The first and most important question we face in asking about the meaning of Jesus’ death in Paul is: What sort of thing are we looking for? This is necessarily a highly abbreviated analysis, but I think that what we need to find is not the right explanatory theory to superimpose on top of Paul’s various arguments and metaphors (substitutionary atonement, Christus Victor, moral influence, etc.) but the eschatological narrative that lies underneath them. The mistake that is typically made is to isolate the cross from the narrative context and transmute it into a singular metaphysical event that can in principle be formulated in terms of a theory of the atonement. This is not necessarily an illegitimate procedure, but problems arise when these theological constructs are turned round and used as interpretive grids for the reading of scripture.
In order to keep things manageable we can approach this by way of Galatians. Then some indication will be given as to how the range of Paul’s teaching on the subject might be aligned with the narrative. But don’t expect a complete or entirely coherent account. This has been put together in a bit of a hurry for a second Bible study on the death of Christ tonight. You’re welcome to point out the holes.
The death of Jesus in Galatians
My general argument is that it is no less true for Paul than it is for the Gospels that Jesus’ death must be understood primarily within the structure of a narrative that fuses in a quite realistic fashion eschatology and history. So when Paul writes to the churches in Galatia that the Lord Jesus Christ ‘gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the evil age that has come’ (Gal. 1:4), we should understand this is a quite specific temporal sense. The ‘evil age that has come’ refers not to the whole of human history but to a precisely defined period of eschatological crisis. The phrase ‘the present time’ in Romans 3:26 and 8:18 has similar force. This establishes the narrative setting for the ensuing argument about the law and faith, from which we can select a couple of key passages.
For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. 3:1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. (Gal. 2:19-3:1 ESV)
The narrative in the background here is that the law has condemned unfaithful, unrighteous Israel, and as a result the offspring of Abraham must face the ‘evil age that has come’ (Gal. 1:4), which in the terminology of Romans is the ‘wrath’ of God. If unrighteous Israel is to escape from the devastating consequences of its sins and be justified, it cannot under these circumstances be through ‘works of the law’. The only alternative - the difficult path leading to life - is the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. This is what both Paul and Peter have been working towards: they are ‘seeking to be made righteous in Christ’ (Gal. 2:17). Paul’s complaint against Peter is that he has been inconsistent in this, but the underlying theological argument is that Christ’s death has done what the law could not do: it has provided a way for those under the Jewish law and facing destruction to be found righteous, to escape the wrath of God, to be delivered from the present evil age.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us - for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree" - 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
What we need to keep in mind is that through his faithfulness Christ provided a concrete alternative for the community (cf. Rom. 3:22 and the commentary). The law subjected disobedient Israel to a ‘curse’. Paul quotes Deuteronomy 27:26, but it is clear from Deuteronomy 28:15-20 and the passage that follows that the ‘curse’ entails the historical suffering and destruction of Israel. Because Jesus took that suffering and destruction upon himself, part of Israel at least was ‘redeemed… from the curse of the law’ in order that the ‘blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles’.
As I argued in the discussion of Jesus’ death in the Gospels, the Gentiles have a part in this indirectly, because Jesus’ act of faithfulness redeemed Israel from the curse of the law. The point is made again in Galatians 4:4-7: God sent his son not to redeem Gentiles but to redeem those who were under the law, facing destruction; but the consequence of this was that even those who did not know God, who were ‘enslaved to those that by nature are not gods’ (Gal. 4:8), received ‘adoption as sons’ (Gal. 4:5). The eschatological narrative is not on the surface of Paul’s argument, but it is crucial for understanding how he explains and makes theological use of Jesus’ death.
The reason, incidentally, why it is so urgent for Paul that Christ should be ‘formed’ in these communities of believers (Gal. 4:19) is again essentially eschatological. It is only Christ-likeness - and not works of the law - that will ensure that they survive the suffering and destruction that will mark the transition from the present evil age to the age that has now (from our perspective) come. The same argument is found in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, where Paul describes the sort of community that will survive the fire of God’s wrath, of God’s judgment on Israel in the first place, but also on the Greek-Roman world.
