Christ bore sin--Cursed of God/ the meaning

St Augustine: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/140614.htm

3. Death comes upon man as the punishment of sin, and so is itself called sin; not that a man sins in dying, but because sin is the cause of his death. So the word tongue, which properly means the fleshy substance between the teeth and the palate, is applied in a secondary sense to the result of the tongue's action. In this sense we speak of a Latin tongue and a Greek tongue. The word hand, too, means both the members of the body we use in working, and the writing which is done with the hand. In this sense we speak of writing as being proved to be the hand of a certain person, or of recognizing the hand of a friend. The writing is certainly not a member of the body, but the name hand is given to it because it is the hand that does it. So sin means both a bad action deserving punishment, and death the consequence of sin. Christ has no sin in the sense of deserving death, but He bore for our sakes sin in the sense of death as brought on human nature by sin. This is what hung on the tree; this is what was cursed by Moses. Thus was death condemned that its reign might cease, and cursed that it might be destroyed. By Christ's taking our sin in this sense, its condemnation is our deliverance, while to remain in subjection to sin is to be condemned.

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 But the man who believes that Christ died, and acknowledges that death is the fruit of sin, and is itself called sin, will understand who it is that is cursed by Moses, when he hears the apostle saying "For our old man is crucified with Him." Romans 6:6 The apostle boldly says of Christ, "He was made a curse for us;" for he could also venture to say, "He died for all." "He died," and "He was cursed," are the same. Death is the effect of the curse; and all sin is cursed, whether it means the action which merits punishment, or the punishment which follows. Christ, though guiltless, took our punishment, that He might cancel our guilt, and do away with our punishment.

5. These things are not my conjectures, but are affirmed constantly by the apostle, with an emphasis sufficient to rouse the careless and to silence the gainsayers. "God," he says, "sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, that by sin He might condemn sin in the flesh." Romans 8:3 Christ's flesh was not sinful, because it was not born of Mary by ordinary generation; but because death is the effect of sin, this flesh, in being mortal, had the likeness of sinful flesh. This is called sin in the following words, "that by sin He might condemn sin in the flesh." Again he says: "He has made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." 2 Corinthians 5:21 Why should not Moses call accursed what Paul calls sin? In this prediction the prophet claims a share with the apostle in the reproach of the heretics. For whoever finds fault with the word cursed in the prophet, must find fault with the word sin in the apostle; for curse and sin go together.

6. If we read, "Cursed of God is every one that hangs on a tree," the addition of the words "of God" creates no difficulty. For had not God hated sin and our death, He would not have sent His Son to bear and to abolish it. And there is nothing strange in God's cursing what He hates. For His readiness to give us the immortalitywhich will be had at the coming of Christ, is in proportion to the compassion with which He hated our death when it hung on the cross at the death of Christ. And if Moses curses every one that hangs on a tree, it iscertainly not because he did not foresee that righteous men would be crucified, but rather because He foresaw that heretics would deny the death of the Lord to be real, and would try to disprove the application of thiscurse to Christ, in order that they might disprove the reality of His death. For if Christ's death was not real, nothing cursed hung on the cross when He was crucified, for the crucifixion cannot have been real. Moses cries from the distant past to these heretics: Your evasion in denying the reality of the death of Christ is useless.Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree; not this one or that, but absolutely every one. What! The Son of God? Yes, assuredly. This is the very thing you object to, and that you are so anxious to evade. You will not allow that He was cursed for us, because you will not allow that He died for us. Exemption from Adam's curseimplies exemption from his death. But as Christ endured death as man, and for man; so also, Son of God as He was, ever living in His own righteousness, but dying for our offenses, He submitted as man, and for man, to bear the curse which accompanies death. And as He died in the flesh which He took in bearing our punishment, so also, while ever blessed in His own righteousness, He was cursed for our offenses, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment. And these words "every one" are intended to check theignorant officiousness which would deny the reference of the curse to Christ, and so, because the curse goes along with death, would lead to the denial of the true death of Christ.

