God's Purpose For the FamilySample

I’d like you to consider the doctrine of double imputation. You may not be familiar with the word “imputation,” but it isn’t hard to understand. Essentially, it refers to a transfer of either a credit or a debt from one person to another. For example, if you were to co-sign a loan, if the person you co-sign for defaults on the loan, the debt is imputed to you—you have to pay it. So basically “imputation” is an accounting term.

Most Christians think in terms of single-imputation. They believe that our sins have been imputed to Christ and that’s why He died on the cross, so that He could pay for them. But that’s where it stops for them. They think that Christ’s death has left them with a zero balance. We all know that salvation is more than having your debts cleared. It also includes getting credit for something that we didn’t do. Here’s what I mean: when Christ rose from the dead the Church rose with Him. None of us deserve that; only Christ does. But we receive what He deserves because His righteousness is imputed to us. So there are two imputations here. Christ gets what we deserve, and we get what Christ deserves. And this is where marriage comes in.

Marriage is one of the most beautiful things in the world, and it is consummated when a man and a woman become one flesh. Paul tells us it is a mystery, meaning that it hides something, even as it reveals something. But a conjugal union is just the beginning. One flesh also refers to the natural issue of that union in children. It goes even beyond that: it is a union of interests, of goods, a common life, and a common future. It means that what goes for one, goes for the other. Paul tells us that all of this applies to Christ and the Church. What belongs to the Church, belongs to Christ; and what belongs to Christ, belongs to the Church, because they are one flesh.

Because sinners are condemned to die, Christ died for His chosen bride—that’s the first imputation; but here’s the other—because Christ was raised and glorified, the Church is raised and glorified, too. That’s the second imputation.

This means that, in a real way, conjugal marriage is the goal of history. It connects this world to the next, it unites Heaven and Earth, and it is a sign that reads, “This is the way the world will end, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with wedding bells.”

-C.R. Wiley