The death of Jesus in Paul
Against this background I would suggest that the significance of Jesus’ death in Paul can be summarized thus: i) through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ ii) part of Israel iii) is delivered from the coming judgment of God, and iv) comes to experience the blessing of a new creation, v) in which the distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female have been overcome (cf. Gal. 3:28).
i) The phrase ‘faithfulness of Jesus Christ’ points to the fact that his death is not an isolated abstract or metaphysical event. It is rather a decisive and definitive moment in the story of Jesus’ determination to forge an alternative path for Israel through obedience to YHWH. It also suggests how the community of his disciples, those in whom Christ would be formed, would be drawn into that story. It is by virtue of the same faithfulness that they will overcome opposition and be vindicated at the parousia.
ii) Jesus’ death is, in the first place, an act of faithfulness on behalf of Israel, so that ‘at the present time… a remnant, chosen by grace’ might be preserved (Rom. 11:5-6).
iii) There are two parts to this deliverance from the wrath of God. On the one hand, it must entail forgiveness of the sins that brought the curse of the law upon Israel. In this respect, Jesus’ death is understood in the light of the sacrificial system and of passages such as Isaiah 53: it is a means or sign of atonement, of the forgiveness of God’s people. On the other, because the instrument of judgment is the enemies of God, Jesus’ death must also be seen as a victory over those enemies: the corrupt Jewish authorities, Rome, the principalities and powers that stand behind this political-religious opposition, Satan, and the last enemy, which is death. The eschatological narrative remains operative: not even death can overcome the forgiven community that challenges the powers of the Greek-Roman world with the announcement that Jesus Christ is Lord.
iv) The blessing of Abraham that is recovered through the cross is a restatement of the original blessing of creation. Jesus’ death has produced the right, the justification, not to be condemned to destruction but to become descendants of Abraham, so that the full implications of that blessing for the world might be realized.
v) The distinctions that dominate the old world have been destroyed; in this new creation ‘neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision’ (Gal. 6:14-15). Those who have been baptized into (the death of) Christ have put on a quite different identity: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal.3:28). By providing an alternative path for Israel Jesus has abolished, made irrelevant, the law that excluded Gentiles from the covenant people (cf. Eph. 2:11-16). Without the law, as Peter found in Caesarea (Acts 10), there is simply nothing to prevent Gentiles from receiving the Spirit and thus having access to the Father (Eph. 2:18); in Christ, therefore, God was reconciling not only disobedient Israel but also the ‘world’ to himself (2 Cor. 5:18-19).
Galatians revisited
I’d like to offer an alternative reading of Galatians, which I suppose is also the traditional Protestant reading, wherein Paul’s main point is to argue that the Gentiles don’t have to enter through Judaism in order to be justified by faith in Christ.
It’s clear that the Epistle to the Galatians is addressed to an audience made up mostly or entirely of Gentile Christians. Paul devotes most of the first 2 chapters to describing his mission to preach Christ among the Gentiles. Though he himself was Jewish, though he had been advancing in Judaism beyond many of his fellow Jews, though he zealously upheld his ancestral traditions, nevertheless he went to the Gentiles without consulting beforehand with the Jewish Christian leadership in Jerusalem. Though he traveled widely in non-Jewish regions, he remained unknown in the churches of Judea. In other words, Paul says his impeccable Jewish credentials aren’t really important in fulfilling his mission to the Gentiles.
Apparently a significant segment of the Jewish Christians had begun promoting a Judaized version of Christianity, compelling the Gentile churches to submit to circumcision and to the Jewish Law. Paul’s main point in this letter is to refute the Judaizers’ teaching. He tells the Galatians about how he publicly confronted Cephas (which is Peter’s Hebrew name) as a fellow Jewish Christian:
You and I both know, Paul tells Peter, that the Law doesn’t provide justification even for us, the members of God’s own nation. Law or no Law, Jew or Gentile, everyone needs justification by faith in Christ. Paul goes on:
In other words, we Jewish Christians find ourselves more similar to the “sinners from among the Gentiles” than we’d like to admit. But the answer isn’t to reinstitute the Law as a way of suppressing sin, because we already know that road doesn’t lead to justification. Don’t do it, Paul tells Peter; not only is it futile, it’s transgressive of the Gospel. Thus ends Chapter 2.
