Imputation, in the O. T. arn, in the N. T. Xoyi- ^of^iai, is employed in the Scriptures to designate any action, word, or thing, as accounted or reckoned to a person; and in all these it is miquestionably used with reference to one's own doLigs, words, or actions, and not with reference to those of a second person (comp. Gen. XV, 6: Psa. cv, 31; Numb, xxv, 6; xviii,27; 2Sam. xix, 19 ; Psa. xxxi, 2 ; Lev. vii, 18 ; xvii, 4 ; Prov. xxvii, 14 ; 2 Cor. V, 19; 2 Tim. iv, 16; Eom. iv, 3-23; Gal. iii, 6; Jas. ii, 23). The word imputation is, however, used for a certain theological theory, which teaches that (1) the sin of Adam is so attributed to man as to be considered, in the divine counsels, as his own, and to render him guilty of it ; (2) that, in the Christian plan of salvation, the righteousness of Christ is so attributed to man as to be considered his own, and that he is therefore justified by it. See Fall of Man.
I. " Wliatever diversity there may exist in the opin- ions of theologians respecting imputation, when thej' come to express their own A-iews definitely, they will yet, for the most part, agree that the phrase God im- putes the sin ofourpror/enitors to their posterity, means that _/()?• tlie sins committed by our jjrogenitois God pun- ishes their descendants. The term to imjmte is used m different senses, (o.) It is said of a crerfiVor, who charges something to his debtor as debt, e. g. PhUem. ver. 18. {b.) It is transferred to \\\imai\ judgment when any one is punished, or declared deserving of punishment. Crime is regarded as a debt, which must be cancelled partly by actual restitution and partly by pimishment. (c.) This now is applied to God, who imputes sin when he pro- nounces men guilty, and treats them accordingly, i, e.
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when he actually punishes the sin of men ("i'^' ^'^'H^ XoyiCtTBcti c't/^utpTiav, Psa. xxxii, 2). The one punish- ed is called "ji" Xb3, in opposition to one to Avhom ripi:i5 3an, who is rewarded (Psa. cvi, 31 ; liom. iv, 3)" (Kiiapp, Theolorjy, § 76).
1. The stronghold of the doctrine of imputation, with those who maintain the high Calvinistic sense of that tenet, is Rom. v, 12-19. " The greatest difficulties with respect to this doctrine have arisen from the fact that many have treated what is said by Paul in the fifth of Romans — a passage wholly popular, and anything but formally exact and didactic— in a learned and philosoph- ical maimer, and have defined terms used by him in a loose and popular way by logical and scholastic distinc- tions. Paul shows, in substance, that all men are re- garded and punished by God as sinners, and that the ground of this lies in the act of one man; as, on the contrary, deliverance from punishment depends also upon one man, Jesus Christ. If the \vords of Paul are not perverted, it must be allowed that in Rom. v, 12-14 he thus reasons : The cause of the universal mortality of the human race lies in Adam's transgression. He sinned, and so became mortal. Other men are regarded and treated by God as punishable, because they are the posterity of Adam, the first transgressor, and consequent- ly they too are mortal. Should it now be objecte(l, that the men who lived from Adam to Moses might them- selves have personally sinned, and so have been punish- ed with death on their OAvn account, it might be an- swered that those who lived before the time of Moses hatl no express and positive law which threatened the punishment of sin, like those who lived after Closes. The positive law of Moses was not as yet given ; they could not, consequently, be punished on account of their own transgressions, as no law was as yet given to them (ver. 14). Still they must die, like Adam, who trans- gressed a positive law. Hence their mortality must have another cause, and this is to be sought in the im- putation of Adam's transgression. In the same way, the ground of the justification of man lies not in himself, but in Christ, the second Adam.
" We find that the passage in Rom. v was never un- derstood in the ancient Grecian Church, down to the 4th century, to teach imputation in a strictly philosophical and judicial sense ; certainly Origen, and the writers im- mediately succeeding him, exhibit nothing of this opin- ion. They regard bodi/i/ death as a consequence of the sin of Adam, and not as a, punishment, in the strict and proper sense of this term. Thus Chrysostom says, upon Rom. V, 12, 'EKiivov iriaovTOQ (ASd/j,'), Kal ol) jir) (pa- yuvric «7ro Toii S,v\ov, yeyovaan' t'i tKtivov Srvrjroi. Cyril {Adv. Anthropom.. c. 8) says, Ot ytyovoTii; tS, av- Tou ('Aon/x), (be diTO (pOaproiJ, fdaproi ytyova^iv.
" The Latin Church, on the other hand, was the prop- er seat of the strict doctrine of imputation. There they began to interpret the words of Paul as if he were a scholastic and logical writer. One cause of their mis- apprehending so entirely the spirit of tliis passage was, that the word imputare (a word in common use among civilians and in judicial affairs) had been employed in the Latin versions in rendering ver. 13 of Rom. v ; and that t^' (^ (ver. 12) had been translated in quo, and could refer, as they supposed, to nobody but Adam. This opinion was then associated with some peculiar philo- sophical ideas at that time prevalent in the West, and from the whole a doctrine de imputatiom was formed, in sense wholly miknown to the Hebrews, to the N. T., and to the Grecian Church. This clearly proves that the Grecian teachers, e. g. those in Palestine, took sides with Pelagius against the teachers of the African Church.