When God imputed the sins of His elect to Christ, this was no mere pretense or “legal fiction,” as some claim.

It was not God viewing Christ as guilty when, in reality, He was not
guilty.

God the Father truly and really “made HIM sin for us,” (2 Corinthians 5:21), even though Christ remained sinless within Himself.

His own personal sinlessness, and the fact that our sins did not contaminate or corrupt Him within, does not deny or even diminish the reality of His guilt based on our sins imputed to Him.

He became truly and really guilty and condemned for us even though He Himself thought or committed no sin, not even one, and did nothing to earn condemnation.

It was all based on our sins imputed (charged, accounted) to Him.

How God saw His beloved Son on the cross, and what Christ suffered for us in the unfathomable agony of His soul unto death, was no pretense or “legal fiction.”

Our sins were truly and really HIS sins (Psalm 69:5), not because He committed these sins, not because they were infused or imparted into Him, but because God imputed them to Him.

The fact that our sins were imputed to Him did not lessen, diminish, or decrease the reality of His guilt and suffering. Christ suffered the full penalty of all our sins because He deserved to suffer this penalty unto death. He deserved this because He was made fully responsible and accountable for the guilt of our sins and the curse of the law against us (Galatians 3:13).

When Christ went to the cross to die for our sins, He “committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously” (1 Peter 2:23), not to a god who pretends.

Christ bore “our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24), which means that He as Godman, in His human body, went to the cross having our sins upon Him (charged to His account). And it was by His stripes (the full punishment He suffered for our sins) that we are healed.

Any view of the imputation of our sins to Christ that would be less than true, just, and real is a serious misunderstanding of our sins imputed to Christ.