperfect righteousness to prove that I'm saved when I can look to the perfect righteousness of Christ? That was imputed in my account. And if it was imputed in my account, I don't need your stupid test. In fact, give me your test. I'll take it to Jesus. He already passed it for me. So get out of my face. And then we number six, James two, just James two messes this all up. James two says, and James two verse 10, for whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point has become guilty of all. So if you're evaluating righteousness according to the law,

58:06if you evaluate it according to this, well, I'm better than I was before standard. It makes no sense. So think of it this way. Before we'll go back to Ken and Barbie. Hey, Ken and Barbie, come here. I know I kicked you out of the church because you're a bunch of garbage. And, but hey, come here. Hey, before your conversion, Ken and Barbie, did you violate God's law like in a hundred different ways? Well, yeah, we did. Now, today, it's been, it's been a number of years. Have you reduced that any? Well, we're not doing it a hundred different ways. We're probably down to about 40, 50 different ways. Oh, wow, that's tremendous improvement. Wow. Okay. You know, maybe we'll a little harsh on you. Okay, you're good, you're good, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you may be good for some ridiculous church standard. But before God's law, Ken and Barbie, you're not righteous. Sorry. Because you still are breaking at least one point of the law, you're guilty of all of it. So your improvement

59:08can't even be measured from a law-based perspective because you have to keep the law perfectly, because if you break one, you're guilty of all. And if you're still breaking at 40 different ways, then you've broken all of it. So it doesn't matter you went from one hundred to forty from a law perspective, you're still guilty of all. I don't care if the church pets you in the back and go, oh, yeah, you proved you're saved. From God's law, it doesn't prove you're saved. It just proves you're still on righteous. And if you'd point to that improvement as, hey, this proves that I'm saved, then you know what you're saying? You're not even asking anymore. Does this satisfy God's righteous demands? No, it only satisfies the church you're attending their righteous demands. And they can take their righteous demands and just get out of my stinkin' face. Because the righteous demands that matter are God's righteous demands and His demands is 1,000% daily demands perfection. All right, man.

1:00:15So now, oh man, we're at 60 minutes. Let's go to number seven. All right, I gotta go through these really quick. I'm trying to follow the logical conclusion. You're seeing all the problems. So let's arrive at that big word sanctification. Oh my goodness gracious. Okay, let's think this through. Now, if you truly hold to a doctrine of justification by imputed righteousness, this is where we're going to probably get ourselves in the middle of a bit of controversy. And evidently, this is where I'm going to get some pushback and I'm going to get some emails. All right, so here we go. If justification, if justification,

1:01:15rest entirely upon imputed righteousness, sanctification can contribute absolutely nothing to the righteousness to which I am justified. That sanctification cannot contribute 10%, 1%, or 0.0001%, okay? The minute it does, Christ's righteousness is no longer the sufficient entire basis of the verdict. The verdict has to be based purely on imputed righteousness. So just think about that. The basis of the verdict, whether I'm saved or not saved, is 1,000% on the basis of imputed righteousness. That's why the minute you say, well, if you're saved, you'll do this. No, you're making the basis of the verdict based on what I do. You've destroyed imputed righteousness. Sanctification can have nothing to do with justification. It does not

1:02:17complete justification. It cannot improve justification. It cannot make me more justified. It cannot apply any missing righteousness. It cannot strengthen the righteousness of Christ. It cannot transform Christ's righteousness from insufficient to sufficient. If I possess, or let me say this, not let's say that, if Christ's perfect righteousness, by imputation has been accredited to my account, there is literally no additional righteousness that sanctification can add. All right. So think of it this way. Sanctification, therefore, cannot become the basis of justification. If sanctification becomes the basis of justification, then your sanctification is flowing from the doctrine of an imputed, of an infused righteousness. But if you hold to an imputed righteousness, sanctification cannot prove that you were justified or not justified because sanctification

1:03:22has nothing to do with an imputed righteousness because imputed righteousness does not make you sanctified. And you can't prove, you can't prove justification on the basis of sanctification because justification is on the basis of an imputed righteousness. This is the very categories. Christians cannot seem to keep distinct in their minds. This leads us to number eight. Does imputation require progressive moral transformation? Does imputation require a progressive moral transformation? The answer is an absolute no. I know people are going to get mad at that. It just does. Imputation does not require progressive moral transformation because it's an imputed righteousness that's accredited in my account. There's no moral transformation that flows from it.

