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)
