As If
When I was a teenager, we sometimes had a cynical way of responding to certain things. So, for example, one of my friends might say, “I think the teacher is going to give us a free period so we can go outside and play baseball.” But knowing what our teacher was like, I’d respond, “As if!” It was short for, “As if that would ever happen!”
In our Heidelberg Catechism we find those two words used in a couple of places and it each time it’s positive. There’s good news in “as if.” We find it used in QA 60 in connection with justification. Being declared right with God involves the imputation (or the crediting) of the “perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ.” These are transferred over to us. As a result it is “as if I had never had nor committed any sin, and as if I myself had accomplished all the obedience which Christ has rendered for me.” The “as if” there captures the reality that even though in ourselves we’re still sinners as we live in this world, in God’s eyes Christians are righteous.
“As if” also appears in QA 79 of our Catechism, dealing with the benefits of Christ’s real spiritual presence at the Lord’s Supper. With the sacrament, Christ is assuring us “that all his suffering and obedience are as certainly ours as if we personally had suffered and paid for our sins.” Christ took our place on Calvary. Even though we haven’t atoned for our sins, because Christ did it for us, it is as if we did. Again, what he did is credited or imputed to us.
The words “as if” also appear in our Form for the Celebration of the Lord’s Supper. In the section on self-examination, we’re encouraged to search our hearts whether we also believe the sure promise of God that the perfect righteousness of Christ is freely given to us as our own, “as if [we ourselves] had fulfilled all righteousness.” The use and meaning is exactly the same as in our Catechism.
Those two little words are actually doing some heavy theological lifting. In Reformation theology, we speak of ourselves in justification as being at the same time righteous and sinners (Latin: simul iustus et peccator). “Righteous” is our standing before God in Christ. “Sinner” is our continuing reality here in ourselves. Or you could say it this way: “righteous” relates to our justification, “sinner” to our sanctification. But our Catechism helpfully chooses an even simpler expression: even though I am a sinner, it is as if in God’s eyes I’m not.
What an encouragement! Even though we know the reality of our struggles with sin each day, God looks at us through the lens of his Son and what he did for us. He lovingly regards us as his righteous children. And some day, when we’re glorified, those two little words “as if” will drop away. In glory we’ll finally be in ourselves what we were through the imputation of Christ’s suffering and obedience.
