Redeeming “Us”

Redeeming “Us” September 25, 2014

In a 1989 article on Paul’s use of Deuteronomy 21 in Galatians 3, Ardel Caneday argues that Paul’s use of pronouns in Galatians is not indiscriminate:

“In Gal 3:10-4:7, Paul employs the first person when life under the law is in view and the second person when the gentile Galatians’ own situation is discussed” (203-4). Thus, “the blessing extended to the Gentiles is one step removed from Christ’s bearing the curse of the law;87 his bearing the law’s curse redeemed . . .  the hemeis . . . from the curse of the law, “in order that” (hina, v. 14) the blessing may extend to the Gentiles. The natural reading suggests that the divine transaction of redeeming Jewish believers out from under the curse of the law was a precondition to bestowing the blessing of Abraham upon the Gentiles” (204).

He’s not the first to suggest this. In a footnote, he cites Richard Hays (The Faith of Jesus Christ) to this effect: “The pattern is the same in both cases: Christ’s action enables the Jews to receive redemption, the Gentiles to receive blessing/adoption, and Jews and Gentiles alike to receive the Spirit. Furthermore, in both cases the formulation moves from an initial division between ‘us’ and ‘them’ towards a final inclusive ‘we’ that makes no distinction between Jew and Gentile, and in both cases this movement is associated with the gift of the Spirit” (quoted, fn 88, 204).

(Ardel Caneday, “‘Redeemed From the Curse of the Law’: The Use of Deut 21:22-23 in Gal 3:13,” Trinity Journal 10 (1989) 185-209.)


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