VIII. THE USE OF περ πo oυ µα
VII. THE USE OF έζαΥοράζω
The preposition modifies the force of the uncompounded verb and we find έξαΥοράζω used broadly in two senses, the one ‘to redeem’ (occurring for example in Diod. 36. 2 with reference to the redemption of a handmaid106) and the other ‘to buy up’, but this need not detain us as it is the former usage that we have in the two New Testament passages in which this verb is used of the atonement.
The first of these reads: ’Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us’ (Gal. 3 : 13). Two questions in particular are raised here, namely, how the curse is considered to rest upon men, and how it is thought of as resting on Christ.
The first question is comparatively easy of solution, for 
ατάρας in verse 13 plainly refers back to Paul’s earlier use of the same word in verse 10. There he says that those who are ‘of works of law’, i.e. those who base their hopes for eternity on living in conformity with law, are under a curse, and he proceeds to quote Deuteronomy 27 : 26 (in LXX version with slight modifications which make his point a little clearer, but do not affect the sense of the LXX). The point of that passage is, as Paul says, ‘Cursed is every one which continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them’. He is affirming that no man can be pleasing in the sight of God by his own efforts. Rather, the best that he can do will result only in disaster because the Scripture pronounces a curse on all who fail to keep the law in its entirety. Since no man does that, then all are under the curse.
ατάρας in verse 13 plainly refers back to Paul’s earlier use of the same word in verse 10. There he says that those who are ‘of works of law’, i.e. those who base their hopes for eternity on living in conformity with law, are under a curse, and he proceeds to quote Deuteronomy 27 : 26 (in LXX version with slight modifications which make his point a little clearer, but do not affect the sense of the LXX). The point of that passage is, as Paul says, ‘Cursed is every one which continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them’. He is affirming that no man can be pleasing in the sight of God by his own efforts. Rather, the best that he can do will result only in disaster because the Scripture pronounces a curse on all who fail to keep the law in its entirety. Since no man does that, then all are under the curse.How, then, does Paul conceive of Christ’s removing the curse from men? Christ, he says, became a curse for us, and thisis linked with a curse pronounced by the law on ‘everyone that hangeth upon a tree’. A curse rests on everyone who does not fulfil the law; Christ died in such a way as to bear or be a curse; we who should have been accursed now go free.
The expression ‘having become a curse for us’ seems to rest on a . Hebraic mode of thought, as in the similar expression in 2 Corinthians 5:21 where God is said to have ‘made’ Christ ‘sin’ on our behalf Lightfoot finds a parallel in the apocryphal passage wherein Anna says that she has become a curse, ατάρα έΥενήθην έΥὼένώπ
ον τ
ν υὶών ‘Iσραήλ (Protev. Jac. 3). This, he thinks, may be partly explained by the paucity of adjectives in Hebrew, ‘but still more by the religious conception which it involves. The victim is regarded as bearing the sins of those for whom atonement is made. The curse is transferred from them to it. It becomes in a certain sense the impersonation of the sin and of the curse’.107 He adduces also the scapegoat, the use of ἁμαρτíα (Lv. 4: 25) and ἁμάρτημα (Lv. 4: 29) to indicate the sin-offering as well as the sin, and the similar usage with the Heb. ht’th, as well as identical modes of thought among other nations. Identification seems to run through and through Hebrew religion and thought. Thus the prophetic action and the event which it foreshadows are in some way one (e.g. Je, 19; Ezk. 4), the name and the person are not separate, and so on. The identification of Christ and the curse then becomes a picturesque way of saying that He took our curse upon Himself, and we bear it no more.108
ατάρα έΥενήθην έΥὼένώπον τν υὶών ‘Iσραήλ (Protev. Jac. 3). This, he thinks, may be partly explained by the paucity of adjectives in Hebrew, ‘but still more by the religious conception which it involves. The victim is regarded as bearing the sins of those for whom atonement is made. The curse is transferred from them to it. It becomes in a certain sense the impersonation of the sin and of the curse’.107 He adduces also the scapegoat, the use of ἁμαρτíα (Lv. 4: 25) and ἁμάρτημα (Lv. 4: 29) to indicate the sin-offering as well as the sin, and the similar usage with the Heb. ht’th, as well as identical modes of thought among other nations. Identification seems to run through and through Hebrew religion and thought. Thus the prophetic action and the event which it foreshadows are in some way one (e.g. Je, 19; Ezk. 4), the name and the person are not separate, and so on. The identification of Christ and the curse then becomes a picturesque way of saying that He took our curse upon Himself, and we bear it no more.108Much is sometimes made of Paul’s omission of the words ύπò θεοῡ in his citation of Deuteronomy 21: 23, and Sydney Cave, for example, can say: ‘Whatever be the meaning of the words “He became a curse for us,” it is clear from their context that the curse is not the curse of God but of the Law.’109 But it is extremely doubtful whether such a sharp antithesis can be justified in the case of such a writer as Paul. A study of the way he cites the Old Testament indicates plainly that he regarded its statements as of divine origin. While a modern writer might distinguish between a curse of God and a curse of the law, accepting the latter while rejecting the former, it is difficult, indeed, to imagine Paul taking such a course. Lightfoot says: ‘He (i.e. Christ) had undergone that punishment, which under the law betokened the curse of God. So far He had become ατάρα. But He was in no literal sense ατάρατος ύπò θεοῡ and St Paul instinctively omits those words which do not strictly apply, and which, if added, would have required some qualification.’ 110 But this seems as far as we can go. Although Paul has some strong things to say about the law, they really boil down to this: the law can never bring salvation. If there is a curse of the law, then that ultimately, in Pauline thought, comes from God, and represents the divine judgment on sin.111 It could not possibly to his way of thinking come from man, and to represent the law as a hypostatized entity is to misrepresent Paul. When, therefore, Paul speaks of Christ as having borne the curse of the law, he speaks of our removal from the legal plight into which we were fallen through our failure to keep the law of God. As Büchsel says: ‘The essential meaning of this freeing from the curse of the Law is that He gives not only an actual, but a legally based freedom.‘112 The law of God has no more claim on us.
ατάρα. But He was in no literal sense ατάρατος ύπò θεοῡ and St Paul instinctively omits those words which do not strictly apply, and which, if added, would have required some qualification.’ 110 But this seems as far as we can go. Although Paul has some strong things to say about the law, they really boil down to this: the law can never bring salvation. If there is a curse of the law, then that ultimately, in Pauline thought, comes from God, and represents the divine judgment on sin.111 It could not possibly to his way of thinking come from man, and to represent the law as a hypostatized entity is to misrepresent Paul. When, therefore, Paul speaks of Christ as having borne the curse of the law, he speaks of our removal from the legal plight into which we were fallen through our failure to keep the law of God. As Büchsel says: ‘The essential meaning of this freeing from the curse of the Law is that He gives not only an actual, but a legally based freedom.‘112 The law of God has no more claim on us.This involves a definitely substitutionary idea. If I should have been under a curse, but instead Christ was made a curse, so that now I am free, redeemed from the curse, then His action is of a substitutionary kind, as H. Wheeler Robinson recognizes when he finds in this passage ‘one of the clearest indications that St. Paul conceived the death of Christ as both substitutionary and penal.‘113
There may be more to it than substitution, but we cannot dismiss the substitutionary aspect without doing violence to the words.114
The second passage using this verb tells us that God sent forth His Son, ‘born under the law, that he might redeem them which were under the law’ (Gal. 4: 4). This indicates that the redemption spoken of was the whole purpose of the sending forth of the Son, and that the manner of the redemption included the Son coming Himself ‘under the law’.
It is worthy of note, especially in view of the fact that the uncompounded verb ἀγoράζω seems to include the thought of the state into which the Christian is bought as an integral part of the conception of being bought by Christ, that on both occasions when ἐξαγoράζω is used there is added an expression indicative of the resultant state of the believer. From Galatians 3: 14 we learn that the redemption was ‘that upon the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith’, while Galatians 4: 5 tells us that we were redeemed ‘that we might receive the adoption of sons (υἱoθεσíαν)’. It is wrong to separate the legal status, gained by the complete discharge of the claims the law had upon us, from the resultant life. The only redemption Paul knew was one in which the redeemed had received the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in which they lived as those who had been adopted into the family of God.