It was proved above (524) that after death everyone has imputed to him the evil he has, and likewise the good he has. This establishes the meaning of imputation. But if imputation is taken to mean the copying of good into someone in a state of evil, it is a fatuous expression, because it is an impossibility, as was proved above (525). In the world it is possible for merits to be copied, that is, for children to receive benefits for their parents' sake or for the friends of a client to have a favour done to them. But the good of merit cannot be imprinted on their souls, but only attached as an outward adjunct. Nothing of the kind is possible with regard to a person's spiritual life, which, as was shown above, needs to be implanted. If it is not implanted through living in accordance with the Lord's commandments listed above, a person remains in the state of evil which he has by birth. Until this implanting takes place, no good can touch him; and if it does, it is at once rejected and bounces back like a rubber ball falling on a rock, or it is swallowed up like a diamond thrown into a marsh.

An unreformed person is in spirit like a panther or an owl, and can be likened to a bramble or a nettle. But a regenerated person is like a sheep or a dove, and can be likened to an olive-tree or a vine. Be so good, I beg you, as to think how can a panther-person be turned into a sheep-person, or an owl into a dove, or a bramble into an olive-tree, or a nettle into a vine, by any process of imputation, if by that we mean copying. Surely for such a change to happen the fierceness of the panther and the owl, or the harmfulness of the bramble and the nettle, must first be taken away, so that what is truly human and harmless can be implanted? The Lord also teaches how this can happen in John 15:1-7.