626. CHAPTER ELEVEN

IMPUTATION

I. The faith of the present-day church, which is held to be the sole requirement for justification, is one with imputation.

The faith of the present-day church, which is held to be the sole requirement for justification, is one with imputation; in other words, faith and imputation in the present-day church make a single whole. This is because one involves the other, and one enters into the other, and the other into the first, and causes it to exist. For if one talks of faith without adding imputation, faith is simply a meaningless sound; and if one talks of imputation without adding faith, this too is simply a meaningless sound. Even if the two are spoken of linked together, they become an articulated expression, though still devoid of intelligible meaning. For the understanding to grasp any real meaning in it, a third term needs to be added, Christ's merit. This produces a concept that one can utter with some degree of reasonableness. For it is the faith of the present-day church that God the Father imputes the righteousness of His Son, and sends the Holy Spirit to bring about its effects.