Galatians 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written… I. "CHRIST MADE A CURSE." First of all, I lay down this position as certain (however unlikely it might have seemed to us beforehand:), that the curse which the apostle speaks of is the curse of God. True, there was no lack of the cursing of this blessed One, in a secondary sense of the word, from other quarters, — no lack of the cursing of Him by men and devils, in the sense of maligning, blaspheming — wishing, calling Him accursed. But Paul assuredly does not speak of anything of that kind. Besides that he says "made" — not called, or wished, but (γενόμενος) made a curse, — see how certain it is from the entire context that it is the curse of God which he speaks of, and which he says Christ was made. He had begun to speak of this curse at the tenth verse, saying, "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that con-tinueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Then in the thirteenth verse, where the text lies, "Christ," says he, "hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." It is out of the question to imagine the sense of the term to be entirely changed in this second: clause. Beyond all doubt the meaning is, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, having borne that curse — been made the curse of the law for us. And then, as it is God's curse which the apostle says Christ was made, so was it God Himself who made Him that curse. God alone can bring His curse on any man. And you may only further notice as to this, that the word "made" here is the same the apostle uses in the fourth verse of the next chapter, "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law" — made by God, of course. Our first position then is, that it is the curse of God "which the apostle says Christ was made, and God Himself who made Him that curse. II. But, secondly, at once the question arises, HOW COULD SUCH A THING EVER BE? For the righteous God will bring His curse on no guiltless one. But it is certain He will not bring His curse on the guiltless. Wicked men may curse them — may wish, or call them, accursed. III. But now, thirdly, there was a mysterious manner, yet most real and true, in which Christ was not guiltless. I might remind you of those words of the ransomed Church in Isaiah, "All we like sheep have gone astray; "we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." But let us fix our attention a little more closely on those words of 2 Corinthians 5:21, "God made Him to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." "Made Him to be sin" — the entire expression is, "made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us." So much is certain, therefore, negatively, that the apostle's meaning is not, and cannot be, that He was made our sin in the pollution, or stain, or turpitude of it, either in nature or in life. For, besides the frightfulness of such a thing to be even imagined, it were in contradiction to the express words, "He hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us." So that the question remains just as before, what that sin was which was transferred. It could not be the pollution, the turpitude, on the one hand; it was not the suffering simply, on the other. But there was a great intermediate element between the turpitude and the suffering;and this it was that Christ was made in the whole fearful reality of it — even the guilt (the reatus, as the Latins spoke) — the just liability in law, and in the eye of the lawgiver, to endure the suffering, the punishment, the curse. For Christ, by an altogether peculiar Divine constitution — of infinite grace alike on the Father's part and on His own — had become the Head of His body the Church, — taken their place in law — become one with them in law for ever. Read again, for instance, that fourth verse of the following chapter, "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law" — under the law? But what could the Son, the very Lawgiver, have to do with subjection to the law? Nothing, assuredly, for Himself — nothing save as a public Person, Surety, Representative. And now turn we for a moment to the passage cited by the apostle from the Pentateuch. Let no one be startled in the reading of it. It is the twenty-first of Deuteronomy, the twenty-second and twenty-third verses — "If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree; his body Shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day (for he that is hanged is accursed of God); that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance." IV. Fourthly, thus have we the wondrous explanation of the whole life of our Lord Jesus Christ, which otherwise were an inexplicable enigma. Even had His sufferings proceeded simply from the hands of men and devils, the mystery would not have been removed, since neither devils nor men could be more than instruments — voluntary and guilty, yet only instruments — in the hand of Jehovah for the executing of His designs. But the fact, unquestionably, was that the principal sufferings of this Just One came from the immediate hand of the Father himself. It is impossible to read the Gospel histories without perceiving that by far His deepest agonies were those which He endured when there was no hand of man upon Him at all, or when, at least, He himself traces the suffering to another hand altogether — saying, for example, "Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? but for this cause came I unto this hour." — "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with Me" — "Oh My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me" — "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Ah! behold the explanation of all — of the travail of Messiah's soul — of an agony that wrung the blood from every pore of His sacred body — of what He himself declared to be His own Father's desertion of Him — see, not the source of it only, but the soul also of its deepest bitterness and anguish, in these words, "made sin," "made a curse," — not accursed simply, but — as if all the curses due to a world's sin had been made to meet in His person — "made curse," that we might be redeemed from the curse of the law! V. Fifthly, THERE ARE CERTAIN GREAT CENTRAL THINGS AMONG THE TYPES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT WHICH CAST MUCH LIGHT OVER THE MYSTERIOUS FACT IN OUR TEXT, AND, IN THEIR TURN, RECEIVE IMPORTANT LIGHT FROM IT. Let me select three — the brazen serpent, the burnt offering, and the sin offering. 