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christian-soteriologyfeatured in 18 works

Imputed Righteousness

Christ's righteousness credited to the believer's account

Imputed righteousness is the teaching that Christ's own righteousness is reckoned, or credited, to the believer in justification, associated especially with Luther and Melanchthon. This is a distinctively Protestant doctrine. Catholic and Orthodox traditions differ: rather than an external reckoning, they emphasize a righteousness that is infused and transforms the believer from within. The traditions thus diverge on how a sinner is made right with God.

How it traveled

  1. Romans
    Corinth · 67
    explains
  2. 2 Corinthians
    Philippi · 67
    explains
  3. Against Heresies: Book IV
    Lyons · 202
    explains
  4. The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Paul's Epistle to the Romans
    Constantinople (Istanbul) · 407
    explains
  5. The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians
    Constantinople (Istanbul) · 407
    explains
  6. A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  7. Expositions on the Book of Psalms
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  8. A Treatise Concerning Man’s Perfection in Righteousness
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  9. The Enchiridion
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  10. Commentary on Galatians
    Wittenberg · 1546
    explains
  11. Discussion: Third Part
    Wittenberg · 1546
    explains
  12. Book Third. the Mode of Obtaining the Grace of Christ. the Benefits It Confers, and the Effects Resulting from It
    Geneva · 1564
    explains
  13. Book Second. of the Knowledge of God the Redeemer, in Christ, as First Manifested to the Fathers, Under the Law, and Thereafter to Us Under the Gospel
    Geneva · 1564
    explains
  14. XIV Five discourses on the soul's eternal salvation
    Northampton, Massachusetts · 1758
    explains
  15. The great christian doctrine of original sin defended
    Northampton, Massachusetts · 1758
    explains
  16. Seventeen Occasional Sermons
    Northampton, Massachusetts · 1758
    explains
  17. A History of the Work of Redemption
    Northampton, Massachusetts · 1758
    explains
  18. The Wisdom of God Displayed in the Way of Salvation
    Northampton, Massachusetts · 1758
    explains

Key passages(20)

21. Let us now consider the truth of what was said in the definition—viz. that justification by faith is reconciliation with God, and that this consists solely in the remission of sins. We must always

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11. We must strongly insist on these two things: That no believer ever performed one work which, if tested by the strict judgment of God, could escape condemnation; and, moreover, that were this grant

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Discussion: Third Part · Martin Luther

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Sect. CLI. — LET us now bring forward that example of Abraham which Paul afterwards adduces. “If (saith he) Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. For what sait

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OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. BOTH THE NAME AND THE REALITY DEFINED. In this chapter and the seven which follow, the doctrine of Justification by Faith is expounded, and opposite errors refuted. The fol

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3. In confirmation of this there are many clear passages of Scripture. First, it cannot be denied that this is the proper and most usual signification of the term. But as it were too tedious to collec

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11. But more poison lurks in the second branch, when he says that we are righteous together with God. I think I have already sufficiently proved, that although the dogma were not so pestiferous, yet b

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Very high

justification by faith alone Rom. iv. 5. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. The following things may be noted in

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Very high

First, I would explain what we mean by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Sometimes the expression is taken by our divines in a larger sense, for the imputation of all that Christ did and suffe

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Very high

Third and last thing under this argument, That this doctrine, of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, is utterly inconsistent with the doctrine of our being justified by our own virtue or sincere

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First, I would explain what we mean by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Sometimes the expression is taken by our divines in a larger sense, for the imputation of all that Christ did and suffe

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Very high

The term here used, “moral congruity,” is not happily chosen. Indeed our author, in the next sentence, professes himself to be at a loss what terms to use which may clearly convey the necessary distin

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Very high

10. The apostle could not mean only works of the ceremonial law, when he says, we are not justified by the works of the law, because it is asserted of the saints under the Old Testament as well as New

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1. That justification respects a man as ungodly. This is evident by these words,—that justifieth the ungodly; which cannot imply less, than that God, in the act of justification, has no regard to any

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4. Without saying more about the term, we shall have no doubt as to the thing meant if we attend to the description which is given of it. For Paul certainly designates justification by the term accept

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16. Scripture, when it treats of justification by faith, leads us in a very different direction. Turning away our view from our own works, it bids us look only to the mercy of God and the perfection o

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Romans · Paul the Apostle

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He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be i

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Romans · Paul the Apostle

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Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works,

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THAT GREAT OBJECTION AGAINST THE IMPUTATION OF ADAM’S SIN TO HIS POSTERITY, CONSIDERED, THAT SUCH IMPUTATION IS UNJUST AND UNREASONABLE, INASMUCH AS ADAM AND HIS POSTERITY ARE NOT ONE AND THE SAME. WI

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The other divine thinks, there is truly an imputation of Adam’s sin, so that infants cannot be looked upon as innocent creatures; yet seems to think it not agreeable to the perfections of God, to make

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My meaning, in the whole of what has been said, may be illustrated thus: Let us suppose that Adam and all his posterity had co-existed, and that his posterity had been, through a law of nature establi

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