The Miracle of Divine Accounting

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan replied, “The LORD has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.”
2 Samuel 12:13-14

Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him . . . .
Psalm 32:1-2

In this study we want to examine God’s way of salvation through the substitutionary death of Christ. First, I want to give an illustration that will help us understand the miracle of divine accounting that removes our sins from our account and credits us with the alien righteousness of Christ.

I am sure that many of us have credit cards. Suppose you have a credit card debt of $50,000, at an interest rate of about twenty-five percent or more, and you are not able to make even the required minimum payment. Then one day you get a statement from the card company, saying, “All your debts are paid and you now have an excess amount of $1 million in your account.” I am sure that if that happened you would not believe it. You would probably shrug it off, saying it had to be a computer error. But if it were true that someone had paid your debt and deposited an additional $1 million in your account for your use, I am sure you would be ecstatic and declare that you had just experienced a real miracle.

The salvation we have in Jesus Christ is a real accounting miracle. The Greek word used in reference to this is logizomai, which means “to impute, to put into the account of another, to credit someone with.” The word is used about forty times in the New Testament, thirty-four of which by the apostle Paul. Paul uses an accounting term to describe the salvation process because we all have an account with God. The problem is, we have no assets but only liabilities in our account. This should not surprise us. The Bible teaches that we are sinners in Adam who daily commit sin against the holy God. The Bible tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and that every inclination of the thoughts of man’s heart is only evil continually. It tells us our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and that we are conceived and born in sin. That is why we need the miracle of divine accounting.

The Deplorable State of Man

When we look at our account with God, we see that we are totally bankrupt-it is all sin and no righteousness. In Romans 5 Paul argues that sin brought about condemnation, which brings about eternal death. This is the condition of every human being. Because God is holy and just, he must punish the wicked, so we cannot tell God not to count our sin against us. In fact, God tells us in Exodus 23:7, “I will not justify the guilty,” and in Proverbs 17:15, we read, “Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent-the Lord detests them both.” God must condemn the guilty. Additionally, in Psalm 143:2 the psalmist says, “No one living is righteous in your presence,” and in Leviticus 17:5 we find this just statement: “A sinner must bear his iniquity.” We must suffer the consequences for our sins. In Romans 4:5, however, we read this very bold and shocking statement of the apostle Paul: “However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.” Notice the phrase, “God who justifies the wicked.” How can the Bible tell us in one place that God condemns the wicked and yet affirm in another place that God justifies the wicked? Does the Bible contradict itself? Is it to be trusted? How can a holy God make both of these propositional revelations that seem to oppose each other?

The answer is that God cannot do both of these things-unless, of course, he has some other way of punishing the wicked party. Only if God has a plan to punish the sin of the wicked in the person of a suitable substitute can he justify the wicked.

There is such a eternal, divine plan of salvation, revealed in the Holy Scriptures, called the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is holy and must punish the wicked, but God is love and so he does not want to punish the wicked. God sent his Son to take our punishment upon himself, and it is through his substitutionary death that we are saved.

The Accounting Miracle of Non-Imputation

The first point we want to examine is this accounting miracle of non-imputation, which means that God does not count our sins against us. David prayed in Psalm 32:2, “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not account against him.”

The truth is, we all have sinned and are guilty in God’s sight. There is no argument about it. Yet, in a miracle of accounting performed by God, all our liabilities are somehow taken out of our account and we are no longer responsible for them. That is what the prophet Nathan was declaring when he told King David, “The Lord has taken away your sin.” All our liabilities are taken out of our account and put into the account of another. When God does this, we have zero liability before God.

The Scapegoat

We want to examine some scriptures that illustrate how this miracle of non-imputation works. First, in Leviticus 16 we find the story of the scapegoat. In ancient Israel on the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month, two goats were chosen and brought to the priest. The high priest killed the first goat as a sin offering and sprinkled its blood upon the mercy seat inside the Most Holy Place. But the other goat was brought out, and in Leviticus 16:20-21 we read what would happen: “When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites-all their sins-and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task.”

