222 THE SINLESS MADE SIN
again by a bold and direct identification, " Now art ye light." Perhaps such a parallel case throws light upon St. Paul's method of expression here, where by an awfully daring identification, he speaks about Christ being made sin and ourselves being made righteousness.
With these introductory words we pass to the contents of the text. It contains two subjects. —
I. The Sinless made Sin.
II. The Sinner become Kighteousness.
The Sinless Made Sin.
1. " Him who knew no sin." That any man should be sinless was an idea quite alien to Jewish thought and belief ; and there- fore the emphasis given to it by St. Paul, and the absolutely un- qualified way in which it is laid down in a letter addressed to a community containing not only friends but foes who would eagerly fasten on any doubtful statement, show that it must have been regarded as axiomatic among Christians at the early date when this Epistle was written.
It was Christ's own verdict upon Himself. He whose words search our very hearts, and bring to light unsuspected seeds of badness, never Himself betrays the faintest consciousness of guilt. He challenges His enemies directly — " Which of you convinceth me of sin ? " It is the verdict of all sincere human souls, as uttered by the soldier who watched His cross — " Truly this was a righteous man." It is the verdict even of the great enemy who assailed Him again and again, and found nothing in Him, and whose agents recognized Him as the Holy One of God. Above all, it is the verdict of God. He was the beloved Son, in whom the Father was well pleased. For three-and-thirty years, in daily contact with the world and its sins, Christ lived and yet knew no sin. To His will and conscience it was a foreign thing. What infinite worth that sinless hfe possessed in God's sight ! When He looked down to earth it was the one absolutely, precious thing. Filled full of righteousness, absolutely well-pleasing in His eyes, it was worth more to God than all the world beside.
2 COR. V. 21 223
^ Your friend asks, " When does Scripture mention the least impatience or any sin in the man Christ Jesus ? " and then goes on to speak, with great horror, of my " awful notion " of admitting the germ of evil, etc., in Him. I presume this is a misconception of an expression which I have more than once used. Specially dwelling on the Eedeemer's sinlessness, I have shown how all the innocent feelings of our nature were in Him, but stopped on the verge which separates the innocent from the wrong. An inclina- tion of human nature is not wrong — hunger, anger — but being gratified unduly, or in forbidden circumstances, it passes into sin. " Be ye angry, and sin not," Legitimate anger was to stop short of sinful vindictiveness. Similarly, our Lord felt the weariness of life, and was anxious to have it done, amidst perpetual opposi- tion of enemies and misconception of friends, "How am I straitened till it be accomplished ? " "0 faithless generation, how long shall I be with you ? how long shall I suffer you ? " There was no germ of sin in Christ ; for sin is the acting of an evil will. Sin resides in the will, not in the natural appetites. There was no germ of sin in Him ; but there were germs of feel- ing, natural and innocent, which show that He was in all points tempted like as we are.^
2. All sinless as Christ was, God made Him to be sin on our behalf. What does this mean ? Not exactly that He made Him a sin-offering on our behalf. The expression for a sin-offering is different, and the parallelism with righteousness in the next clause forbids that reference here. The sin-offering of the Old Testa- ment can at most have pointed towards and dimly suggested so tremendous an utterance as this; and the profoundest word of the New Testament cannot be adequately interpreted by anything in the Old. When St, Paul says, " Him that knew no sin God made sin," he must mean that in Christ on His cross, by Divine appointment, the extremest opposites met and became one — incar- nate righteousness and the sin of the world. The sin is laid by God on the sinless One ; its doom is laid on Him ; His death is the execution of the Divine sentence upon it. When He dies, He has put away sin ; it no longer stands, as it once stood, between God and the world. On the contrary, God has made peace by this great transaction ; He has wrought out reconciliation : and its ministers can go everywhere with this awful appeal : " Eeceive the reconciliation : Him who knew no sin God hath made sin on
1 Life omd Letters of F. W. Robertson, 143.
224 THE SINLESS MADE SIN
our behalf, and there is henceforth no condemnation to them that are in Christ."
^ Chrysostom makes the following comment on this verse: " What mind can represent these things ? He made the righteous One a sinner, that He might make the sinners righteous. Eather this is not what he says, but something much greater. He says, not that He made Him a sinner, but that He made Him sin, — not only Him who had not sinned, but Him who did not know sin, — that we might be made (not righteous, but) righteousness, and the righteousness of God. For this is the righteousness of God, when we are justified, not by works (for in this case it is necessary that there should be no spot in them) but by grace in the blotting out of all sin. This does not permit us to be lifted up, for God freely gives us all and teaches us the greatness of the gift ; because the former righteousness is that of the law and of works, but this is the righteousness of God."