Not By Works

Imputation implies that it is Christ's actual righteousness that God counts on our behalf. Accounted means God counts something that is not yet a reality but will be. We are accounted righteous because to God the process is complete, but it is still a process for us. We still learn the ways of righteousness and as we walk we become righteous in fact. Of course, we'll never get there until the end.

Well then I would have to disagree.

This makes the work of Christ Jesus of no effect .... but turns Him merely into a role model

Imputation implies that it is Christ's actual righteousness that God counts on our behalf. Accounted means God counts something that is not yet a reality but will be. We are accounted righteous because to God the process is complete, but it is still a process for us. We still learn the ways of righteousness and as we walk we become righteous in fact. Of course, we'll never get there until the end.

Not at all, sin binds and condemns us. Christ's work was to defeat sin so that we would be free from its power. The walk with Christ is not something that comes to us naturally, either. It's not as if we read a book and that gives us all the rules for life. We walk by faith, listening to His voice. An example of this is yesterday Christ commanded me after I had finished reading my Bible to leave it open and sit with it without thinking about it. In faith, I obeyed. I have no idea what that was for. I have no idea why I can't go into a room in my house that I normally do my work in. But I obey. Walking by faith means listening to His voice, recognizing that on the cross He made the whole thing possible. The issue is the work on the cross is not vindication, it's healing and ransoming us from a captor.

So Jesus starts, we finish.

That is not the Gospel either.

Who said we finish? We walk, that's it. He calls out and uses His crook to keep us on the path, and we walk. All the while trusting Him to lead us and to use us. To refine us. Jesus is the author and perfecter of the faith.

Who said we finish? We walk, that's it. He calls out and uses His crook to keep us on the path, and we walk. All the while trusting Him to lead us and to use us. To refine us. Jesus is the author and perfecter of the faith.

What you seem to be implying is we keep walking till we reach the God "accounted" righteousness so our "earned righteousness" becomes equal to what God imputed to us before we got up and started walking.

This makes no sense.

And it's sad that you think nobody understood grace until Martin Luther.

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

“Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?

Oh there has been, but it's not the doctine that Luther preached. If one condemns Christ to justify themselves, they have only proven that they deserve His wrath.

Where do you come up with this stuff?

What would you call "he took the penalty I deserved"? Penal substitution, as presented by protestants, calls to do exactly that. To glory in His sufferings rather than recognizing the injustice of it. The great exchange does exactly that, by placing the guilt of your sins onto Him so that you can be "deemed righteous". The point of the cross is to bring us to the point where we recognize that our answer to God's question to Job is yes and to be ashamed of it. Those who recognize this are set free because God shows that He truly is just.

We keep walking, God makes us righteous.

Do you believe that the righteousness Christ works in us is not genuine righteousness?

The first has to do with what the second "sin" is, which is a sin offering. To answer that question we have to go to Leviticus and examine its theology. The principle issue there is not guilt, but uncleanness/impurity. They had a unclean-common-clean theology and the blood was used to cleanse the implements of the temple of the stain that sin had left behind. So Christ becoming our sin offering means He cleanses us from the stain that our sin entailed

The second is about recognizing that righteousness comes not according to the law, but faith in Christ.

You're using theologically loaded words. Righteousness is accounted to us the moment we repent and place our faith in Christ.

Ooo you've read someone prior to Augustine and cherry picked both the person and the quote. Tertullian is heterodox for multiple reasons, this being one of them.

Not at all, sin binds and condemns us. Christ's work was to defeat sin so that we would be free from its power. The walk with Christ is not something that comes to us naturally, either. It's not as if we read a book and that gives us all the rules for life. We walk by faith, listening to His voice. An example of this is yesterday Christ commanded me after I had finished reading my Bible to leave it open and sit with it without thinking about it. In faith, I obeyed. I have no idea what that was for. I have no idea why I can't go into a room in my house that I normally do my work in. But I obey. Walking by faith means listening to His voice, recognizing that on the cross He made the whole thing possible. The issue is the work on the cross is not vindication, it's healing and ransoming us from a captor.