I’ve lately been considering 2 Corinthians 5:21a, one of the most important, and controversial, texts on atonement. The specific phrase under consideration is: τὸν μὴ γνόντα ἁμαρτίαν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἁμαρτίαν ἐποίησεν, typically translated as: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf…” (NASB). God the Father is the subject, Who made (ἐποίησεν) the Son to be sin.
Consider some other NT examples of a similar use of ποιέω as “being” or “becoming”:
John 10:33 — ποιεῖς σεαυτὸν Θεόν — you make yourself God
1 John 1:10 — ψεύστην ποιοῦμεν αὐτὸν — we make him a liar
Revelation 3:12 — … ποιήσω αὐτὸν στῦλον … — “…I will make him a pillar…”
These are all readily understandable as making a person to be or become some other kind of person, or to fulfill the role of another person. To say that Jesus was made to be sin is a case of abstractum pro concreto, wherein “sin” in some way characterizes the person that Jesus was made to become. Similar usage is found in the following:
Galatians 3:13 – “having become a curse for us…” (γενόμενος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν κατάρα). This curse, κατάρα, can be understood as having a root meaning of “according to a curse”. So, this is saying that He became accursed – a person subjected to the curse, according to the curse.
1 Corinthians 1:30 – He became wisdom, sanctification and redemption, meaning that He became the agent and source of wisdom, sanctification and redemption.
Ephesians 5:8 – The saints in Ephesus had been darkness, but became light, meaning that they were formerly followers and practitioners of darkness but are now followers and practitioners of light.
The question for us in 2 Corinthians 5:21 is how to understand the relation between the abstraction of sin and the concrete person that Jesus became.
One interpretation, which has substantial support, is that “sin” refers to “sin sacrifice”. That seems to be quite plausible, based largely on the following two OT references.
Leviticus 4:24/25 says of the burnt offering presented before YHWH, in the Hebrew text, that it “is sin” ( חַטָּ֖את הֽוּא). This was translated literally, word-for word, in the LXX as “ἁμαρτία ἐστι…”. The teaching here is that the sacrificial victim became sin.
In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul was undoubtedly alluding to Isaiah 53:10. The Hebrew text can be literally translated as: “even though He had done no violence, nor was there deceit in His mouth, yet it pleased Yahweh to crush Him, to make Him ill – when You make Him to be sin” (וַיהוָ֞ה חָפֵ֤ץ דַּכְּאוֹ֙ הֶֽחֱלִ֔י אִם תָּשִׂ֤ים אָשָׁם֙ ). The LXX translates the final phrase as: “The Lord is also pleased to purge him from his stroke. If ye can give concerning sin…” (ἐὰν δότε περὶ ἁμαρτίας…). This seems to be interpreting sin in the Hebrew text as being a sin-sacrifice. Most English translations follow suit. So, again, the sacrifice is sin, because it became sin.
It is interesting that Paul seems to have deliberately followed the Hebrew text of Isaiah 53:10 rather than the more easily understood LXX. He was not content to merely say that Jesus was a sin-sacrifice, but wanted to convey the deeper meaning of that sacrifice. Since the most common interpretations and translations of Isaiah 53:10 consider it as a sin-sacrifice, it is reasonable to interpret “sin” in 2 Corinthians 5:21 in the same way. But this identification of sin with sin-sacrifice side-steps the deeper question of the meaning of the sacrifice. It simply restates one mystery in the terminology of another mystery. Calling Him a sin-sacrifice does not answer the question of what Jesus, as the sacrificial victim, had actually taken upon Himself. And it is likely that Paul intended that the reader explore and grasp this deeper meaning. The OT sacrificial system gives us some limited knowledge about the meaning and consequences of a sin sacrifice, as taking on sin; but the deeper meaning of the identification between “sin” and the OT sacrificial victim must be found in an understanding of its fulfillment in Christ, not vice versa. So, whether one uses the terminology of “sin-sacrifice” or not, the same basic question remains: how does the sin-sacrifice relate to sin, and correspondingly, how does Jesus relate to sin.
One answer, which is the prevailing tradition, is that He simply became subject to the consequences and penalty of sin, in similarity to his becoming accursed (Galatians 3:13). The alternative that I’m proposing is that Jesus became sin in a manner analogous to His becoming “wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:30), or Christians becoming “light” (Ephesians 5:8), which would mean He became an actual agent and perpetrator of sin. In this case, “sin” would be understood as the personification of sin, similar to Paul’s usage in Romans 6 and 7. On its face, this would seem theologically unacceptable, but I will attempt below to counter such objections.
