Well, the White Horse radio program is at it again. It's survey time! This year they took a survey at the 2006 National Pastors Convention. That's the one with many emergent types in attendance.
The BIG question this year was:
"How important to your ministry is the doctrine of imputation?".
33% were familiar with the concept
67% were unfamiliar with the very term (and therefore couldn't begin to answer the original question).
One pastor replied, "Amputation?"
Another said with regard to the congregation he works with,
"…if you asked them to explain what made a difference in their life, it would have nothing to do with that…"
I looked up imputation in the dictionary.
It said, "the act of imputing; something imputed."
Well that is helpful...LOL. So I looked up to impute.
""to lay the responsibility or blame for often falsely or unjustly; to assign."
OK....so now we just need to know who got blamed falsely for what?
Here are all of the NT passages where impute or a form of it is used:
Ro 4:8
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
Ro 4:11
And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also:
Ro 4:22
And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
Ro 4:23
Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;
Ro 4:24
But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;
Ro 5:13
(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Jas 2:23
And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
It sounds as if faith has a lot to do with imputation. So according to Romans 4:24, if we believe on Him who raised up Jesus, something will be imputed. But what? Romans 5 gives us a clue - sin.
So sin is not imputed to us who believe on Jesus but is imputed to Him...our sin is imputed or assigned to Him. And frankly, that is the crux; the centrality; the foundation of Christianity, It is also what makes Christianity completely different from other religions and WHY Chrisitanity really cannot be meshed with Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, psychology and all the other -ologies.
And 67% of the pastors at this conference had no clue to this fact.
AND YOU WONDER WHY I STARTED THIS BLOG........................
[from my sidebar on the right]:
Discussion of the theological direction in which the church is moving.
Yep...and methinks at times she ain't moving in a very good direction.
A Prayer Request & Thanks
6 days ago
3 comments:
I thought the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was the foundation of Christianity.(1 Cor 15:14) Since when did an abstract theological construct described by an obscure English word such as 'imputation' become the foundation of Christianity? Perhaps the better question to be asking pastors is: Do they know what the foundation of Christianity is? Sounds to me like you'd find yourself in the "Huh?" catagory!
Amputation: Matt 5:30, and thoroughly biblical ;-)
I think we could solve the problem by simply ceasing to use this word, which is no longer part of standard English. The NT was written using normal, everyday words, not technical theological terms. I think some translations have, for instance, in Hebrews "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness." I think most of the pastors probably understand the concept and just aren't familiar with the word. When we speak this way, we also make it difficult to communicate the gospel to non-believers, since they don't know what language we are speaking.
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