"Christ's faithfulness issued in obedience. His obedience constituted his righteousness. His righteousness is put to our account, if we are believers, as the traditional doctrine of imputation maintains. It is put to our account not because of a mere reckoning so by God, but because we are really united to Christ by the Spirit" (p. 118).
Praise God from whom all blessings flow! I like it.
ReplyDeleteI have read the book. On the whole I thought it was good. My main criticism is it was fairly rigidly Reformed.
ReplyDeleteI found his comments on IAO fairly conventional and weak.
'rigidly Reformed'?
ReplyDeleteI suppose he could be rigidly non-Reformed. There's plenty of those around.
As much as I appreciate someone defending active obedience, it does rather make it sound as if reckoning and union are antithetical. How many serious classic reformed theologians have suggested that imputation takes place without union?
ReplyDeleteBeautifully put!
ReplyDeleteHi Matt
ReplyDelete'I suppose he could be rigidly non-Reformed. There's plenty of those around.'
I suppose there are and they too are wrong.
Cole writes 'as the traditional doctrine of imputation maintains'. He really means of course 'double imputation'. All 'traditional' evangelicals believe in 'imputation' what many do not subscribe to is double imputation.
I don't particularly wish to detract from Cole's book for on the whole I found it very good. The one other area I found him weak on was new creation. It seemed not a great deal more than a return to Eden. Two quibbles with an otherwise worthwhile (if a little worthy) book.
For all its un-charity, all I can think is "ugh..."
ReplyDeleteWhy is union with Christ insufficient? Why do we have to create this non-biblical category of imputation? Why create this non-biblical idea of his stuff being put in our account? Doesn't the NT have a sufficient store of images and metaphors to adequately communicate the effects of Christ's death for us?
Ugh...
Dan, how does "union" make us "righteous"?
ReplyDelete