Romans 4:5-8

There is another theological aspect of this and that is another gift—the imputing of righteousness to us.

God simply accounts righteousness, the righteousness of Christ, where the righteousness does not in reality exist. It means that when we are justified, He looks upon us as though we were sinless like His Son. That is awesome! Do we deserve that? Have we earned it?—that He should deal with us as though we were righteous and without sin?

We are dealing here with an accounting term, and the picture is as if a person was looking at a ledger and every figure was in the debit column. The person was hopelessly in debt. There was no way that he could figure out how to bring things into balance. He could never earn enough. His income was not great enough. There were no assets. Nothing could balance the account. In his despair he cried out to God and then he looked at his ledger and suddenly a figure appeared on the credit side that completely balanced the account and the debt was gone.

You see, it is not something that we earn. It is something that God, for His own reason, determines to favor us with.