A Meditation for Holy Week

On Monday, my friends and I met for our weekly book club. We had deep conversations about passages of the Bible that are difficult to understand. The following is one of them:

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

I will not pretend to understand all the layers and implications of 2 Corinthians 5:21 but there are a few insights that emerged as I pondered it.

He Knew No Sin

Whatever conclusion we make about the meaning of this passage, it cannot be that Jesus became sinful. Paul is very clearly steering us far away from this conclusion. The Lamb of God remains spotless from eternity to eternity. In fact, that is a major reason why Jesus alone could effectively atone for our sins (Hebrews 7:25-27).

An Enlightening Parallelism

Paul is juxtaposing two realities: 1) Jesus, sinless, was ‘made to be sin’ and 2) Mankind, sinful (2 Corinthians 5:19), was to ‘become the righteousness of God’. How can Christ be made to be sin when ‘he committed no sin’ and ‘in him there is no sin‘ at all (Hebrews 4:15, 1 John 3:5)? In the same way that we can become the righteousness of God when we have no righteousness in us at all (Romans 3:10-11; Isaiah 64:6).

Note that Paul is not saying that those redeemed by Christ become inherently righteous (In Christ, though we are a new creation and are being sanctified, we are not inherently righteous). In the same way, he is not saying that Christ became a sinner in nature. Just as we are covered with God’s righteousness (Philippians 3:9), Christ somehow ‘bore our sins in his body’ (1 Peter 2:24) on the cross to accomplish His atoning work. Whatever this bearing or becoming sin is, it is not a changing of Christ’s nature from Holy to sinful. It is a bearing or becoming that allowed Him to stand in our place and drink the cup of the wrath of God while remaining pure and sinless. This is mind-blowing!

This is as far as my understanding of this doctrine goes and I won’t go beyond the scriptures, but I hope I helped shed some light on it.

How marvelous is the Wisdom of God displayed in the Gospel? I am eternally grateful that the Sinless One was made to be sin, so that in him [you and I] might become the righteousness of God.