Christ becomes accursed that we might
receive the Spirit. The text Paul is adapting here is Deuteronomy 21:22-23, a
law that species that the criminal who has been impaled on a stake (which would
have occurred after their execution) shall not remain on display overnight. It says
“ . . . you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under
God’s curse [qillat]. You must not defile the land that the Lord your
God is giving you for a possession” (v. 23, NRSV).
Throughout this book, we have
encountered ways in which Deuteronomistic theology exhibits different nuances compared
with priestly theology, but despite all the differences in detail, there is a
similar theological geography. While the priests worried extensively about
defiling the sanctuary itself, Deuteronomy puts a lot of emphasis on protecting
“the land” from defilement (this difference is not a contradiction, and the
priestly Holiness code also cautions against defiling the land; cf. Lv
18:24-30). The word for “curse” in this verse appears a few times in Deuteronomy,
often juxtaposed with the word “blessing.” The words “blessing” and “curse” represent
contrasting futures: peace with God in the promised land vs. the wrath of God
in exile. In the twenty-ninth chapter of Deuteronomy, a devastating fate is anticipated
for those who break their covenantal promise: “ . . . they turned to the service
of other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not experienced and whom
He had not allotted to them. So, the Lord was incensed at that land and brought
upon it all the curses [haqqelālāh] recorded in this book. The Lord
uprooted them from their soul in anger, fury, and great wrath, and cast them
into another land, as is still the case” (Dt 29:25-27). This warning is the general
context for the famous passage from Deuteronomy, which we discussed in the last
chapter: “I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse [wehaqqelālāh].
Chose life . . .” (Dt. 30:19). Therefore, within Deuteronomistic theology generally,
the “curse” is associated with death, exile, and divine wrath, while “blessing”
is associated with life, and divine favor. With that in mind, it seems that the
criminal who is fastened to the tree personally experiences the divine
curse that Israel would communally experience in the absolute cataclysm of
exile. Such a tragic sign is not to linger upon the tree; the law of Deuteronomy
requires that the lawbroken body—the one who breaks the law is broken by the
law—be removed before nightfall.
Remembering these associations, we can
return to Paul’s claim that Christ, as one hung on a tree, has become “a curse
for us” so that the Gentiles might gain access to the “blessing of Abraham.” from this perspective of the sections of Deuteronomy that we quoted above, “the
nations,” with their “other gods” and grotesque immorality, are a people who
know nothing but perpetual exile. This is the very opposite of the freedom
which is intended for Abraham and his children, the hinneni-life which
is the foundation of Israel’s joy. Paul seems to suggest that, for Jesus to
bring the lost Gentiles in, he must first go out: he too must endure the curse
and exile—and implicitly, even the wrath—of those who live the chaos of sin.
Unlike the passages in the previous section, which might be called “sacramental”
because Jesus seems to draw believers into his redeeming, doxological work, the
implication of this text is substitution and exchange: Jesus will take
the place of the exiled so that the exiled might receive the living Spirit, which
is the ultimate blessing if intimacy with God. While it is not obvious that
Paul had the Azazel-goat in mind when he drew upon Deuteronomy to describe the
saving work of Christ, it remains true that the notion of one who endures the
ultimate exile to save the community from God’s abandonment the fact describes the
vocation of the second goad exactly. (Richard J. Barry IV, Jewish Theology
and the Mystery of the Cross: Atonement and the Two Goats of Yom Kippur [Washington,
D.C.: The Catholic University Press of America, 2024], 244-45)
