Christ was made a Curse for Us – Galatians 3:13

The Curse of the Law

Through descent from Adam “both Jews and Gentiles are 0 under sin”. Escape from death is therefore a need common to both, for death has “passed upon all men”. In the work of redemption wrought on the Cross that need was met for both alike, for in their relation to death “there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek”, and in the provision of a way of escape “the same Lord over all is rich unto all”, whatever their nationality (Rom. 10. 12) .

But the Jew was nevertheless distinguished from the Gentile by the circumcision of his flesh. By this he was also made subject to a curse which did not concern the Gentile. Every man who was circumcised was a debtor to do the whole Law (Gal. 5. 3), and transgression in one particular amounted to a transgression of the whole (Jas. 2. 10). Since no Jew but Jesus was wholly obedient, all Jews except he were, as a result, cursed by the Mosaic as well as the Edenic Law. “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them” (Gal. 3. 10). Thus, while, by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, both Jew and Gentile were made free from the law of sin and death pronounced in Eden, the Jew in addition needed emancipation from the curse of death which the Law of Moses placed upon him as distinct from the Gentile.

The provision made by God for this special need of the Jew is the subject of Galatians 3. As long as the Law remained operative, so did the curse, for there was none capable of perfect obedience to it, no, not one. The curse could therefore only be effectively removed by the abolition of the Law itself. The abolition of the Law would, in turn, cancel those clauses which restricted the family of God to those who were circumcised. Thus the effect of the redemption of the Jews from the curse of the Law was that the blessing of Abraham came also on the Gentiles (v. 14). But while the death of Christ had this single benefit for the Gentile, it redeemed the Jew simultaneously from the Edenic curse and the curse of the Law.

This particular argument of the Apostle can now be seen to serve the main purpose of the epistle. Paul is correcting the false notions of Jewish Christians who were reverting to the law of works. Such reversion led back to death, for, since no one could obey the Law perfectly, all who sought justification by it were cursed, not blessed. What, then, did the removal of the curse signify but the abolition of the Law which brought the curse? Why then should these Jewish believers be entangled again with the yoke of bondage? The use of the pronoun “us” clearly restricts the application of the whole argument to Jews, and the argument only makes sense if confined to them and their debt to obey the whole Law. An appreciation of that fact is essential to a correct understanding of Gal. 3. 13.

The Curse of Hanging

“Christ hath redeemed us (the Jews) 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.” Paul here states the effect and also the means, Christ was “made a curse”. How? By his crucifixion. On what account? Because all who were hanged from a tree were cursed, as Scripture declares.

Obviously in appealing to Scripture Paul does not affirm that only crucified criminals came under a Divine curse. Far from it, for every one” under the Law, living as well as dead, was cursed by it (v. 10). Its provisions brought death by stoning to those guilty of specified crimes. But, unlike hanging, stoning was not a mode of death which was a curse in itself. A criminal who was stoned to death was obviously cursed by the Law the moment he sinned, and while he was still alive. But, if, later he were suspended from a tree, he would be again cursed, “for he that is hanged is accursed of God” (Deut. 21. 22-23). This provision in the Law, seemingly unnecessary and arbitrary, was clearly for a purpose. God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, that he might be born under the Adamic curse which he would remove by his death as a perfect sacrifice. But he was made of a woman who was a Jewess so that he might also be “under the Law, to redeem them that were under the Law” (Gal. 4. 4-5). To have incurred the curse, under which they laboured by one act of transgression, would however have meant forfeiting that moral spotlessness which could alone make him an acceptable sacrifice. Yet to remove the curse he had first to come under it.

The decree of Deut. 21. 23 was clearly designed to enable him to do this innocently in the mode of his death. Thus, having “magnified the Law” in his life, he could “abolish” it”by the Cross” (Eph. 2. 15-16). Christ was “crucified by wicked hands” but “delivered by the counsel and foreknowleake of God”, of which this Scripture is one illustration. As the law stood, had Christ died in any other way he would not have been “made a curse- nor by one act have removed the curse for those in bondage.

The gospel records confirm this. The angry mob sought to hurl Jesus to death at Nazareth, but he delivered himself by the exercise of miraculous power (Luke 4. 28­-30). This he did also repeatedly when the Jews sought to stone him ( John 8. 59; 10. 31, 39), for “his hour”, with its appointed form of execution, “was not yet come”. But the unique circumstances of the Passover feast, and the lack of authority by the Jews “to put any man to death” left Pilate with no option but to sanction the Crucifixion, “that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled which he spake, signifying what death he should die” (John 18. 31-32). This was the -hour” of his enemies (Luke 22. 53): to invoke divine protection now would be to falsify the scriptures (Matt. 26. 53-54).

Time and circumstances were not precisely those for which God had made provision hundreds of years before in the Law. By its decree his impending death on a tree was to bring a curse upon him, a just man, so that by his triumph over this curse, and the Law which imposed it, he might redeem the unjust who were in bondage to both.