Tonya Betz Ministries - Marriage Supper - Teachings

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3. Did He Become Sin?

It has been argued that Father had to forsake the Son on the cross in a spiritual sense because the Son became sin on our behalf. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “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.” If He became sin, how could He be a perfect sacrifice without spot or blemish? The Bible says that He did not see corruption (Acts 2:31, 13:35). His blood sacrifice would not have been good enough if He had become sin itself. Rather, He took on sin, but He did not become, or change into, sin in a metaphysical way. “For He hath made (poieo, not ginomai) Him to be sin for us…” He became sin only in the sense that He was seen as a sin sacrifice as the scapegoat was in the Old Testament. The goat did not actually become sin; he (symbolically) took on the sin and carried it out into the wilderness (Leviticus 16:8-10).

We see in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that He was not made sin literally. The word “made” here is poieo, which means that He was simply appointed to be the sin offering. We saw from John 1:14 that He was made (ginomai) a man in the metaphysical sense, so if Paul had had that same meaning in mind here in the letter to the Corinthians, he would have used ginomai, not poieo. If Paul had wanted to say that He became sin in a metaphysical sense, he would have used ginomai, not poieo. But rather than rely solely on 2 Corinthians 5:21, let’s look at some other verses that tell us about Yeshua on the cross.

1 Corinthians 15:3 -- He died for our sin
Galatians 1:4 -- He gave Himself for our sin
Hebrews 1:3 -- He purged our sin
Hebrews 4:15 -- He was without sin
1 Peter 2:24 -- He bore our sins in His own body
1 John 2:2 and 4:10 -- He is the propitiation for our sin
1 John 3:5 -- He was manifested to take away our sin, and in Him there is no sin
Revelation 1:5 -- He washed us from our sins in His own blood

To say that He "became sin itself" is to violate all the above verses. Surely, we can see in Revelation 1:5 that it was the shedding of His blood that washed us from our sins. He did not need to become sin to wash us. The sin offerings in the Old Testament were not sinful; quite the opposite: The sin offerings were spotless and without blemish. It is this perfection of the offering that stands in for the sin. Yeshua was the offering, perfect in every way. It is His perfection that qualifies Him to be our sacrifice. The sacrificial lambs did not become sin. It is perhaps good to point out here that the shedding of His blood took place on the cross and that is why He could say, “It is finished,” even before He descended to the lower parts of the earth. Our sins were paid for by the shedding of His blood, yet He did conquer eternal death when He rose from the grave and He sealed it when He then presented the offering of His blood to the Father in Heaven.

If Christ had actually become sin, then we would have to say that His two natures were separable (the Nestorius heresy), for God cannot be sin nor sinful. If Yeshua had actually become sin in a metaphysical sense, it would have been His human nature, not His divine nature, that became sin. If His human nature had become sin itself, then He would have been spiritually separated from God and would have had to pay the penalty in Hell. There is no other way, unless we are prepared to say that somehow sin itself could ascend to Heaven. No, He must have gone to Hell, if He had become sin. How could He have been resurrected from Hell? As a mere man in Hell, He could not have been resurrected, for He tells us in Luke 16 that it is impossible for the man in Hades (the wicked part, not the Paradise part) to get out. But if He had been resurrected from Hell, then how could He ascend to Heaven to present untainted, pure blood from an untainted, pure body?

Separating the two natures gets us into all kinds of trouble Biblically. If we believe that Yeshua became sin, then we have to separate the two natures, unless we want to believe that God Himself became sin. If we separate the two natures, then we have the human nature becoming sin (or at least becoming sinful in the sense that the Father became spiritually separated from the human nature). If the human nature is spiritually separated from God, then it must have gone to Hell upon death. If He went to Hell upon death, but we see He has a body after His resurrection, then we must conclude that He was resurrected from Hell. If He was resurrected from Hell, then He was the first born again man. If that is true, then you and I, being born again, can ascend to Heaven as gods. In other words, if a glorified man can die on a cross, become sin itself, descend to Hell, be born again to get out of Hell, and then ascend to Heaven, is that not our pattern? Never mind that if He ascended from Hell after being sin itself that He must have sprinkled the Mercy Seat in Heaven with tainted, corrupted, sinful blood.

