This is one of a number of articles bro John Carter refers to in "Sin, Sins and Sin-Offering" (The Christadelphian March 1938), which he in turn refers to in "The Christadelphian on the Nature of Man and the Sacrifice of Christ" (The Christadelphian May 1939). This was to re-affirm the position of The Christadelphian and the Central ecclesias on the nature of man and the sacrifice of Christ.

The Christadelphian October 1921, W. J. Young

“Made To Be Sin On Our Behalf, 2 Cor 5:21”

This matter has already been accurately dealt with in the pages of The Christadelphian, (see Vol, L. p. 531; LII. p. 106 and 343), consequently the following summary may suffice to counteract pernicious teaching on the subject.

The argument of those who wrest the meaning of this verse by mistranslating it, is that because the Hebrew word for “Sin” in the Old Testament means also “Sin-offering,” therefore the Greek word for “Sin” in the New Testament may also be translated “Sin-offering,” and so this passage is rendered, “made to be a sin-offering for us.” The reasoning is so obviously false as hardly to call for refutation, but unfortunately this rendering of the passage has received the approval of certain supposed “authorities,” and Dr. T. himself is cited in its support. It is alleged that the Greek word hamartia is used in the Septuagint (the LXX.) both for “sin” and “sin-offering,” and that therefore it may be so used in the N.T.

This allegation is untrue. The LXX, renders the Hebrew word when it means “sin-offering” about 117 times in all. Out of all these occurrences, only twice (and those doubtful) does it use hamartia alone; twice more it uses the genitive case, meaning “in respect of sin”; eleven times it gives the genitive with the article, with the same meaning; once it uses tou hamartematos, of same signification; once a phrase meaning “with regard to sin,” once another phrase of like import, and nine times a phrase meaning “in behalf of sin.” In the whole of the remaining 90 instances the LXX. employs the phrase peri hamartias, with or without the article, to signify “sin offering. The translators therefore were obviously satisfied that hamartia alone could not be used to represent “sin-offering,” Since the language of the N.T. is practically that of the LXX., the same usage is found there: hamartia standing alone means “sin,” and “sin-offering” is represented by peri hamartias, as in Rom. 8:3; Gal. 1:4; Heb. 10:6. No dictum or opinion of any “authority,” however eminent, can alter this mountain fact; to render hamartia in this or any text of the N.T. by “sin-offering” is to do it violence and force on it a meaning that it will not bear.

Dr. Thomas gives in Elpis Irael (1903 ed., p. 116) the true interpretation of 2 Cor. 5:21: “The Apostle says, ‘God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin’; and this he explains in another place by saying that ‘He sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh,’ ‘in the offering of his body once.’ Sin could not have been condemned in the body of Jesus, if it had not existed there.” The fact that later Dr. Thomas accepted without critical examination the incorrect rendering of this passage, did not bring him any nearer to accepting the false doctrines based upon it, for in the Herald of Jan., 1860, pp. 10–12, we find precisely the same doctrine as that in Elpis Israel: ‘That nature was flesh of the stock of Abraham, compared . . . to filthy garments, . . . typical of ‘the infirmity with which He was encompassed.’ For this ‘infirmity,’ called ‘himself,’ and for all of the same infirmity associated with Him by faith . . . He poured out His blood as a covering for sin . . . Sin’s borne in a body prove that body to be imperfect and characterise it as sin’s flesh . . . The Deity sent His own Son in the identity of sin’s flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh . . . This condemnation accomplished, the body slain was made alive again.”

The meaning of 2 Cor. 5:21, is clear, and the antithesis it presents is striking and beautiful: “Him . . . made to be sin, that We . . . might become Divine Righteousness.” Christ, sent “in the identity of sin’s flesh” (Rom. 8:3), and partaking of “the same flesh and blood” as ourselves, (Heb. 2:14), that “we might become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). There is no escape from the logic of this: it is simple, adequate and in harmony with the rest of Bible teaching.—Christ, the sinless one, was made of sinful human nature on our behalf, in order that we sinful creatures might become of righteous divine nature, through Him.—

W. J. Y.