God made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we would become the righteousness of God.  2 Corinthians 5:21 

Jesus, You knew no sin. You were and are the only truly innocent who ever lived. You had not even one second of experience with sin – ever! Your purity had been established from long before You created us. While in Heaven, You’d neither lived a single day surrounded by sin, nor ever existed in the aftermath of the devastation that sin had brought to our world.

And then You chose to come and live among us—each and every one sinners. Leaving the glorious purity of Heaven to enter this world where sin was experienced, tolerated, and even accepted surely must have been far more repulsive for You than I ever imagined.

In Your heavenly home, the brilliance of light had shone from Your pure holiness! Now on earth, both in synagogs and at the temple You observed men strutting their airs of holiness, actually believing they were more holy than the rest!

You, who knew no sin, now walked among people who were so accustomed to its influence that they no longer were aware of its cruel push and pull. Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, impurity, etc, were all just a part of life. How could You not have felt like Your days were now spent wading through a cesspool?

The day finally came when You were crucified in order to redeem us from our sin. On that day the filth of our iniquity was laid upon You. (Isaiah 53:6) Sin upon sin. Iniquity upon iniquity. Filth upon filth was transferred off of us and onto You! And in those hours of suffering, Your loving Father made You to BE sin! You had now gone from wading through our cesspool to becoming that cesspool of sin! The spotless Lamb of God who had never once experienced even the smallest of sins, had become sin—in all of its wretched filth. 

And then Your Father, whose love for You was yet as fierce as ever, had to turn His back, leaving You to feel for the first time in all of eternity, alone. Surely this was the most excruciating part of Your agony. You cried, “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?” I’m in awe as I ponder the enormity of Your heart’s love, that compelled You to allow Your redemptive plan, at once both awful and amazing, to unfold.

Words from an old gospel song say it best: “Oh how marvelous, oh how wonderful is My Savior’s love for me!” You had not known sin, but now had become sin, and in Your final minutes, Your anguish overflowed as You felt abandoned by Your precious Father! 

How grateful I am that You did this for us—for me. Had You not become sin, I could never become the righteousness of God! Such marvelous love! Such wonderful grace! Such amazing redemption! All glory and honor and power rightfully belong to You and You alone, my Lord and my God! 

2 Corinthians 5:21 The Voice version : He orchestrated this: the Anointed One, who had never experienced sin, became sin for us so that in Him we might embody the very righteousness of God.