Christ made Sin?

So if, as I have argued, hamartian does not mean a sin offering, what does it mean? How can the Christ, before whom the angels veil their eyes and cry, “Holy, holy, holy!” possibly be made sin? There is so much that is paradoxical about the cross. How can the One called ‘Saviour’ be chided with the words, “Himself He cannot save” (Matthew 27:42)? How can the ‘Mighty God’ Isaiah 9:6) die in apparent helplessness and weakness? No wonder that the cross is ‘to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks, foolishness’ (1 Corinthians 1:23-25). To devout people like the Jews, the idea of the Messiah suffering and being made sin is blasphemous – pious Moslems react with horror at the very idea of a prophet of God being executed in such a barbaric way -- and to secular folk like the Greeks the whole idea is barmy! ‘But to those who are being saved, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God; because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.’

So what does it mean that Christ is ‘made sin’? Well, first of all, it means that all the sins of all the elect were laid upon His sinless shoulders. ‘And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all’ (Isaiah 53:6). Not that He was made a sinner – God forbid! There are more than enough Bible verses to show that He was never that – but that our sins were charged upon Him. “Christ was ‘made sin for us’ by the reckoning of our guilt to His account, not in mere semblance, but in dread reality. Because of this, Divine Justice took satisfaction from Him; because of this He died ‘the Just for the unjust’” (A.W. Pink).

But not only our sins were laid upon the sinless Christ, but also the curse of God upon those who commit them. ‘For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them”……Yet……Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us’ (Galatians 3:10, 13, quoting Deuteronomy 27:26).

So in what way were our sins laid upon Christ? Well, in what way do we become ‘the righteousness of God in Him’? By imputation. ‘….God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them…..’ ‘Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity’ (2 Cor. 5:19; Psalms 32:2). Our sins are not imputed to us because they have been imputed to Christ. His perfect righteousness and obedience is, in turn, imputed to us. He is made sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.’ Two quotations from long ago may be helpful:

“He was made sin, we are made ‘righteousness.’ The only sense in which we are made the righteousness of God is that we are in Christ regarded and treated as righteous, and therefore the only sense in which He was made sin, is that He was regarded and treated as a sinner. His being made sin is consistent with His being in Himself free from sin; and our being made righteous is consistent with our being in ourselves ungodly. In other words, our sins were imputed to Christ, and His righteousness is imputed to us” [Charles Hodge: A Commentary on 1 & 2 Corinthians]

“Him who was such that He knew no sin, sin never entered for one moment the region of His personal experience, Him – on our behalf – He made sin, so charged Him, loaded Him, implicated Him, in an inscrutable reality, with man’s sin that it was, for the purpose of Redemption, as if He were it; in order that on the amazing other side, that we might become, might ipso facto be, on coming to Him, God’s righteousness in Him; that we sinners, implicated and joined to the Lord, might in a wonderful correspondence be dealt with as if we were the embodied righteousness of God, the thing which wholly corresponds to His law, and so wholly receives the smile and welcome of the Judge” [Bishop Handley Moule: The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Emphases in the original]

We are not made a ‘righteousness offering,’ if there were such a thing. We are made, according to the verse, righteousness itself, and the righteousness of God at that. When God, as Judge, looks at us He sees not sinners struggling and often failing to keep His just commandments; no! He sees the perfect righteousness and obedience of Christ. So on the cross, the Father, as Judge, did not see the perfect spotless righteousness of Christ, but all the sins of the elect –all the lies, lust, pride, rage and spite – piled upon the Son and laid to His account. ‘He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree.’ The apostle’s use of the word ‘tree’ (Gk. xulon) instead of ‘cross’ (Gk. stauron), is there to remind us that Christ bore not only the weight of our sins, but the curse of God that rested upon them (Galatians 3:13).

I think it is very natural for people to shy away from the idea that Christ bore the curse of God against sin and sinners, but it is what the Bible explicitly teaches. When faced with the word of God we have to set aside squeamishness and presuppositions, and follow the Bible, wherever it takes us. Otherwise in toning down the 'offense of the cross' we may be in danger of making it 'of none effect.'

 

No. hamartia means 'sin.' what I was doing is exploring how and in what respect Christ became sin. I believe it is in the same way that we become righteousness. May I suggest you read the Charles Hodge quotation again?

