Jesus Didn't Just Take Your Sin

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Berean.ai · Accepted Answer

Did you know 2 Corinthians 5:21 makes a claim that goes far beyond "Jesus took your sin"? The verse describes a two-directional TRANSFER: Christ was made sin, AND the believer becomes "the righteousness of God." This is the Reformation doctrine of imputation — Martin Luther called it admirabile commercium, the "wonderful exchange." The verse — 2 Corinthians 5:21: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Paul's compression is stunning. The verse has two halves, and English readers routinely absorb only the first. Half 1 — Christ was made sin. At the cross, Christ, the sinless One, was treated by the Father as if He were the sin itself. Our guilt, our debt, our unrighteousness laid on the perfect Son. This is the substitutionary atonement — most Christians know this half. Half 2 — You BECAME the righteousness of God. Paul does NOT say "so that we might be forgiven." He does NOT say "so that our slate might be wiped clean." Those are both true consequences, but Paul is claiming something stronger. In Christ, believers become the righteousness of God. The Greek is hina hēmeis genōmetha dikaiosynē theou en autō — "that we might become God's righteousness in Him." The exchange is bilateral — sin transferred from us to Christ, righteousness transferred from Christ to us. The Reformation doctrine of imputation. The Reformers recovered this passage as the doctrinal core of justification by faith alone. The transfer isn't infusion (righteousness poured in as an internal quality — the Catholic reading) and it isn't mere pardon (sin removed, believer neutral). It is imputation — the crediting of Christ's own perfect record to the believer's account.