For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Galatians 3:10-14 ESV

I have no doubt that the people of Israel listened with the utmost attention as Moses delivered his final sermons to them. They were encamped on the edge of the Promise Land, finally ready to enter after forty years of wandering in the desert as the generation of the exodus died off. But the excitement must have been laced with fear as well. Moses, who had led the Israelites all of their lives, would not enter Canaan with them. He would die soon, and his assistant, Joshua, would lead them.

But before dying, Moses reminded Israel of their history and restated God’s law. Indeed, we call these final sermons Deuteronomy, which means ‘second law.’ These sermons concluded with Moses setting a choice before the people, one of life and blessing or death and cursing.

And if you faithfully obey the voice of LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your god will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out..

But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statues that I command you today, then all these curse shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. (Deuteronomy 28:1-6; 15-19)

But lest they forget these things whenever they actually entered Canaan, Moses also commanded them to hold a ceremony upon two mountains, where the Levites would read the people a list of curses for mostly secret sins. And the people would respond to each, saying, “Amen” or “May it be!” The location of these mountains required Israel to first defeat the cities of Jericho and Ai, which gave them a tangible picture of God’s curse of judgment that they had enacted with their own hands. Of course, none of these warnings were sufficient to secure Israel’s obedience to God’s law. Because of our sinful nature in Adam, who is able to bear the words of Deuteronomy 27:26: “Cursed by anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them”?

Indeed, that is Paul’s point in the text before us. No one is able to be righteous under the law. We are all under the curse of the law and can only be redeemed from that curse through Christ.

UNDER A CURSE // VERSE 10

In our previous passage, the Apostle Paul had some rather unpleasant words for his Galatian readers. He called them foolish for even considering adding any kinds of works to the gospel. He said that they appeared to be hypnotized or under a magic spell. Most importantly, he asked them to answer whether they had received the Holy Spirit through faith by hearing the gospel or through works of the law? Their answer to that single question was entirely enough to seal Paul’s case against the false teaching that they were entertaining. He then proceeded to remind the Galatians that the first ancestor of the Jews was explicitly said to have been justified through his faith and that God promised to bless all the nations (or Gentiles) through Abraham. Thus, by trying to become sons of Abraham through circumcision, the Gentile Galatians were actually in danger of rejecting their long-awaited inclusion in the blessing that God promised to the patriarch.

With that great blessing before them, Paul now augments his argument by looking at the great curse that comes to those who do not walk in the faith that Abraham walked. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”

Again, these are strong words. By nature, we would think of someone who is devoted to observing God’s law as being a good person. Yet as we have been doing, we must continue to take care that we do not hear what Paul is not actually saying. He is by no means abolishing the law entirely, nor is he suggesting that Christians should not strive for obedience to what God commands. Rather, his meaning is as the ESV says, all who rely on the works of the law… Everyone who trusts in his or her ability to keep the law as the source of their righteousness before God is, in reality, under a curse. That is the idea that Paul is seeking to drive home. Relying upon our own obedience to God’s law is a dead end. Indeed, it is more than simply a dead end. It leaves a person under the curse of God.

But how can Paul make such a claim? First, he cites Deuteronomy 27:26, which he introduces with the words for it is written. Here Paul again uses the perfect tense, which describes an action that was completed in the past that continues to effect the present. Thus, grammatically Paul is showing that he does not discount the Old Testament Scriptures as applicable and authoritative for Christians; rather, even though Moses actually wrote these words more than 3000 years ago, God still speaks through them to us today.

“Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Philip Ryken points out:

The apostle Paul knew these curses well. He had read them in the book of Deuteronomy, of course, but he had also heard them recited on five memorable occasions. Five times Paul was punished by the Jews for preaching the gospel, and each time he received the standard punishment: “forty lashes minus one” (2 cor. 11:24). The synagogue manuals of that time required someone to read out the curses of the law while the prisoner was being whipped. Thus as Paul received the final stripe on his back, he may well have heard the very words that he later quoted to the Galatians. (107)

Yet the apostle’s point in citing this verse is that it requires everyone to fulfill all of the law. Anyone who fails to obey the whole law is cursed. And even though Israel shouted ‘Amen,’ they could not hope to actually fulfill that standard. Thus, however noble their intentions might have been, they were affirming the curse upon their own heads, for indeed no one can keep the law of God perfectly. That is why the law itself is good. If we could hypothetically obey it perfectly, then we would have happily deserve the blessing and favor of God. The great problem is that none of us are able to do so, which means that we incur God’s curse upon us instead.

