Imputation

Luther writes (Commentary on Gal 2:20), “Christ and I must be joined together so that He lives in me and I in Him – and what a wonderful way of speaking that is. For because He lives in me, whatever there is in me of grace, righteousness, life, peace, salvation is all His but in such a way that it is mine through this inseparable union and conjunction which I have with Him through faith. Through this faith Christ and I are made one body, as it were, and spirit. Now because Christ lives in me there must be present with Him grace, righteousness, life, and salvation whereas the Law, sin, and death are absent: in fact, the Law is crucified and devoured and destroyed along with sin, death, and the devil. Thus, Paul tries to draw us wholly away from ourselves and transplant us into Christ by faith in Him.”

Seems that Luther is grounding justification in union with Christ, no? “BECAUSE Christ lives in me there must be present with Him . . . righteousness.”

No, says Preus. Imputation is not a “metaphor” or “figure” but a description of what actually takes place in justification. This “blessed exchange” can, however, be set in a “metaphorical pattern of thought” such as “marriage, union with Christ, crucifixion of Law, sin, and death, etc.).” “It is not possible to understand Luther as grounding the blessed exchange in the fact of the believer’s union with Christ. To do so would deny that the justitia aliena is imputed and would put the two motifs [of imputation and union] in opposition to each other. Furthermore, union with Christ is the result of justification, not the other way around.”

Curious, that.