@Joe
Thank you for your patience in allowing me to at least finish with your post.
You said: "The New Testament is the fulfillment and commentary of the Old Testament." Agreed.
You said: "
then why don't we read that God expended wrath on His Son to save us? You will not find one passage in the NT where punish, punished, punishment, or wrath was used to describe anything from God upon His Son. It simply is not there,"
Joe, it is there in a few places:
A question: Is purgatory a true doctrine? There is nothing specifically mentioned by any author of the bible about being purified of sins by suffering in hell for a time, so we know the doctrine is derived from misunderstanding a handful of scriptures. Welcome to the PSA doctrine that has God's Son incurring the intense emotional anger of God to appease Him. Many people, including myself at one time, read that doctrine of punishment into the texts to support PSA, just as people do with the doctrine of purgatory.
Nowhere is it mentioned one place that our Lord was punished by our Father for our sins. However, it is mentioned that He died on account of our sins, meaning His death was because of our sins, to take them away from us, He carried them away in His bodily death. And if He died explicitly and purposefully on account of our sins, then we must understand in our Father's perspective this single act of righteousness justifies all men, everyone to eternal life to be received by faith. The Apostle Paul mentions this in Rom 5:17-19.
The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is language we read, but nothing concerning wrath, punish, punished, or punishment being inflicted upon Him by our Father. Now think about that a moment. Something so critical as that and it is never mentioned. Many people derive an erroneous doctrine from reading into the bible, and the PSA doctrine is one of those doctrines.
Something we can derive from reading the OT about sacrifices is that it dies for the sins of the people rather than them dying for those sins. The death of the OT sacrifice is what keeps the people in relationship with God and Him with them. The sacrifices were holy unto God. They indicated God's loving mercy and His righteousness-always doing what is right and just. They achieved their purpose by pointing to Christ our Lord, whom our Father gave from His loving mercy to die for our sins to prove that He always does what is right and just; that sin must be judged and the judgement is death. And this clearly satisfies God.
The sacrifices are shadows of the realities of God giving His own Son to suffer death for our sins. This was an act of wonderful grace and mercy whereby God legally and justly justifies His action to justify any sinner who believes in His Son who died for their sins. (ref, Rom 3:23-26)
Romans 5:10
“For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
No punishment here. Jesus Christ willingly offered His life to ransom us. The only way to ransom us is for His blood to be shed-for Him to die specifically as a sin offering for our sins, reconciling us to our Father. The reconciliation happened because it was our Father's will for Him to die on the account of our sins, for His willing sacrifice was the means to judge our sin in His bodily death, thus providing the means for our reconciliation to God and His justification. It is the Just dying for the sins of the unjust.
His death for our sins means a death has occurred for our sins and that frees us from dying in our own sins. This is typified in the OT sacrifices which were only the shadow of the realities centered in Christ our Lord. The death of the sacrifice was applied towards the confessed sin of the sinner. The death of our Lord was applied to our sins, providing the means for God to justify the unjust. We are "the church of God which He purchased with His own blood".
"For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, since a death has occurred for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant"
Galatians 3:13
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:”
No punishment here.
“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’ But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Yet the law is not of faith, but ‘the man who does them shall live by them.’ Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:10-14).
This particular set of verses has the Apostle Paul teaching the Gentile believers of Galatia the truth about being justified by God, because they were being wrongfully taught by Judaizers that one could earn his salvation by keeping the law. Paul expresses the truth that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God, for ‘the just shall live by faith.’
Paul then explains why and what they should believe; that our Lord ransomed those under the law (died to free them from being under the curse of the law) by hanging on a tree after He had died.
God commanded that anyone who broke the law and received the death penalty should be hung on a tree. This doesn't mean death by hanging. The Israelite's publicly executed those worthy of death by stoning, and then after death, the body was hung on a tree in a public place for one day as a demonstration that sin brings death.
Our Lord's sacrificial death ransoms us from sin, and He purchased the freedom of those under the Law from its curse, so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might also come to us Gentiles; that we would all receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. He carried our sins in His body, and the curse that came with it under the Law was to ransom those under the Law. This can be referenced to Romans 5:12-14 when the Apostle Paul mentions everyone was under the condemnation of death before the law because all had sinned, but no account of sin was kept until the Law came.
2nd Corinthians 5:21
“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.”
Jesus our Lord was not made sin. He was made a sin offering. Even you have stated as such at the very end of another post of yours by stating, "God making his Son an offering for our sins".
The NLT states it well: For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ...This is what you see consistently in the OT and the NT with sin offerings. And you even stated, "God making his Son an offering for our sins".
Let's go down the rabbit hole, even if the Apostle Paul meant it as translated in most bibles, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him", Paul was not meaning anything but what he consistently taught; that we "having been justified by faith" in believing that "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him." (ref. Rom 5:1, 8-9)
What does Paul mean by stating "Christ died for us"? He was saying our Lord willingly with purpose gave up His life, sacrificing it as an offering for our sins. The reason this is significant is, His death is applied to our sin, meaning we have been released-set free from death and the grave...per God's promise in Hosea 13:14 and taught by Paul in 1Cor 15:54-55.
Paul makes it clear in Hebrews, "And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God" (Heb 10:11-12)
And again Paul states..."But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Heb 9:26-28)
You have been indoctrinated that verse 21 means our Lord was imputed-credited with our sins; meaning legally He was a sinner, and that we are imputed-credited with His righteousness; meaning we never sinned. This is wrong.
If the doctrine of imputation for sin and righteousness were biblically true in verse 21, we would see supporting scriptures but we don't. The only instance of imputing-crediting righteousness happens when a person believes God. We see this with Abram/Abraham in Genesis 15:6, "And he believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness." And the whole chapter of Romans is dedicated to justification by faith beginning with our father of faith, Abraham.
If imputation were factual then why do need a great high priest to intercede on our behalf (ref, Heb 4:14-16)? Wouldn't being imputed with the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ mean no matter what, in the eyes of God, we never sin even though we do sin? Isn't that what imputation of our sin to the Lord means? Even though He never sinned, God viewed Him as a sinner with sin? Neither one of these imputations are mentioned in the bible.
Again, the only imputation we read in the bible is our Holy Father crediting our faith in Jesus Christ as our righteousness. Why? Because under the New Covenant God established by our Lord's blood, the only standard for us to be considered in conformity to His New Covenant is believing in Jesus Christ and His death as our justification to eternal life. That's it! "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
As the Apostle Paul stated, "Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." (Rom 3:27-28)
There is no dual imputation in verse 21. Not at all. Paul is simply saying, "God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ."
God Bless
