18. An Imputation of the Lord’s Merit Is Nothing Else Than the Forgiveness of Sins Following Repentance

People in the church believe that the Lord was sent by the Father to make atonement for the human race, that He did this by fulfilling the Law and suffering the cross, that by so doing He took away damnation and made satisfaction, that without that atonement, satisfaction and propitiation the human race would have perished in eternal death, and that this accords with justice, which some people also call a retributive one.

It is true that without the Lord’s advent into the world, people would have all perished. But how we are to understand the Lord’s fulfilling all of the Law, this may be seen in its own section above. And why He suffered the cross, also in its own section above. From those sections it can be seen that it was not owing to any retributive justice, inasmuch as retributive justice is not a Divine attribute.

Divine attributes are justice, love, mercy, and goodness. And God is justice itself, love itself, mercy itself, and goodness itself. Where these attibutes exist, there is no retribution, thus no retributive justice.

[2] Many people heretofore have interpreted fulfillment of the Law and suffering the cross to mean nothing else than the two means by which the Lord made satisfaction for the human race and took away the damnation foreseen or predestined for it. And that being the case, by extrapolation and at the same time on the principle that a person is saved simply by faith in its being so, the dogma has followed of an imputation of the Lord’s merit by a reception of those two means — which constitute the Lord’s merit — as making satisfaction.

However, this dogma collapses in the face of what we have said about the Lord’s fulfillment of the Law and His suffering of the cross. Moreover, it can be seen at the same time that an imputation of merit is a word without meaning, unless one interprets it to mean a forgiveness of sins following repentance. For no attribute of the Lord can be imputed to a person.

Salvation by the Lord, on the other hand, can be ascribed to a person after he repents, that is, after he has seen and acknowledged his sins and then desisted from them, doing so in obedience to the Lord. Salvation is then ascribed to him in the measure that he is saved, not by his own merit, or in consequence of his own righteousness, but owing to the Lord who alone fought and overcame the hells, and who alone also afterward fights for a person and overcomes the hells for him.

[3] These attributes constitute the Lord’s merit and righteousness, and they can never be imputed to a person; for if they were to be imputed, the Lord’s merit and righteousness would be assigned to the person as his, something that is never the case, nor could be.

If imputation were possible, an impenitent and impious person could impute the Lord’s merit to himself and think himself justified on that account, which would be to defile the sacred with the profane and profane the Lord’s name. For it would keep the person’s thought fixed on the Lord and his will in hell, and yet the will is the totality of the person.

Faith may be a faith in God, and it may be a faith in man. Those people have a faith in God who repent, whereas those people have a faith in man who do not repent and yet still think about imputation. Faith in God, too, is living faith, whereas faith in man is a lifeless faith.

[4] The Lord Himself and His disciples preached repentance and the forgiveness of sins, as is clear from the following verses:

...Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)

(John said:) “...bear fruits worthy of repentance.... Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. ...every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Luke 3:8-9)

(Jesus said:) ...unless you repent you will all...perish. (Luke 13:3, 5)

...Jesus...preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God...saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15)

(Jesus sent out His disciples, who) went out and preached that people should repent. (Mark 6:12)

(Jesus said to His disciples) that they should preach repentance and remission of sins in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:47)

John...(preached) a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. (Luke 3:3, Mark 1:4)

Baptism means a spiritual washing, which is a washing away of sins, and is called rebirth or regeneration.

[5] Repentance and forgiveness of sins is described in this way by the Lord in John:

He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:11-13)

His own means the people who at that time constituted the church which had the Word. Children of God and those who believe in His name mean people who believe in the Lord and who believe in the Word. Blood means falsifications of the Word and defenses of falsity by means of it. The will of the flesh means the inherent volitional component of a person, which in itself is evil. The will of man means the inherent understanding component of a person, which in itself is false. Those born of God are people regenerated by the Lord.

It is apparent from this that those people are saved who possess the goodness of love and truths of faith from the Lord, and not those caught up in their own inherent nature.