In Chapter 3 Paul turns his attention onto the Gentile Christian Galatians. And he lets them have it. You fools! Having been justified through faith, are you now going to start acting like Jews, getting circumcised, following the Law? That’s not Spirit; that’s flesh.
Even before there was a nation of Israel, even prior to the Law, Abraham was justified by faith in God. Now, in Christ, the Gentiles are justified under God’s promise to Abraham. The Jews, the Law, circumcision, Israel – all of this apparatus came into play after Abraham, as a covenant enacted by God with one particular nation. But the “gospel” of justification by faith predates Israel as God’s means of justifying not only the one nation but many nations. In other words, the Gentiles participate in the gospel without having to participate in Israel. Even the Law, given to the nation of Israel by God Himself, doesn’t justify the Jews. For the Jews as for the Gentiles, the gospel of faith precedes Israel and frees the Jews from the Law. It’s not even important to speak of separate nations being blessed in Abraham: the promise, asserts Paul, isn’t to Abraham’s “seeds” plural, but to his “seed” singular. Paul summarizes:
Paul goes so far as to say that those under subjection to the Law are “under a curse,” citing Deut. 27:26 as his proof text. This curse isn’t a warning issued during some period of particular unrighteousnes: it’s built right into the Law itself. The very last sentence of the Law, which runs from Deut. 12 through Deut. 27, is the pronouncement of a curse on all those under the Law’s jurisdiction who fail to do the Law. Throughout the epistle Paul alternates between addressing “us” – the Jewish Christians, of which Paul is one — and “you” – the Galatian Christians, who are the recipients of the letter. So when Paul says that Christ redeemed “us” from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for “us” (Gal. 3:13), he’s speaking of the Jews in particular. In Galatians Paul doesn’t really elaborate on how the substitutionary mechanism operates, whether it’s an atoning sacrifice, etc. But, says Paul, Jesus became a curse for “us” Jews in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. The blessing came to the Gentiles in order that we, the Jews, might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Gal. 3:14). So: Christ died in order to release the curse of the Law on the Jews, in order that (a) God’s pre-Law promise to the Gentiles in Abraham might be fulfilled, and also that (b) the Jews might likelwise particpate in that same Abrahamic promise.
When Paul says that “we” were kept in custody under the Law, and that the Law became “our” tutor (Gal. 3:23-24), he’s talking about himself and his Jewish brethren.
In chapter 4 Paul says that, before Christ, “we” Jews were under bondage to the Law (4:3), whereas “you” Galatians who didn’t know God were slaves to those who are not gods (4:8). But now “you” are starting to listen to “them,” the Judaizing Christians, subjecting yourselves to that from which “we” Jewish Christians have been freed. Don’t do it, says Paul. I beg you, brethren, become as I am, for I also have become as you are (Gal. 4:12). In other words, I, a Jewish Christian, have become a Christian for whom Jewish and non-Jewish doesn’t make any difference. From this point on, Paul begins speaking of himself and the Galatians as “we.”
And then, in a move sure to alienate the Judaizers, Paul writes this:
In Genesis we learn that Abraham had two sons. The mother of the first son is Abraham’s servant Hagar; her son is Ishmael. The mother of the second son is Abraham’s wife Sarai; her son is Isaac. Ishmael becomes the patriarch of the Arabs, whereas the Jews trace their lineage through Isaac. But here in Galatians we have Paul, a Jew, asserting that Ishmael is the father of the Jews. Paul makes himself clear: the story of Abraham’s two sons is an allegory. Hagar, the bondwoman, is the covenant of Law. Hagar is a mountain in Arabia, which corresponds to Jerusalem. Those who follow the Law are descendants of Hagar, enslaved to the Law. Allegorically speaking the Jews are the Arabs: enslaved, unclean, cast out. Those who are justified by faith in Christ, whether Jewish or Gentile by birth, are the children of the promise, free, heirs. Paul shows his readers that the Biblical story of Abraham contains an alternate weave within itself, and if you pull the right thread the text creates its own reversal of meaning. I’d call this a deconstructive reading of the Torah.
