In yesterday’s blog post, I talked about the Protestant doctrine of imputation and the the way in which the idea is found in the Greek word logizomai, translated “reckoned,” “counted,” and “credited,” as in, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3).
In her book on the Atonement, Fleming Rutledge prefers a more literal translation of logizomai: “worded.” (You can see the Greek root logos in the word.) God’s Word alone, she writes, has the power to create what is lacking in us:
The way that “wording” works can easily be illustrated. We tend to become what we are “regarded as.” Here, for example, are two scenes. One is a first-grade schoolroom in East Tennessee in the mid-1960s, recently integrated. Three small black boys, looking miserable, are separated from the others (all white) for special remedial attention from the white teacher. After working with them for a while, she rises from the table and says to an observer, in a stage whisper that the children surely hear, “How does anyone think they can ever learn anything?” The phrase “self-fulfilling prophecy” was invented for a situation such as that. The second scene occurs two decades later, in a supermarket in a suburban New York town. A mother is bending over a stroller containing her child, no more than two years old. With great intensity she is saying, over and over, “You’re bad! You’re bad!” What can the child have done, at that age? What grave sin had he committed? Spilled his drink? Snatched candy off the shelf? Cried from frustration? Who can doubt that the child will grow up with those words ingrained in his psyche? “You’re bad!” Words have great power. Imagine, then, the power of the Word of God saying Shamed! Condemned! Rejected!
But those words are not the Word spoken against us, for indeed the Word is not spoken against us but for us. “He has not reckoned our sins against us” (II Cor. 5:19)… When we understand the words “not reckoned” or “not counted” are from the root logizomai, however, we can fill in the rest of the picture. The “not reckoned” is the other face of “reckoned as righteousness.” Again, God’s Word is performative; it has the power to create what it requires. When God regards one as righteous, a true metamorphosis is occurring.[1]
To illustrate this metamorphosis, she offers the example of Gideon in Judges 6. When the angel of the Lord appears to him and says, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor” (Judges 6:12), he is threshing wheat in a winepress—for fear of being seen by the Midianites.
This is really quite amusing; Gideon is not even remotely a “mighty man of valor” at this point. Nor does he flex his muscles and step into his role as an “alpha male” would; indeed, his behavior immediately following the appearance of the angel is timid and cautious. The Lord, however, keeps on “wording” him: “The Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?'” (v. 14). Again, this makes us smile; the Lord is even willing to suggest that it actually is Gideon’s own might; but the reminder comes quickly enough: “Do I not send you?” Gideon continues to protest: “Pray, Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (v. 15). His protestations are swept aside by the empowering Word: “And the Lord said to him, ‘But I will be with you, and you shall smite the Midianites as [though they were] one man'” (v. 16). Thus God creates valor where there was no valor.[2]
To say the least, I am no better than Gideon. Because of my own insecurities (which only years of therapy have helped me untangle—thank you, Jesus!), I often wake up feeling like a beaten man—as if a voice in my head were saying words like, “Hypocrite!” “Worthless!” “Sinner!”
If I understand the doctrine of imputation, however, I find in it the power to change this script. I am not the man I used to be. The “old man” was crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6). God is “wording” a new man into existence, and he is doing so with sweet words like, “Beloved child!” “Apple of my eye!” (Psalm 17:8) “Righteous!”
Listen to that voice, Brent!
1. Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 333-4.
2. Ibid., 334-5.
March 23, 2018 at 12:04 pm
Metamorphosis. What a great analogy it is. The caterpillar can now fly.
After our Metamorphosis we still look like caterpillars to the world. The change is not in our outward appearance, but in our inward abilities. But, there is a change that God can see. It is in our hearts.
Yes Tom, some of our inward sinful nature remains. That is why we must continue in the work of Sanctification. But, oh how different we feel. How much stronger we are after we “put on Christ”. Or, to follow with the imputation story, how much stronger we are when we are filled with Christ, because now The Father sees His Son in us, and we feel that presence.
March 23, 2018 at 8:27 pm
Once again, I see a lot to agree with. However, I don’t think that the Bible ONLY speaks “good words” to God’s children all the time. “Get behind me, Satan!” Pretty encouraging words! Paul says that because of abuse of the Lord’s Supper, “Many are weak and sickly among you, and some have died.” James says we are to weep and mourn over our sins. For goodness sake, look at how Jesus talked to the Seven Churches in Revelation! So I continue to maintain we have a “both/and” circumstance. One the one hand, we may rejoice in our salvation and that we are one with Christ. On the other, we must, as Grant says, “continue in the work of Sanctification.” And sometimes we do better at that than we do at others. So, God both encourages and “calls down.”