But what does being cursed mean both here and in Deuteronomy. Sproul suggests that we should consider the blessing of Yahweh that was instructed for Aaron to make:

The LORD bless and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26)

That is a succinct description of being blessed in the LORD.

The curse is the absolute contrast to the blessing. If we were to state what is meant by the curse of God in the Old Testament, it would be something like this: “May the Lord curse you and abandon you. May the Lord turn His face from you and give you only His judgment. Mya the Lord turn out the light of His countenance and give you nothing but distress and turmoil.” It’s the worst of all possible experiences that a human being could endure, to have God turn His back on you, to reject you now and forevermore. (64)

That ought to be a horrendous and terrible thought.

NO ONE IS JUSTIFIED BY THE LAW // VERSES 11-12

Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”

John Brown rightly notes about these two verses that “here, as in some cases, it is much easier to perceive the apostle’s general meaning than to give a clear satisfactory exposition of the phraseology in which it is couched” (127). Indeed, if we do not keep Paul’s main idea in focus, it is all too easy to get lost in the weeds of this passage.

Paul begins verse 11 by saying that it is plain and clear that no one can be justified before God under the law. I’ve heard it said that the doctrine of total depravity is the only biblical teaching that is repeatedly shown to be true through the daily news. While that it somewhat facetious, it is only slightly so. Common sense alone is perfectly sufficient for understanding that we cannot justify ourselves through our works. Nevertheless, Paul goes on to make a scriptural case.

First, he cites Habakkuk 2:4, which testifies that the righteous are not those who try their hardest to keep God’s law. No, the righteous are those who live by faith. Those who are justified in God’s sight are the ones who know that they have no hope of acceptance in God’s sight through their own works. Their faith is not in their own righteous deeds but in God alone to make them righteous. That is why we honor men like Abraham, Moses, and David. Abraham was an adulterer. Moses was a murderer. And David was both an adulterer and a murderer. But we do not honor them for their absolute moral purity; instead, as the author of Hebrews teaches us, we honor their lives of faith. They are godly examples not because they did not sin (they did!) but because they trusted God to cleanse them of their sin.

But the law, says Paul, is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Many commentators wrestle with Paul’s wording here because he seems to dismiss the law as having nothing to do with faith and because he puts this citation from Leviticus 18:5 in a negative light, even though it has a positive connotation in the original context. First, Paul is not saying that the law and faith are absolutely mutually exclusive. As we saw in our study of Exodus, there was much grace and faith in both the giving and receiving of the Mosaic law at Sinai. No, Paul is still speaking about a reliance or a confidence in one’s ability to keep the law. That is what is antithetical to a life of faith, for as the law itself attests: The one who does them shall live by them. The law only offers life to those who obey it perfectly. To everyone else, it only promises the curse of death.

Of course, trusting only in the righteousness of God that has been worked through Christ, we ought in faith to turn to the law for three things. First, to see the greatness of our sin and our desperate need of a Savior. Second, to know the will and character of God. Third, to know how we are to live lives of thankful obedience to God after we have been justified before Him.

TO REDEEM US // VERSES 13-14

These first three verses are rather bleak if left alone. We should all say with Jesus’ disciples after He told that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God: “Then who can be saved” (Mark 10:26)? Of course, our hope lies in Jesus’ answer: “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (v. 27). The sobering reality is that our salvation is impossible for us to accomplish. We are utterly and completely incapable of being good enough to earn God’s favor.

