Grudem takes the traditional Reformed view of imputation as solving the moral dilemma of punishing an innocent in place of the guilty. In other words, man's sins were "charged" to Jesus account and thus became really his. He explains:
...it was God the Father who put our sins on Christ. How could that be? In the same way in which Adam's sins were imputed to us, so God imputed our sins to Christ; that is, he thought of them as belonging to Christ, and, since God is the ultimate judge and definer of what really is in the universe, when God thought of our sins as belonging to Christ then in fact they actually did belong to Christ. This does not mean that God thought that Christ had himself committed the sins, or that Christ himself actually had a sinful nature, but rather that the guilt of our sins (that is, the liability to punishment) was thought of by God as belonging to Christ rather than to us(p. 574).In very simple and plain language, Grudem says that the imputation of man's sin to Jesus means God thought of them as belonging to Christ. This is in line with the meaning of the word impute λογίζομαι (logidzomai) which is essentially "to consider" or "to reckon something to be so." According to Grudem, then, God just decided to consider man's sin as really belonging to Jesus. He further adds since God is the ultimate judge and definer of what really is in the universe, when God thought of our sins as belonging to Christ then in fact they actually did belong to Christ.
Certainly evangelicals have held that God is sovereign and that he can do what he pleases, BUT they have also taught that whatever God does, it will always be in accordance with his nature which is perfectly holy and just. Can even God declare that man's sin belongs to Jesus and thus it becomes reality?
John Nevin, a 19th century Reformed theologian, and purportedly the best student Charles Hodge had at Princeton, saw the problem with this view of imputation. He wrote:
The judgment of God must ever be according to truth. He cannot reckon to anyone an attribute or quality that does not belong to him in fact. He cannot declare him to be in a relation or state that is not actually his own, but the position merely of another. A simply external imputation here, the pleasure and purpose of God to place to the account of one what has been done by another, will not answer. Nor is the case helped in the least by the hypothesis of what is called a legal federal union between the parties, in the case of whom such a transfer is supposed to be made; so long as the law is thought of in the same outward way, as a mere arbitrary arrangement or constitution for the accomplishment of the end in question. The law in this view would be itself a fiction only, and not the expression of a fact. But no such fiction, whether under the name of law or without it, can lie at the ground of a judgment entertained or pronounced by God The Mystical Presence and Other Writings on the Eucharist, pp. 190-91 cited in by Mark Horne, Real Union or Legal Fiction).A. H. Strong whom we discussed in yesterday's post, also recognized that the traditional Reformed doctrine of imputation was in fact a "legal fiction." He wrote:
Arbitrary imputation and legal fiction do not help us here. We need such an actual union of Christ with humanity, and such a derivation for the substance of his being, by natural generation from Adam, as will make him not simply the constructive heir, but the natural heir, of the guilt of the race. . . . All believers in substitution hold that Christ bore our guilt. . . . But we claim that, by virtue of Christ's union with humanity, that guilt was not only an imputed, but also an imparted, guilt (p. 759).I think that both Nevin and Strong are correct. A "God of Truth" (Deut. 32:4), who the Scripture says, "cannot lie" (Tit. 1:2) cannot consider something that is false to be true. The entire plan of salvation for mankind cannot be based on a lie (or a legal fiction). As Strong points out, in order for Jesus to legitimately be considered guilty, sin must not merely be imputed to him but imparted to him. Few if any evangelicals are going to be willing to go this far because of the fact that it impugns the nature and character of the sinless Son of God. In addition, it is difficult to understand how sin could be imparted. Sin is not a material substance, it is not a liquid that could be injected into the body. Sin is a thought or an action. How do you impart thoughts or actions into a person? So, it doesn't appear that either imputation or impartation of sin will solve the dilemma for evangelicals.
Grudem concludes his very brief discussion of this topic by saying that penal substitution is the way God chose to accomplish the atonement and thus it has to be right and the believer just needs to humbly accept it. He writes:
Some have objected that it was not fair for God to do this, to transfer the guilt of sin from us to an innocent person, Christ. Yet we must remember that Christ voluntarily took on himself the guilt of our sins, so this objection loses much of its force. Moreover, God himself (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is the ultimate standard of what is just and fair in the universe, and he decreed that the atonement would take place in this way, and that it did in fact satisfy the demands of his own righteousness and justice (p. 574).
As has been pointed out before on this blog, the fact that Jesus voluntarily went to the cross is a red herring. It is irrelevant to the problem. Yes, Jesus died voluntarily and that is noble. However, the question is how could God the Father accept the punishment of an innocent as satisfying the penalty owed by the guilty? How can that ever be just or right? Grudem's answer: "Well, he is God and he determines what is right and wrong." However, if that is true, then anything God ever commanded or did would automatically be good or right and the concepts of good and right would lose their meaning. For example, is it good to massacre whole villages and kill all the inhabitants including women and children and even infants? The great majority of mankind would agree that could never be called "good." Yet, that is precisely what God commanded to be done in the book of Joshua and I Samuel. If that is an example of "good," the word has lost all meaning.
So, here we have another evangelical theologian's failed attempt to justify the PST of the atonement.