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2 Corinthians 5:21
Paul's words may be startling and uncomfortable, but they are true: God the Father made Christ to be sin! This does not mean God made Him commit sin; His life and nature were entirely flawless. But this says God made Him to be sin. The instructions for sin offerings contain a detail that helps us to understand why Paul could make this statement. An interlinear Bible shows that in almost every verse in the Old Testament where a sin offering is mentioned, the translators supply word “offering”; it is not present in the Hebrew. This is because the word for “sin offering,” chatta'ah (Strong's #2403), is also the word for “sin.” This word has multiple meanings: "sin," "a sin offering," "guilt because of sin," "purification from sin," or "punishment because of sin." The same word can signify all those things. In a sin offering, the animal became symbolic of the guilt incurred by sin; it suffered punishment because of sin; and it was also the symbolic purification from sin. This is why the same word is used for both sin and sin offering. The animal—the substitute—essentially became the sin needing to be atoned. When the high priest laid all the iniquities of Israel on the azazel, that second goat became sin. One translation tries to soften what is said here by saying that God made Christ to be the offering for our sins. While true, this rendering is not faithful to the text. The Greek word for "sin" here is unlike the Hebrew word, which can also indicate a sin offering. In the Greek, sin simply means sin. When a sin offering is indicated, another Greek word must be included. But here, Paul means just what we read: "God made Christ to be sin." Truly, the role of the azazel was a dreadful one, but it was part of the work that only the Messiah could do and which He had to do for there to be reconciliation with God.
David C. Grabbe
Azazel: Beginnings
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