The symbolism here is that all our sins, guilt, condemnation, and judgment are brought out and put onto the live goat, who carries everything away. When this happens, our sin is not counted against us both now and forever.

The sin-bearing scapegoat is a type foreshadowing Jesus Christ. That is why John the Baptist said of Jesus when he saw him, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” That is why God told David through Nathan, “I have taken away your sins.” That is why David could say, “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him.”

The Example of Shimei

We find another example of this miracle of divine non-imputation of sin in the life of Shimei. In 2 Samuel 16 we read about Shimei, a man who didn’t really care for David. During Absalom’s rebellion, David fled Jerusalem. As David, the leader of God’s people went along, barefooted and humiliated, Shimei came out and began to curse him and pelt him with stones, even though Exodus 22:28 tells us it was a capital offense to curse the leader of God’s people. After Absalom was killed, King David was restored to the throne and returned to Jerusalem. I am sure Shimei thought that he would be killed for cursing David.

As David traveled back to Jerusalem, Shimei came out to greet him. He prayed this prayer, which we read in 2 Samuel 19:19: “May my lord not impute iniquity to me.'” The word used in Hebrew means “to impute.” Shimei was telling David, “Yes, I have sinned. There is no question about it. I deserve to be condemned and killed; I understand that also. But please, do not put my sin into my account and hold it against me. Take it away.” The Bible tells us David did show mercy to Shimei and granted him temporary relief from the punishment he deserved.

The Example of Joshua

In Zechariah 3 we read about a high priest named Joshua who, along with others, was brought out from Babylon to Jerusalem. Beginning in verse 1 Zechariah says, “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?'”

In verse 3 we read, “Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes.” Joshua was the high priest, but he was dressed in filthy clothes, which stand for sin. The problem is, if Joshua the high priest was full of sin, he could not make atonement for anyone else’s sin. The salvation of God’s people was in jeopardy because of the high priest’s sinful condition.

But God intervened and dealt with Joshua’s sin. In verse 4 we read, “The angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Take off his filthy clothes.'” This angel is the second person of the Trinity. “Then he said to Joshua, ‘See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.'” When God removed Joshua’s filthy clothes, he was removing Joshua’s sin. Once Joshua was clothed in clean garments, his sin could no longer be counted against him. This is an illustration of the miracle of divine non-imputation.

Later on in the book of Zechariah we are introduced to one called the Branch, who is the Messiah. In Zechariah 12:10 we read that this Messiah was pierced, and in Zechariah 13:1 we are told that because of his being pierced, a fountain was opened up: “On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.” Here again we see the idea of non-imputation of sin, of God removing the sins of his people.

Examples from the New Testament

We find another example of non-imputation in the New Testament epistle Paul wrote to Philemon concerning the slave Onesimus. Onesimus ran away from Philemon, but in the course of time he came under Paul’s ministry in Rome and became a child of God. Paul wrote this letter to Philemon to encourage him to receive Onesimus back, and in verse 18 we find some interesting language: “If he did anything wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me,” or “put it into my account.” Put it into my account! “Charge it to me! I will pay it,” in other words. This is non-imputation-not accounting what is due us to our account but putting it into the account of another. This is what Christianity is all about.

In 2 Corinthians 5 we find another description of this idea of non-imputation of sin. By nature God and man are enemies, God being the offended party and man the offending party. But God has taken initiative to bring about reconciliation between himself and man through his Son Jesus Christ, so in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 Paul writes, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world of sinners to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” This is the miracle of divine accounting.