4. Where Did He Go?

When the thief on the cross repented, Yeshua said that that day he would be with Him in Paradise (Luke 23:43; cf Matthew 12:40). Paradise at that time was not Heaven; it was the part of Sheol (Hebrew; Hades in Greek) that held the Old Testament saints who were awaiting their Messiah. (Gehenna is used to signify the final judgment [the lake of fire; Revelation 20:15], while Peter uses Tartarus to denote the holding place for the wicked angels [2 Peter 2:4].) They could not go to Heaven when they died because Christ had not yet come as the perfect sacrifice. When Christ died, He descended to Paradise to present Himself as Messiah. That is where the thief went. When Christ was resurrected bodily, the souls/spirits in Paradise were readied for Heaven.

(It should be noted here that Gehenna Hell is the final torment that the wicked will suffer and no one is there yet. It was created for Satan and his demons and they will go there at the end of the Millennium. Sheol/Hades Hell was occupied up until Christ’s resurrection, at which point those souls/spirits in the Paradise portion ascended to Heaven. The wicked who remain in Hades will be resurrected unto final judgment at the end of the Millennium [Revelation 20:11-15].)

If Christ had gone to Hell to suffer torment, why would He call that Paradise? Could He have gone to Hell first and then Paradise? There is no Biblical evidence for such a scenario. Again, if He had gone to Hell as a sin offering, He would have been separated from God and been corrupted with no way out. Instead, He went to Paradise and presented the Good News. Some may point to Psalm 16:10 as a proof text that Yeshua went to Hell. What David actually says is, “You (God) will not leave my (David’s) soul in Sheol (Paradise), nor will You allow Your Holy One (Yeshua) to see corruption.” And the reason David could say that he knew God would not leave his soul in Sheol is precisely because Yeshua would not see corruption; that is, He would be without sin, able to be the perfect sacrifice, able to sprinkle the Mercy Seat with pure, uncorrupted blood. It is upon this fact that David knew in his spirit that he would be a part of the resurrection unto life. But we see in Acts 2:31 that Peter interprets the Psalm to mean that, “His (Christ’s) soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.” Again, we must note that Hades is the general term for both the holding place of the wicked and the holding place of the saints (Paradise). There is no contradiction here when Peter says that Christ’s soul was not left in Hades. In other words, He is not dead, but He was resurrected, His soul/spirit in union with His glorified body. Christ left Hades (Paradise). (cf Ephesians 4:9-10.)

(It may be that Yeshua left our sins in Hades by simply purging them over the abyss. We see in the Luke 16 account that the beggar and the rich man, although separated and unable to enter the other man’s domain, could still talk to one another. There was a gulf that separated them and it may be that Yeshua, upon carrying our sins, heaved them into that wicked section of Hades. Of course, this is symbolic, for our sins are not physical such that they can be picked up and carried. It is also interesting to note that Micah 7:19 says that God will “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” Hades is in the depths of the earth [Ephesians 4:9, Psalm 63:9, Ezekiel 32:24, Matthew 12:40].)

When Mary Magdalene first encountered Yeshua after His resurrection, He told her that she could not touch Him yet because He had not yet ascended to Father (John 20:17). Then later that night, Thomas touched Him (John 20:24-28). So, between the time Mary saw Him and the time Thomas touched Him, He must have ascended to Heaven. Why? He had to present the blood to be sprinkled on the Mercy Seat. During the time He was talking to Mary, was He separated from God? After all, He had not yet ascended to Heaven to present the sacrifice. But clearly, He was not separated from God. It was the power of the Spirit, indeed His own power (John 10:17-18), that had raised His body from the dead. And now He was walking in that power even though He had yet to ascend to the Father. He was not separated from God.

So, when was He separated from God? For how long? Paul says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). There is no separation time between death and Heaven. The soul and spirit of the Christian are instantly in Heaven upon death of the body. Are we to say that Christ's soul and spirit, at the moment of physical death, went to Hell, separated from God? That is what happens to the sinner who dies without Christ. Is that what happened to Yeshua? Either He went to Hell or He went to Paradise. He said He would be in Paradise that day. If He were separated spiritually from God upon His death, that must mean that He went to Hell, not Paradise. If He went to Hell, then we have to believe that He suffered a spiritual death there, for that is what Hell is. From there, we must believe that the Spirit raised Him from Hell where He suffered torment and corruption. How then could He be the perfect unblemished sacrifice acceptable to the Father?

So, what does the Bible mean when Yeshua cries out from the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46).


