Imputed Righteousness
and Eternal Security

Dan Corner

OSAS Imputed Righteousness Is a License To Sin

If Eternal Security Imputed Righteousness Was True Then Why These?

In a nutshell, the teaching of imputed righteousness from the eternal security view point is: a person once saved is holy and righteous without living holy and righteously. For people who believe in imputed righteousness, a Christian takes on Jesus' righteousness at the point of salvation and this righteous and holy standing before God can never be changed even by the most vile and heinous evils that could afterwards be committed. They also tell us sometimes: God can't see the Christian's sin. Instead, he only sees Jesus' righteousness, blood and grace, but never the sin! To them, Jesus' holiness and blamelessness is the Christian's forever holiness and blamelessness. That is their teaching ofimputed righteousness, which is both demonic and lethal.

Actual Imputed Righteousness Heresy Teachings

He [God] sees me through the grid of Jesus' righteousness, and therefore I am as acceptable to Him as His Son Jesus is, regardless of my daily performance. (Hal Lindsey, Amazing Grace, 1995, p. 202)

It's simply a matter of living with the moment-by-moment awareness that because of my absolute oneness with Jesus in the eyes of God, all that He is, I am. His victory over sin is my victory over sin. He's holy and blameless in the eyes of the Father and so am I.(ibid., p. 283)

... As He looks at the Son, He looks at me in the same way because He sees me in the Son and the Son in me. (ibid., p. 283)

The doctrine of imputed righteousness, in part, is the basis of how eternal security teachers can sometimes confuse the issue about sin and conceal the vital need to obey God after getting born again to prevent spiritual death (which eternal security also wrongly denies can happen to the righteous). Hal Lindsey, who has been married 4 times, was open about his own personal sinful behavior when he wrote:

I'm sad to say that some of the worst sins I have ever committed have been after salvation. But God's grace taught me to believe His promises of forgiveness and to get up and trust Him again. (ibid., p.23)

In spite of his own vile behavior after initial salvation, Hal Lindsey continues to think he has never lost his salvation because of this doctrine!

The Imputed Righteousness Proof Text

The chief Scripture proponents cite for this interpretation of imputed righteousness is Romans 4:6-8, which quotes Psalm 32:

David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are cofsvered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."

It seems that very few who believe in imputed righteousness are aware that Paul quotes David's thirty-second Psalm, where he [David] referred to, among other things, his own sins which needed to be confessed to God and forgiven after his own initial salvation:

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD" and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah (Psa 32:5)

Shocking but true, the eternal security teachers read into Romans 4:6-8, with their imputed righteousness view, something that is not there and seem to go unchallenged. All Romans 4:6-8 says is one is spiritually blessed if he is described like that, which applies to when one gets initially forgiven. Rom. 4:6-8 does not say: (1) That the Lord will never count sin against such a person again under any circumstances or (2) That such a blessed condition is a guaranteed, perpetual, unchanging state, as the eternal security interpret it to be.

Click For Proof That Joseph Prince Is A Dangerous FALSE Teacher

Forgiven Sins Held
Against One Again

We must also never forget what the Lord Jesus himself taught in Mt. 18:21-35. Concisely stated the Lord declared that one's mountainous sin debt, which was forgiven in a moment at the point of initial salvation will once again be counted against him, if he does not forgive people who sin against him:

In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." (Matt. 18:34,35)

We must compare Scripture with Scripture to rightly divide the Word of truth. When Matthew 18:21-35 is compared to Romans 4:6-8 we can again see irreconcilable problems for the eternal security proponents' imputed righteosness interpretation.

NO Eternal Security Imputed Righteosness

To further refute the interpretation of eternal security's imputed righteousness please know that a person once saved can afterwards become spiritually:
 defiled (Mt. 15:20; Heb. 12:15; etc.)
 soiled (Rev. 3:4; etc.)
 impure (1 Thess. 4:7; etc.)
 dead (Lk. 15:24; Rom. 8:13; Gal. 5:19-21; Gal. 6:8,9; etc.)

With that Scriptural truth in mind, please ponder the following relevant Scriptures:

The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. (1 Tim. 1:5,6)

In that important passage, Paul not only stated he himself had a pure heart, good conscience and sincere faith, but went on to state that some plural unnamed people he knew have not continued with these. In other words, after they got eternal salvation something happened to interfere with and change their pure heart to an impure heart. Please know that at the point of salvation one's heart is instantly purified by faith [in Jesus]:

He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. (Acts 15:9)

Getting back to 1 Tim. 1:6, we can deduce that those referred to there, who once had a pure heart and salvation, lost that spiritual standing before God. If the version of imputed righteousness, as taught by the eternal security teachers was true, they could not have lost their purified heart condition as they did. It would be impossible! However, since that did (and does) occur, then we can be assured that a spiritually righteous and holy standing at the point of getting born again can afterwards be adversely affected and changed to the point of negating one's salvation, which is what we see in various ways and at many other times in the Bible.