The Necessity of Accounting Sin

The second point we must consider is that even though the Bible teaches that man’s sins are not counted against him, it also teaches that there must be some accounting for sin because God is just; instead of closing his eyes to sin, he must judge it. But rather than putting our sin into our account, in God’s plan of salvation our sin is put into someone else’s account. God has appointed a mediator between himself and man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He who is very God and very man came between God and man as our representative and mediator. We read about this in John 1:1, 14, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” God became flesh so that our sin could be put upon him and he could be judged instead of us. Now man can be reconciled with God and have peace with God and be saved. It was sin that separated us from God, and so sin must be taken care of before there can be fellowship between God and man. God himself took our sin and put it in the account of another, who is God/man, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Perfect Sin Bearer

This God/man, the Bible says, was sinless. In John 8:46 Jesus Christ asked, “Who can convict me of sin?” The answer is, “No one.” Jesus alone perfectly obeyed the heavenly Father. He alone perfectly kept God’s law and thus honored him.

Throughout the Scriptures we find testimonies to Christ’s sinlessness. Judas confessed that he had betrayed innocent blood, thus confirming that Jesus Christ was sinless. Pilate said that Jesus Christ was innocent. In 1 Peter 2:22-24 we read that Jesus Christ committed no sin, yet he bore our sins. In Hebrews 4:15 we read, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin.” In Hebrews 7:26 we read, “Such a high priest meets our need-one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.” You see, Joshua was not a perfect high priest because he was a sinner. Remember his filthy clothes? Aaron also was not a perfect high priest because he was also a sinner. For us to be saved completely, we must have a high priest who is after the order of Melchizedek, one who is both God and man and sinless.

In 2 Corinthians 5:21 we read, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” In other words, he who knew no sin, the Lord Jesus Christ, was made sin, meaning not a sinner or a sin offering, but a sin-bearer. God took the initiative. He made his own Son, who knew no sin, to be our sin-bearer. In verse 19 Paul wrote that God was “not counting men’s sins against them,” and now in verse 21 we find out how this occurred: Our sin is accounted against another-against him who knew no sin, Jesus Christ, who never sinned. Jesus was intrinsically and extrinsically impeccable, and yet our sin was put into his account, and he became the bearer of our sin. What was in our account came out and now was put into his account. This is God’s own way of accomplishing our salvation.

Isaiah 53 is a very important passage which speaks about this idea of substitution, that our sin was not counted against us, but against another, who is the second Adam, the God/man Jesus Christ, our mediator and representative. (PGM) In Isaiah 53:6 we read, “And the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Our iniquity was taken from our ledger and put into the ledger of Christ. God did it to be just, because sin must be punished.

When the Lord laid on him our iniquity, did Jesus bear it, or did he say, “No, I don’t want to carry it”? Isaiah 53:12 tells us, “For he bore the sin of many.” When the Lord laid our sin upon his Son, the Son did accept it and bore it. Paul spoke of this sacrificial love of Christ in Ephesians 5:25, when he said, “Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.”

The Lord laid our iniquity upon his Son, who freely bore it, and in Isaiah 53:5 we read what some of that bearing of sin entailed: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” In verse 10 we also read, “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer.”

Sin brings condemnation, which, in turns, brings death.This is what Paul is speaking of in Romans 3 and this is what he gloried in. Oh, that we can study this and learn some theology from it so that we can put our faith in Jesus Christ and be saved! In Romans 3:25-26 we read, “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement”-that is, Jesus Christ- “through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice. . . .” and verse 26, “He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies him who believes in Jesus Christ.”

God condemns the wicked and God justifies the wicked. Both propositions are true. But we must put in between, “Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification.” That is the miracle of divine accounting.

The Miracle of Double Imputation

Not only are our sin, guilt, and punishment taken away from us and put on to the account of another who was punished in our place, but another transaction took place as well. There is a double accounting miracle. Not only are our sins put into the account of Jesus, and he received our punishment, but his perfect righteousness-his God/man righteousness-is put into our account. This is the miracle of double imputation.

How does double imputation work? Imagine an accounting ledger with a column for assets and one for liabilities. How much does man in Adam have in his asset column? Nothing. How much does he have in his liability column? Everything. Suppose Jesus Christ also has a ledger. How much is in his asset column? Everything. How much in his liability column? Nothing. Jesus Christ is all asset and zero liability.

