Owen, Romaine, Rutherford, And
Brine On The Made Sin Issue

By Curt Wildy

In my article titled Encyclopaedia Britannica (1842) On The Made Sin Issue, I used language that was incorrect. I called the legal fictionist view a modern view. However, this is a misleading term and I have updated the original post to point to this correction.

As stated, simply reading the words impute, imputation, reckon, reckoning, etc. is not enough to determine whether the person believed in literal transfer or legal fiction. Both camps used the same language to describe their very differing views. As both the Encyclopedia Britannica affirms and the  The Bibliotheca sacra and American biblical repository, Volume 14 (pages 374b to 376), John Gill and Tobias Crisp held to a very literal transfer.

The Bibliotheca Sacra repository calls the fictionist view the modernist view; however, it was written in 1857, so for me to use it gives the impression that men like Wimer and Parker invented the idea when, in fact, men like John Owen, William Romaine, John Calvin, and John Brine held to it as well. I know that they held to it because they took the time to clearly define precisely what they meant by imputation, reckoning, and related words.

What I find interesting is that it was not really even a modernist view from the times of the Bibliotheca Sacra and Encyclopedia Britannica writers (1857 and 1842). Perhaps they were viewing it from a majority vs. minority position point of view; I do not know. Notice when the men at issue lived:

Literal Transfer:

1. Martin Luther (1483 to 1546);
2. Tobias Crisp (1600–1643)
3. Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680)
4. Joseph Hussey (1660–1726);
5. John Gill (1697– 1771);

Legal Fiction:

1. John Calvin (1509 to 1564)
2. Samuel Rutherford (1600 to 1661)
3. John Owen (1616 to 1683)
4. John Brine (1703–1765).

Clearly both views existed alongside each other from at least the 1500’s. Thus, though I can point to Tobias Crisp, J.C. Philpot,  John Gill, Joseph Irons, John Kerhsaw, Alexander Whyte, Gilbert Beebe, Beebe again, Thomas Goodwin, William Rushton, various Strict Baptists; and William Cathcart (The Baptist Encyclopedia, 1881) — the fictionists can point to Owen, Rutherford, Calvin, Brine, and perhaps many others. In fact, the more one researches the more they will find people to add to both camps. Appeals to the writings of men soon become a losing battle (or a stalemate as numbers accumulate on both sides) and we instead must appeal to the original words and their use by God in scripture. Until we take a comprehensive approach by looking at how God uses and defines these terms, we will forever be spinning our wheels.

I’ll leave you with one more thing to consider: with the exception of Rutherford (presuming I am understanding him correctly), and as far as I can currently tell, these other men did not attribute heresy and blasphemy to those individuals who held to a literal transfer of sin. In our day, we do not count the legal fictionists as heretics and blasphemers — “preachers of another gospel” — so why do they feel the need to do so against us in light of all that has been written to address their claims (most of which they neither respond to nor counter). Perhaps the modern fictionists can learn from the majority of their brothers of old and cease from the rhetoric that has so greatly hindered Christian unity and fellowship.

To God be the glory.