see also: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/does-the-bible-teach-sola-fide/comment-page-1/#comment-2388


from http://www.readability.com/articles/9ouo1os1

This is a continuation of Paul’s prior plea for the Corinthian believers (vv. 17-20) to be reconciled with God. Some (such as Dwayne) take verse 21 to mean that it shows our justification is to get Christ’s righteousness imputed to our account. He basically says what James White does, a Calvinist who says in is book “Roman Catholic Controversy’: “The righteousness of Christ is the actual and real possession of the believer. This is the righteousness a Christian pleads before the judgment throne of God. Christ is our Substitute. Our sins are imputed to him; His righteousness is imputed to us... by God’s grace Christ’s righteousness becomes ours, and we have eternal life because of Christ’s righteousness, not because of our own.” He then claims that there are tons of verses that prove this, and supposedly 2 Cor. 5:21 is the perfect proof for this. Of course, White neither quotes the verses before or after v.21, which shows Paul writing of the necessity of constantly being reconciled with God, or the following verses which speak of the possibility of receiving the grace of God in vain. If one is forensically imputed with Christ’s righteousness, it would be impossible to receive God’s grace in vain. On the contrary, nowhere in the text is the word impute even used!! First, it does not say that our sins are imputed to Christ. Second, there is no hint in this passage that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to our account.

What does v. 21 actually teach on the matter? It does not say that Christ became imputed with sin. He became a sin offering. There are parallels which show this. For example, Paul calls Christ elsewhere a sin offering (Eph. 5:2, Heb. 7:27), a propitiation (Rom. 3:25), and a sacrifice (1 Cor. 5:7, Heb. 9:28). Paul writes in Rom. 8:3-4 that God sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man. in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Paul wrote in the context of Christ being a sin offering that we meet the righteous requirement of the law by us walking according to the Spirit. Something we do. Not something Christ does by imputing his righteousness. Instead, He puts his righteousness into our life. That is exactly what Paul is speaking of in 2 Cor. 5:21. White’s interpretation contradicts Paul’s understanding of Rom. 8:2-4 on the same subject.

Another very relevant point is if even if we granted that the first clause of v. 21 “Christ became sin for us” is to be interpreted as Christ actually becoming imputed with our sin (which I don‘t), it does not necessarily follow that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to our account for our justification.The passage itself does not say that, but Dwayne and others for somehow base their whole interpretation of this verse on an assumption that Paul gives no hint of!!! In fact, the surrounding context belies that interpretation. The second clause of the verse (that has to do with righteousness) is so that “we might become the righteousness of God.” Again, Paul writes that Christ did this so that we might become the righteousness of God. The words ‘might become’ is very important, as it says that it is a possibility, not a guarantee. If one was automatically guaranteed an imputed righteousness as the grounds of our justification , there would be no might or maybe. However, the inspired writer Paul writes that one might become the righteousness. Thus, it is conditional upon our continuing reconciliation with God. (vv. 18-20). (2 Cor. 5:18 points in fact to the sacrament of penance). In fact, this whole section of 2 Cor. 5 & 6 shows that there are impediments that believers might allow to happen that will in fact interrupt our relationship with God. 

How might we become the righteousness of God? Paul answers in the following verses by writing that (6:1) “Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain”. Thus, to maintain this righteousness we must work together with God. And we must do this or else we can actually accept his grace in vain. Again, grace not only does not exclude, but actually demandsthat we work together with him, in order for this not to be in vain. Salvation is a ‘now’ (6:2), not merely a past time event. The whole section (2 Cor. 5:17-6:2) shows salvation is not merely a punctiliar event, but a process, where Christ makes us righteous, and we must cooperate with God for our salvation. 

St. Augustine gives a good summary of the section including 2 Cor. 5:21 when he writes: -"That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. This is not the righteousness whereby God is himself righteous, but that whereby we are made righteous by him" (Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter, ch. 31, Schaff, NPNF, First Series, Vol. 5, p. 97).

The fact is, here Paul shows that justification is that we are made righteous. As we saw earlier in this same chapter, 2 Cor. 5:10, we are judged for all the deeds we do, good or bad. It does not say that God will skip the bad works of those who are justified by the good deeds. If we are in his grace, and there still remains some bad that we must be judged for, and we are to be made the righteousness of Christ as shown in 2 Cor. 5:21, then purgatory is that final process of being made the righteousness of Christ.