Paul concludes his letter by suggesting alternative means of overcoming sin that don’t depend on following the Law. Faith working through love. Through love serve one another. Walk by the Spirit. Restore one another in a spirit of gentleness. Don’t boast except in the cross of Christ. From now on, Paul exhorts his readers wearily, let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus (Gal. 6:17).
To summarize: In his letter to the Galatians, Paul contrasts “us” with “you,” the Jewish Christians with the Gentile Christians. The Jews were in bondange to the Law of God, the Gentiles were in bondage to those who were not gods. But both “we” and “you” were sinners in need of justification. That justification was promised to many nations — to Jews and Gentiles alike, long before the distinction had even been made. Christ’s death brought freedom from bondage and justification through faith to all without distinction, fulfilling the ancient promise made to Abraham and his seed. The distinction between Jews and Gentiles was a temporary one, and it never brought justification even to the Jews. Now this temporary and ultimately meaningless distinction is abolished in Christ, in fulfillment of the Abrahamic “gospel.”
Re: Galatians revisited
John, it’s a great summary of Galatians, but I’m not sure how this constitutes an ‘alternative reading’. Your central paragraph about Jesus redeeming the Jews from the curse of the law in order that the Gentiles might be justified by faith is exactly my point - isn’t it? But I’ll pick up on a couple of issues.
What is the force of this? Yes, the warning is built into the law, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t become operative at different times. Whenever Israel departs from the law, it becomes liable to the sort of historical judgment described in Deuteronomy 28. So I see no reason not to think that when Paul speaks of being redeemed from the curse of the law, he has in mind, broadly speaking, the particular eschatological conditions of an impending judgment on first century Israel.
I would agree with this but would question whether these different effects all relate to Christ’s death in the same way. Christ died to release at least some Jews from the curse of the law, or to create the possibility that Jews might repent from the sins that were driving the nation to destruction and trust in an alternative ‘way’, which is Christ. But having faith in is not the same as being died for - if I can put it in that rather inelegant way. Jews certainly have faith in the one who died for the Jews, but Gentiles also have faith in the one who died for the Jews.
Abraham was justified not by trusting in a death but by trusting in the God who made a promise. In a rather different context Habbakuk wrote that the one who has faith will survive the catastrophe of judgment. - Paul quotes Habbakuk 2:4 in Galatians 3:11. What will get the people of God through the crisis, what will ensure their future, is not works of the law but trust in the way of obedience and faithfulness established by Jesus.
So where we differ, perhaps, is in how or whether we map Paul’s argument about justification against an eschatological-historical narrative about the end of the age of second temple Judaism. I wonder how this works as a rough formulation: In dying for Israel Jesus saved his people from the wrath of God and set a concrete precedent of faithful suffering that not only Jews but also Gentiles would follow in faith and empowered by the Holy Spirit during a period of eschatological crisis in order to safeguard the future of God’s ‘new creation’ in Abraham. We are now that new creation that has been saved from destruction by the death of Jesus.
Re: Galatians revisited
"I’m not sure how this constitutes an ‘alternative reading’"
Well, I did wonder what all the fuss was about. Either you’re more exegetically orthodox than I thought, or I’m less so. I haven’t been following the OST debates as closely as perhaps I should have, so it’s likely I’m missing or misconstruing the key points of contention.
In Gal. 1:4 Paul says that Christ gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil age. Do "our" and "us" refer exclusively to the Jews? It’s hard to say with certainly, but again, throughout the first 3+ chapters Paul consistently uses "us" in reference to the Jewish Christians and "you" to the Gentile Christians.
