Credited to Our Account

We will never be justified or accepted as righteous before God unless we stand before him with Christ’s perfect righteousness as our own. That is the only righteousness God will ever recognize. So how can we receive Christ’s perfect righteousness? 

The heavenly Father imputes it to us through our faith. “Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works” (Romans 4:6, NKJV). Paul quotes David as saying, “The richest, most blessed, most peaceful man on earth is the one who understands he has a perfect righteousness imputed to him without works.” 

The word impute means “to regard or esteem, to consider, to attribute to a person something he does not have, to reckon or credit to one’s account.” When Jesus imputes his righteousness to us, God looks upon it as our very own. No, we did not earn it. Christ did it all, and he credits it to our account. 

“[Abraham] did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God…And therefore ‘it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Romans 4:20-24).

This righteousness has to be imputed to us. It is not ours by infusion. In other words, God doesn’t just pour it into us. No, it is never our righteousness; nothing we have done or accomplished. It is always his righteousness, imputed to us and credited to our account. 

This imputation comes by faith alone. We can’t work for it or merit it in any way. Rather, because of our faith in Jesus and his redeeming work, the Lord credits the righteousness of Christ to us, and we are reckoned as perfect in him. It is a perfect righteousness that is of faith and not of works.

• “Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace…” (Romans 4:16). 

• “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10).

• “Even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference” (Romans 3:22).

Beloved, by confessing our sins and having faith in him, we stand before God with an imputed righteousness.