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What happened on the cross is what counts for salvation When Jesus cried out My God Why have you forsaken me, this was not a condition he would die in, it was resolved before He died. He pronounced “it is finished,” not I’m finished. The new covenant was completed by his blood poured out and his death. He "taste[d] death for every man" (Heb. 2:9). This was fulfilled as the substitute man dying in our place for our sin. Before He expired, he proclaimed “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit” (Matthew 27:50; John 19:30). He was totally restored before He died. His Spirit was NOT committed into Satan’s hands and brought to the place of judgment, but into the Father’s hands. If he was put him in Hell as some claim it would mean the Father did not accept His sacrifice, but instead rejected it. The word actually says he entered Hades, specifically paradise, the side of where the faithful were gathered. Jesus tasted death for every man, spiritual death is that separation before his physical death where there is no fellowship with God. What is being confused is the two he did not die spiritually but he was no longer in fellowship with the father because sin was laid upon him bearing the sin bearer. Since Jesus is both God and man, He was not separated eternally from God, but being God He was able to endure the penalty of sin in those few hours suffering upon the cross. Anything that was separated was restored before death. If Jesus ever had been given the fallen nature of Adam, it would have disqualified Himself as the sacrifice for our sins. If He became sin as he was dying He would also have to be included in needing atonement. The Bible teaches that Christ was separate from sinners and did not atone for himself. How could he reconcile the world if He became something other than the sinless sacrifice? Colossians 1:20, 22: “and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross … yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death,” the only way the veil of the templecould be rent is by sin already being forgiven. Paul wrote of Christ’s “offering and sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma ”(Ephesians 5:2). A sin offering was to be pure without ANY DEFECT! What made Jesus’ offering acceptable to God was that He was a sinless, a holy and unblemished offering to God. How could Jesus have literally become sin when Hebrews 9:14 tells us that he offered himself “without blemish to God”? therefore Peter writes the same thing “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things , like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18-20). NO corruption means a Lamb without spot or blemish. Just as 1 John 3:5 states, in him was NO SIN. If he became sin and died sinful that would means what took place after could not be effective “And you know he appeared to take away our sins, and in him, THERE IS NO SIN,” meaning that He had no sin continually; not before, during, nor after the cross. To say different is to disbelieve the bible. If one takes the time to look at the shadoews in the Old testament they will understand the strictness of being a sacrifice without blemish and without spot referring to sin. Lets look at this carefully understanding first that Jesus is the SINLESS lamb who takes away the sin of the world As John described him when he introduced him to Israel. God himself was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19). To say he died spiritually means God himself became sin. Is that what one wants to believe about Christ and the atonement? They can but they must know its not at all what the bible says and they are refusing to believe the actual gospel. 2 Cor. 5:21 '........ he who knew no sin was made to be sin .....' the word made to be sin is an unfortunate interpretation. He carried away our sin as the sin bearer. The substitutionary passages of Isaiah 53 declare this. Christ bore the sins of all people; his stripes were the healing of all people; his chastisement was the peace of all people; his suffering was the salvation of all people. "God laid upon him the iniquity of us all." upon not in him (as a change of his nature). In 2 Corinthians 5:21 the word “became” in the Greek is Metonym, meaning He became as a sin substitute, He did not become sin himself. He was made to be sin for us in a JUDICIAL sense. He was a vicarious atonement; as a substitution He suffered in our place and took our penalty of judgment on himself. This is why he felt a separation from the father for the first time. In Old Testament typology we have substitution motif, the priest would lay his hands on the offering to symbolize the transfer of his sin and guilt to the animal as a substitution (Leviticus 4:4, 24, 33; also the scapegoat motif in chapter 16). The goat did not literally become sin. The sacrifice became the covering for the sin; God looked at the blood on the mercy seat. The sacrificial animal did not become sin itself; sin was symbolically charged to it. If it became blemished, having sin, it was worthless. Jesus was the sin bearer; He carried it away as the goat did being led into the wilderness, He did not become it. Greek Scholar A.T. Robertson states, he made to be sin (hamartian epoieôsen). The words “to be” are not in the Greek. “Sin” here is the substantive, not the verb. God “treated as sin” the one “who knew no sin.” In Adam Clarke’s commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:21:he states, “He made him who knew no sin (who was innocent) a sin-offering for us.” The word hamartia occurs here twice. In the first place it means sin, i.e. transgression and guilt; and of Christ it is said, He knew no sin, i.e. was innocent; for not to know sin is the same as to be conscious of innocence; …to be conscious of nothing against one’s self, is the same as…to be unimpeachable. The Septuagint translates the Hebrew word by hamartia (NT:266) in 94 places in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, where