Thankfully, as Paul has been emphasizing, our faith is not in our own merits but in God Himself to justify us. But how exactly does He do that? Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Todd Wilson writes:

I love the strength of this verse. Notice it does not say Christ ‘tried’ to redeem us from the curse of the Law; nor does it say Christ ‘made it possible’ for us to be redeemed from the curse of the Law. His statement is much heartier and full blooded. Paul was convinced that Christ accomplished something ‘definitive’ on the cross. His death was ‘entirely effective’; he accomplished precisely what he wanted to accomplish: he redeemed his people from the curse of the Law. (110)

Of course, redemption is a word that we hear nearly every Sunday as we gather to celebrate what Christ has accomplished, but we rarely pause to explain or at least remember what it means. At its heart, redemption describes “buying someone out of slavery” (Thielman, 612). The greatest Old Testament example was the exodus. Through all His signs and wonders, Yahweh redeemed Israel out of their slavery in Egypt. Indeed, that is why God prefaced the giving of the Ten Commandments with a declaration of how He redeemed them. So by using this term, Paul is treating our being under the curse of the law as a kind of slavery, and it is a slavery that Christ has redeemed us from.

He did this by becoming a curse for us. As Paul will note shortly, Christ was born under the law. Although He is the Lawgiver Himself, He willingly placed Himself under it as one of us. And, as Hebrews says, He became like us and was tempted in every way we are, “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Thus, He is the only one who did not need to shrink back when hearing Leviticus 18:5 or Deuteronomy 27:26. He did not need to fear the law’s curse because He actually kept the whole thing.

And yet He did endure the curse. Paul again cites another Old Testament passage, Deuteronomy 21:23, to make this case. Crucifixion was so horrendous that the Romans preferred to simply ignore that they could be barbaric enough to invent such a form of torturous death. Indeed, there was plenty of humiliation from their end, for crucified were essentially treated as having lost their humanity, displayed by tossing their unburied bodies in a garbage heap. But for the Jews, the prospect of hanging from a piece of wood had a spiritual component as well. In Deuteronomy 21:23, God instructed Israel to hang the bodies of the accursed from a tree as a sign of their accursedness.

In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul was right to call Christ’s crucifixion folly, for so it appeared to the Gentiles. The idea of worshiping a crucified god was as foolish as worshiping garbage. For the Jews, it was a stumbling block. The idea of worshiping someone who was cursed by God was utterly abhorrent. The crucifixion was revolting thought to both Jew and Gentile.

Yet the foolishness of God is wiser than men. While I think it is nearly impossible for us to fully grasp how scandalous the crucifixion was, God used to redeem us from the curse of the law that we rightly earned. Christ submitted Himself to crucifixion to ransom us from the death that we deserved. Indeed, Luther gives a wonder comment on this verse, saying:

The whole emphasis is on the phrase “for us.” For Christ is innocent so far as His own Person is concerned; therefore He should not have been hanged from the tree. But because, according to the Law, every thief should have been hanged, therefore, according to the Law of Moses, Christ Himself should have been hanged; for He bore the person of a sinner and a thief–and not of one but of all sinners and thieves, and therefore we are worthy of death and eternal damnation. But Christ took all our sins upon Himself, and for them He died on the cross…

His not acting in His own Person now. Now He is not the Son of God, born of the Virgin. But He is a sinner, who has and bears the sin of Paul, the former blasphemer, persecutor, and assaulter; of Peter, who denied Christ; of David, who was an adulterer and a murderer, and who caused the Gentiles to blaspheme the name of the Lord. In short, He has and bears all the sins of all men in His body–not in the sense that He has committed them but in the sense that He took these sins, committed by us, upon His own body, in order to make satisfaction for them with His own blood.

This is the gospel, the good news, and it is our only hope of redemption. The curse of the law does not fall upon us only because Jesus allowed it to fall entirely upon Himself. And with this unspeakable reality before us, Paul concludes his argument: so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

The words so that (ἵνα) are extremely important. Christ became a curse for us to redeem us from the curse, but He also accomplished more. He delivered us from the curse but then continued to purchase our inclusion in Abraham’s blessing. Jesus is the means by which Gentiles are included in God’s promise to Abraham. Only in Christ Jesus are we counted as children of the man of faith, and it is only through faith in Christ that we are able to receive the Holy Spirit as the seal and guarantee of our salvation.

As we come to the Table before us, let us confess once more the glories that Paul presents. None of us are invited to eat at our King’s Table because of our own righteousness or because of our ability to obey His commands. Instead, we are accepted in His presence only by Christ becoming our curse and giving us the very blessing of God. Christ alone is our redemption. Christ alone is our righteousness. Glory be to Christ alone.