1. The brazen serpent. At first view it seems very strange that the chosen type of the blessed Redeemer should have been the likeness of a serpent, — that, when the Israelites were dying of the bite of serpents, the medium of their cure should have been the likeness of one, "Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." But the wonder ceases, or rather is turned into another wonder of holy admiration, when we find that the only possible way of our deliverance from sin, was the Redeemer's taking it, in its whole guilt and curse into His own person — being made sin and a curse for us. What glorious light is thus cast on the words of Jesus, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life!" 2. The burnt offering. There is no doubt that the fire of all the burnt offerings of the law, whether it came down immediately from heaven to consume the victim, as on various memorable occasions, or was kindled naturally, was the emblem of the Divine holiness and justice, consuming the substitute lamb on which the sin had been laid — the sacrifice in place of the sinner. What a picture of Christ made a curse, enduring the fire of "the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men!" What a picture of the prophet's "Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts; smite the shepherd!" What a picture of Him who cried, "My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of My bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and My tongue cleaveth to My jaws; and Thou hast brought me into the dust of death!" 3. The sin-offering. Let these words, for example, be carefully observed (Leviticus 16:27, 28), "The bullock for the sin offering, and the goat for the sin-offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall one carry forth without the camp; and they shall burn in the fire their skin, and their flesh, and their dung. And he that burneth them shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp." That is to say, the victim, as having had the whole iniquities transferred to it by the laying of the hand upon its head, had become an unclean and accursed thing, and so behoved to be carried away out of God's sight without the camp, and consumed in the fire. This is what our apostle refers to in those words in Hebrews, "The bodies of those beasts, whose blood for sin is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate." As if to say that when God appointed the sin-offerings of the law to be carried forth outside the camp as unclean and accursed, and to be burned in the fire, it was but a figure of our Lord Jesus, laden with our accursed iniquities, made sin and a curse, numbered with the transgressors, dealt with as the vilest of all — not by man so much as by God, the Holy One of Israel — because the Lord had, with His own most free consent, made to meet on Him the iniquities of us all. When Jesus was led forth out of Jerusalem, and there crucified between the thieves, it was as if all the innumerable multitudes of sinners whom He represented had been in that hour carried out, and had there endured, in their own persons, the curse of the Divine law due to their whole ungodliness, unrighteousness, pride, falsehood, vanity, uncleanness, rebellion, and I know not what other crimes and sins. VI. But thus I observe, once more, that we do not get at the full explanation of the mysterious fact in our text till we have taken into view the wondrous design and issue of all, as set forth in the passage thus — "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." And now, not only are we thus delivered from the law's terrible sentence, but — the stone which lay over the grave of our corruption once removed — the way is open for the Holy Ghost's descending into it to make an end of our corruption too, — yea, open for the whole blessing of the Abrahamic covenant, "I will be a God to thee," coming on believers everywhere, of the Gentiles and of the Jews alike — from which blessing the apostle singles out the promise of the Holy Ghost, as being the centre and sum of it all, saying, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, etc., that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Three words in conclusion. 1. The apostle, in the opening chapter of this Epistle, speaks of "another gospel, which is not another." Very rife in our day is another gospel, which truly is not another gospel. Substantially it is this, that God never has had a quarrel with man, but only man a quarrel with God, — that God never has been angry with men, but men only jealous of Him; and that the whole design, of Christ's coming into the world, and of His suffering unto death was to convince men of this — who, as soon as they are persuaded to believe it — to believe that God loves them, and has loved them always, are saved. Another gospel truly — which in fact turns the whole mission and work of our Lord Jesus Christ into an unreality! But see the apostle's gospel in verses 10, 13, 14, of this chapter. Ver. 10, God's quarrel with guilty men — "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Then, the wondrous settlement of that quarrel (ver. 13), "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." And hence the settlement of our vile quarrel also with God (ver. 14), "that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Now at length a conscience purged, and righteously purged, from dead works, to serve the living God! Now all possible motives, of love, and fear, and gratitude, and hope, and joy, unto a new and child-like obedience! "O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; I am Thy servant, and the son of Thine handmaid: Thou has loosed my bonds." 2. Behold here the very soul of the Lord's Supper, which might have for its motto, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us," — "This is My body broken for you: this cup is My blood of the new covenant, shed for remission of the sins of many." Oh for a profound self-abasement, and fervent love, and lively faith, in the observing of it! 3. Be it well known to all, that we become partakers of this whole redemption by faith alone without the deeds of the law. (C. G. Brown, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: |
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