On that terrible, dark and lonely day, when God manifest in the flesh became Sin for you, God punished the body, soul and spirit of an innocent man, a Righteous Victim, the Lamb of God. Jesus bore through the full wrath of God in His bosom for sinners just like you. Every sin you've ever committed (past-present-future) was paid for at Calvary with God's own blood. If you want to get freedom from God's judgment on sin, you must come to Calvary. If you want to go to Heaven, trust Jesus Christ; if you want to go to Hell, just trust something else. Fix your faith solely on the Incarnate God's Atoning Blood and Justifying Righteousness.
The poured out wrath of God fell on Jesus that day when He was bearing your sins in His own body on the tree. Your sins were charged to Jesus' account, and He paid for those sins in your place. Do you want Safety from the wrath of God? Here's where you get it - get to where the wrath of God has already fallen, and your soul will be safe. You better get to Calvary. Jesus has already taken the sting of Sin and Death; He took the stinger for you; Sin can't sting you any long, because it got Him. If you want to be Safe, go to Calvary; if you want to go to Hell, just go somewhere else. There's a million ways to go to Hell.
When a man is born again and put into Christ by the Holy Spirit, that man is put into a position spiritually, that even though he may sin, those sins are no longer charged to his account. I sin enough every day of my life to condemn me and put me in Hell, but God sees me in Christ now, and He imputes my iniquities not to me, but He accepts me in the Beloved. In Christ, my sins are no longer laid to my charge, because Christ Jesus bore my sins and took them away with His Precious Blood. This is what the Holy Bible calls the blessedness of Imputation. No religionist that thinks you can earn and/or lose your Salvation has a clue about Imputation, but Imputation is a central Bible doctrine. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for Righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
Here's a simple illustration of Imputation: There are two books lying on a table, one is a pure white book, and the other book is as red as crimson. The white book is a record of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, the record of a perfect, sinless man. The crimson book is the diary of your entire life; it is filled with all your secret sins, transgressions, iniquities, filthy thoughts, cheating, lying, gossip, lust, wickedness, idolatry, dirty habits, self-righteous deeds and depravity. Whenever you trust to the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, God takes the white book of that Perfect Man and rights your name across the front it - "The Life and Times of so-and-so". When God does that, God imputes Christ's Righteousness to your guilty soul. Then God takes the crimson book with all of your wickedness in it, and He writes across the front of it, "This the life of My Son Jesus Christ". And God takes all your sins and imputes them to Christ's account. Imputation is when God takes your sins and marks them down on His innocent Son's record, and God put His Son's Righteousness down on your record, for Jesus' sake. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord Jesus Christ: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you believe in Imputation, you know that your own works cannot help save you, or play any part in your Salvation.
This is what the Bible calls Imputation, from the Latin verb imputare, which means “to charge (to someone’s account).” Guilt must be paid for; it can’t be swept under the rug. When you are wronged or injured – even in a fender-bender – the aggrieved party demands justice, someone has to answer for it, it’s someone’s fault, either you or the other person. The damage and cost don’t just go away. If it’s going to be put right, someone has to pay the cost. And so it is with God. There is no way He can turn a blind eye to our evil that is damaging to His holiness.
We have all sinned against God’s holy law. God is holy and strictly just; He must punish all sin. How does God confront this problem? How is the damage to Him paid for? Out of infinite love and divine mercy for us, God becomes a Jewish man and charges our infinite sin-debt to Himself, a Sinless Substitute. Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, put Himself in the place of sinners, the unbearable weight of our sin and guilt was charged to His account, He suffered for it, He sank under it, He endured all the wrath of God for us. For God hath made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. This is the love of God.
You must first sense the bitterness of your sins, before you can experience and know the blessedness of the forgiveness of sins. You must give up your artificial righteousness, and rest on and trust to Christ's finished work, that is, His Blood that was shed for sinners, and His Righteousness imputed to sinners. Be wise - take up the position as a sinner before God, and plead Guilty, accept the sentence of God's Law towards you as being just and right, and then call upon the Lord Jesus Christ to rescue you from that guilt. Whosoever believeth on Jesus is justified from all sin. Appeal only to God's mercy, pity and love, for a sinner has no merit of his own to stand on in the sight of God.
