----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Reisinger" <24jreisinger26@...>
>If the perfect righteousness of Christ earned by keeping the Law is imputed
>to us then why would we need a sacrifice for >sin since we would already be
>accounted as perfectly righteous?

Because Hebrews tells us that Christ still had to fulfill the requirements
of the curse: the death of the guilty.  This is the negative.  Again...
seeing the positive and the negative of the torch/fire pot... Christ both
walks through the bloody halved animals (positive... fulfilling the
requirements of the covenant himself) AND becomes the bloody halved animals
(negative... taking the guilt/curse of the failure to keep the covenant onto
himself).

>Likewise, if forgiveness of sin was all that was imputed to us through
>Christ's cross work would we not be in a kind of >"limbo?"
>Would we be not guilty because we were forgiven and therefore could not >be
condemned and lost, but not justified >because we did not have an >earned
righteousness credited to our account? Hence the necessity of the >righteous
life of >Christ, in addition to his death, being imputed to us.

Aye.  And now you're seeing what Shepherd/Auburn/NPP cannot account for.
Shepherd has been emphatic that the only *real* accomplishment of the cross
on our behalf is forgiveness of guilt.  The substance of the imputed
righteousness is forgiveness of guilt.  But he can only say this by denying
that Adam would have earned any kind of righteousness (or the Israelites via
their CoW and the Law).  Otherwise, the cross places us no further than the
probation period of Adam... But this in fact is precisely where Shepherd is
willing to go: we ourselves must have an earned righteousness at the final
judgment.  Armstrong has gone a little further... not being tied to a
confession, he sees the illogic of an imputed righteousness constituting
only forgiveness and so he has pretty much denied imputation altogether.

Chad Bresson
Xenia, OH