What Does 2 Corinthians 5:21 Mean?
For he made him who knew no falling short to be a shortcoming for us, so that in him we might become the alignment of God.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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.THE KEY
God’s alignment is found in the one made sin for us, not in a righteousness we manufacture apart from him.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now: the one who knows no sin is made sin for us, and we become God’s alignment in him. Its movement is from sin borne by him to alignment found in him, held together by the words “in him.”
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that you must first produce moral perfection to belong in God’s alignment; the verse locates that alignment in him.
THE ROOT
ἁμαρτία
hamartia
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ-
hamart-
To miss or err; the word itself means sin.
“a shortcoming” in this verse is hamartia. The same word brackets the claim: he “knew no sin,” yet is made “sin for us.” Its family evokes missing or going astray, while the verse speaks of sin itself; the transfer is carried by the verse’s syntax, not by reducing sin to an innocent mistake.
ALSO GROWS
hamartanō: To sin, miss, or err.
ἁμαρτάνω
The verbal branch brings motion into the idea of sin: it can name the act of going wrong, not only an abstract condition.
hamartōlos: A sinner; one characterized by sin.
ἁμαρτωλός
This branch names a person through the same word family, showing how the verse’s “sin for us” reaches beyond an isolated misstep.
δικαιοσύνη
dikaiosynē
GROWS FROM
δικαι-
dikai-
Rightness or justice; here, alignment.
The verse ends with God’s alignment becoming ours “in him.” Paired with sin borne for us, this describes a received relation rather than an achievement produced apart from him.
ALSO GROWS
dikaios: Just, right, or aligned.
δίκαιος
This adjective shows the same family describing a person or state as rightly aligned.
dikaioō: To justify, declare right, or set in the right.
δικαιόω
This verb shows the family at work as an act that establishes right standing, illuminating the verse’s “might be made” language.
THE PATTERN
What one bears on behalf of many can become the changed standing of those represented in him.
All of us like sheep have wandered; each has turned to his own way, and the LORD has caused the crookedness of us all to fall upon him.Who himself carried our shortcomings in his own body on the tree, that we, dead to shortcomings, might live to alignment; and by his bruises you were healed.For as through the deafness of one man the many were set as those who miss the mark, so also through the hearing and response of one the many shall be set in alignment.THE THREAD
But to the one who does not work, yet leans his full weight upon God, who aligns the one without awe, his trust is counted for alignment.“Righteousness” translates the same Greek word, δικαιοσύνη, as in this verse. Romans 4:5 makes the connection plain: God’s alignment is counted to the ungodly who trust, rather than earned by their work.
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