2 Corinthians 5:20-21, “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. 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.”
It is often taught by well-meaning pastors and teachers that Jesus was made to be “sin” for us, just as translated by the King James Version of the Bible.
However, read the Expanded Translation of the New Testament by Kenneth S. Wuest:
“Therefore, on behalf of Christ and in His place we are acting as ambassadors, as though God were saying, I beg of you, please, through us as His intermediate agents. We beg you in Christ’s stead, Be reconciled at once to God. He who did not know sin in an experiential way, on behalf of us and instead of us, was made (the representative of) sin, so that, as for us, we might become a righteousness of God in Him.”
Notice that in verse 21 Wuest translates it as saying Jesus was made (the representative of) sin. That makes a big difference and makes it easier to be accepted.
(Kenneth Samuel Wuest (1893 – December 27, 1961) was an Evangelical Biblical Greek New Testament scholar of the mid-twentieth century. He was one of the translators of the original New American Standard Bible (NASB). He produced his English translation of the New Testament, the Wuest Expanded Translation, based on Nestle’s critical text.)
The New Living Translation says, “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.”
The Holman Christian Standard Bible, “He made the One who did not know sin to be sin [footnote: sin offering] for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Jesus became a sin offering, not a sinner. In all of His life on earth, Jesus never sinned.
Hebrews 4:15, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
Jesus was tempted in every way, just as you and I are tempted, but the important difference is this, Jesus never gave in to the temptation. We were all born as descendants of the first Adam and because of Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden, his bloodline is tainted with sin.
Jesus was not born with the bloodline of Adam. Instead, He was born with a holy, untainted bloodline from the Holy Spirit when Mary became impregnated. Jesus, like Adam at creation, was sinless. However, unlike Adam, Jesus lived a completely sinless life, making Him the perfect sacrifice for our redemption.
According to God’s instructions to Moses, every sacrifice made to Him had to be “perfect” and “without blemish” (Leviticus 4:3), a goat “without defect” (Leviticus 4:23), and a lamb “without defect” (Leviticus 4:32).
The person offering the sacrifices laid his hands on them to symbolize the transfer of his sin and guilt (Leviticus 4:4, 24-33). The transfer was symbolic only, not literal. As soon as the transfer took place, the sacrifice became holy. (Leviticus 6:25, 27 & 29) The animal did not become sin, sin was symbolically imputed or transferred to it. It became a substitute for sin and sinner.
But here’s a problem: If Jesus never sinned, why did He not go straight to Heaven when He died on the cross?
Galatians 3:13 tells us, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree”.
That passage of scripture is an answer to the problem. Jesus did not sin, but He became a curse when He was hung on a cross, which is the same as a tree in the Biblical sense. The tree was cursed because the earth was also cursed at the fall of Adam. But even the curse did not make Him a sinner.
When Jesus said, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) He gave up His Spirit and died. Before that happened, there was a second man, a thief, who had been crucified next to Jesus. In his last hour, the thief finally recognized Jesus as Savior and asked Him to remember him when He came into His kingdom. Jesus answered and said, “. . . Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
Jesus died and 1 Peter 3:18 says, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.”
It has often been said that when Jesus died, He went to “hell”. That is even stated in the Apostle’s Creed. But the word hell is translated as “Sheol” in the Old Testament and “Hades” in the New Testament. Both words, Sheol and Hades, simply mean, “the place of the dead”. It is not the ultimate and final place of suffering, the Lake of Fire, as described in Revelation 20:11-15.
The Lake of Fire is an eternal place of suffering. Jesus did not descend there. Instead, He went to Hades, which was made up of two compartments or divisions. A place of blessing and a place of judgment.
The first division, the place of blessing, was the Paradise Jesus referred to when He spoke to the thief. It was also called Abraham’s Bosom (Luke 16). This was the place where the Old Testament saints were held after they died. They were not tormented nor did they suffer in any way. They waited for the Lord to come to them and release them to Heaven, which is what He did after dying on the cross.
Ephesians 4:8, “Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. 9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)”
The second compartment contains the unbelieving dead, who suffer while they wait for the final judgment.
Jesus is now in Heaven, sitting at the Right Hand of God the Father. We are all waiting for the day of His return, as promised in so many scriptures. Whether saved or unsaved, at His return, everyone shall see Him and every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord! (Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11; Philippians 2:10).