1:04:24Now, you may want to try to argue progressive sanctification from other biblical passages. That's fine. Examine those passages. But progressive sanctification does not follow logically from imputation. Christ's righteousness has been imputed to the host of the Theology Central Podcast. Therefore, and this is where logically it falls apart, it does not then, let me say it this way. Christ's righteousness has been imputed to the host of the Theology Central Podcast. Logically, that does not mean that the host of the Theology Central Podcast is going to become progressively morally superior and observable behavior. That is not, it doesn't logically follow that way. I know you think it does. That's because your church keeps shoving that garbage down your throat. You have to find another premise to reach that conclusion. Your progressive sanctification is going

1:05:29to have to be based on something other than an imputed righteousness. We're justified entirely by the righteousness of Christ. And then from the same pulpit, if you're truly justified, your life will demonstrate progressive righteousness. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, where did that come from? It isn't contained within the definition of imputation. All right. It's not. Now, what else, man, I put too many notes down. Let me just try to, I'll try to just break it down this way. All right. If justification by

1:06:43imputed righteousness is true, then when someone asks, where is the righteousness that makes me acceptable before God? It's not in you. Don't look to yourself. Don't look to your behavior. Don't look to your actions. You need to look to Jesus Christ. That's why Philippians 3.9, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. Romans 10, 3 through 4, for being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. This is the radical nature of this claim. In fact, it's a scandalous claim because most churches are, they, they're disgusted by it. They will accuse it of being something wrong

1:07:44and and and and they destroy it. I, this is the truth. I remain someone who I'm measured according to God's law. I'm a sinner. I deserve nothing but hell. Yet I am justified. Why? Because of an imputed righteousness. Therefore, I don't need to pretend I'm righteous. I don't have to pretend I can acknowledge my unrighteousness. Still knowing I'm justified by an imputed righteousness. I don't have to redefine righteousness as I'm, I'm improving. No. It doesn't require me to establish that I'm morally superior to that atheist over there. No, that atheist may be morally superior to me from a human standpoint. But I know this, that atheist is not morally superior to me in our legal standing before God because then my legal standing before God. I'm declared to be perfect.

1:08:47My sin is all mine. My failure is all mine. My imperfection is all mine. So I don't excuse it. I don't justify it. I acknowledge it and I confess it. The righteousness by which I stand before God is not mine. It is all Christ and I praise him for it. And if we really believe that, if we really believe that, then how about rather than merely placing imputed righteousness in your statement of faith, maybe you should be, you should, maybe you should be willing to then follow that doctrine to where its logical implications take you. Even if those implications make everyone in church uncomfortable, it questions your entire system

1:09:53of theology. It completely causes problems with your doctrine of assurance, perseverance, sanctification, fruit, and judging the salvation of other people. Now, I know you're not going to do that. And if you don't do that, you risk affirming imputation in one sentence and functionally returning to infused righteousness in the very next. And you do it week after week, month after month, because I've listened to a plenty of sermons to hear this happen all the time. So I will end with this question. I had to skip a whole bunch of my notes. I'm going to ask you, I'm going to make the question for you. It's for all of us, but I want to make this very pointed to you. I need you to just really think right now in this moment, do you? You, yeah, I'm pointing to you. Do you actually believe in imputed righteousness? Come on. I want you to be honest. Do you actually believe in imputed righteousness?

1:10:55Or do you simply confess imputed righteousness? But functionally, you return to an infused righteousness when you discuss assurance, evidence, fruit, and sanctification. Do you actually believe in imputed righteousness? Or do you confess imputed righteousness in your doctrine? But then you functionally return to some kind of infused righteousness when you talk about assurance, evidence, fruit, and sanctification. And then here is the big question to end. What does your church actually believe? No, no, no, no, don't send me the website to their doctrinal statement because I will ignore their doctrinal statement. I'll listen to their sermons. And most likely, I can look to see which

1:11:55passages of scripture they're teaching. It will not take me very long to find some of those passages of scripture. Look for a sermon on those passages of scripture and go, well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, a complete denial of justification by imputed righteousness. And then at that point, you have to ask, are we preaching a false gospel? And if your church is preaching a false gospel, well, I guess it's good you're giving them 10% of your income. Ouch. All right. Let me do this. I do apologize. I had to mute the mic a couple of times to cough. So I do hate that. I know there's like a, oh, I hate when I have to do that, but sometimes I do. All right. So let me say this. I want to think the person in Maine who's listening. I want to think the person in New York, my daughter is in New York right now, North Carolina, South Carolina,

1:13:03Texas, and hey, Nova Scotia, man, where's the rest of your Canadians, man? Where are they? The entire map of Canada, I'm looking at the entire map and there's just this one little, maybe part of blue on the map. It's that little, maybe part of blue. And that's Nova Scotia. The rest of the rest, what's going on in Canada today? What? Hey, look, don't be mad at me because of what my government is doing. Okay. I think it's ridiculous. Okay. Canadians are now marching out somewhere in Canada. They're like, down with theology central podcast. He's an American. No, no, no, no, no. I'm a Christian. All right. Thanks for listening. Everyone have a great day. God bless.