Saturday, September 5, 2015

Does clothing imagery support imputation?

I have sometimes encountered Evangelicals who claim that the clothing imagery supports the concept of imputed righteousness. However, when one reads the context of such passages, they support the clothing being an outward sign of an inward reality, not an imputed one (a legal fiction, if one is being honest [e.g., Gal 3:27, which teaches baptismal regeneration]). However, what they often overlook in their eisegesis of the Bible and in their (misdirected) zeal to prop up their made-man doctrines is that, if being clothed in righteousness means that the righteousness one possesses is not their own (whether intrinsically or through infusion), but an imputed one from an alien source, that means that Yahweh's qualities of honour, strength, and majesty are not actually His intrinsically but are merely imputed to him from an external source(!) Notice the following texts:

The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he had girded himself; the world also is stablished, that is cannot be moved. (Psa 93:1)

Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. (Psa 104:1)


In reality, Yahweh is said to be "clothed" with majesty, strength, and honour as such an image is a potent outward sign of an inward reality; the same is said when the concept is used of believers. There is nothing in support of imputed righteousness in this concept.