No Need If Imputed Righteousness Was True

Because Paul knew such a lethal change can occur, he wrote Timothy the following:

Do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. (1 Tim. 5:22)

It is apparent that Paul, who gave us Romans 4:6-8, knew sin could: (1) Cause a spiritually pure person, like Timothy, to become impure and (2) Timothy would have to do something for himself to keep that blessed condition of being pure under grace. Again, it is clear that Paul rejected the popular version of imputed righteousness, as taught by the dangerous eternal security teachers. Peter similarly wrote:

So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. (2 Pet 3:14)

Most in the church at Sardis didn't stay pure, but got spiritually defiled. Only a few didn't soil their spiritual clothes:

Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. (Rev. 3:4,5)

All of that is enough, but there is more. Please ponder the fact that heart purity is the salvation issue with God:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. (Mat 5:8)

Nothing impure will ever enter it [New Jerusalem], nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. (Rev 21:27)

Fundamental to true original Christianity was the following related truth:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)

Hence, under true grace the Christian must keep himself, from being polluted by the world. If it was solely left up to God no one would ever become polluted by the world. This is why Paul told Timothy to do that for himself, which is related to final salvation, but antithetical to eternal security imputed righteousness!

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Again, remember their demonic imputed righteousness belief that a person once saved will remain holy without living holy or one can be righteous while doing evil. Notice how the following Scriptures refute such by showing that the evildoers are the wicked and not the righteous:

Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who do evil, who speak cordially with their neighbors but harbor malice in their hearts. (Psa 28:3)

The way of the LORD is a refuge for the righteous, but it is the ruin of those who do evil. (Prov 10:29)

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. (1 Pet 3:12)

NOTE: The righteous [the Christians] are contrasted with those who do evil [unsaved]. Again, those who do evil are not the righteous. As clear as that is, ponder what Jesus said about who will go to the fiery furnace in the end:

The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Mat 13:41,42)

Notice the similarity between that and those the Lord taught will be resurrected to be condemned:

Those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. (John 5:29)

Those verses should make Hal Lindsey tremble in his shoes, based on his above quote about sinning worse after getting saved than before! If all of that was not convincing enough, surely what the Apostle John wrote about the sinful will be:

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil (1 John 3:7,8)

The eternal security teachers are trying to lead us astray regarding this very issue through what they label imputed righteousness! John told us not to be led astray. Please read that again and ponder the truth:

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil.

John's warning about this type of doctrinal deception seems to be tailor made for the Christians of our era who may hear the Reformed [should be Deformed] teaching of imputed righteousness from the eternal security proponents. You must not be led astray by them. Observations are the following:
 The righteous and sinful are contrasted and can be identified by their behavior, that is, by doing right or by doing the sinful. To be righteous, you must do right. Those who do sinful things are of the devil, according to true Biblical grace teaching. That is also similar to the following:

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:10)

 False teachers will try to lead Christians astray and deceive them into not believing the aforementioned truth. Hence, we must be grounded in Scriptural truth so that deceptive and dangerous false teachers can't beguile us.

"You Have Wearied The LORD"

Back in the days of the prophet Malachi, he delivered the following message to people that were both deceived and sinful, which also seems customized for the eternal security imputed righteousness adherents of our day:

You have wearied the LORD with your words. "How have we wearied him?" you ask. By saying, "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them" (Mal 2:17)

As already stated, the eternal security teachers declare all those who have once been saved and do evil are righteous in the eyes of the LORD. They also teach God is automatically pleased with those who were once saved. Hence, the very lies that wearied the LORD in Malachi's day are still being circulated through the eternal security (or once saved always saved) version of imputed righteousness and must still be causing the same adverse affect on God today, since he doesn't change. This is more proof that eternal security comes from the devil, your enemy, who is try to devour you (1 Peter 5:8).

The Truth vs Imputed Righteousness

Simply stated, the righteousness that comes by faith [in Jesus Christ] happens at the point of repenting and having an obedient faith in Jesus. Such a righteous and holy standing before Godcan be lost, nullified and negated through after-conversion sinful activity, believing or preaching a false gospel and/or through disowning Jesus during persecution. Those are the Biblical facts, like it or not! Furthermore, they will never change, even if you reject them.

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest IF we do not give up. (Gal 6:7-9)

Remember, eternal security imputed righteousness is DEADLY TO SOULS!

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