Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law ( χριστὸς ἡμᾶς ἐξηγόρασεν ἐκ τῆς κατάρας τοῦ νόμου); Christ bought us off from the curse of the Law. The position of the word "Christ" in the Greek, heading the sentence, makes it emphatic—Christ; he alone; no means offered by the Law hath procured justification for the sinner.
"Us;" not merely the Israelites after the flesh, who were visibly under the Law: but either all mankind, Gentiles as well as Israelites, being declared by the Law unclean and unholy, both ceremonially and morally, and thus under its curse (comp.
"for us," 2 Corinthians 5:21); or God's people, the children of Abraham, prospective as well as present (comp. John 11:50-52 and Galatians 4:5). "Redeemed," or "bought us off." The same compound Greek verb occurs Galatians 4:5, "That he might redeem [buy off] them who were under the Law;" obviously, buy off from being under it.
Another Greek verb, λυτρόω, ransom, is rendered "redeem" in Titus 2:14; 1 Peter 1:18; whence the compound verbal noun ἀπλούτρωσις, redemption, in Romans 3:24; Romans 8:23; 1 Corinthians 1:30, etc.
The apostle may be supposed to have preferred to use ἐξαγοράζω here, as pointing more definitely to the price which the Redeemer paid; for in λυτρόω, redeem, this notion of a price paid often lies so far in the background as to leave the verb to denote simply "deliver."
The un-compounded verb ἀγοράζω, buy, is found with reference to Christ's death in 1 Corinthians 6:20 and 1 Corinthians 7:23, "Ye were bought with a price;" 2 Peter 2:1, "The Master that bought them;" Revelation 5:9, "Didst purchase unto God with thy blood."
In the present passage it is not the blood of Christ, as in 1 Peter 1:18, that is regarded as the purchase money,—for the notion of expiation with blood of sacrifice is not even glanced at; but rather, as the next words show, his taking upon him the accursedness and pollution which by the Law attached to every one crucified.
"From the curse of the Law;" its cursing affects us no more. God's people are, in Christ. no longer, as they were before, subject to his disapproval or abhorrence, in consequence of transgressing the positive, ceremonial enactments of the Law of Moses.
In respect to that class of transgressions, its cursing expended itself, and perished, upon the crucified body of the Son of God. Being made a curse for us ( γενόμενος ὐπὲρ ἡμῶν κατάρα); having become on our behalf a curse.
The position of κατάρα makes it emphatic. The form of expression, "become a curse," instead of "become accursed," is chosen to mark the intense degree in which the Law's curse fastened upon the Lord Jesus.
Compare the expression, "made him on our behalf sin," in 2 Corinthians 5:21. Probably the form of expression was suggested to the apostle by that found in the Hebrew of the passage of Deuteronomy which he proceeds to cite (see next note but one).
The preposition ὑπέρ, "for,… on behalf of," may possibly mean "in place of," as (perhaps) in Philemon 1:13; but this idea would have been more distinctly expressed by ἀντί: and the strict notion of substitution is not necessary to the line of argument here pursued.
For it is written ( γέγραπται γὰρ). But the more approved reading is ὅτι γέγραπται, because it is written; which more definitely marks the writer's purpose of vindicating the propriety of his using so strong an expression as "becoming a curse."
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree ( ἐπικατάρατος πᾶς ὁ κρεμάμενος ἐπὶ ξύλου); or, upon wood (Deuteronomy 21:23). The Septuagint has κεκατηραμένος [or, κατηραμένος] ὑπὸ θεοῦ πᾶς κρεμάμενος [or, πᾶς ὁ κρ.
] ξύλου, "Cursed by God is every one hanging on a tree." The Hebrew is qillath elohim talui, "a curse of God is he that is hanged." The words, "every one" and "on a tree," are additions made by the Septuagint; the latter expression, however, is found in the preceding clause, as also in the preceding verse; so that the sense is given rightly.
The apostle departs from the Septuagintal rendering of the Hebrew phrase, "a curse of God," probably because he regarded the rendering as inaccurate; for the phrase, "curse of God," is probably a strongly intensive form of expression, like "wrestlings of God," in Genesis 30:8 ("great wrestlings," Authorized Version).
See note on "exceeding great city" (Hebrew, "a city great unto God") in Jonah 3:3, in 'Speaker's Commentary.' According to this view, ἐπικατάρατος, in which the element ἐπὶ is intensive, is a just interpretation; while it also makes the clause more striking as an antithesis to the ἐπικατάρατος, etc.
