Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Galatians 3:13 - 3:13
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Gal_3:13. Connection: “Through the law no one becomes righteous (Gal_3:11-12); Christ has redeemed us from the curse.” See on Gal_3:11. The asyndeton renders the contrast stronger. Comp. Col_3:4. Rückert (comp. also Flatt, Koppe, Schott, Olshausen) reverts to Gal_3:10, supplying μέν in Gal_3:10, and δέ in Gal_3:13. This is incorrect, for Χρίστος finds its appropriate antithesis in the words immediately preceding; and, as in general it is a mistake thus to supply μέν and δέ , it is here the more absurd, because ὅσοι in Gal_3:10 has expressly received in γάρ its reference to what precedes it. Against Hofmann’s interpretation, that Gal_3:13 is apodosis to Gal_3:11-12, see on Gal_3:11.
ἡμᾶς ] applies to the Jews; for these were under the curse of the law[126] mentioned in Gal_3:10, and by faith in Christ made, themselves partakers of the redemption from that curse accomplished by Him, as Paul had himself experienced. Others have understood it as the Jews and Gentiles (Gomarus, Pareus, Estius, Flatt, Winer, Matthies). But against this view it may be urged, that the Gentiles were not under the curse of the Mosaic law (Rom_2:12); that a reference to the natural law as well (Rom_2:14-15) is quite foreign to the context (in opposition to Flatt); that the law, even if it had not been done away by Christ, would yet never have related to the Gentiles (in opposition to Winer), because it was the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile (Eph_2:14 f.); and lastly, that afterwards in Gal_3:14 εἰς τὰ ἔθνη is placed in contrast to the ἡμᾶς , and hence it must not be said, with Matthies, that it so far applies to the Gentiles also, since the latter as Christians could not be under obligation to the law,—which, besides, would amount to a very indirect sort of ransom, entirely different from the sense in which it applied to the Jews.
ἐξηγόρασεν ] Comp. Gal_4:5; 1Co_6:20; 1Co_7:23; Eph_1:7; 2Pe_2:1; Mat_20:28; Rev_5:9 Diod. Exc. p. 530. 4; 1Ti_2:6; Polyb. iii. 42. 2. Those who are under obligation to the law as the record of the direct will of God,[127] are subject to the divine curse expressed therein; but from the bond of this curse, from which they could not otherwise have escaped, Christ has redeemed them, and that by giving up for them His life upon the cross as a λύτρον paid to God the dator et vindex legis,—having by His mors satisfactoria, suffered according to God’s gracious counsel in obedience to the same (Rom_5:19; Php_2:8), procured for them the forgiveness of sins (Eph_1:7; Col_1:14; Rom_3:24; 1Ti_2:6 : Mat_20:28; Mat_26:28), so that the curse of the law which was to have come upon them no longer had any reference to them. This modus of the redemption is here expressed thus: “by His having become curse for us,” namely, by His crucifixion, in which He actually became the One affected by the divine ὀργή . The emphasis rests on the κατάρα , which is therefore placed at the end and is immediately to be vindicated by a quotation from Scripture. This abstract, used instead of the concrete, is purposely chosen to strengthen the conception, and probably indeed with reference to the ÷ÄìÀìÇú àÁìÉäÄéí , Deu_21:23; comp. Thilo, ad Protev. Jac. 3, p. 181. But ΚΑΤΆΡΑ is used without the article, because the object is to express that which Christ has become as regards the category of quality
He became curse, entered into the position, and into the de facto relation, of one visited with the divine wrath; it being obvious from the context that it was in reality the divine curse stipulated in the law, the accomplishment of which He suffered in His death, as is moreover expressly attested in the passage of Scripture that follows. Comp. Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 321, d; Kahnis, Dogm. I. p. 518 f., III. p. 382; Delitzsch, Z. Hebr. p. 714. The idea of κατάρα as the curse of God—obvious of itself to every reader—forbids us to explain away (with Hofmann) the “becoming a curse” as signifying, not that God accomplished His curse on Christ, but that God decreed respecting Christ that He should suffer that which men did to Him as fulfilment of the curse of the law, which was not incurred by, and did not apply to, Him. The exact real parallel, 2Co_5:21, ought to have prevented any such evasive interpretation. And if Paul had not meant the curse of God, which Christ suffered ὙΠῈΡ ἩΜῶΝ ,—as no reader, especially after the passage of Scripture which follows, could understand anything else,—he would have been practising a deception. Christ made sin by God, and so suffering the divine curse—that is just the foolishness of the cross, which is wiser than men (1Co_1:25). Comp., besides, Rich. Schmidt, Paulin. Christol. p. 81, who, however, regards the contents of our passage and of 2Co_5:21 under the point of view of the cancelling of sin (sin being viewed as an objective power), and thus comes into contact with Hofmann’s theory.
