And what are the personal benefits of such a strategy? Well, it’s really quite simple. When your team wins, you can vicariously identify with their victory. If they become champions, then you are a champion with them. If they’re number 1, then you become a part of their coveted number one status. Such reasoning is a part of human nature, but some might be surprised that this kind of thinking plays a vital role in understanding the Bible 

An important Bible word that we don’t hear very frequently today is the word “imputation”. It means to attribute or credit or transfer something from one person to another”. Newer Bible translations don’t use the term impute, but instead say “reckon or credit”. Going back to the illustration from the world of sports, we see daily this desire of fans to credit to themselves some of the acclaim won by their team. And unfortunately, the opposite is true as well. When your team loses, your rivals are quick to impute to you the shame of your team’s defeat. 

Now the Bible recognizes three distinct imputations as it recounts the history of the human race. From God’s viewpoint there are three separate instances over the course of human history in which the actions of one representative individual may be credited to the account of a larger group of people. 

The first imputation in history occurred when the first man, Adam, sinned in the garden. This event is known to theologians as “the Fall” of mankind. When the first created man disobeyed the law as given by his Creator, the effect of his disobedience was credited to all of his posterity. As the old reading textbook in schools a generation ago phrased it, “In Adam’s Fall, we sinned all.” Because of the imputation of Adam’s guilt to all of his human family, the moral need of mankind is for an event and a Person who can reverse the effects of the Fall. 

All that I’ve said to this point sets the stage for the most momentous series of events in human history. I’m referring, of course, to the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that unique Person who was fully God and fully human, and who the Bible calls the Second Adam. The events surrounding His life allow us to speak of the second and third references to imputation in the Bible. 

In 2 Corinthians 5:21 the Bible says that God “made Christ who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” The Bible explains that because of what happened at the cross upon which Christ died, a double transaction can occur which will rescue a person from his condition of guilt. 

God made Christ to be the sin-bearer. On the cross He became sin for us. In other words, the sinner’s guilt can be imputed to Christ, who pays its penalty by substitutionary death. Then, in exchange, because Christ had no guilt of His own, and because He alone possessed a perfect righteousness, that righteousness can be imputed, or credited, to the account of those repentant people who place their trust in Him and desire to live in loving relationship with Him. 

This, then, is a double imputation: my guilt is assigned to Christ and His righteousness credited to me. 

This is the message the Bible calls “good news”. It is a message of “grace”. The sinner receives God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. 

But let me remind you, my friends, that the first imputation is a universal one. The fact of the first Adam’s fall impacts every man, woman or child ever born. The second and third imputations occur only for those who have called upon Christ Jesus as their Savior and Lord.