Christ our sin offering

“God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21
The phrase ‘to be sin for us’ here can also be rendered ‘be a sin offering’. All of the Old Testament offerings point to Jesus Christ in some way. The offering was to be without spot or blemish. Animals could be deformed either through a birth defect (spot) or through injury (blemish). For sin, we have both: we inherit a sin nature genetically, being descendants of Adam, and we have each sinned as individuals and our record is marred.
For Christ neither is the case. Because of the virgin birth, He had no human father, so He did not inherit the sin nature passed down through the male line from Adam. Nor did He sin Himself. Therefore He is not just ‘a’ man who could die for our sins – He is the only man who could die for our sins.
A person’s sins were forgiven through the sin offering (Lev. 4:26, 31, 35). They had to bring a goat or a lamb, place their hands on its head (to symbolise the transference of sin to the animal), and then it was slaughtered. The sin offering is unique in that it required the blood to be collected, some to be put on the horns of the bronze altar, and the rest to be poured out on the ground at the base of the altar (Lev. 4:34). God’s law required a penalty for sin, and that penalty was death. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb. 9:22). While people could be forgiven of their sins through the blood of animals, it took the blood of Christ to cleanse us (Heb. 10:4). He is the fulfilment of the sin offering.