The Messiah is Made Sin
How can we not think it astounding that a worm, a venomous serpent, and a goat should be put forth as types of Christ? To identify the Son of God with such “loathsome things” would be blasphemous had they not come from the Old Testament Scriptures themselves, and had they not been confirmed by the authors of the New Testament who go even farther in their dark portrayal of His sacrificial death. Guided by the Holy Spirit, they tell us that Messiah who knew no sin, was “made sin” , and He who was the beloved of the Father “became a curse” before Him.
All of us have heard these truths before, but have we ever given them enough consideration to actually understand them and be broken by them? On the Cross, the One declared “holy, holy, holy” by the Seraphim choir , was “made” to be sin. The journey into the meaning of this phrase seems almost too dangerous to take. We baulk even at the first step. What does it mean that He in whom “all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” was made sin?
We must not explain the truth away in an attempt to protect the reputation of the Son of God, and yet we must be careful not to speak terrible things against His impeccable and immutable character. How was it that He was made sin? From the Scriptures we draw that Christ was “made sin” in the same way that the believer “becomes the righteousness of God” in Him. In his second letter to the church in Corinth, the Apostle Paul writes:
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
In this present life, the believer is the “righteousness of God” not because of some purifying work upon his character through which he becomes a perfectly righteous or sinless being, but rather as a result of imputation by which he is considered righteous before God through the work of Christ on his behalf. In the same way, Christ was “made sin” not because of some moral degeneration in His character through which He actually became corrupt or unrighteous, but as a result of imputation by which He was considered guilty before the judgment seat of God in our place.
On the Cross, Christ did not become sinful, but rather our sins were imputed to Him, and God considered Him to be guilty of our crimes and treated Him with the judgment we deserved. He was not “made sin” by partaking of our corruption, but by bearing our guilt. We must not forget that even while He bore our sins, He remained the unblemished and spotless Lamb of God, and His sacrifice was a fragrant aroma to Him.
We must be careful to understand that this truth does not diminish the horrifying nature of Christ being “made sin” on our behalf. Although it was an imputed guilt, it was real guilt, bringing unspeakable anguish to His soul. He truly stood in our place, bore our sin, carried our guilt, and experienced the full measure of the wrath of God due our sin.
The agony which Christ experienced in being “made sin” is further revealed in the great contrast between what He truly was and what He was “made” to be. It is a dreadful experience for the sinner to come face to face with his own sin and feel the weight of his own guilt. It is quite another thing for the “One who knew no sin” to bear a filth that was totally foreign to Him and to feel the guilt of a countless multitude of sinners. It is an unspeakable terror for the sinner to be treated as guilty before the bar of God, but it is quite another thing for One who is “innocent, undefiled, and separated from sinners” to be so treated. It is one thing for the sinner to be condemned by a God with whom he has no relations and toward whom he possesses no affections. It is quite another thing for the beloved Son of God to be judged and condemned by His own Father with whom He had shared the most intimate communion throughout eternity and toward whom He possessed a love beyond definition and measure.
The Christ Becomes a Curse
That Christ was “made sin,” is a truth as terrible as it is incomprehensible, and yet, just when we think that no darker words can be uttered against Him, the Apostle Paul lights a lamp and takes us further down into the abyss of Christ’s humiliation and forsakenness. We enter the deepest cavern to find the Son of God hanging from the Cross and bearing His most infamous title – Accursed of God!
The Scriptures declare that all humankind lay under the curse of God for having violated the precepts of divine Law. As the apostle Paul writes to the church in Galatia:
“Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the Book of the Law, to perform them.”
The word “cursed” comes from the Greek word katára which denotes an execration, imprecation, or malediction. In the New Testament, it refers to the state of being under divine disapproval or reprobation leading to judgment and condemnation. The divine curse is the antonym of divine blessing, therefore, by using the Beatitudes as our standard, we can learn something of what it means to come under the curse of God.
The blessed are granted the kingdom of heaven.
The cursed are refused entrance.
The blessed are recipients of divine comfort.
The cursed are objects of divine wrath.
The blessed inherit the land.
The cursed are cut off from it.
The blessed are satisfied.
The cursed are miserable and wretched.
The blessed receive mercy.
The cursed are condemned without pity.
The blessed shall see God.
The cursed are cut off from His presence.
The blessed are sons and daughters of God.
The cursed are disowned in disgrace.
From heaven’s perspective, those who break God’s Law are vile and worthy of all loathing. They are a wretched lot, justly exposed to divine vengeance, and rightly devoted to eternal destruction. It is not an exaggeration to say that the last thing that the accursed sinner should and will hear when he takes his first step into hell is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding God because He has rid the earth of him. Such is the vileness of those who break God’s law, and such is the disdain of the holy towards the unholy.
Such language is a gross offense to the world and to much of the contemporary evangelical community. Nevertheless, it is biblical language and it must be said. If for etiquette’s sake we refuse to explain and illustrate the “dark sayings” of Scripture, then God will not be held as holy, men will not understand their dreadful predicament, and the price paid by Christ will never be calculated or appreciated. Unless we comprehend what it means for man to be under the divine curse we will never comprehend what it meant for Christ to “become a curse for us.” We will never fully understand the horror and beauty of what was done for us on that tree!