You are saying that Paul would be bamboozling the people of Corinth by using the same word with two different meanings in the same sentence.
You are being obscure here.
I am not being obsure at all. If you believe that the Lord Jesus was made a 'sin offering,' then either you believe that He 'knew no sin offering' which makes no sense, or you believe that Paul was bamboozling the Corinthians by using the same word with two diffferent meanings in the same sentence. Which is it?
You know I take a literal approach to Scripture. Perhaps that is where we are missing one another.
I know that you say you do.
I will restate my view and then post what I understand of your view so that you can clarify and correct where I misunderstood you.
My view:
I believe "sin" in both instances as used in 2 Cor 5:21 (For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.) is a good translation.
I note that
hamartia is used in the LXX in reference to sin offerings (over 100 times). [/QUOTE] So does the second appearance of
hamartia mean 'sin' or 'sin offering' in your opinion? If the former, as you say here, how do you define the sin that our Lord was made?
I note that the hamartia is used in Greek literature (originating with Aristotle but continuing throughout Greek literature....hence the term "hamartia" in drama even outside of Greek literature) to describe a tragic event brought on by an inner (often spiritual, often noble) trait.
Aristotle wrote around 100 years after the great Greek tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. He wrote that a tragic hero should be a good man, brought down by a single fault or 'tragic flaw.' I believe he used the word
hamartia Thus, in Shakespeare, Othello is a great man brought down by his suspicion of his wife Desdemona, and Macbeth is brought down by his listening to his wife. In Greek tragedy, many heroes are brought down by
hubris, self-sufficiency or a pride in one's own ability that causes one to ignore the gods. Thus Oedipus is a good man brought down by by
hubris when he ignores the advice of his wife/mother Jocasta and Teiresias the blind seer (pun intended).
So to Aristotle,
hamartia was a general word for any sin, error or disobedience that caused one to fall short or miss the mark set by the gods.
I noted that Homer used hamartia to mean "missing the mark" in writing of battles.
You may very well be right. After 50 years, I don't remember. That seems to be the etymological meaning of the word. But Homer was writing 300 years before the Tragedians and 400 years before Aristotle. Words change their meaning over time.
I noted that 1st Century Judaisn also held hamartia to be an error, or disobedience to God.
Yes, I agree. Anything that misses the mark or standard of God's righteousness.
Then I said I interpret "sin" in the passage (the second instance) as meaning a sin offering in that Jesus became man, became a curse for us, and bore our sins.
So you don't understand the second usage of
hamartia to mean sin despite what you wrote above. Thank you for clarifying. There is a vast difference between a 'sin' and a 'sin offering.' Surely even you can see that?
Your view as I understand it
You reject any definition of "sin" except "missing the mark" (at least in this passage).
Not at all. 'Error' or 'disobedoence' work fine for me. As I said before, the semantic range of
hamartia is rather large. Do you want me to copy and paste a Greek lexicon to save you looking it up? It is a general word for sin. But any sin is to miss the mark of God's righteousness unless you use the word as 'Weight-watchers' do and define it as eating a cream bun
You believe Christ was made to "miss the mark" in terms of righteousness.
Absolutely not as you know perfectly well. Where have I stated that the Lord Jesus ever 'missed the mark'? Nowhere at all.
But you seem to reject that Jesus was literally made evil, disobedient, ect. In reality, you reject that Jesus actually "missed the mark".
Of course I do. You need to stop being silly, not to say, offensive.
But you are unable to provide examples in the NT where hamartia is used to indicate anything but literally missing the mark.
You haven't asked me to. But I repeat,
hamartia is a general word for sins; therefore it covers sins of omission and commission, sins of the body, of the tongue or of the mind, one-off sins, besetting sins - anything that falls short of God's standards. If you can think of a sin that does not fall short of God's standards, just let me know.
Where we seem to disagree:
If I understand you correctly, we disagree in that I do not believe Jesus missed the mark. I do not believe there was any unrighteousness in Christ.
You misunderstand totally, and, I suspect, intentionally. There was no unrighteousness in Christ. This is one area where we agree.
But, I assume you are taking hamartia here to mean something different from any legitimate definition of the word (and unstated in the passage).
That said, you seem to avoid clarity. You offer a definition (missing the mark, or falling short) but then explain that definition away.
You are misunderstanding - deliberately since I have explained repeatedly over at least five years. Christ was not made a sinner; He was made sin. What does that mean? I have repeatedly quoted Isaiah 53:6 and 1 Peter 2:24. All the sins of His people were laid upon Him and He bore them
as if they were His own. You are acting as if this is something new, something unheard of before. But you know perfectly well that my view is one that has been, and is, held by millions of Bible-believing Christians, though evidently not by you.
