The Doctrine of Made Sin

2 Corinthians 5:21

2Co 5:21  For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

I spent several years trying to understand the uproar over the current teaching on Christ being made sin and I did want to put it all down in a simplified writing. I’m having a hard time with the desire to revisit it again and again and it really isn’t simple.  However I wanted to write down these 3 points that best bring together this doctrine and why I can’t embrace it. This doctrine denies the biblical doctrine of imputation and the imputed righteousness of Christ.

• Christ was in agony in the garden because He knew He was going to become one of us; going to assume our nature (meaning our sin nature)

• Christ had to be guilty with guilt of His own before our sins could be imputed to Him. According to this doctrine justice will not allow God to impute guilt to a man who is not guilty with guilt of his own.

• The teaching is true of ‘righteousness’. We first had to be made righteous before Christ’s righteousness can be imputed to us.

There is so much to refute in even these 3 points so I will copy a few distinct statements that helped clear up the issue for me, I hope it will do the same for you.

“I know that God did not make Christ “guilty” before He imputed the sins of His elect to Him.

I know that to say Jesus Christ was transformed into a sinful being in order to save sinners is blasphemy and is repugnant to the very heart of the gospel. He is ever the Lamb of God without blemish or spot, and separate from sinners.

I know the imputation of righteousness to God’s elect is not merely declarative of a condition that already exists but is constitutive. God justifies the ungodly. He calls those things which do not exist as though they did.

What is described above may be contrasted with the true gospel, which teaches that Jesus Christ bore the sins of His elect as a Lamb without blemish or spot, and endured the just penalty due to murderers, fornicators, adulterers, blasphemers, and thieves, paying their sin debt by the virtue of His righteous and holy life, that they might be accounted blameless and righteous in the sight of God.” John Pedersen

There is so much written down on this subject and this is just the tip of it but I believe gives the very basic ideas. I hope you will research, read and listen and not follow blindly anyone who teaches this or bury your head in the sand. I did for awhile until the Lord gave me the desire to know, I’m thankful that He did.

Grace and Peace,

eileen~