Monday, August 5, 2019

Michael Barber on 2 Corinthians 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. (2 Cor 5:21 NRSV)

This is a common “proof-text” for forensic justification. Notwithstanding, any meaningful exegesis of the text will demonstrate that it does not allow for the Reformed understanding. For a discussion, see the exegesis of the verse (and many related passages) in my article:


In a recent publication, Catholic biblical scholar Michael Barber offered the following insightful analysis of the text and how it refutes, not supports, Protestant soteriology:

Some have argued that this passage is proof that Christians only become “righteous” in a legal sense because Christ does not actually “become sin.” The problem with this view is that it misunderstands Paul’s language.

When Paul says that Christ was made “to be sin,” he is not saying that Christ “only became sin in a legal sense.” In saying Jesus was made to be “sin,” Paul is likely describing Jesus as a “sin offering” (chatta’th; cf. Leviticus 4:3), that is, a type of sacrifice that effects “atonement.” English Bibles use the expression “sin offering” or the sake of clarity, but the word “sacrifice” or “offering” is not usually added; in the Scriptures of Israel, the “sin offering” is literally just called “the sin.” Paul’s point is not that Jesus “legally” became “sin,” but, rather, that Christ offered himself as a “sacrifice for sin.” Paul uses similar imagery in Romans 8:3. There he says Christ was sent “for sin,” in Greek, peri harmartias. That is the same expression that means “sin offering” in the Greek translation of the Old Testament.

In addition, the wider context shows us that Paul holds that believers are truly changed. Just before making the statement in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that believers “become the righteousness of God,” he maintains, “ . . . if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). To be “in Christ,” then, is to be transformed by him. As many non-Catholic recognize, this makes it virtually impossible to think that Paul’s statement that believers “become the righteousness of God” is referring to a change in legal status that does not include real transformation. (Michael Patrick Barber, Salvation: What Every Catholic Should Know [San Francisco/Greenwood Village, Colo.: Ignatius Press/Augustine Institute, 2019], 79-80)



Blog Archive