I guess it depends on the translator?
Expositor's Greek Testament
2 Corinthians 5:21. The very purpose of the Atonement was that men should turn from sin.—τὸν μὴ γνόντα ἁμαρτίαν κ.τ.λ.: Him who knew no sin (observe μὴ rather than οὐ, as it is not so much the bare fact of Christ’s sinlessness that is emphasised, as God’s knowledge of this fact, which rendered Christ a possible Mediator) He made to be sin on our behalf. Two points are especially deserving of attention here: (i.) That any man should be sinless (cf.
Ecclesiastes 8:5) was an idea quite alien to Jewish thought and belief; and therefore the emphasis given to it by St. Paul, and the absolutely unqualified way in which it is laid down in a letter addressed to a community containing not only friends but foes who would eagerly fasten on any doubtful statement, show that it must have been regarded as axiomatic among Christians at the early date when this Epistle was written. The claim involved in the challenge of Christ, τίς ἐξ ὑμῶν ἐλέγχει με περὶ ἁμαρτίας (
John 8:46), had never been disproved, and the Apostolic age held that He was χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας … ἀμίαντος, κεχωρισμένος ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν (
Hebrews 4:15;
Hebrews 7:26), and that ἁμαρτία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἕστιν (
1 John 3:5; cf. St. Peter’s application of
Isaiah 53:9 at
1 Peter 2:22). That He was a moral Miracle was certainly part of the primitive Gospel, (ii.) The statement ἁμαρτίαν ἐποίησεν is best understood if we recall the Jewish ritual on the Day of Atonement, when the priest was directed to “place” the sins of the people upon the head of the scapegoat (
Leviticus 16:21). ἁμαρτία cannot be translated “sin-offering” (as at
Leviticus 4:8;
Leviticus 4:21;
Leviticus 4:24;
Leviticus 4:34;
Leviticus 5:9-12), for it cannot have two different meanings in the same clause; and further it is contrasted with δικαιοσύνη, it means “sin” in the abstract. The penalties of sin were laid on Christ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, “on our behalf,” and thus as the Representative of the world’s sin it becomes possible to predicate of Him the strange expression ἁμαρτίαν ἐποίησεν (ποιέω being used here as at
John 5:18;
John 8:53;
John 10:33). The nearest parallel in the N.T. is γενόμενος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν κατάρα (
Galatians 3:13); cf. also
Isaiah 53:6,
Romans 8:3,
1 Peter 2:24.—ἵνα ἡμεῖς γενώμεθα κ.τ.λ.: that we might become, sc., as we have become (note the force of the aorist), the righteousness of God in Him (cf.
Jeremiah 23:6,
1 Corinthians 1:30,
Php 3:9, and reff.). “Such we are in the sight of God the Father, as is the very Son of God Himself. Let it be counted folly or frenzy or fury or whatsoever. It is our wisdom and our comfort; we care for no knowledge in the world but this, that man hath sinned and God hath suffered; that God hath made Himself the sin of men, and that men are made the righteousness of God” (Hooker, Serm., ii., 6).
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
(21) For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.—The “for” is omitted in many of the best MSS., but there is clearly a sequence of thought such as it expresses. The Greek order of the words is more emphatic: Him that knew no sin He made sin for us. The words are, in the first instance, an assertion of the absolute sinlessness of Christ. All other men had an experience of its power, gained by yielding to it. He alone gained this experience by resisting it, and yet suffering its effects. None could “convict Him of sin” (
John 8:46). The “Prince of this world had nothing in Him” (
John 14:30). (Comp.
Hebrews 7:26;
1Peter 2:22.
) And then there comes what we may call the paradox of redemption. He, God, made the sinless One to be “sin.” The word cannot mean, as has been said sometimes, a “sin offering.” That meaning is foreign to the New Testament, and it is questionable whether it is found in the Old, Leviticus 5:9 being the nearest approach to it. The train of thought is that God dealt with Christ, not as though He were a sinner, like other men, but as though He were sin itself, absolutely identified with it. So, in
Galatians 3:13, he speaks of Christ as made “a curse for us,” and in
Romans 8:3 as “being made in the likeness of sinful flesh.” We have here, it is obvious, the germ of a mysterious thought, out of which forensic theories of the atonement, of various types, might be and have been developed. It is characteristic of St. Paul that he does not so develop it. Christ identified with man’s sin: mankind identified with Christ’s righteousness—that is the truth, simple and yet unfathomable, in which he is content to rest.
The word translated
sin both times in 2 Corinthians 5:21 is the exact same Greek word.
He made the one who did not know sin to be sin on our behalf, in order that we could become the righteousness of God in him. 2 Corinthians 5:21
It would make no sense to say "He made the one who knew no
sin offering to be a
sin offering".
However, this same word is translated
sin offering in the Septuagint in 94 places in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. So it does appear that this word can take on different shades of meaning depending on context. So based on that, I think in this case
sin offering is probably the correct translation.
He made the one who did not know sin to be a sin offering on our behalf, in order that we could become the righteousness of God in him. 2 Corinthians 5:21