	Matthew 27:46 Was Jesus Forsaken? by Carol Berubee http://www.tonyabetz.org/MSM/Product/matt27462.htm Page 1 2 3 3. Did He Become Sin? It has been argued that Father had to forsake the Son on the cross in a spiritual sense because the Son became sin on our behalf. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “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.” If He became sin, how could He be a perfect sacrifice without spot or blemish? The Bible says that He did not see corruption (Acts 2:31, 13:35). His blood sacrifice would not have been good enough if He had become sin itself. Rather, He took on sin, but He did not become, or change into, sin in a metaphysical way. “For He hath made (poieo, not ginomai) Him to be sin for us…” He became sin only in the sense that He was seen as a sin sacrifice as the scapegoat was in the Old Testament. The goat did not actually become sin; he (symbolically) took on the sin and carried it out into the wilderness (Leviticus 16:8-10). We see in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that He was not made sin literally. The word “made” here is poieo, which means that He was simply appointed to be the sin offering. We saw from John 1:14 that He was made (ginomai) a man in the metaphysical sense, so if Paul had had that same meaning in mind here in the letter to the Corinthians, he would have used ginomai, not poieo. If Paul had wanted to say that He became sin in a metaphysical sense, he would have used ginomai, not poieo. But rather than rely solely on 2 Corinthians 5:21, let’s look at some other verses that tell us about Yeshua on the cross. 1 Corinthians 15:3 -- He died for our sin Galatians 1:4 -- He gave Himself for our sin Hebrews 1:3 -- He purged our sin Hebrews 4:15 -- He was without sin 1 Peter 2:24 -- He bore our sins in His own body 1 John 2:2 and 4:10 -- He is the propitiation for our sin 1 John 3:5 -- He was manifested to take away our sin, and in Him there is no sin Revelation 1:5 -- He washed us from our sins in His own blood To say that He "became sin itself" is to violate all the above verses. Surely, we can see in Revelation 1:5 that it was the shedding of His blood that washed us from our sins. He did not need to become sin to wash us. The sin offerings in the Old Testament were not sinful; quite the opposite: The sin offerings were spotless and without blemish. It is this perfection of the offering that stands in for the sin. Yeshua was the offering, perfect in every way. It is His perfection that qualifies Him to be our sacrifice. The sacrificial lambs did not become sin. It is perhaps good to point out here that the shedding of His blood took place on the cross and that is why He could say, “It is finished,” even before He descended to the lower parts of the earth. Our sins were paid for by the shedding of His blood, yet He did conquer eternal death when He rose from the grave and He sealed it when He then presented the offering of His blood to the Father in Heaven. If Christ had actually become sin, then we would have to say that His two natures were separable (the Nestorius heresy), for God cannot be sin nor sinful. If Yeshua had actually become sin in a metaphysical sense, it would have been His human nature, not His divine nature, that became sin. If His human nature had become sin itself, then He would have been spiritually separated from God and would have had to pay the penalty in Hell. There is no other way, unless we are prepared to say that somehow sin itself could ascend to Heaven. No, He must have gone to Hell, if He had become sin. How could He have been resurrected from Hell? As a mere man in Hell, He could not have been resurrected, for He tells us in Luke 16 that it is impossible for the man in Hades (the wicked part, not the Paradise part) to get out. But if He had been resurrected from Hell, then how could He ascend to Heaven to present untainted, pure blood from an untainted, pure body? Separating the two natures gets us into all kinds of trouble Biblically. If we believe that Yeshua became sin, then we have to separate the two natures, unless we want to believe that God Himself became sin. If we separate the two natures, then we have the human nature becoming sin (or at least becoming sinful in the sense that the Father became spiritually separated from the human nature). If the human nature is spiritually separated from God, then it must have gone to Hell upon death. If He went to Hell upon death, but we see He has a body after His resurrection, then we must conclude that He was resurrected from Hell. If He was resurrected from Hell, then He was the first born again man. If that is true, then you and I, being born again, can ascend to Heaven as gods. In other words, if a glorified man can die on a cross, become sin itself, descend to Hell, be born again to get out of Hell, and then ascend to Heaven, is that not our pattern? Never mind that if He ascended from Hell after being sin itself that He must have sprinkled the Mercy Seat in Heaven with tainted, corrupted, sinful blood. 