But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 1 John 3:5

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Last Sunday's ABF Recap: Around The Bend
rg & tg

This month's verse was 2 Cornthians 5:21. Here are a couple of versions to peruse as we ease into Sunday mornings summary:

New International Version:

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

New King James Version:

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

New American Standard Bible:

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

History
In keeping with our method of studying scriptures, we began looking at this passage from the 50,000 foot view. The city of Corinth was located on an isthmus of Greece separating the Aegean Sea and the Adriatic Sea. It had two ports and was, therefore, a major center of commerce. As we've seen with some other cities in Paul's day, major commercial and economic locations were also loaded with intellectual elitism and some significantly sinful scenarios. Corinth was no exception. In addition to the coming and going of ships in port, there was also the temple of Aphrodite, complete with its 1,000 priestesses who "facilitated" worship in the temple. (It's much more pleasant to say "facilitated" than to go in any sort of detail, but I digress...) In fact, there was a term at that time for folks who had completely gone off the deep end of sinful behavior. It was said that such an individual had been "corinthianized." To refer to a woman in that day as a "Corinthian" was to call her a prostitute.

Paul actually wrote three letters to the Corinthian church. The first of his letters is not available to us today. We know his second letter as First Corinthians, which was written to correct erroneous teaching, combat worldly wisdom, return the focus of the members to the cross, to chastise the members for suing each other, etc., etc. Paul's third letter is what we have in our Bibles as Second Corinthians. Paul wrote this to encourage the church in the strides they had made and to correct the areas in which there was little progress.

Observation
Zooming in on the passage, we observed the context of our verse. Earlier on in the chapter, in verse 10, Paul refers to the judgment seat that we will occupy when we stand before the LORD. He says, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad."

A judgment seat was a raised speaker's platform on which citizens stood to appear before officials (Archaeological Study Bible). Jesus stood on a judgment seat before Pilate, and Paul stood on a number of judgment seats before various governors during his day. One didn't get terribly wordy when standing on a judgment seat. There was no beating around the bush. When stood on the platform to defend one's self it was best to cut to the chase and hit the high-points. That's what Paul does in the verses that follow his mentioning of the judgment seat. Verse 21, and the thoughts around it, is a succinct summary of the gospel and it's logic.

Jesus = sin?
The first half of the passage sets up a significant dichotomy. On one hand is Jesus, who "had no sin," and on the other hand is us.

Romans 3:23 says,

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

I John 3:5 says,

"But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins."

I Peter 2:24 says,

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree."

John 1:14 says,

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Revisiting 1 John 3:5 we read,

"But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin."

First Peter 2:22 says,

"He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth."

Hebrews 4:15 says,

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are -- yet was without sin."

And Hebrews 7:26 tells us,

"Such a high priest meets our need -- one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens."

Enemies
So we are sinners and Jesus was without sin.

Two asides: "God made..." Interesting verb, especially when read while remembering Jesus words to his apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," and to God, "Abba, Father... everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will." The verse that follows our passage this month is 2 Corithians 6:1: "As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain." There is a heavy gravity to knowing Jesus and carrying the knowledge and priviledge that we've been given.

For God to enjoy fellowship with us again, a big transaction would have to take place. This brings us to the context of this passage, which is the theme of Reconciliation. In Paul's time, this was a diplomatic term for the harmony established between enemies by peace treaties (Archaeological Study Bible). But does Paul's use of this term (2 times in verse 18) suggest that we are God's enemies? That sounds pretty harsh... but it's true.

Romans 5:10 tells us,

"For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!"

And Colossians 1:21 tells us,

"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior."

For us to become God's righteousness, it took God treating the non-sinner Jesus as though he were a sinner. Hebrews 9:22 says, "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." If Jesus had sin, was sin or was a sinner, then the "in him" portion of 2 Corinthians 5:21 would set up a contradiction. But because he was without sin, he satisfied the debt that was owed.

What about righteousness?
And that completes the first half of the passage. The second half is equally deep. "...in him we might become the righteousness of God." Honestly, the phrase "righteousness of God" had always been one of those phrases for me where I felt like I should know exactly what it meant, but there was enough of a degree of abstractness to it that it was just confusing enough to me. Until this lesson. Tony made two very good points that help to illustrate this Righteousness.

First of all, the term "imputation" was raised. Webster defines "imputation" as "the act of imputing." That was a little disappointing to find out because I thought you couldn't used the word... I digress. So then Webster defines "impute" as

"to lay the responsibility or blame for often falsely or unjustly."

1. Adam's sin upon us. -- Clearly not fair, right? Which leads, then to...
2. Our sin upon Jesus. -- Really, really unfair.
3. Jesus' righteousness upon us. -- We'll take this one, right?

Secondly, Tony pointed out that the word "righteous" comes from the Greek idea of "right clothing." If we were to go to the moon and step off the spaceship as we are currently dressed, we wouldn't even last a breath. We wouldn't be wearing the right clothes for the situation. The same can be said for our coming trip to heaven. Without Jesus becoming sin for us and the "in him" portion of our passage, we would be wearing the "wrong clothes" while standing on the judgment seat before God: we would be wearing our sinful selves. When Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that"if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" he's referring to the "right clothes" that we're given because of Jesus' becoming sin for us. God doesn't see a "better us" because we're "in him," he sees a new us!

The bottom line:

1. There is nothing we can do to earn God's favor. We need to be reconciled to him. (These are objective facts.)
2. God has written the check, he's paid the tab. We have been reconciled. As a result, we've been given a ministry of reconciliation to bring others to Christ.

See you Sunday. Send an encouraging e-mail to a friend.

RG