Rational Righteousness Imputed
The biblical doctrine of justification–being made righteous before God by the imputed righteousness of Christ–is unpopular to many. However, it is the very core of orthodox Christian religion. The unpopular importance of this doctrine creates in me a certain joy when I read or hear pastors give pause to show the simple clarity of justification.
I came across an author doing just that as I read this morning from Thomas Boston’s works. In expounding the Christian’s union to Christ, he gives the following application:
“There is a solid rational ground for the doctrine of our justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ. Let profane men deride it as a putative or imaginary righteousness and justification, to make way for their own works; and let the corrupters of the Protestant doctrine set up faith, repentance, and new obedience, as our evangelical righteousness, upon which we are justified, as the fulfilling of the gospel-law; we need no other righteousness for justification but Christ’s. For a believer is by faith united to Christ. Having this union with him, we have a communion with him in his righteousness, which is ours, since we are one with him, and being ours, must be imputed to us, or reckoned ours on the most solid ground. Christ is the believer’s Surety by his own voluntary act, the debtor’s consent by faith, the Judge’s approbation in the world. What then is more rational than that this righteousness be imputed to the believer, and thereupon justified?” [1]
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[1] Thomas Boston, The Complete Works of the Late Rev. Thomas Boston (1853; repr., Tentmaker Publications: Stokes-on-Trent, 2002), 1:553.
