The other night I was attending a Navigators meeting, which is a ministry that is found mostly on college campuses, and they had a guest speaker that came in for the first time and gave us quite an interesting lesson. His lesson was aimed at Easter coming up and spoke from 2 Corinthians 5:21. His premise was that it is essential for us to know and believe that Jesus Christ was both sinless and the greatest sinner ever.
A little bit shocking? I thought so too, but decided to see how he came to such a strange view and why. Again he based this argument off of 2 Corinthians 5:21 which reads in the ESV,
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.He also used a similar passage from Galatians 3:13, which says that Jesus became a curse.
He went on to say that even though Jesus had never sinned and was totally righteous he became guilty of all the sin that anyone in the world has ever or will commit, and that at the cross he was punished because he took on all the guilt of sin of the world. He also commented that as Christ took on our sins we took his righteousness, which is commonly known as the Great Exchange. All of this was what he called "the shocking truth."
But is he right? Is Jesus Christ both the worst sinner of all time; more so than Hitler, Stalin, or Judas Iscariot; and sinless and righteous?
How can Jesus be guilty of my sin, or your sin? How can he be guilty of all the sin of the world and yet be reigning in heaven or have a name that is above all names? How can we worship someone who is "guilty" of all sin of all time?
The speaker made a typical and disastrous mistake. He read into the text and replaced words with different words, Jesus was made sin, NOT a sinner.
So what does it mean that Jesus Christ has become sin? In the Greek the word is hamartia which is used and translated in two ways. It is translated as "sin," but it is also commonly used to mean a "sin offering."
According to Strong's Greek Dictionary of New Testament Words,
In 2 Cor. 5:21 "Him... He made to be sin" indicates that God dealt with Him as He must deal with "sin," and that Christ fulfilled what was typified in the guilt offering.So, Jesus was made to be a sin offering in our place. This agrees with other Scripture as well.
Ephesians 5:2
And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.Hebrews 10:10
And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.1 John 2:2
He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.Charles Spurgeon also commented on this passage that,
Not only was he not guilty of any sin which he committed himself, but he was not guilty of our sins. No guilt can possibly attach to a man who has not been guilty. He must have had complicity in the deed itself, or else no guilt can possibly be laid on him. Jesus Christ stands in the midst of all the divine thunders, and suffers all the punishment, but not a drop of sin ever stained him. In no sense is he ever a guilty man, but always is he an accepted and a holy one.Jesus was the propitiation for sin, not that He was sinful himself but because He was totally and utterly sinless and because of His position as God meaning that He is infinitely valuable He was able to take the punishment of all sin everywhere once and for all. And in Him we become the righteousness of God.