4. Where Did He Go? When the thief on the cross repented, Yeshua said that that day he would be with Him in Paradise (Luke 23:43; cf Matthew 12:40). Paradise at that time was not Heaven; it was the part of Sheol (Hebrew; Hades in Greek) that held the Old Testament saints who were awaiting their Messiah. (Gehenna is used to signify the final judgment [the lake of fire; Revelation 20:15], while Peter uses Tartarus to denote the holding place for the wicked angels [2 Peter 2:4].) They could not go to Heaven when they died because Christ had not yet come as the perfect sacrifice. When Christ died, He descended to Paradise to present Himself as Messiah. That is where the thief went. When Christ was resurrected bodily, the souls/spirits in Paradise were readied for Heaven. (It should be noted here that Gehenna Hell is the final torment that the wicked will suffer and no one is there yet. It was created for Satan and his demons and they will go there at the end of the Millennium. Sheol/Hades Hell was occupied up until Christ’s resurrection, at which point those souls/spirits in the Paradise portion ascended to Heaven. The wicked who remain in Hades will be resurrected unto final judgment at the end of the Millennium [Revelation 20:11-15].) If Christ had gone to Hell to suffer torment, why would He call that Paradise? Could He have gone to Hell first and then Paradise? There is no Biblical evidence for such a scenario. Again, if He had gone to Hell as a sin offering, He would have been separated from God and been corrupted with no way out. Instead, He went to Paradise and presented the Good News. Some may point to Psalm 16:10 as a proof text that Yeshua went to Hell. What David actually says is, “You (God) will not leave my (David’s) soul in Sheol (Paradise), nor will You allow Your Holy One (Yeshua) to see corruption.” And the reason David could say that he knew God would not leave his soul in Sheol is precisely because Yeshua would not see corruption; that is, He would be without sin, able to be the perfect sacrifice, able to sprinkle the Mercy Seat with pure, uncorrupted blood. It is upon this fact that David knew in his spirit that he would be a part of the resurrection unto life. But we see in Acts 2:31 that Peter interprets the Psalm to mean that, “His (Christ’s) soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.” Again, we must note that Hades is the general term for both the holding place of the wicked and the holding place of the saints (Paradise). There is no contradiction here when Peter says that Christ’s soul was not left in Hades. In other words, He is not dead, but He was resurrected, His soul/spirit in union with His glorified body. Christ left Hades (Paradise). (cf Ephesians 4:9-10.) (It may be that Yeshua left our sins in Hades by simply purging them over the abyss. We see in the Luke 16 account that the beggar and the rich man, although separated and unable to enter the other man’s domain, could still talk to one another. There was a gulf that separated them and it may be that Yeshua, upon carrying our sins, heaved them into that wicked section of Hades. Of course, this is symbolic, for our sins are not physical such that they can be picked up and carried. It is also interesting to note that Micah 7:19 says that God will “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” Hades is in the depths of the earth [Ephesians 4:9, Psalm 63:9, Ezekiel 32:24, Matthew 12:40].) When Mary Magdalene first encountered Yeshua after His resurrection, He told her that she could not touch Him yet because He had not yet ascended to Father (John 20:17). Then later that night, Thomas touched Him (John 20:24-28). So, between the time Mary saw Him and the time Thomas touched Him, He must have ascended to Heaven. Why? He had to present the blood to be sprinkled on the Mercy Seat. During the time He was talking to Mary, was He separated from God? After all, He had not yet ascended to Heaven to present the sacrifice. But clearly, He was not separated from God. It was the power of the Spirit, indeed His own power (John 10:17-18), that had raised His body from the dead. And now He was walking in that power even though He had yet to ascend to the Father. He was not separated from God. So, when was He separated from God? For how long? Paul says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). There is no separation time between death and Heaven. The soul and spirit of the Christian are instantly in Heaven upon death of the body. Are we to say that Christ's soul and spirit, at the moment of physical death, went to Hell, separated from God? That is what happens to the sinner who dies without Christ. Is that what happened to Yeshua? Either He went to Hell or He went to Paradise. He said He would be in Paradise that day. If He were separated spiritually from God upon His death, that must mean that He went to Hell, not Paradise. If He went to Hell, then we have to believe that He suffered a spiritual death there, for that is what Hell is. From there, we must believe that the Spirit raised Him from Hell where He suffered torment and corruption. How then could He be the perfect unblemished sacrifice acceptable to the Father? So, what does the Bible mean when Yeshua cries out from the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). Page 1 2 3
© 2002-2008 Tonya Betz Ministries

© 2002-2008 Tonya Betz Ministries