John Stott has said that if the nature of Christ’s death on the cross was “for our sins,” its object was to rescue us out of this present age of wickedness. J. B. Lightfoot writes that this verb meaning deliver or rescue, “strikes the keynote of the epistle.” “The Gospel is a rescue,” he adds, “an emancipation from a state of bondage.” Christianity is, in fact, a rescue religion. The Greek verb in this verse is a strong one: exaireo, in the middle voice. It is used in the book of Acts when speaking of the rescue of the Israelites from their Egyptian slavery (7:34), of the rescue of Peter both from prison and from the hand of Herod the king (12:11), and of the rescue of Paul from an infuriated mob about to lynch him (23:27). This verse in Galatians is the only place where it is used metaphorically of salvation.