a sin-offering is meant; and where our version translates the word not sin, but an offering for sin. Had our translators attended to their own method of translating the word in other places where it means the same as here, they would not have given this false view of a passage which has been made the foundation of a most blasphemous doctrine; namely, that our sins were imputed to Christ, and that he was a proper object of the indignation of Divine justice, because he was blackened with imputed sin; and some have proceeded so far in this blasphemous career as to say, that Christ may be considered as the greatest of sinners, because all the sins of mankind, or of the elect, as they say, were imputed to him, and reckoned as his own. One of these writers translates the passage thus: . … God accounted Christ the greatest of sinners, that we might be supremely righteous. Thus they have confounded sin with the punishment due to sin. Christ suffered in our stead; died for us; bore our sins (the punishment due to them), in his own body upon the tree, for the Lord laid upon him the iniquities of us all; that is, the punishment due to them; explained by making his soul-his life, an offering for sin; and healing us by his stripes. (from Adam Clarke's Commentary) Albert Barnes notes on 2 Corinthians 5:21, “If the declaration that he was made ‘sin’ (Gr. hamartian) does not mean that he was sin itself, or a sinner, or guilty, then it must mean that he was a sin-offering-an offering or a sacrifice for sin; and this is the interpretation which is now generally adopted by expositors; or it must be taken as an abstract for the concrete, and mean that God treated him as if he were a sinner.” Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's Commentary on 2 Cor. 5:21 “…the representative guilt-bearer of the aggregate sin of all men past, present, and future. The sin of the world is one; therefore the singular, not the plural, is used; its manifestations are manifold (John 1:29: cf. Rom 8:3-4; Gal 3:13). [For us]-Greek, `in our behalf' (cf. John 3:14). Christ was represented by the brazen serpent, the form, but not of the substance, of the old serpent. At his death on the cross the sin-bearing for us was consummated. (from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary) Joseph Benson "Commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:21 . “For he made him, who knew no sin— A commendation peculiar to Christ; to be sin— Or a sin-offeringrather, (as the expression often signifies both in the Old Testament and the New;) for us — Who knew no righteousness, who were inwardly and outwardly nothing but sin, and who must have been consumed by the divine justice, had not this atonement been made for our sins; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him — Might be accounted and constituted righteous by God, or might be invested with that righteousness; 1st, imputed to us; 2nd, implanted in us; and, 3rd, practised by us; which is, in every sense, the righteousness of God by faith. See note on Romans 10:4 ; Philippians 3:9 . The righteousness of God ... All of the righteousness of God ever achieved upon earth was wrought by Jesus our Lord. Those who would participate in the righteousness of God must do so "in him," that is, "in Christ." It has been admitted by all who ever studied the question that only "the righteousness of God" can save people; and that righteousness is "in Christ"; thus no man can be saved out of Christ. In this context, it should also be observed that the righteousness of God was the achievement of God himself in Christ; and, in answer to the question of what constituted that righteousness, it was the perfect faith and obedience of Christ. The faith that saves, in any absolute sense, is therefore the FAITH OF CHRIST, a fact dogmatically affirmed no less than seven times in the Greek New Testament (see my Commentary on Romans, pp. 118-140). Furthermore, even in the case of the faith of Christ, it was not "faith only," but the perfect faith and obedience of the Son of God which wrought the true righteousness which is the foundation of all human salvation in him! Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(21) For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.—The “for” is omitted in many of the best MSS., but there is clearly a sequence of thought such as it expresses. The Greek order of the words is more emphatic: Him that knew no sin He made sin for us. The words are, in the first instance, an assertion of the absolute sinlessness of Christ. All other men had an experience of its power, gained by yielding to it. He alone gained this experience by resisting it, and yet suffering its effects. None could “convict Him of sin” (John 8:46). The “Prince of this world had nothing in Him” (John 14:30). (Comp. Hebrews 7:26 ; 1 Peter 2:22 .) And then there comes what we may call the paradox of redemption. He, God, made the sinless One to be “sin.” The word cannot mean, as has been said sometimes, a “sin offering.” That meaning is foreign to the New Testament, and it is questionable whether it is found in the Old, Leviticus 5:9 being the nearest approach to it. The train of thought is that God dealt with Christ, not as though He were a sinner, like other men, but as though He were sin itself, absolutely identified with it. So, in Galatians 3:13 , he speaks of Christ as made “a curse for us,” and in Romans 8:3 as “being made in the likeness of sinful flesh.” We have here, it is obvious, the germ of a mysterious thought, out of which forensic theories of the atonement, of various types, might be and have been developed. It is characteristic of St. Paul that he does not so develop it. Christ identified with man’s sin: mankind identified with Christ’s righteousness—that is the truth, simple and yet unfathomable, in which he is content to rest. Moreover, he was made a sacrifice for sin, in order to make expiation and atonement for it; so the Hebrew word חטאה signifies both sin and a sin offering; see Psalm 