What about believers in Jesus Christ? (PBM) Because of the miracle of double imputation, the man who is in Christ has the full righteousness of Christ in his asset column and no liabilities. What happens is that our liabilities are taken out and put in the account of Christ, and the righteousness of Christ is put in our account. The moment we put our trust in Jesus Christ, all our sins, or liabilities, are removed. But not only that, all of Christ’s assets, which is the righteousness of Christ, is put into our account. When this happens, we are able to stand before God, justified, with zero liability and in all righteousness.

Clothed in the Perfect Righteousness of Christ

This is the glorious gospel presented 2 Corinthians 5:21. From the Greek text it is translated, “Him who knew no sin God made sin in order that we may become the righteousness of God in him.” As Christians, we are in Christ; thus, when we stand before God, we have absolutely no sin, no guilt, no judgment, and no condemnation. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:1, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Not only that, we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ. As we read in Zechariah 3:3-4, “Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Take off his filthy clothes.’ Then he said to Joshua, ‘See, I have taken away your sin. . . .'” The Messiah, the Branch, the only mediator, God/man, Jesus Christ, who knew no sin, took away Joshua’s sin. Additionally, the angel told Joshua, “‘I will put rich garments on you.’ Then I said, ‘Put a clean turban on his head.’ So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him while the angel of the Lord stood by.” Not only do we have no sin, but we are clothed with the glorious, clean, rich garment of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is called God-righteousness, unimpeachable righteousness.

To impute sin is to lay our sin to the charge of Jesus Christ and to treat him accordingly. God did this, punishing his Son by crucifying him in our place. But to impute righteousness is to put an alien righteousness like a rich garment, upon us and for God to treat us now and forever as righteous. This is what the double miracle of divine accounting is. When these things happen, we can make this bold statement that we have become not righteous before God, but the righteousness of God. In other words, the moment we put our trust in Jesus Christ alone and commit our lives to him, God regards us as having not sinned at all and full of God’s righteousness.

Now, we have a problem here. Some people will say, “But I don’t feel clean. I sin and do these other things.” If you say that, you are not understanding what justification means. The doctrine of justification does not mean that you are made morally perfect when you trust in Jesus Christ. That is the doctrine of sanctification. Sanctification means that God will develop moral perfection in you progressively as the Holy Spirit works in you. You will sin less and less, and will become more and more holy until one day God himself will morally perfect you. Sanctification is a entirely different work of God from justification, but it begins at the same time as justification. Justification means that you are declared to be just, even when sin still dwells in your mortal body. This is called being simul iustus et peccator– simultaneously justified yet a sinner.

The more we love God, the more we begin to consider ourselves as chief of sinners with Paul. However, when God looks upon us, he sees us not with our sin and guilt but clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ. In other words, our salvation does not depend on our moral righteousness, but on Christ’s righteousness, his alien righteousness that is put into our account. That is what we should be counting on. When we trust in Christ, God declares us righteous, meaning we now stand in a right relationship to God, his law, and his justice. A change has taken place in God’s judicial relationship to us. Before, we stood condemned before him; now we stand justified. Before, we faced a judge; now we face a heavenly Father. This change has come on the basis of Christ’s sacrifice of himself in behalf of us.

How can this be so? How can God look upon us with favor and treat us as though we never sinned and are full of righteousness? It can be true because God himself constitutes us righteous. We know that God’s judgment is always according to truth and he cannot look upon a guilty, miserable nothing and say, ‘You are justified,” if it were not true. So before God declares us righteous, he must constitute us to be righteous.

We find this great truth revealed to us in Romans 5:19, and if you are a Christian, you will glory in it. Romans 5:19 tells us, “For just as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made [or constituted] sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made [or constituted] righteous.” How did God constitute us righteous? By the miracle of double imputation. We are all unrighteousness, but that is all taken away, and we are now all righteousness. God imputes his Son’s righteousness to us, constitutes us righteous, and then declares us righteous. This is the doctrine of justification.