 

We are told that Christ 'knew no sin.' ἁμαρτία here need not be restricted to immorality. Christ knew no pride, no falsehood, no selfishness, 'no sin.' But the sin that He did not know is what He was made. 'Christ made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us.' It's the same word in the same case (accusative). Deal with that, please. Also, since you say that one could not become 'sin,' please explain how one becomes 'righteousness.' Thank you.

Now it is my contention that nowhere in the N.T. or in the Septuagint O.T. is ἁμαρτία used in the accusative (or nominative) case to mean 'sin offering.' It is my further understanding that invariably the genitive case is used together with the prepositions peri or huper. Therefore, even if you insist that the second ἁμαρτία means something quite different from the first, which I think is most unlikely, I do not see how ἁμαρτία in the accusative case can be shown with any credibility to mean 'sin offering.' If you have information that proves me wrong, I am quite prepared to consider it, but you haven't provided any yet, only a couple of names.

I haven't read Mounce for the first time. Have you taken the time to print out the relevant part of his argument for me as I have done for you? If you have, I must have missed it. Perhaps you will give me the post number?

It hasn't been brought up by me. If you believe that my Greek is faulty, you are at liberty to point it out. I have surely quoted you enough authorities to show you that I am not unsupported in my view?

 

As I said above, I do not believe that hamartian means the "imputation of sin" but if you want to see the "imputation of sin" try Romans 4:8 (quoting Psalms 32:1-2) and Romans 5:13.

 

Well you should do, partly because it is common politeness, and partly because if you are going to discuss you should quote your sources as I have done. You can quote you experts at me and I can quote them back at you.

I have a pile of stuff to do, and I don't have time to root about on the internet to find something that you are too lazy to cut and paste.

 

I'm waiting for you to explain how we are made righteousness

 

No. Link please. Merely to state the man's opinion is useless; I need to know why he believes that. I have my own experts. There are literally dozens of commentators who believe that hamartian means 'sin.' I have given you Charles Hodge, Bishop Moule, A.W. Pink and Peter Naylor. I can also give you Simon Kistemaker if you like and James White (in The God who Justifies). Of all the commentaries I own, only Matthew Henry suggests 'sin offering.' But I would like you to to address two particular points which I have already raised.

Firstly:

'It has sometimes been suggested that the 'sin' which Jesus was made is the antitype to the O.T. sin offering. That this was so is true, but it is not what is meant here. The interpretation is to be rejected for several reasons. First, in the Septuagint the Greek word for sin, hamartia,when used for 'sin offering' is always in the genitive, 'for sin' or 'of sin.' This is not the case in 5:21. Second, the word 'sin' occurs twice in the verse and consistency demands that it should have the same connotation in both instances........Third, the apostle states that our Lord was made 'sin' so that sinners might be constituted the 'righteousness of God' in Him. The only way in which they can become the 'righteousness of God' is that they are regarded as perfectly righteous even though, in themselves, they are not. It follows that our Lord was made sin in that He was regarded and treated as a sinner although He was not inherently evil. [2 Corinthians Vol.1, by Dr Peter Naylor, Evangelical Press, 2002] The part emboldened has been added by me since I last pasted the comments

Now you go and do some work and find somewhere in the Septuagint where hamartia is not in the genitive case when it means 'sin offering.' Such study as I have done suggests that 'sin offering' in the Septuagint is actually the genitive preceded by peri or huper, but maybe you can find out more than I can.

Secondly:

“He was made sin, we are made ‘righteousness.’ The only sense in which we are made the righteousness of God is that we are in Christ regarded and treated as righteous, and therefore the only sense in which He was made sin, is that He was regarded and treated as a sinner. His being made sin is consistent with His being in Himself free from sin; and our being made righteous is consistent with our being in ourselves ungodly. In other words, our sins were imputed to Christ, and His righteousness is imputed to us” [Charles Hodge: A Commentary on 1 & 2 Corinthians]

If it is not possible for Christ to be made 'sin,' how is it possible for us to be made 'righteousness'?

You might also like to address @The Archangel's excellent Post#62.

 

There is obviously a sense in which we are indeed clothed in Christ's righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). However, I don't think that is the meaning of 2 Cor 5:21. We 'become' the righteousness of God. In Romans 5:19, 'many will be made righteous' just as Christ was 'made sin.' Unless one believes in Wesleyan sinless perfection, these things can only come about by imputation. See Romans 4:6 etc.