that is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” [romans 4:22]
in college, i took several accounting classes. as primer on accounting, what is important is that there is balance in the ledger, and depending on the type of transaction, there are ‘credits’ and ‘debits’ –when there is a credit, there must be a corresponding debit, and vice-versa, this is the foundation of double-entry accounting–the equation must always be satisfied.
why am i talking to you (boooring) about accounting?
because this term: “counted to him as righteousness” that appears in (genesis 15:6 hebrew: ḥāšaḇ) and romans 4:22 (greek: logizomai) are the terms ‘reckoned’, ‘imputed’ or ‘put to account’ and and are accounting terms.
this reckoning or imputation is not a wage (greek: misthos) that was used in romans 4:4, but was something that was given freely has a gift of grace. there is a real debt that we owe because of our sin, and we could work and work and work to repay it–it is if we opened up a credit card statement and saw ‘$ ∞’ in the “amount owed” box. seeing that kind of a number would drive us to despair.
Jesus illustrated this in the parable of the unforgiving servant in matthew 18:21-35: (warning, more accounting ahead)
the first servant owed ten thousand talents. a talent equals 6,000 denarii and a denarii is equal to a day’s wage. by my math, owing 10,000 talents would be like owing 13 billion dollars, and if you owed that kind of money, you might as well be looking at an infinite number.
the master forgave, reckoned, imputed the 13 billion dollars to the debtors account–but he imputed it at great personal loss to himself.
God does the same for us–the ledger says that we owe an infinite debt, and yet–if we put our faith in Jesus Christ, he counts Christ’s righteousness to our account, at great personal loss–the death of his only begotten Son on the cross.
that brings us to the lyrics of a Christmas song. one of my favorite songs is wesley’s 1744 “come thou long expected Jesus” one of the verses reads:
born thy people to deliver,
born a child and yet a King,
born to reign in us forever,
now thy gracious kingdom bring.
by thine own eternal spirit
rule in all our hearts alone;
by thine all sufficient merit,
raise us to thy glorious throne.
do you see the accounting? by whose work? by whose earning? by whose merit? not our own, but by the merit of Jesus Christ!
take some time to sit in the presence listen to this song and bask in the glory of Christ’s sacrifice for your sin–believe in him and his merit and righteousness will be counted to you–and we will one day be raised before his glorious throne! Lord, come!
~ce