Put Your Sins on God's Account

Philemon 1:15-19

SUBJECT: SALVATION/ IMPUTATION

THEME: When we trust Jesus Christ as Savior, God gives Jesus credit for our sins. Yes, our sins are imputed to the Son of God who paid for them all at Calvary. 

Imputation or impute is probably a term you did not use this past week. In antiquity it referred to keeping commercial accounts involving both debits and credits.... Basically, it means charging, ascribing or reckoning something to a person’s account. The thought is assigning, calculating or accounting a responsibility…a credit…a guilt…a debt...or a value to another person. According to the Holman’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary, it is defined as, “Setting to someone’s account or reckoning something to another person” (Dockery, D. S., 2003). So, imputing is the act of adding something good or bad to the account of another person.

Because the term is not as familiar today, let’s consider another definition and application of the term in a legal context. Vocabulary.com says,

Imputation is the attributing of actions to a source: often, imputation involves actions that are criminal. Imputation takes words or actions and ties them to a person or a cause. An imputation is when you say, “He did it!” Imputations are therefore similar to accusations. Often, this word relates to imputations of dirty deeds, especially illegal deeds. “My brother stole the car” is an imputation. “The butler killed the maid” is an imputation. Imputations place blame, usually for something very wrong indeed. This word is often used in legal situations, when imputations are part of testimony. (https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/imputation)

As a legal action imputation generally involves the placing of blame or responsibility to someone. This does not eliminate the fact that good can also be ascribed or credited, but the legal usage tends to be negative in its connotations. Let me share a positive example of imputation from my own life to illustrate a favorable usage of the term. As a kid I loved penny candy…far too much, and I have the cavities to prove it! My granddad, affectionately referred to as “Buss” because his middle name was Buster, would take us kids to the local convenience store. Though he would chide me, my siblings and cousins for eating too many sweets, he could not resist making his grands happy. So, we would pile into his car, and off we would go to the old country general store in Borden, South Carolina near where I grew up. Now Grand Daddy Buss would not take us to the store purely for our candy cravings, but we knew that he would buy it along with his stuff. So, penny candy and bubble gum were on my list. It was one of the many joys of the long summer days during summer vacation to go to the "Store" with Buss. Now here is the kicker in this story…if we kids didn’t have the money to buy our own penny candy, then Granddad would buy it for us! If Granddad didn’t have the cash at the moment, he would simply put all the items on his credit account at the little general store. Then a short time later he would pay off the entirety of his account. For us grand kids there was no cost to us, but we still received the penny candy we craved. Granddad paid the price for us and the store’s manager would simply add the cost of our candy to Granddad’s credit account. Since Granddad had a credit account, we were able to secure the items we wanted from the general store.

In light of the definitions of imputation we have discussed, we can say the general store manager imputed or charged the cost of the grocery items to Granddad’s personal credit account. Or we could say the manager added the cost of the groceries to Granddad’s account. The cost was accounted to Granddad. This is imputation in a positive light.

There are a number of wonderful instances where the term or synonyms for impute are used in the Bible. Some words in the Scriptures that mean impute are, “COUNTED” (Rom. 4:3, 5); “RECKONED” (Rom. 4:4, 9,10); and obviously “IMPUTED” (Rom. 4:11, 22, 23, 24, 5:13). Again, these are accounting and legal terms with negative and positive connotations. These references point to charging, ascribing or reckoning something to a person’s spiritual account. God accounted righteousness to Abraham because of his faith (Gen. 15:6). The idea is God ascribed to Abraham what he had no means of securing for himself (Rom. 4:3–5). Furthermore, this is not the notion that God accepted Abraham’s faith instead of righteousness as an achievement deserving God’s full judicial justification. No, the idea is that God declared Abraham as righteous purely because he trusted in God as opposed to believing in himself or trusting in acts of service or a religious ritual to earn God’s acceptance. (Dockery, D. S., 2003).

Another brilliant example of the imputation concept occurs in the little letter of Philemon in verse 18. In this passage, Paul accepts responsibility for any wrong or debt caused by the runaway slave, Onesimus. Notice what the great apostle says,

Philemon 1:15-19, For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever; 16, Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord? 17, If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. 18, If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account; 19, I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it: albeit I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides.

Notice Paul’s words, “put that on mine account.” This is the same concept! In fact, when we grand kids would place our penny candy on the counter during check out for Granddad to purchase it, he would use the same terms. “Put those on my account,” he would say to the store manager! Again, this is one of the most excellent illustrations of imputation in the entire Bible. Paul says to Philemon that if his slave Onesimus owes anything…whatever the amount…to charge it to Paul’s account. Don’t miss what the great apostle is saying; any debt Onesimus might have incurred would now be Paul’s responsibility and Paul promised to pay it in full. Similarly, our sins were attributed, ascribed, reckoned to Christ, and He paid our debt fully!

In 1990, God placed my sins…every one of them without a single exception…past present and future sins…on Jesus Christ! All I did was placed my faith in Him after hearing the Gospel. From a heart of godly sorrow, I cried out to God for forgiveness for my wickedness and sins. God imputed my sins to Jesus. The same Lord Jesus who went to Calvary and there paid for all sin and offers forgiveness to anyone who will accept His perfect payment. He is literally alive again having completely defeated death, sin, hell, and the grave. In his sacrifice for our sins and resurrection, He soundly defeated Satan and broke the power of sin for those who trust Him. Beloved, because we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and His Gospel, God ascribes to each believer perfect “righteousness,” the very righteousness of God. We become fully acceptable to God when we accept what He did for our salvation. This is our new standing before a holy God. Jesus takes credit for our awful sins, and we receive credit for His perfect "right-ness" before a holy God. Is there anyone else willing to say to the Lord Jesus, I believe you…I accept your payment for my sins…please put my sins on your account?