Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Romans 4:8
A Christian gentleman living in the ancient city of Colosse, in what is now southern Turkey, answered a knock on his door one day. When he opened the door, his jaw dropped in amazement. There stood before him a man who had once been his slave and who had run away after stealing some valuables from Philemon’s home. Philemon had never expected to see this man again. And he had to look twice to make sure it actually was Onesimus. No longer the skulking laggard of his slavehood days, this man stood erect, his shoulders back, his eyes bright with purpose, and a cheerful smile on his lips. And he was not alone; Philemon’s old friend Tychicus stood as a partner with him. Onesimus bowed a respectful greeting, and handed his former master a letter. Looking from Onesimus’ face to the letter, Philemon was unsure of what to say. Beckoning his two guests inside, he asked them to wait a moment while he checked out the letter. Another amazement; this letter was from his dearest friend in all the world, the apostle Paul. It was not a long letter, and it took Philemon but moments to scan through it. Critical facts become quickly apparent: rebellious Onesimus is now not only a Christian, but is also a fellow worker with Paul and a dear friend of Tychicus. Then Philemon read the words that surely caused him to reach out and embrace his former slave: ‘If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account’. Philemon has just been told that all of Onesimus’ wrongs and debts are to be imputed to Paul.
Like the former Onesimus, you and I were once rebellious and we stole from our Maker. We had wronged God and owed Him a great debt, far greater than Onesimus owed Philemon. But like Onesimus, we have been reconciled to God because God has imputed our wrong and our debt no longer to us, but to One Who could satisfy the debt. And to us He imputes the righteousness of His Son. ‘For He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him’ -2 Corinthians 5:21.
To impute means to attribute or ascribe something, usually a responsibility, to someone. Before we were saved, God had imputed Adam’s sin and penalty to us, because we had, like Adam, all sinned. But with our salvation, God imputes the righteousness of Jesus Christ to the believing sinner. And he is able to do this because, even though we still sin, that sin is all imputed to Christ. That means that God can never again impute sin to us.
Our text tells us that the person to whom God will not impute sin is blessed. The word ‘blessed’ means happy. How happy we should be that God will not, and cannot impute sin to us! -Jim MacIntosh