40:6 and so αμαρτια, Romans 8:3 . But besides all this, he was made sin itself by imputation; the sins of all his people were transferred unto him, laid upon him, and placed to his account; he sustained their persons, and bore their sins; and having them upon him, and being chargeable with, and answerable for them, he was treated by the justice of God as if he had been not only a sinner, but a mass of sin; for to be made sin, is a stronger expression than to be made a sinner: but now that this may appear to be only by imputation, and that none may conclude from hence that he was really and actually a sinner, or in himself so, it is said he was "made sin"; he did not become sin, or a sinner, through any sinful act of his own, but through his Father's act of imputation, to which he agreed; for it was "he" that made him sin: it is not said that men made him sin; not but that they traduced him as a sinner, pretended they knew he was one, and arraigned him at Pilate's bar as such; nor is he said to make himself so, though he readily engaged to be the surety of his people, and voluntarily took upon him their sins, and gave himself an offering for them; but he, his Father, is said to make him sin; it was he that "laid", or "made to meet" on him, the iniquity of us all; it was he that made his soul an offering for sin, and delivered him up into the hands of justice, and to death, and that "for us", in "our" room and stead, to bear the punishment of sin, and make satisfaction and atonement for it; of which he was capable, and for which he was greatly qualified: for he John Gill's Exposition of the Whole BibleChrist “knew no sin; which cannot be understood or pure absolute ignorance of sin; for this cannot agree with him, neither as God, nor as Mediator; he full well knew the nature of sin, as it is a transgression of God's law; he knows the origin of sin, the corrupt heart of man, and the desperate wickedness of that; he knows the demerit, and the sad consequences of it; he knows, and he takes notice of too, the sins of his own people; and he knows the sins of all wicked men, and will bring them all into judgment, convince of them, and condemn for them: but he knew no sin so as to approve of it, and like it; he hates, abhors, and detests it; he never was conscious of any sin to himself; he never knew anything of this kind by, and in himself; nor did he ever commit any, nor was any ever found in him, by men or devils, though diligently sought for. This is mentioned, partly that we may better understand in what sense he was made sin, or a sinner, which could be only by the imputation of the sins of others, since he had no sin of his own; and partly to show that he was a very fit person to bear and take away the sins of men, to become a sacrifice for them, seeing he was the Lamb of God, without spot and blemish, typified in this, as in other respects, by the sacrifices of the legal dispensation; also to make it appear that he died, and was cut off in a judicial way, not for himself, his own sins, but for the transgressions of his people; and to express the strictness of divine justice in not sparing the Son of God himself, though holy and harmless, when he had the sins of others upon him, and had made himself responsible for them. The end of his being made sin, though he himself had none, was, Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal, and HomileticalJesus is not a sinful person, which would require him not to be “righteous” but is the representative Sin-bearer (vicariously) of the sin of all men past, present, and future. The sin of the world is one, therefore the singular, not the plural, is used; though its manifestations are manifold (John 1:29). “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the SIN of the world.” Compare “made a curse for us,” Galatians 3:13 In 1 Corinthians 11 we are told that as often as we eat the bread and drink the cup we are “proclaiming the Lord’s death till He comes.” Scripture speaks of only one death involved in our redemption, a physical death that shed blood. The wafer represents His body and the wine (juice) represents His blood. The wafer was made with no leaven in it, as leaven is a symbol of sin. Therefore we proclaim Christ was sinless by the elements we take that represent Him. No element is found to remind us of His “spiritual” death. The atonement came by the blood of a sinless man. It is this blood alone that atones, as all the Old Testament types and symbolic usages of sacrifices show. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. And this was done by the unblemished lamb. Heb 9: 15for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death , its by his blood Eph 1: In Him we have redemption through His blood , the forgiveness of sins, Eph 2:13 byou who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Col 1:14 we have redemption through His blood , the forgiveness of sins. Rev 1:5washed us from our sins in His own blood ,Rev 5:9 have redeemed us to God by Your blood Col 1:21-23 He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death , to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight -- if indeed you continue in the faith, Colossians 2:15: “Having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them in it.” This happened on the cross (v.14), this could never have occurred if Christ was suffering in Hell by these same principalities and powers, I Peter 3:18 states, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh , but quickened (made alive) by the Spirit.”=Meaning his flesh was resurrected by the spirit.] Heb 2:14 “through death He might destroy him who had the power of death , that is, the devil” If your Jesus became sin and went to hell to purchase your redemption, you have another Jesus- this is not the true one the bible presents, the one that died without sin conquering satan who brought sin into the world. You have believe in different gospel, that is not the gospel that saves. |
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