Christ's righteousness is imputed to us
King David and the Apostle Paul described in detail what imputed righteousness is. Their description is the clearest presentation of imputed righteousness in the Scripture. According to these inspired writings, imputed righteousness consists in being considered righteous, having your transgressions forgiven, having your sins covered, and as not having your iniquities imputed or accounted against you (Ps. 31:1-2; Rom. 4:7-8). In other words, to be imputed righteous is when God pardons our crimes, not giving us the governmental treatment that we deserve, but rather treating us as if we were righteous, that is, giving us the treatment of law abiding citizens. God considers us righteous by treating us as righteous.
The New Testament word “logizomai” is translated as “think” (2 Cor. 3:5; 10:2; 10:7; 10:11; 12:6; Phi. 4:8), as “imputed” (Rom. 4:11; 4:22-24; Jam. 2:23), as “counted” (Rom. 2:26; 4:3; 4:5; 9:8), as “reckoned” (Lk. 22:37; Rom. 4:4; 4:9-10), as “accounted” (Rom. 8:36; Gal. 3:6), as “reckon” (Rom. 6:11; 8:18), as “suppose” (2 Cor. 11:5; 1 Pet. 5:12), as “account” (1 Cor. 4:1), as “accounting” (Heb. 11:19), as “conclude” (Rom. 3:28), as “count” (Phi. 3:13), as “esteemeth” (Rom. 14:14), as “impute” (Rom. 4:8), as “imputeth” (Rom. 4:6), as “imputing” (2 Cor. 5:19), as “laid” (2 Tim. 4:16), as “numbered” (Mk. 15:28), as “reasoned” (Mk. 11:31), as “thinkest” (Rom. 2:3), as “thinketh” (1 Cor. 13:5), and as “thought” (1 Cor. 13:11). When an individual is imputed righteous, it simply means that their sins are forgiven and they are thought of as righteous, esteemed as righteous, counted as righteous, reckoned as righteous, or considered as righteous. When a person is imputed as righteous they are treated as if they were righteous, treated as if they were never unrighteous, being treated as law abiding citizens.
The Old Testament equivalent word is “chashab” and it is translated as “counted” (Gen. 15:5-6; 31:15; Lev. 25:31; Num. 18:30; Jos. 13:3; Neh. 13:13; Job 18:3; 41:29; Ps. 44:22; 88:4; 106:31; Prov. 17:28; 27:14; Isa. 5:28; 40:15; 20:17; Hos. 8:12), as “thought” (Gen. 38:15; 50:20; 1Sam. 1:13; 18:25; 2 Sam. 14:13; Neh. 6:2; Ps. 73:16; 119:59; Jer. 18:8; Mal. 3:16), as “think” (Neh. 6:6; Job 41:32; Isa. 10:7; Jer. 23:27; 29:11; Eze. 38:10), as “accounted” (Deut. 2:10-11; 2:20; 1 Kin. 10:21; 2 Chro. 9:20; Isa. 2:22), as “imagine” (Job 6:26; Ps. 140:2; Hos. 7:15; Zec. 7:9-10), as “esteemed” (Isa. 29:16-17; Isa. 53:3; Lam. 4:2), as “reckoned” (Num. 18:27; 23:9; 2 Sam. 4:2; 2 Kin. 12:15), as “count” (Lev. 25:27; 25:52; Job 19:15), as “reckon” (Lev. 25:50; 27:18; 27:23), as “counteth” (Job 19:11; 33:10), as “imagined” (Ps. 10:2; Ps. 21:11), as “imputed” (Lev. 7:18; 17:4), as “account” (Ps. 144:3), as “considered” (Ps. 77:5), as “esteem” (Isa. 53:4), as “esteemeth” (Job 41:27), as “imagineth” (Nah. 1:11), as “impute” (2 Sam. 19:19), as “imputeth” (Ps. 32:2), as “reckoning” (2 Kin. 22:7), as “regard” (Isa. 13:17), as “regardeth” (Isa. 33:8), as “thinkest” (Job 35:2), and as “thinketh” (Psa. 40:17). To be imputed righteous is to be counted as righteous, to be thought of as righteous, to be esteemed as righteous, to be reckoned as righteous, to be considered as righteous, to be regarded as righteous, etc.
The word “imputed” does not mean transferred. It is a theological error to say that “the righteousness of Christ is transferred to our account”. If imputed means transferred, when God imputed an uncircumcised individual as circumcised (Rom. 2:26), it means that someone else’s circumcision is transferred to them! The obvious meaning is that they are simply considered circumcised, reckoned as circumcised, or thought of as circumcised, but not that someone else loses their circumcision so that it could be transferred to another. Some have represented the doctrine of the imputed righteousness “of Christ” as the Gospel itself. But if this is the Gospel, neither Jesus nor the Apostles ever preached it! The Scriptures abundantly talk about imputed righteousness, but it never talks about the imputed righteousness “of Christ”. Rather, the truth is that we have imputed righteousness through Christ!
