2 Corinthians 5 Footnotes

5:21 This great atonement text (which is inseparable from the great incarnation text of 8:9) is packed with meaning: (1) Christ was sinless as a qualification, and so (2) in his death God made him “to be sin” (i.e., an accursed sin offering), (3) “for us” (i.e., in our place, substituting himself for us), (4) so that “in him” (through the ministry of the gospel) believers become the righteousness of God.