, in Jonah 3:10. We are, per haps, justified in adding that it would not have exactly suited the apostle's purpose to admit the words," by God;" for, though the Law pronounced the crucified Jesus a "curse," God, in the apostle's feeling, did not in this case ratify the Law's malediction.
To understand the bearing of the verse rightly it is necessary to be quite clear as to the sense in which Christ is here said to have become a curse. The context shows that he became a curse simply by hanging upon a tree.
No spiritual transaction, such as that of our guilt being laid upon him, comes into view here at all. It was simply the suspension upon a cross that imparted to him, in the eye of the Law, this character of accursedness, of extreme abhorrent defilement.
In other words, the accursedness was the extreme of ceremonial pollutedness—ceremonial, with no admixture of guilt or spiritual pollution. It has, indeed, been attempted by critics, Jewish as well as Christian, as Bishop Lightfoot has shown, to justify this aphorism of the Law, by the plea that one thus punished might inferentially be supposed to have merited this form of execution by some especial enormity of guilt.
But, plainly, such previous guiltiness might not have been present; the man crucified, or impaled, or hung might have suffered upon a false accusation. But though he bad suffered unjustly, his being gibbeted would, notwithstanding his innocence, constitute him "a curse of God" all the same.
Ceremonial pollutedness, as well as ceremonial purity, was altogether independent of moral considerations. And at present the line of thought which the apostle is following relates simply to questions of Levitical or ceremonial purity or defilement.
Have Christian believers as such anything to do with these matters? This is the point at issue. The apostle proves that they have nothing to do with them, upon the ground that the crucifixion of Christ did away wholly with the ceremonial Law.
It will only confuse the reader if he supposes that the apostle means here to embody the whole doctrine of Christ's sacrificial atonement; he is at present concerned with stating the relation which his passion bore to the Law.
The passage before us illustrates the meaning of the words in Galatians 2:19, "I through the Law died unto the Law:" he felt himself disconnected from the ceremonial Law, in consequence of that Law pronouncing Christ crucified "a curse of God."
A question arises, how far the crucifixion of Christ, viewed in this particular aspect of its constituting him in the eye of the ceremonial Law an accursed thing, modified for those who believe on him the effect of the malediction which the Law pronounced upon such as violated its moral precepts.
The following observations are offered for the reader's consideration. The Law given in the Pentateuch is uniformly spoken of in Scripture as forming one whole. Composed of precepts, some moral, some ceremonial, some partaking mixedly of both qualities, it constituted, however, one entire coherent system.
If a part of it was destroyed, the whole Law as such itself perished. If so, then the cross of Christ, by annihilating its ceremonial enactments, shattered in pieces the whole legislation, so that the disciples of Christ are no longer at all under its dominion, or subjects jurisprudentially (so to speak) to its coercive punitive power.
Yet its moral precepts, so far as they embodied the eternal principles of rectitude, would, so far, and because they do so, and not because they were part of the Law given through Moses, continue to express the will of God concerning us.
Being, however, "letter" and not "spirit," they were always altogether inadequate expressions of that Divine will—a will which is spiritual, 'which is evermore changing its form and aspect towards each human soul, according to the ever-varying conditions of its spiritual position.
The moral precepts of the Law are for us no more than types or figures, mere hints or suggestions of the spiritual duties which they refer to; they cannot be regarded as definitively regulative laws at all.
Thus they appear to be treated by Christ and his apostles; as e.g. Matthew 5:21-37; 1 Corinthians 9:8-10; and it is in this light that the Church of England regards them, in reciting the Decalogue in her Pre-Communion Office.
And, analogously, the curse which the Law pronounces upon those who set any of its precepts at nought, whether moral or ceremonial, may be regarded as a mere type, revealing, or rather giving a slightest most imperfect glimpse of, the wrath with which the Divine justice burns against wilful transgressors of the eternal Law; a hint or suggestion, again, and not its direct denouncement.
God's people, however, by being through faith united to the crucified and risen Christ, become through his cross dead to the whole Law of Hoses, both as regulative and as punitive,—freed from it absolutely; not, however, to be without Law unto God; only, the Law they are now under is a spiritual Law, one conformable to the nature of that dispensation of life and of the Spirit, to which through the Risen One they belong.
With this view it agrees that the execration which the Law pronounced upon the Son of God as crucified, and by pronouncing which the Law itself perished, is to be regarded as a most significant and impressive symbol of the spiritual import of our Lord's death.
It pronounces to the universe that, for those who by faith are one with Christ, the wrath of Divine justice against them as sinners is quenched—quenched in the infinite, Divine love and righteousness of Christ.