ὙΠῈΡ ἩΜῶΝ ] That ὙΠΈΡ , as in all passages in which the atoning death is spoken of, does not mean instead of (so here, Bengel, Koppe, Flatt, Rückert, Reithmayr, following earlier expositors; comp. also Lipsius, Rechtfertigungsl. p. 134f.), see on Rom_5:6. Comp. on Gal_1:4. The satisfaction which Christ rendered, was rendered for our benefit; that it was vicarious,[128] is implied in the circumstances of the case itself, and not in the preposition. The divine curse of the law must have been realized by all, who did not fully satisfy the law to which they were bound (and this no one could do), being compelled to endure the execution of the divine ὀργή on themselves; but for their deliverance from the bond of this curse Christ intervened with His death, inasmuch as He died as an accursed one, and thereby, as by a purchase-price, dissolved that relation to the law which implied a curse. Comp. 1Co_6:20; 1Co_7:23; Col_2:14. This effect depends certainly on the sinlessness of Christ (2Co_5:21), without which His surrendered life could not have been a λύτρον (Mat_20:28), and He Himself, by the shedding of His blood, could not have been a ἱλαστήριον (Rom_3:25), because, with guilt of His own, He would have been amenable to the curse on His own account, and not through taking upon Him the guilt of others (Joh_1:29); but utterly aloof from and foreign to the N.T. is the idea which Hilgenfeld here suggests, that the curse of the law had lost its validity once for all, because it had for once shown itself as an unrighteous curse. The death of Christ served precisely to show the righteousness of God, which has its expression in the curse of the law. See on Rom_3:25.
ὅτι γέγρ .… ξύλου is not an epexegesis to γενομ . ὑπ . ἡμ . κατ . (Matthias, who writes ὅ , τι ), but is a parenthesis in which the γενόμενος κατάρα , which had just been said of Christ, is vindicated agreeably to Scripture, by Deu_21:23, freely quoted from the LXX.[129] Accursed (visited with the wrath of God) is every one who (according to the LXX., in which the article is wanting, every one, if he) is hanged on a tree. The original historical sense of this passage applies to those malefactors who, in order to the aggravation of their punishment, were after their execution publicly hung up on a (probably cross-shaped) stake,[130] but were not allowed to remain hanging over the night, lest such accursed ones should profane the holy land (Deu_21:23; Num_25:4; Jos_10:26; 2Sa_4:12). See Lund, Jüd. Heiligth. ed. Wolf, p. 536; Saalschütz, Mos. R. p. 460 f.; Bähr in the Stud. u. Krit. 1849, p. 924 f. Now, so far as Christ when put to death hung upon a stake (comp. Act_5:30; Act_10:39; 1Pe_2:24), the predicate ἐπικατάρατος applies also to Him; and this furnishes the scriptural proof of the preceding γενόμενος κατάρα .
[126] Which is not to be turned into a subjective condition, as Bähr (Stud. u. Krit. 1849, p. 922) wishes, who explains it as the state of spiritual death, in consequence of his erroneous view of εὐλογία in ver. 8.
[127] For in the apostle’s view everywhere, and here also, the law is this, and ver. 19 is not at variance with its being so (in opposition to Ritschl in d. Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1863, p. 523 f.). Comp. on Col_2:15.
[128] As is expressly stated in Mat_20:28, 1Ti_2:6, by ἀντί . Comp. Thomasius, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, III. 1, p. 88 ff.; Gess, in the Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theol. II. 4, III. 4. The less satisfactory is it, therefore, with Schweizer in the Stud. u. Krit. 1858, p. 425 ff., to find that the essential import of our passage only amounts to this, that the Mosaic law had been set aside on the appearance of Christianity, and that this setting aside was decisively evinced by the death on the cross. See, on the other hand, Baur in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift, 1859, p. 226 ff., and in his neut. Theol. p. 156 f.
[129] The LXX. has κεκατηραμένος ὑπὸ Θεοῦ πᾶς κρεμάμενος ἐπὶ ξύλον . The ὑπὸ Θεοῦ is also expressed in the Hebrew. Jerome accuses the Jews here also of intentional falsification of the text, alleging that in an anti-Christian interest they had inserted the name of God into the original text. Bähr, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1849, p. 928 ff., is of opinion that Paul purposely omitted ὑπὸ Θεοῦ , so as not to represent Christ as cursed by God (with which Hofmann agrees); that He was called cursed only because, through His death, He appeared as cursed before all to whom the law was given. But this is incorrect, because the expression is not Paul’s, and because, so interpreted, the whole proof adduced would amount only to a semblance, and not to a reality. Christ has certainly averted from men the curse of God which was ordained in the law (ver. 10), by the fact that He, as the bearer of the divine curse, died while hanging on the cross. Having thus actually become ἐπικατάρατος , He became the propitiatory sacrifice for those who were subject to the law, whom He consequently redeemed from the definite divine curse of the law (ver. 10), so that on the part of God the actus forensis of justification now commenced; and for this reason, although the crucified One was ἐπικατάρατος , Paul could elsewhere represent Him as ὀσμὴ εὐωδίας (Eph_5:2). Luther aptly remarks: “Si vis negare eum esse peccatorem et maledictum, negato etiam possum, crucifixum et mortuum.” The cause of the non-adoption of ὑπὸ Θεοῦ cannot be that Paul, under the influence of a subordinate value assigned to the law as not directly given by God, had the passage imprinted on his mind without ὑπὸ Θεοῦ (Ritschl, l.c. p. 526), for he did not entertain any such estimate of its inferior value. We must, in fact, simply abide by the explanation that he quoted the passage of Scripture from a free recollection (as is already shown by ἐπικατάρατος and the addition of ὁ ), and in doing so, having in view only the “cursed” as the point of the passage, left unnoticed the entirely obvious ὑπὸ Θεοῦ . In a similar way, in ver. 11, in the quotation Hab_2:4, he does not adopt the μου of the LXX.
[130] Analogous to our former custom of fastening criminals on the wheel, in order to aggravate the punishment.