jta,

There was another man, a pastor named Don Fortner who claimed that Jesus was actually made a sinner.

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Well recently I've heard several messages of Mr. Fortner dealing with IICorinthians 5. Essentially, what Fortner is saying is that Christ became sinful in his being so we would be made righteous in our being. He is saying that imputed righteousness is God's declaration of what already exists in the "justified" person by virtue of the new birth, and that God made Jesus Christ into a guilty being, one "worse" than a person who had committed sin, "sin itself", when he went to the cross. According to Fortner, justice will not allow God to impute guilt to a man who is not guilty with a guilt of his own.

if you go to Sermon Audio you can listen for yourself, for example, to his message of May 6 I refer to below.

As it is, Don Fortner is preaching a blasphemous heresy-- That Christ became a sinner to save sinners-- and people seem to be just eating it up as though it were perfectly fine to believe such a blatant denial of imputed righteousness and such denigration of the Person and blood of Christ.

What follows is a letter I wrote to Mr. Fortner about this. it is an "Open" letter in view of his many public statements about Christ becoming a guilty person on the cross and about imputed righteousness being declarative only and not constitutive. I would appreciate any thoughts or observations anyone would have on this.

June 5, 2012
John Pedersen
Atlanta, Georgia
Open letter to Don Fortner

The Chestnut Mare