Biblion Bible Commentary
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Becoming a Curse for Us
Galatians 3:13-14
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” · WEB
The curse of the previous paragraph is answered by someone entering it, and the purpose stated is that gentiles receive Abraham's blessing.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. The verb belongs to the marketplace — buying something out, paying to release it — and the letter has already used the family of words for adoption and ransom Galatians 4:5.
The clause that follows is the one to weigh: having become a curse for us. Not bearing a curse, and not being cursed by the law's error — becoming the thing itself. The preposition means on behalf of, and the letter offers no mechanism beyond the fact.
The proof is a quotation, and its aptness is in the detail: cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree Deuteronomy 21:23. The original statute concerns the exposed body of an executed criminal and says nothing of crucifixion, which did not exist when it was written. Paul reads the manner of Christ's death as putting him exactly where the law's own words placed the accursed — publicly, on wood, under a written sentence.
So the curse of verse 10 is not waived. It is transferred, and to someone who stepped into the category voluntarily.
Verse 14 gives the purpose in two clauses, and both look outward. That the blessing of Abraham might come on the gentiles — the promise of verse 8 arriving at its intended recipients. And that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith — which returns to the question the chapter opened with Galatians 3:2. The Spirit the Galatians already possess is named as the promise itself, received the way the chapter said it was.
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