The traditional interpretation, in accordance with the penal-substitution theory of atonement, is that He acquired the legal status – the consequences – of sinfulness. That would mean that the “condemnation of sin in the flesh” and the reconciliation with God pertain to legal status before God the Father. This is true, as far as it goes; but it does not adequately address the full meaning of atonement, especially its participatory aspect, because it does not adequately address the full meaning of sin. Sin is primarily a matter of the heart and will, not some external objective thing that contaminates. It is not what enters the mouth that defiles, but what proceeds from the heart. The essence of murder is in the hateful will of the heart. The salvation we need is not just a deliverance from the penalty of sin, but from the corrupting power of sin, from the corrupted heart.
I accept what Gregory of Nazianzus said in defense of the full humanity of Jesus: “What has not been assumed has not been healed; it is what is united to his divinity that is saved…” (Epistle 101). Following through on this logic, one could also say that in order to fully condemn and destroy sin in His flesh, that “sin” that He received must incorporate the full personal willful agency of sin. This is to say that He not only had to be fully human, and fully afflicted with the consequences of sin (legal status), but also that He had to fully embody the willful agency of sin, in and from the heart. Only then can He totally save us from the willful sin that arises from our own hearts. Just as we all participate in Adam’s sin as willful agents of sin (Romans 5:12-21), it was necessary for Christ as the second Adam to participate in the fullness of mankind’s sin as a willful agent.
I’m suggesting then that Jesus became sin personified, acting as the agent of sin, carrying out the sinful desires and intentions of sinners. The sins of mankind are sins of hate and rebellion, ultimately aimed at God, with, in effect, the intent of killing God. But that is impossible for us to do; we are unable to accomplish the final intent of our sins. But when Jesus took our sins upon Himself, He fulfilled that intent; He did what only the God-man (Son of God, Son of Man) could do. When Jesus laid down His life, He carried out the murder of God. Alternatively, He was both the sacrificial lamb and the High Priest who slayed the sacrificial lamb; He was both the perpetrator and the victim of the sacrifice. Those who wanted to crucify Him did not in themselves have the power to kill Him; no one could take His life. But, as personified sin, He was our agent, accomplishing for us what no one else could ever do. And in so doing, He transformed what was in us a spirit of hate and rebellion against God, into an act of supreme love and total submissive obedience to God the Father.
It is often argued, rightly, that there is an intended parallelism between Jesus becoming sin and our becoming righteous. Under the traditional assumption that He became sin only in the sense of legal status, it is thereby concluded that our righteousness spoken of here pertains only to legal status. I propose applying this parallelism in a different way. There is much support for the idea that Paul intends that our righteousness go well beyond legal status. Paul teaches in Romans 5:17-6:14 that we are to be transformed from being slaves of sin to becoming instruments of righteousness. There is more here than legal status, there is obedience from the heart. A parallel scope of meaning should then be attributed to Jesus becoming sin. By parallelism, He willfully and actually committed sin (as the executing agent of our sins), just as we are intended, and enabled and destined to willfully and actually practice righteousness.
This interpretation accords well with Rom 8:3b-4 — ὁ Θεὸς, τὸν ἑαυτοῦ Υἱὸν πέμψας, ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας, καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, κατέκρινεν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐν τῇ σαρκί, ἵνα τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ νόμου πληρωθῇ ἐν ἡμῖν τοῖς μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα. It is of interest that the phrase “for sin”, περὶ ἁμαρτίας, is the same as used in the LXX translation of Isaiah 53:10. Consider first the meaning of “in the form of sinful flesh” (ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας) in Rom 8:3b. The “form” is capable of being sinful, of receiving and/or practicing sin. Again, this implies more than just receiving a decreed penalty and/or legal status of sinfulness. It likely means a capability for real sin, a capability to commit sin from the heart, in the same way that we all do. What I’ve proposed here, is that the capability was actually exercised. Also, note the parallelism with a righteousness that is described as walking according to the Spirit.
Furthermore, the fact that sin is condemned (κατέκρινεν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐν τῇ σαρκί), is more understandable if sin is considered as the personified agent of sin, rather than one to whom the legal status of sinfulness has been assigned. To assign a legal status, by decree, to a person, and to then condemn that person by putting Him to death, is offensive to a rational sense of justice. But if Jesus was an actual agent and perpetrator of sin, then the condemnation through His bodily death is rationally comprehensible, and just. We can thus comprehend both the justice of the atoning sacrifice, and its efficacy for total salvation from sin.