Reading Galatians I found myself verging toward the idea that Jesus died as a substitute not for all, but specifically for the Jews: in some unspecified way he shifted the "curse" of the Law from the Jews onto himself. The curse built into the Law is worded so as to apply to each individual bound under the Mosaic covenant. Moses appends a whole string of "curses" to the end of the Law, beginning with Deut. 27:15 — Cursed is the man who makes an idol. The list of cursed miseeds continues: he who dishonors his parents, he who moves his neighbor’s boundary mark, he who misleads a blind person on the road, and so on — each one an act of individual execration. When Paul cites the last curse in the series — Cursed is he who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them — he’s asserting that each individual Jew falls under this curse, which applies to the Law in its entirety and in its particulars. In Gal. 4 Paul says that all those who continue submitting themselves to the Law remain in bondage to it and fall under its curse. The curse applies to each Jew individually as a member of the nation of Israel, which collectively endorsed the Mosaic Law. The curse could be administered to each individual sinner under the Law, or it could be administered collectively inasmuch as each and every Jew is also a sinner. Likewlse those Jews who accept by faith the fulfillment through Christ’s death of God’s promise to Abraham are released individually from the curse of the Law.
You know, though… it’s not necessary in the context of Deut. 27 and Galatians 3 to assert that each and every Jew is cursed under Law because each and every Jew is a sinner. That might be true too, of course, but the curse here is conditional: if you don’t do the Law, then you are cursed. And it’s also not necessarily the case that the curse on any particular sinner will take the form of punishment meted out on that particular individual. In the Old Testament there are cases where the sins of the fathers result in punishments imposed on subsequent generations who may have been (relatively) innocent under the Law. The sin of one man can be visited on thousands — one of the kings of Judah conducted a sensus unsanctioned by God, and as a punishment thousands died in a plague. In other words, substitutionary punishment in the Mosaic economy isn’t unique in Christ’s crucifixion, where the curse incurred by many individuals was visited on one man.
The Law, though good, is cursed: it contains within itself the spirit of fear and the threat of punishment to which each and every one remains in bondage. This system is a dead end as far as justification is concerned, Paul asserts. Jewish Christians have opted out of that economy, availing themselves as individuals of the escape route offered in Christ. Jewish Christians no longer participate in the if-then, blessing-curse conditionality of the Mosaic Law, which persists as a slave morality among the non-Christianized Jews. The curse of the Law no longer applies to those Jews who through Christ enter into the Abrahamic promise that preceded the Law and the nation. God might still punish Israel, but the Christian Jews don’t need to take it personally because they’ve already been freed from the curse of the Law, already exempted from God’s punishment of Israel, already delivered from the present evil age. The Law persists, but the Jewish Christians have died to the Law (Gal. 2:19). In contrast, the Gentiles never participated in this particular enslavement (though they had their own), and Paul assures (warns) them that there’s no reason to start now by following the Law.
You say: "But having faith in is not the same as being died for - if I can put it in that rather inelegant way. Jews certainly have faith in the one who died for the Jews, but Gentiles also have faith in the one who died for the Jews."
Generally that seems to be the thrust: Christ died as a substitute only for the Jews, bearing the curse of the Mosaic Law in their stead. Here’s an interesting passage:
If we decode the "us" and "you" language, Paul is saying that because you Gentiles are sons of God, we Jews likewise can become sons of God. The sequence seems to place the Gentiles’ freedom into heirship prior to the Jews’, that the Jews enter into the Abrahamic promise because of and after the the Gentiles. But now I notice that this passage refers not to Christ’s death but to his incarnation. So that’s interesting: can we say that in Galatians Paul says that Christ lived for the sake of the Gentiles, but he died for the sake of the Jews?
Maybe not, though — or at least not entirely. This Gentiles-then-Jews sequence of Gal. 4 we saw previously in Gal. 3:14 — in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we (Jews) might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Gentiles first, then the Jews. But this passage refers specifically to Christ’s having become a curse for us — that is, his substitutionary death for the Jews. So Christ’s death also opens a pathway for the Gentiles to enter into the Abrahamic promise, thought not necessarily through the substitutionary apparatus that applied to the Jews.