Isaiah 53:11 and 2 Corinthians 5:21

Posted by Hank on July 23rd, 2009 filed in Biblical Interpretation, Christ, Theology

In this post I want to move to a text that many contemporary exegetes and theologians have really disappointed me when they interpret Paul here, namely 2 Corinthians 5:21. In this post We’ll look at this text and how Isaiah 53:11 impacts the text and how we should understand Paul here in light of it. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 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 here is speaking of God’s new creation that has come into effect through the reconciling work of Jesus Christ. Paul speaks of being Christ’s ambassador, pleading with the world to be reconciled to God. He is the means by which God appeals to the fallen and sinful world to come back to God and participate in the new creation. In reconciling the world to himself, God does not count their sins against them because, employing a traditional formula, the innocent Christ has become sin for our sake so that in him we can become God’s righteousness.

Now let us note the parallel between Isaiah 53:11 and 2 Corinthians 5:21. In Isaiah 53:11, the innocent Servant was wounded and crushed for Israel’s iniquities and rebellious deeds. After the Servant suffered, he is resurrected the Righteous One and as a result the many are justified–restored to proper covenant relationship with I AM.

In 2 Corinthians 5:21 Paul says that the innocent Messiah was made to be sin for us, as was the servant in Isaiah, and thus our sins are not counted against us. By being in the Messiah we become the righteousness of God, just as the result of the resurrected Righteous One the many are declared righteous by Yahweh. The parallels are striking.

I like how some of the heroes of the Reformed faith have understood justification, union with Christ.

Calvin writes of justification in his Institutes, “You see that our righteousness is not in us but in Christ, that we possess it only because we are partakers in Christ; in deed, with him we possess all its riches” (3.21.23). When we are in Christ and partake of him, then we are righteous and said to be justified. Christ himself is our righteousness. It is in that union, that partaking of Christ, imputation is said to take place. Calvin does teach that Christ’s righteousness is imputed, but not outside of Christ. We are given Christ and all that he has and is for us.

In point of fact Calvin barrows this illustration from Ambrose,

For this reason, it seems to me that Ambrose beautifully stated an example of this righteousness in the blessing of Jacob: noting that, as he did not of himself deserve the right of the first-born, concealed in his brother’s clothing and wearing his brother’s coat, which gave out an agreeable odor, he ingratiated himself with his father, so that to his own benefit he received the blessing while impersonating another. And we in like manner hide under the precious purity of our first-born brother, Christ, so that we may be attested righteous in God’s sight. Here are the words of Ambrose: “That Isaac smelled the odor of the garments perhaps means that we are justified not by works but by faith, since the weakness of the flesh is a hindrance to works, but the brightness of faith, which merits the pardon of sins, overshadows the error of deeds” (3.21.23).

We come to God in Christ and are seen as righteous as Jacob came to Isaac in Esau and received the family blessing. It was Jacob’s union with Esau that secured the blessing and it is our union with Messiah that secures a right standing before God.

Even in his sermon on justification Jonathan Edwards emphasizes imputation in the matrix of union with Christ (taken from the text of Romans 4:5), “First we must be in Him, the He will be made righteousness or justification to us…Our being in Him is the basis of our being accepted…The union of the members of the body with the head, is the ground of their partaking of the life of the head; it is the union of the branches to the stock, which is the ground of their partaking of the sap and life of the stock; it is the relation of the wife to the husband, that is the ground of her joint interest in his estate; they are looked upon, in several respects, as one in law. So there is a legal union between Christ and true Christians.”

Union with Christ makes justification a christocentric reality, as Paul explicitly speaks of it. As we see in our text above, as well in the many posts in this series before, by virtue of our being “in him” do we become the righteousness of God. Being found in Christ by faith do we have the righteousness that comes from God (Philippians 3:9). It is in Christ and Christ alone, in union with him, that I stand right before God because Christ is the Righteous One and I stand in his righteousness.

Now here is the part that bugs me. Many Reformed theologians miss one key element to this passage and its this: Paul does not say that we become righteous, and therefore reconciled to God, by the imputing of sin to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to the believer. Rather he states that Christ became sin for us and we become God’s righteousness in him. Union with Christ is emphasized here and not imputation. Yet I find that Reformed theologians simply by-pass the union and go straight to imputation.

I am not necessarily rejecting imputation. I am lamenting the fact that many of my Reformed brethren miss out on the key matrix that makes imputation possible: union and incorporation. Listen to a theologian/preacher that I have the utmost respect for about this text,

But the question is not about mere explicitness of “language” (like “comes into play”) but about the reality revealed through language (Piper, Righteous In Christ, pg 68).

My question to John Piper is, “How so?” Isn’t it through the explicit language of the text that we can perceive the reality behind it and communicated through it? Where in this text does Paul talk about imputation? Only in 5:19 where he says our sins are not counted against us (μὴ λογιζόμενος αὐτοῖς τὰ παραπτώματα αὐτῶν; cf. 1 Corinthians 13:5 οὐ λογίζεται τὸ κακόν, “does not count wrongs” and Psalm 31:1-2). The ground for such non-accounting is that of Romans 8:3 and Galatians 3:13, Christ became sin/the curse for us. But that is where imputation language stops. Becoming righteous is the language (γενώμεθα) that Paul uses. And the righteousness is said to be God’s, not Christ’s. That righteousness is our by union with the Messiah. Yet why does Piper insist on skipping over and merely paying lip-service to the union and insisting on using imputation language?

Shouldn’t Piper first speak of union and allow for the fact that imputation is the answer to a different question, a systematic question, rather than an exegetical one? As Michael Bird says, if one were to ask Paul how is one said to be justified (the exegetical question), he would answer, “In Christ.” If one were to ask how is one justified by that union with Christ (the systematic theological question) the answer would be, “Imputation.”

To say that imputation is the direct result of exegesis, especially here in 2 Corinthians 5:21 but also elsewhere, is not only untrue but doesn’t respect what some of the giants of our heritage have argued. What makes Piper even more infuriating is that in some sermons he just speaks of union when speaking on justification. Yet in his books he insists that imputation is exegetical, not systematic theology. Ahh!!

There is more on this topic that I would like to speak on but that will come later. As one can see, Isaiah 53:11 is an important cornerstone to understanding Paul’s view of justification. And that view is that a person is righteous because he/she is in the Righteous One, Jesus Christ the one who was crucified and resurrected. When one is in Christ, that person is in his righteousness and perfect vindication before God, the judge of all the earth.