Are You "The Blest Man"? Or the Man to Whom God Imputes Righteousness Without Works?! A Point to Ponder . . .

A Devotional for Monday June 23, 2025

The Blest Man

“Even as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness without works”  

Romans 4: 6. (KJV)

Did our adversaries[1] understand this one text, they would not so boldly affirm . . . that the words, “impute, imputed, imputeth, imputing,”[2] are not used in scripture. For men . . . [do] not really and personally [have] faith. Yet faith is imputed to men. Nay, they are not really and personally sin, nor really and personally righteousness. Yet these are imputed to men: so, then, both good things and bad . . . [are] imputed to men. Yet themselves be really and personally neither. But to come to the point: What righteousness hath that man that hath no works? Doubtless none of his own. Yet God imputes righteousness to him. Yea, what works of that man doth God impute to him that he yet justifies as ungodly?

Further, He that hath works as to justification from the curse before God, not one of them is regarded of God. So, then, it matters not whether you have righteousness of thine own or none. “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works.” Man’s blessedness—the blessedness of justification from the curse in the sight of God, lies not in good works done by us. Either before or after faith receives [it], but in a righteousness which God imputes without works; as we “work not” as we “are ungodly.”

Therefore . . . where sin is real, there can be no perfect righteousness; but the way of justification must be through perfect righteousness, therefore by another than our own, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (v. 8).

[1] Those who believe one can be made righteous before God by keeping the Law.

[2] “Impute” and its cognates here mean “to put on one’s account.” It is a book-keeping term.