Christ our Righteousness

Christ our Righteousness February 17, 2005

John Pipers book Counted Righteous receives some rave reviews at the beginning of the freely available PDF. I am glad to see that I am not the only one agitated about the attacks on the biblical doctrine of imputation of Christs righteousness (and by the converse the imputation to Christ of our sin) AS John Stott puts it, surely 2 Cor 5:21 should be enough to settle this argument once and for all and send the detractors scurrying back to either openly denying that the bible is true or converting back to the evangelical fold.



“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
(2 Cor 5:21, ESV)

Now I know something of the shock Augustine must have felt when he initially read

Pelagius. My heart is pained that the cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith is called

nonsense and pass by friends. Without imputed righteousness Christianity is not

Christian, divine justice is made a folly, and sin is requited by mere human sincerity. It

is too much to surrender the wonderfully comforting, biblically clear truth that we stand

before a holy God clothed and complete in the righteousness of His Son. I thank God

that someone has spoken out!

JOHN D. HANNAH

Department Chairman, Distinguished Professor of Historical Theology

Dallas Theological Seminary

This is a superb work, wonderful in its clarity, remarkable for its faithful, thorough

treatment of the biblical texts, and powerful in the force of its argument. Dr. Piper’s simple,

potent answer to the recent attacks on the historic Protestant understanding of justification

by faith will cure a host of theological ills. This is surely one of the finest and

most important books to be published in many years.

JOHN MACARTHUR

Pastor, Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, California

President, The Master’s College

This is certainly the most solid defense of the imputed righteousness of Christ since the

work of John Murray fifty years ago. I’m delighted that Dr. Piper has established that

important doctrine, not as a mere article from the confessional tradition, but on the solid

foundation of God’s Word.

JOHN M. FRAME

Professor of Systematic Theology and Philosophy

Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando

Does Christ’s lifelong record of perfect obedience to God get credited to your account

when you trust in Christ and are justified by God? This has been the historic Protestant

understanding of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, but John Piper warns that

we are in danger of losing this doctrine today because of attacks by scholars within the

evangelical camp. In response, Piper shows, in careful treatment of passage after passage,

that the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers is clearly the teaching of

the Bible, and if we abandon this doctrine we will also lose justification by faith alone.

I am thankful to God for John Piper’s defense of this crucial doctrine.

WAYNE GRUDEM

Research Professor of Theology and Bible

Phoenix Seminary

With John Piper, I think that as the doctrine of justification by faith alone is a vital

means to the church’s health, so the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ is a vital element

in stating that doctrine. Therefore I gladly welcome Dr. Piper’s carefully argued

reassertion of it.

J. I. PACKER

Board of Governors Professor of Theology

Regent College

The Gospel must be defended in every generation. Today, as in the sixteenth century,

the central issue is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. John Piper clearly and powerfully

proves this is the view of the Bible and not merely of orthodox Protestant theology.

The church must say No! to those who declare that imputation is pass. If

imputation is pass, then so is the Gospel.

R. C. SPROUL

President, Ligonier Ministries

Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics

Knox Theological Seminary

I am thankful for John Piper’s zeal for the glory of Christ and the good of the church,

and for his careful exegesis of the relevant texts. For myself 2 Corinthians 5:21 is

enough, affirming the glorious exchange that the sinless Christ was made sin (by imputation)

with our sins, in order that in Christ we might become righteous (by imputation)

with his righteousness. In consequence Christ has no sin but ours, and we have no righteousness

but his.

JOHN STOTT

While evangelicals sleep, people we once trusted have been sowing seeds of false doctrine

in the church. Responding to the latest departure from the faith, John Piper challenges

those who have abandoned the pivotal doctrine of the imputation of Christ s

righteousness. What is at stake here is nothing less than the integrity of the Gospel.

RONALD H. NASH

Professor of Philosophy

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary


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