Some have supposed that when God looks upon a Christian who is sinning that God doesn’t see the Christian sinning but “see’s the righteousness of Christ” instead. But God clearly saw the bad works of the Christians in Revelations (Rev 2:2, 2:9; 2:13; 2:19; 3:1; 3:8; 3:15), not “the righteousness of Christ”. Imputed righteousness is not some scheme that fools or blinds God so that He no longer knows reality as it is, or no longer see’s individuals as they are. That would mean God is no longer omniscient. Whenever anyone is in sin, our omniscient God sees it clearly and perfectly (Prov. 15:3; Eze. 8:12; 9:9; Jer. 32:19; Mal. 2:17; Heb. 4:13).
Imputed righteousness is a gift of God (Rom. 5:17), it comes from God (Isa. 54:17; 2 Cor. 5:21) by His grace and mercy, not earned or deserved by anything that we have done. It is “the righteousness of God” as opposed to the righteousness of man, since it comes from God and not from man. It is a gift from God, through Christ, to man. Christ is our righteousness (Jer. 23:6; 1 Cor. 1:30) because it is only through Him, what He did for us on the cross, that God is able to treat us as if we were righteous, treating us as if we were never unrighteous. Imputed righteousness is not the transfer of Christ’s righteousness, neither is it a scheme that blinds God the Father so that He does not see our true condition, but it is rather the same thing as forgiveness and justification, it is when God set’s aside the punishment that we deserve for our unrighteousness and treats us as if we had always been righteous, when God reckons or considers us as righteous, because Christ shed His blood for our sins.
"It is nowhere stated in Scripture that Christ's personal righteousness is imputed to us. Not a text can be found which contains any enunciation of the doctrine." [b]John Welsey
“This is, if I understand it, the true doctrine of ‘imputation;’ not that there is any transfer of moral character from us to the Redeemer, or from him to us, and not that God literally ‘reckons’ or imputes our sins to him as his, or his righteousness to us as ours, but that his work may be estimated as performed in the place and on the account of sinful men, and that in virtue of that we may be regarded and treated as if it had been performed by ourselves.” [b]Albert Barnes
“God imputeth righteousness. Whom God treats as righteous... forgiven, and whose sins are not charged on him, but who is freed from the punishment due to his sins. Being thus pardoned, he is treated as a righteous man. And it is evidently in this sense that the apostle uses the expression ‘imputed righteousness’ i.e. he does not imputed, or charge on the man his sins; he reckons and treats him as a pardoned and righteous man.” [b]Albert Barnes
“This passage [Rom. 4:5-8] deserves special attention, as it explains all those text that seem to favor, and have been construed to support the theory of the imputation of Christ’s active and passive righteousness to the sinner. Here it is manifest that justification, imputation of righteousness, forgiving iniquities, covering sins, and the non-imputation of sin, are phrases substantially of the same import, and decide positively that the Scripture view of the great doctrine under consideration, is an actual deliverance from the guilt and penalty of sin: from which it follows, that the phrases so often occurring in the writings of Paul – the righteousness of God and of Christ – must mean God’s righteous method of justifying the ungodly, through the atonement and by the instrumentality of faith – a method that upholds the rectitude of the Divine character, at the same time that it offers a full and free pardon to the sinner.” [b]Asbury Lowrey
“In theology, the remission of sin, and absolution from guilt and punishment; or an act of free grace by which God pardons the sinner, and accepts him as righteous, on account of the atonement of Christ.” [b]Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
“Holiness isn’t something you can borrow – you either have it or you don’t. The theological doctrine of ‘imputed righteousness’ has been grossly distorted in our day. We are told that God looks at us through the blood of Christ and see’s us as righteous, regardless of our actual state… Let’s stop kidding ourselves. God sees us exactly the way we are. If we are living in obedience, He sees it. If we are living selfish, unholy lives, we can be sure he sees that too.” [b]George Otis Jr.
“As one ‘made under the law’ (Ga. 4:4-5), Christ was obliged to obey and keep the law. Since He had to obey for Himself, He could not obey for others in the sense that His obedience could be literally imputed to them… while Christ could not obey for us, He could die entirely in our behalf since there was not the least guilt charged against Him for which He must die.” [b]Gordon Olson
“Forgiveness of sin, such that the penalty is not carried out, is sufficient to qualify as a definition of ‘imputed righteousness’… How could the Holy Spirit convict us of sin if he did not know we were sinning? How could we grieve the Spirit of God if he never saw us as anything other than righteous? God has a very good sense of reality, he knows when we sin, and he sees us exactly as we are.” [b]Michael Saia