Victory Over Sin 1

This article Victory Over Sin (1 of 2) is part of the series Fundamentals of the Faith.

The next 2 articles will explain 3 types of sin that resulted from Adam’s original sin (AOS). Every member of the human race is born into these 3 types of sin and if allowed, our sin will destroy us and send us to an eternity without God. All of us are both victims because we inherited Adam’s sin and agents because we choose to practice our own. God does not desire that any of us remain victims of sin and has made perfect provision to free us from Adam’s sin and guilt. He has also made a way for us to change our desires so that we want Him more than the pleasures of sin.

God has defeated sin and its results for the whole human race. In the following 2 articles we will discuss 3 types of sin and what God has provided so that we can live free of sin in the Christian life. In this first article, we will present the 3 types of sin, focus on the first category of sin and explain God’s provision that He offers to give us victory.

3 Types of Sin
There are 3 types of sin that resulted from Adam’s sin. When Adam sinned, he came under eternal condemnation from God’s Justice, experienced the corruption of his created nature and began to practice his own individual sins. The human race has inherited all 3 categories of sin that Adam experienced in the garden.

The first type of sin is imputed sin, which means that Adam’s sin and condemnation has been credited to the whole human race. When Adam sinned and came under condemnation, it was as if we all sinned and were condemned (Rom5:12-21).

The second type of sin is inherited sin, which is theologically termed the sin nature. The sin nature is the corruption of Adam’s original nature to love and serve God. He created Adam and Eve with a natural desire for a relationship with Him. The presence of sin caused their natures to be corrupted with the result that they naturally loved and served themselves. Their new nature put self first over God and one another.

The third type of sin we face is individual sin, the personal sins that we all commit even after salvation. Individual sin is committed in 3 areas, mental sin, sins we think, verbal sin, sins we say and overt sins, sins we do with our bodies.

In this first article we will examine Imputed Sin and God’s grace provision for us to overcome it and be secure in Christ forever.

Imputed Sin

Adam/Eve – Condemned by God
When Adam/Eve sinned by disobeying God’s command (Gen 3:6), they became unrighteous and lost their righteous standing with God. God who is perfect righteousness was forced to condemn their sin and cast them out of His presence (Gen 3:22-24). Their unrighteous status not only had the immediate resullts of being cast out but also had the eternal consequences of condemnation. Condemnation requires that God separate Himself from the condemned forever. Those who die without Christ will be thrown in the Lake of Fire forever (Rev 20:15; Mt 25:41).

Imputation
The word imputation, Grk logizomai, means to credit to one’s account. If I place money in your bank account, that is an imputation. If I charge a debit to your account, that is an imputation. God uses imputations in a legal manner when dealing with sins. He debits us with Adam’s sin and then debits Christ with everyone’s sin.  Imputation is the key to understanding salvation and our security in Christ.

Imputation of Adam’s Sin
We were all born under Adam’s condemnation (Rom 5:12-21). The imputation of his sin and condemnation is the reason that all men must be saved and why no one is good enough to save himself. Jn 3:36 explains that if we reject Christ, we remain under God’s condemnation, not enter into it, because we were credited with it in Adam. He imputes Adam’s sin to the whole human race making us all guilty in Adam. Even though we didn’t commit Adam’s sin, we still are credited with his sin and its consequences. While this may not seem fair, it is actually more than fair, it is a grace gift. By condemning us all in Adam, God made us all sinners needing a savior. Now He can offer us grace based on His work and not based on our own.

Imputation of All Sins to Christ
The work of Christ in His death, burial and resurrection satisfied the Justice of God with regard to our sins. This satisfying of God is called propitiation. Having been satisfied with Christ’s payment, He could remove our guilt, which is called expiation. His work on the cross propitiated God for all sins, from Adam’s down to the last sin to be committed by the human race. On the cross, God the Father imputed our sins to Christ and punished Him for them. He imputed Adam’s sin to us, and then imputed all sins to Christ. He paid for sins past and sins in the future. He paid for sin period and satisfied God’s Justice period. Just as imputation caused us to be condemned, so it is God’s tool for removing our condemnation. More than fair, God is gracious to impute our sins to Christ on the cross and Christ to accept the mission to pay for them.

Imputation of Divine Righteousness
When we believe the gospel to accept Christ as our personal savior, we are placed into a permanent and eternal union with Him. We are connected to Him forever. We are connected to His person, His work, His position, His possessions and His destiny. Everything Christ is and everything He possesses He shares with those who trust in Him.
One of the things Christ shares with us through our union with Him is His righteousness.
On the cross, our sins and guilt were imputed to Him satisfying God’s Justice and expiating our guilt. When we believe in Him, we are credited with His propitiating and expiating work for us. At that same moment, the righteousness of God is imputed to those who believe. Paul taught about imputations this way:

2 Corinthians 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Paul says that Jesus who committed no sin of His own, had our sins imputed to Him on the cross and in turn, when we believe, His righteousness is imputed to us. He accepts our sins to pay for them and we receive His divine righteousness. He takes our guilt and gives us His righteousness. It is this imputation of divine righteousness that makes us worthy for God to bless us forever. Without it we would remain unrighteous in Adam and God would be forced to maintain our condemnation. This is the fate of those who reject Christ.

Summary
Adam’s disobedience caused condemnation to fall upon the whole human race. His sin also caused 3 categories of sin to come into existence. The first, our subject, is Imputed Sin, which is the crediting of Adam’s sin and guilt to all mankind. God bound up all sin in all of us into one account so that He could deal with it in one way. He imputed Adam’s sin to us and then imputed all sins in the account to Christ. Christ, who never sinned, accepted His mission to pay for sin on the cross and allowed our sins to be imputed to Him. When they were credited to Him, God-Father punished Him for them. When they had all been paid for, God’s Justice was propitiated (satisfied) and our guilt had been expiated (forgiven). God offers the work of Christ to all as a free gift that can only be accepted by faith. He refuses to accept any of man’s work added to His own. When we believe in the gospel, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, His work is imputed back to us, along with His own righteousness. When we receive His righteousness through our union with Him, we become worthy of God’s blessing forever. We have been judicially forgiven and pronounced judicially righteous in the courtroom of heaven. We will never be judicially charged with our sins again.

The imputation of our sins to Christ who paid them in full, resolved the judicial issue of sin with the Justice of God. When we believe in Him, we pass the point of salvation and the eternal punishment for sins is never brought up again. The judicial sin issue has been settled and no longer applies to the believer. Yet, even as believers in Christ and members of God’s Royal Family, we still have a sin nature and commit personal sins. In the next article we will discuss how the cross has given us victory over these other 2 types of sin. We will discuss the questions, “why do I still sin” and “how do I recover when I do sin”.