Departing from the usual pattern of the greeting, Paul includes a description of the work of Christ, which is one of the issues which he will later discuss at length. There are three elements in this verse: (1) Christ gave himself for our sins, (2) Christ sets us free from this present evil age, and (3) Christ was obedient to the will of God. The ordering of these varies from one translation to another. Good News Translation has the order 2-1-3, Phillips has 3-1-2, and New English Bible 1-2-3. Usually, the order does not matter as long as the relations between the three elements are made clear. In some languages, however, it is necessary to employ an order of means followed by purpose; that is to say, Christ gave himself for our sins must precede the statement of purpose, in order to set us free from this present evil age.
The first affirmation that Paul makes is that Christ gave himself for our sins. The expression gave himself emphasizes Jesus’ voluntary self-giving; some translations render this as “sacrificed himself” (for example, Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible). The preposition translated for is usually used in the New Testament to mean “(to do something) on behalf of, in respect to.” With this in mind, for our sins could mean “to deliver us from our sins.” In a number of languages, however, an expression such as gave himself has little or no meaning. What is meant is that he “gave his life” or “voluntarily died.” In some languages one may simply say “Christ died for our sins,” but in other languages the voluntary aspect must be expressed as a causative, for example, “Christ caused himself to die.”
It is even more difficult in some languages to render appropriately the phrase for our sins. Too often the tendency has been to express for our sins as a reason or cause, for example, “because of our sins,” meaning that “our sins caused Christ to die.” But that is not the meaning of the passage. It is not “because we sinned Christ died,” but rather “Christ died in order to deliver us from sins”; therefore “Christ died on behalf of sins.” However, a literal translation of “on behalf of sins” could suggest that “he died in order to increase sins,” which would be a complete distortion of the meaning of the passage. Therefore it may be more satisfactory to say “Christ gave his life in order to deliver us from our sins,” or “… to free us from our sinning.” It is also possible to interpret this as “… in order to take away the guilt of our sins.”
The purpose of Christ’s giving himself is to set us free from this present evil age. The division between “the present age” and “the age to come” was familiar to every Jew. The present world is described during Paul’s time, and echoed in many of the New Testament writings, as a transitory world, a world ruled by evil forces. The position of the adjective evil in the sentence is emphatic, and the phrase could be restructured thus: “this present age with all of its evils” (compare Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “this world … in which evil rules”).
Paul does not define for us what he means by the phrase to set us free. Is he talking about a future deliverance which will come at the end of the age? Or is he talking about being set free from the power of evil forces? Or yet again, is he using the expression “being set free” as a synonym for being justified, that is, being put right with God? We cannot be absolutely certain, but considering the overall purpose of the letter, which is concentrated on the way of being accepted by God in this present life, the second and third of these alternatives are surely closer to Paul’s thought than the first.
In many languages it is easy enough to speak of “being set free,” but not from the pattern of life suggested by a phrase such as “evil age”; one may be “set free from jail,” but not “set free from an age”! In order to convey the essential meaning of this passage, it may be necessary in some languages to say “to set us free so that we do not have to live like people do in this present evil age.”
Christ did all this in obedience to the will of our God and Father. It is possible to connect this expression with Christ’s giving himself (for example, in Good News Translation, Phillips, Jerusalem Bible), or with his setting us free (as in Revised Standard Version, New English Bible, New American Bible). Perhaps, however, it is connected with both ideas, that is, it is in obedience to God’s will that Christ gave himself in order to rescue us from the present age. In a number of languages it is best to render in obedience to the will of our God and Father as a separate sentence (as in Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). This makes it possible to show the connection between the preceding and what follows in such a form as to include both Christ’s giving himself and his setting us free, for example, “when Christ did that, he was obedient to what our God and Father wanted,” or “in doing that, Christ obeyed what our God and Father desired.”
In a number of languages there is a serious problem involved in the phrase our God and Father. If one combines the two nouns with a conjunction such as “and,” the suggestion may be that two persons are involved, one God and the other Father. It may therefore be necessary to translate our God and Father as “our God who is our Father,” or “our God; he is our Father.”
Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1976. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .