Five-minute study · Day 254 · 2 Corinthians 5
2 Corinthians 5:21
A word worth stopping on: sin ἁμαρτία hamartia
'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 word is hamartia. Sin. It is the most common word for sin in the New Testament, appearing 173 times. But hamartia started its life far from theology. In classical Greek, the word belonged to archery. It meant to miss the mark, to fail to hit the target. The archer draws, releases, and the arrow falls short or goes wide. That is hamartia. Paul takes this word and pushes it to its most extreme theological use in a single verse: the one who never missed the mark was made into the miss itself.
Word study: sin
- Greek
- ἁμαρτία
- Pronounced
- hamartia
- Strong's
- G0266
- Definition
- A missing of the mark, failure, sin, offense. Originally an archery term describing the failure to hit a target. In New Testament usage, it describes moral failure, transgression against God's standard, and the condition of alienation from God that results from such failure.
Hamartia appears 173 times in the New Testament. BDAG defines it as 'a departure from either human or divine standards of uprightness' and 'a destructive evil power.' The word carries both meanings in Paul's letters: hamartia is an act (something you do) and a power (something that acts on you). Romans 6-7 personifies hamartia as a slave master: 'sin reigned' (5:21), 'sin shall not have dominion over you' (6:14), 'sold under sin' (7:14).
The classical Greek background is significant. Aristotle uses hamartia in the Poetics (1453a) for the tragic hero's fatal flaw, the error in judgment that brings about catastrophe. The word's pre-theological meaning is failure: missing what you aimed for, falling short of the standard you intended to reach. BDAG traces the transition from the classical sense (error, mistake) to the theological sense (moral transgression against God) through the Septuagint, where hamartia translates the Hebrew chata' (to miss, to sin) 154 times.
Harris's commentary on 2 Corinthians identifies 5:21 as the theological summit of the letter. The verse contains a double exchange: Christ, who 'knew no sin' (hamartian ouk egno), was 'made sin' (hamartian epoiesen) so that believers might be 'made the righteousness of God' (dikaiosyne theou). The exchange is comprehensive. Christ takes the full weight of hamartia; believers receive the full status of dikaiosyne (righteousness). Harris notes that 'made him to be sin' is the most extreme statement Paul ever makes about the atonement. He does not say Christ bore sin, or carried sin, or dealt with sin. He says Christ was made sin.
The grammar intensifies the claim. The phrase 'who knew no sin' uses ginosko (experiential knowledge): Christ had no experiential acquaintance with hamartia. He had never missed the mark. The verb 'made' (poieo) in 'made him to be sin' indicates a deliberate act by God. God made the sinless one into sin. The purpose clause completes the exchange: 'that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' The same verb structure applies to both sides. What happened to Christ (made sin) is mirrored in what happens to believers (made righteousness). Paul uses hamartia here in its most concentrated form: sin as a total condition, a comprehensive state, loaded onto the one person who had never experienced it.
Historical context · 2 Corinthians written approximately AD 55-56 from Macedonia; the archery usage of hamartia attested from Homer (8th century BC) through Aristotle (4th century BC)
The Archery Metaphor and Paul's Theology of Exchange
Paul wrote 2 Corinthians during a period of intense conflict with the Corinthian church. The letter addresses challenges to his apostolic authority, the influence of rival teachers ('super-apostles,' 11:5), and the need to reconcile a fractured relationship between Paul and the community he founded. Within this turbulent context, 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 stands as one of the most dense and theologically significant passages in the Pauline corpus.
The classical Greek background of hamartia extends back to Homer. In the Iliad, the word group (hamartano, the verb form) describes a warrior's spear missing its target. The throw is made; the spear goes wide. The concept is failure to achieve the intended result. Aristotle's use in the Poetics (4th century BC) applies the word to the tragic hero's 'error' (hamartia), the miscalculation that triggers the dramatic reversal. Oedipus's hamartia is his failure to recognize who he is. The word entered moral and religious vocabulary through the Septuagint (3rd-2nd century BC), where the translators chose hamartia to render the Hebrew chata'. The transition from archery to theology preserved the core meaning: falling short of the intended target.
The concept of substitutionary exchange in 2 Corinthians 5:21 has parallels in the Levitical sacrificial system. On the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur, Leviticus 16), the high priest placed both hands on the head of a live goat and confessed the sins of Israel over it. The goat was then sent into the wilderness: 'the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited' (Leviticus 16:22). The sins of the community were transferred to the animal. Paul's language in 2 Corinthians 5:21 operates in the same conceptual space: sin is transferred from its original bearers (humanity) to a substitute (Christ). The transfer is total. The result is that the original bearers now carry a different status: righteousness.
Harris observes that Paul's willingness to say 'made him to be sin' pushes beyond any Old Testament sacrificial category. The Day of Atonement goat bore sin. Christ was made sin. The identification is more complete than bearing or carrying. Paul does not soften the claim or explain the mechanism. He states the exchange and lets the paradox stand: the sinless one became the embodiment of the very condition he had never experienced. The archer who never missed was made into the miss.
For reflection
Hamartia. Missing the mark. An arrow that falls short, a spear that goes wide. Paul took this archery word and used it for the most extreme theological claim he ever made: the person who never missed was made into the miss itself. Sit with the grammar of that sentence. God made him to be hamartia. The one who had no experiential acquaintance with falling short was identified with the falling short of every person who ever lived. The exchange is total. Your hamartia, your every missed mark, was loaded onto someone who had a perfect record. What comes back to you is his record. When you think about your failures, your persistent shortfalls, your arrows that keep going wide, does this exchange change the weight of them?
Hamartia: originally an archery term meaning to miss the mark. Paul used it 173 times in the New Testament. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, he pushes the word to its theological extreme: Christ was made hamartia, the embodiment of the miss itself.
Sources: BDAG; Harris, '2 Corinthians'