This is perhaps the
primary text that is commonly used to claim that Jesus paid for our sins and
that the righteousness of Christ is transferred to us. The typical PSA proponent
reads this verse as if it says something like this, “For our sake God
put our sin on Christ’s so that we would have the righteousness of God transferred
to our account.”
This reading and
understanding is seriously incorrect for the following reasons:
1.
This
verse says, “. . . so that in him we might become the righteous of
God,” not “from him.” To be “in” Christ is a Greek way of saying “In his
group,” or “on his team,” or “linked to him,” or “in his sphere of influence.”
The Greek word “en,” which is the English “in” has to do with our
identification with Christ, not about something being passed from him to us. “In”
is a word that involves association, not a transfer.
2.
Righteousness
is a virtue like love, patience, gentleness, etc. There are also anti-viruses
like hate, bitterness, impatience, etc. Neither virtues not anti-virtues can be
transferred. I cannot transfer some at my patience or love to you. Right living
is also virtuous living. Righteousness is not something that can be transferred
to delegated. Neither can wickedness. This passage says nothing about the righteousness
of God or of Jesus actually being transferred to us. It is by being “in “
Christ that we can have God’s righteousness, which is about following Christ as
our leader, living and behaving as he did. Righteousness is what we do because
we are associated with Christ. It is not delegated or assigned to us.
3.
The
phrase, “we might become the righteousness of God.” It is more literally
translated as, “that we might be becoming the righteousness of God.”
This is about transitioning from a condition of unrighteousness, toward
righteousness. Becoming righteous is not a status or a position or a transfer,
or a declaration. Becoming righteous is a movement, a transition. So,
properly understood, this phrase has nothing to do with God transferring righteousness
to us, but of us transitioning from our unrighteous behavior toward godly,
righteous behavior. It is similar to, “that we might die to sin and live to
righteousness” in 1 Peter 2:24.
4.
The
greater context of verse 21 is also problematic because the entire passage
is about Christ reconciling us to God. If we claim that verse 21 teaches
that God transfers Christ’s righteousness to us, we would have a false or reverse
reconciliation. The context pleads with us to be reconciled to God.
It is us being relationally reconciled to Him, not Him being reconciled
to us because someone else paid Him to delete our record of sins in heaven or
because He is blinded by a covering of Christ’s righteousness. We have offended
God. We must stop offending Him if reconciliation is going to occur. If somehow
some external righteousness is transferred to us, and this is called
reconciliation in total disregard of our actually ceasing to offend God, then
is being bribed or blinded by Christ, and no genuine reconciliation has
occurred. The plea of Paul is that WE be reconciled TO God. What Christ did was
not a divine maneuver for God to be reconciled to us! The first step in any
process of reconciliation is to stop offending. Until the offenses case, there
can be no genuine reconciliation. So, to read this passage with the idea that
we are not required to stop offending and that reconciliation occurs due to an
imparting righteousness from a third party destroys the very intent of the
passage, which is that we be reconciled TO God. If a transfer of
righteousness is occurring without us ceasing to offend, this would be reconciliation
in reverse, a fake reconciliation, if you can even imagine God agreeing to such
a thing!
5.
Now
let’s focus on the phrase “to be sin.” Sin is an action that takes place
in time, and therefore cannot be transferred to another time or another
actor, nor can something or someone become literally sin. Sin is not an object
or a substance that can be moved or transferred, bought or sold. Some may say
that Christ became legally sin in our place. This idea would mean that Christ merely
accepted a temporary legal label called “sin.” But a mere label called “sin”
does noting at all to motivate us to live righteously, and the verse flatly
states that “ . . . he made him to be sin who knows no sin who knew no sin, so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Simply having Jesus
become temporarily labelled as a legal sinner provides no motivation of any
significance that would move us toward righteous living and genuine
reconciliation. Claiming that God labelled Jesus as “sin” in order to
effectuate atonement is to have God agree to a fraudulent scheme that you would
expect from a shady lawyer or politician. Nevertheless, various prominent
preachers have thundered this very idea from their pulpits.
6.
If
Jesus was literally “made sin,” then he would not have been an acceptable sacrifice
to God. A polluted sacrifice
offered as a reconciliational gift would be an insult, not a gift comparable to
a husband giving old, wilted flowers to his wife after apologizing for an
offense. The prophet Malachi railed against such an idea in Malachi 1:7-9 “By
offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’
By saying that the LORDS’s table may be despised. 8 When you offer blind
animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame
or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or
show you favor? says the LORD of hosts. 9 And now entreat the favor of God,
that he may be gracious to us. With such a gift from your hand, will he show
favor to any of you? says the LORD of hosts.”
7.
Using
verse 21 as a means of transferring Christ’s righteousness is a denial of being
made a new creature as stated in verse 17. A transfer of righteousness is a
legal fiction, and has no immediate bearing on our behavior. Being labelled
“legally righteous” does not make us new, where old things have passed away. We
would merely have a new fictional legal status called “the righteousness of
Christ.” This is functionally equivalent to putting lipstick on a pig—where we
are the pig. It makes a mockery of us actually becoming new, and discards God’s
demand that we sop sinning and be becoming righteous.
Now that we have examined that the verse does not say, what
then is it saying? “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
The word “to be” in the phrase “to be sin”
are not in the Greek. Without these extra words the text says “ . . . he made
him sin . . .” In what sense was Jesus made sin for our sake? This is probably
a reference, a picture, an illustration, of what sin looks like—the agony, the cruelty,
the wickedness, all put on public display with the intended end result being, “
. . . so that in him we might be becoming the righteousness of
God.” We see the innocent Son of God tortured, suffering and dying, knowing
that it is because of our collective sinful actions and attitudes. Our sin, our
unrighteousness, is the cause of this story, and we should recoil in shock and
run away from evil and toward righteousness.
This should bring Isaiah 53:4-5 to mind, “Surely he
has endured our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced because of our
transgressions; he was crushed because of our iniquities.” A careful
reading of the text shows that we wrongly esteemed, wrongly concluded, that God
caused the suffering. Instead, his suffering is our fault! We should reflect on
this and be shocked and horrified that our sins led to this degree of unrighteousness,
and then flee from our unrighteousness and toward God’s righteousness by
stopping all sin and doing what God considers right living. The very Son of God
was nailed to a cruel cross because of our sin. What a shame. May we flee from
all sin so that his suffering will not be in vain. If we do this and become a
follower of Christ, we will then have as the text says, “the righteousness
of God” and reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ. This fits the
context perfectly and fulfills its author’s intent. (Kevin George, Atonement and Reconciliation: On what
basis can a holy God forgive sin? A search for the original meaning, contrasted
with Penal Substitutionary Atonement [2023], 164-67)
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