bits from bob....

Made to Be Sin

by Robert J. Young
Main and Oklahoma Church, McAlester, Oklahoma
October 11, 2002
©, 2002, Robert J. Young
[permission is given to reprint with credit noted]

"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." (2 Cor. 5:21)

A previous article asked if we might understand Rom. 5:12 more completely by rethinking what is the nature of sin. Please read that article.

Sin is, fundamentally, a power that reflects an effort to establish relationships that deny God and his role and work in this world. Sin is essentially wrong being more than wrong doing or wrong thinking. Sin is deliberate independence from God. If we can understand the nature of sin as a wrong existence, and that wrong thinking and wrong acting comes from this basic nature, then we can understand how the church has developed a concept of grace that can counteract wrong acting but cannot overcome my wrong thinking. The question is not what I am thinking, believing, or how I am acting, but the question is who am I?

Christianity depends upon understanding the positive, radical nature of sin as opposition to God. Christianity deals with sin; other religions deal with sins. If my version of Christianity is focused on sins more than sin, perhaps I am misunderstanding Scripture. The first thing Jesus faces in me is my heredity in sin, my human nature. Ignoring this great truth in our presentation of the Gospel causes the message to lost its power to blast through human nature and the tendency toward sin and opposition to God.

Our text does not say Jesus took upon himself our fleshly sins but that he took upon himself my heredity in sin, that which I cannot touch by myself. God made his Son to be sin that he might make the sinner a saint.

Jesus deals with the sins of the world by identification, he becomes like us. In identifying with mankind through Jesus, God has effectively put the entire human race on the basis of redemption. May we say that Jesus rehabilitated the human race? He put it back where God designed it to be--in potential of full fellowship with God, without the obstacle of separating sin.

Now our tendencies and potentials are as initially--we are both image of God people and biological living-being persons living in this mundane world. We can choose which shall be the supreme mode of being in our lives. While God's redemption is complete, its reference and application in my life is question of my individual activity. We must never fail to distinguish God's realities, revelation, and desire for relationship with our own conscious response.


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Last updated October 11, 2002.