Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 32:127 (Jul 1875)
Article: The New Testament View Of Christ As Bearing Sin
Author: William Henry Cobb

BSac 32:127 (July 1875) p. 475

The New Testament View Of Christ As Bearing Sin

Rev. William Henry Cobb

The present Article, though a separate investigation, may be regarded as a sequel to the author’s “Meaning of נָשָׂא” in the Bibliotheca Sacra for July, 1873. In that discussion, we were concerned with the various ideas expressed by a single word; in this, with a single idea, by whatever words expressed. In our own language, perhaps in most languages, sin is conceived of as a burden, somehow rolled upon us, and pressing us down till it is somehow lifted off. We have found the metaphor a frequent one in Hebrew literature; we have seen that one may thus bear his own sin, or that of another; we have learned that irrational animals, human beings, God himself, and the Servant of Jehovah foretold in Isaiah 53, all bear the sins of men.

Turning to the New Testament, let us inquire whether Christ, according to these records, had such a burden upon him, and if so, how he bore it.

At the outset we cannot but be surprised that the conception of sin alluded to above is so seldom met with in the writings of the New Testament. We found in the Hebrew more than sixty clear instances in which this figure is made prominent with the single word נָשָׂא; but I am able to discover only one case in the Greek scriptures, aside from the two of which Christ is the subject. That one is 2 Tim. 3:6, silly women laden with sins (σωρεύω). This infrequency is in spite of the fact that sin and its treatment form the entire subject of the divine revelation, and in spite of the further fact that Christ is constantly presented in various relations to sin.

The following is a catalogue of these relations: [1] Christ forgives sin (passim); [2] saves from it (Matt. 1:21); [3]

BSac 32:127 (July 1875) p. 476

takes it away (John 1:29; 1 John 3:5); [4] turns men away from it (Acts 3:26); [5] makes a purification of it (Heb. 1:3); [6] purifies from it (1 John 1:9); [7] namely, by his blood (1 John 1:7); [8] washes from it by his blood (Rev. 1:5); [9] sheds his blood for its remission (Matt. 26:28); [10] gives himself that he may redeem from it (