He Bears His Iniquity

According to the Protestant doctrine of imputation, Christ’s righteousness is reckoned as righteousness to those who believe. Typically, this creates a double identity: Though we are in ourselves guilty sinners, God sees us in Christ, and therefore regards us and treats us as righteous.

It is often objected that imputation rests our standing with God on a legal fiction: Jesus is treated as guilty when He’s not, and we are treated as just when we’re not. Is that truthful? Existentially and pastorally, it leaves open a gap for doubt to slip in: God may say I’m righteous, but I know the actual truth of the matter, that I’m a vile guilty sinner. Imputation of righteousness rests on a prior imputation of our sins to Jesus. Is that fair?

We might say: God does it, therefore it must be fair, truthful not fictional. But I believe that there’s more to say. There are hints within the Levitical system that imputation is not a strange exception to the standard way of doing things. Rather, some act of imputation is at work in evaluating and judging any human action.

I have in mind the phrases “he shall bear his iniquity” (Leviticus 7:18; 19:8) and “their/his blood on them/him” (Leviticus 20:9). The phrase implies that the blood must be on someone. Free-floating blood is not an option. Either the person who committed the crime must bear responsibility, or the people who failed to carry out the punishment, or, in some cases, a substitutionary animal. It’s always necessary to assign responsibility.

These formulae presuppose a distinction between the act itself and the assignment of responsibility for the act. When a man takes his sister as a wife, he is “cut off in the sight of the sons” of Israel (Leviticus 20:17). In a number of the instances, this phrase refers to Yahweh’s own act (17:10; 20:3, 8) and in other uses it refers to punishment for secret acts that only Yahweh could know (touching something unclean and eating a peace offering, for instance, in 7:21; or eating blood, 7:27; 17:10, 14). The passive is arguably a divine passive. In 20:17, the statement is followed by the declaration that he “bears his guilt,” which, in the context of (possibly) divine punishment implies that he bears his guilt because Yahweh has assigned it. The addition of “he bears his guilt” seems unnecessary: If the wrong action attracted guilt to it “immediately,” then the additional statement that “he bears his guilt” is redundant. Of course he bears his guilt; who else would? The fact that the phrase is included at all suggests that someone else might, and thus suggests that the assignment of responsibility or guilt is distinct from the wrong action itself. In short, wrong acts must be judged wrong.

There’s a particular spin on this for capital crimes. A man has homosexual relations in ancient Israel, must, according to Torah, be put to death (Leviticus 20:13). He has committed a sexual crime, and must be punished. But his death leaves the land bloodstained, and that blood cannot be ignored. Somebody has to pay for that blood. Normally, the person who sheds blood has to pay with his own blood, but the law says that the criminal who is executed pays for the blood of his death himself: His blood is on him, and not on the executioners. Perhaps the logic is that, since he committed a capital crime, he is treated as a self-murderer; his blood is shed by others, but he is treated as the one who sheds blood. Perhaps there’s a kind of double jeopardy: The man dies once for two different wrongs – the wrong of his original sodomy and the wrong of shedding blood on the land. In any case, the Torah treats his bloodshed as if it were suicide – “his blood is on him.”

If there’s always an assignment of responsibility distinct from the wrong of the act itself, that leaves open the possibility that someone other than the actor might bear that responsibility. It suggests the possibility that the iniquity might be “imputed” to another, to a sin-bearer. On this theory, “imputation” is not what happens when someone else takes the guilt; imputation is necessary for any assignment of guilt, whether to the perpetrator or to someone else. Every sin and crime must be imputed in order to be punished, imputed to the criminal or to some substitute. Imputation isn’t the assignment of guilt to another. It simply is the assignment of guilt.

On individualist premises, if I act badly, I’m simply guilty without any other action being taken by anyone. My guilt is simply mine. No one judges me guilty. No one assigns responsibility. My guilt is mine just as completely and immediately as the action itself. On the theory I’m offering, guilt and responsibility are assigned socially/theologically, that is, by others or another or Another. Liability to punishment is mine when it is reckoned to me, and it might not be, for various reasons (such as the incarnate Son joyfully assumed it for me). That assignment of responsibility is what guilt or innocence is. Guilty or innocent, I am guilty or innocent in the regard of the authorized judge/Judge.

On this theory, there is no “open space” for the legal fiction to occupy, no gap for faith to leak out of. There’s no “real inherent guilt” that is cancelled or ignored in favor of an “imputed righteousness.” I am either guilty or not by virtue of God’s assignment of responsibility, guilt, or innocence. His assignment of guilt or innocence simply is my guilt or innocence, rather than something added to the “inherent” guilt or innocence of my action. Since He doesn’t reckon my sins against me, I am innocent, full stop.

This snaps and locks the lid on the pastoral import of justification. If the ghost of legal fiction haunts God’s imputation of righteousness, then I’m uncertain about my standing. When God says “you’re righteous,” I object “That’s nuts! I’m the furthest thing from righteous.” If my guilt itself is imputed, so is my righteousness. When He says I’m righteous, it’s over. When He says He’s taking responsibility for my sin, it’s over. There’s no “real guilt” underlying that reckoning decision. If Jesus says “his blood on My head,” that’s where the blood goes. If He says, “I shall bear his guilt,” then the only guilt there can possibly be has been taken from me.