Notice one more thing: Who is declaring us righteous? Is it Pastor, or your husband or wife, or the Supreme Court? No, God himself, the highest authority in the universe, declares us righteous when he himself constitutes us righteous. He does this by putting our sin into the account of Christ and putting the perfect righteousness of Christ into our account. Our mediator/representative Jesus Christ, God/man, lived a perfectly obedient life for us. He bore our sins and was punished in our place, thus accomplishing our redemption and obtaining for us forgiveness of sin and righteousness. This is what double imputation is all about, and that is why we can receive complete forgiveness and total righteousness.

“Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him,” we read in Psalm 32:2. Paul puts it a more positively in Romans 4:6: “David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits [or imputes] righteousness apart from works.” We must understand two things here: First, God does not impute iniquity but righteousness. Blessed is that man to whom God does not impute his iniquity but to whom God imputes righteousness. Oh, the joy of such a person, the happiness of such a person! But, second, if this is true, then cursed is the man to whom God does not impute righteousness but iniquity.

How to Experience God’s Salvation

What about you? Have you experienced this miracle of double accounting? Remember the story Jesus told of a wedding feast. When the owner came to the feast, he saw a large group of people, but one man did not have wedding clothes. What happened to this man? He was kicked out of the wedding feast and perished.

Are you one like the man without wedding clothes? Are you lacking the rich garment of Christ’s righteousness? Have you not experienced the forgiveness of all your sins? If so, let me assure you, there is one way to come into this blessed condition of being justified before God and clothed in Christ’s righteousness. What is it? Do you need to go to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices, or do some kind of good work? No. That would be a righteousness by works, but God’s salvation is a righteousness apart from works. What, then, is the basis by which God gives us this righteousness and forgiveness of sins? Faith. We are saved by grace through faith. God is just and the justifier of everyone who believes in Jesus.

What does it mean to believe in Jesus? Total abandonment of ourselves and our merit and total resting and relying upon another, the Lord Jesus Christ. It means total surrender to him and total living for him. It means total commitment of ourselves to him, now and forever, without any argument. Yes, we are all unrighteousness, but he will make us all righteousness. He will forgive all our sins, but there is only one condition: total surrender and commitment to Jesus Christ now and forever. As beggars, we can do only one thing: lift up our wretched hands and receive the gift that is coming to us. All other work is done by another, Jesus Christ.

Have you surrendered your life to Christ and believed on him alone for your salvation? If you haven’t, you are arrogant and a despiser of Jesus Christ. There is no greater sin in the universe than unbelief in Jesus Christ. A person who refuses to trust in Christ is not treating him as very God and very man and rejecting him as the only mediator between God and man. But not only that, such a person is cursed. There is coming a day when God will count our sins against us unless we trust in Jesus Christ. The principle that every sinner must bear his iniquity will come into play on the last day. What is the price for unbelief and rejection of Jesus Christ? Eternal judgment. Jesus Christ himself said so.

But there is a way out of this: Total surrender to Jesus Christ. Come to him and say, “I am all unrighteousness. I am all sin. I am born in sin, conceived in sin, I practice sin, I am guilty. I am condemned. But I just heard that you perform a miracle. O God, I want this miracle of double imputation. Lord, I believe your plan of salvation. I believe in your Son, Jesus Christ, the only mediator, upon whom you laid my sin. He bore it and was punished. He was pierced for my transgressions and by his wounds I am healed. I believe in him and trust in him, so that from now and forever you will look upon me as having no liability and, at the same time, filled with the righteousness of God. And may your Holy Spirit shall come inside me and progressively make me morally perfect until I am glorified and able to stand before you on the last day.”

May God help us to take advantage of this bargain. Let me tell you, there is no bargain like this. As Paul says, “He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” May God enable us to surrender ourselves to the only Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to completely trust in him, not in ourselves, and serve him all the days of our lives. Amen.