Imputed to whom?

Middle Creek Church, TN

SIN:

• Missing the mark – aiming for God’s best and falling somewhere outside the bull’s-eye.
• Lacking a governing principle or power – a governor on a motor restricts it from going past a certain point. 
• An indwelling fear of coming before God – replaced through the cross by and indwelling spirit directing us to come speedily before God.
• The course or action that leads to the condition of sin – that condition being a constant spiritual dying or downward spiral, without the ability to stop it.
• Trespass – to be in places restricted to us.
• Prison of guilt- held guilty, awaiting the death penalty.
• Driving in reverse – going away from God’s best.
• Continual presence of a domineering negative force in our life – as opposed to individual acts, (should be dealt with as such.)
• Continual practice of submitting to the sin nature – A state of constant backwardness.
• A condition, resulting from random acts –  a state of spiritual illness.
• A tendency toward death – not hearing the admonition to “Choose Life.”
• Against men and God – away from relationships and emotional commitments.
• Against one’s own body – that which tears down the place where life resides.
• A condition of our past – having sinned already, it abides in our inner being, like an inner tattoo.
• Indebted – in need of a legal remedy.
• Inner nature leading to out ward offensive acts – first the nature that leads to the acts, not the acts to the nature.
• Lawlessness – self driven.

Sin is not singular acts alone, but a nature that leads to performance of sinful acts, which leaves us in a state of spiritual illness, which tends to an inner death.  No amount of trying to avoid the individual acts can fix the sinful nature, or heal from the effects of constant sin, which has eroded our body, mind and soul in the past.  It is a life issue, a legal issue and a supernatural issue. 

Psalm 32: 1-2

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

Transgression – illegal act for which a “ticket” may be written.

Imputation – Layed to one’s charge, charged on one’s account, reckoned as your possession. 

In the years from Adam to Sinai, there was no imputation of transgression.  No breaking of the law could be laid to the account of individuals, because there was no law.  The law was of conscience, which guided one to know either you served God, or you didn’t.  Sin was recognized as a place in ones character, which reckoned you sold yourself to God’s ways, or to man’s ways. If you belonged to God, God would not charge you with or impute to you iniquity, because He was responsible for your “ticket.”  They clearly understood that sin was a condition of man’s inner self, and that God only could redeem the Sinner - pay the price for failing to serve God.  It was much simpler than when the Israelites demanded “laws” to externalize their sin condition.  They failed to understand that it is not the acts, but the condition that God seeks to resolve.

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You are Holy, dear Lord.  I ask that you lay no charge to my account, because of my sinful nature, based on the fact that my sin was imputed to you on the cross.  I thank you for paying the price on my behalf.  And I receive this gift, with the greatest of Praise for your Name. AMEN