Spurgeon: Imputation was the source of our fall and is our only hope for restoration

"Imputation, so far from being an exceptional case with regard to the righteousness of Christ lies at the very bottom of the entire teaching of Scripture. How did we fall, my Brethren? We fell by the imputation of Adam’s sin to us. Adam was our federal head. He represented us. And when he sinned we sinned representatively in him. And what he did was imputed to us. You say that you never agreed to the imputation. No, but I would not have you say thus—for as by representation we fell—it is by the representative system that we rise. The angels fell personally and individually—and they never rise.

"But we fell in another and we have therefore the power given by divine grace to rise in another. The root of the Fall is found in the federal relationship of Adam to his seed—thus we fell by imputation. Is it any wonder that we should rise by imputation? Deny this doctrine and I ask you—how are men pardoned at all? Are they not pardoned because satisfaction has been offered for sin by Christ? Very well, then, but that satisfaction must be imputed to them or else how is God just in giving to them the results of the death of another—unless that death of the other be first of all imputed to them?" (C.H. Spurgeon, “The Lord Our Righteousness”)