Redemption from the Curse (Galatians 3:12-14)

As we know, the background to the letter of Galatians is that false teachers had infiltrated the newly formed congregations that Paul and Barnabas had planted in Galatia. We can read in the Book of Acts about how they started, and when we read about their origins we would anticipate a period of steady growth for them. Yet, that is not what took place. Maybe because they were new churches, it was easy for the false teachers to convince them that it was necessary for them to practice the ceremonial law in order to become genuine Christians. They were making a wrong use of the divine law, but that should not mean that we should ignore the law. 

 

What does the law of God require from us? It requires ongoing, continual obedience. It not only requires that response, it also requires perfect conformity to its requirements. This conformity includes the inner life as well as the outward behaviour. We need to be perfect in our thoughts and in our affections. Primarily, the law tells us that we have to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves. We can see from that description that, if we could keep the law, we would live in a constant environment of love. There would not be any problems in our vertical relationship with God and in our horizontal relationships with people.

 

Thinking about the law in that way shows to us how disastrous was the fall of our first parents in the Garden of Eden. Instead of having that perfect environment as a constant reality, they moved into one of selfishness and conflict. Life, instead of being pleasant, became difficult. Of course, people might imagine that they could try and better their circumstances by attempting to keep the law, and many people try that method. It is an expression of confidence in human ability, but it always leads to self-righteousness.

 

God gave the ten commandments to Israel at Mount Sinai. The law was given to them after they had been redeemed from Egypt, so it was not given to them in order for them to enter into a relationship with God. Their obedience to it would reflect that they were in a relationship with God, a visible announcement that they were his people. Over the centuries, the Jews assumed that they could keep the law. Yet the fact is that the law cannot be kept perfectly by sinners, no matter how diligent they are.

 

Nevertheless, God has not changed his mind about the importance of keeping his law. We are responsible to keep it, even although we cannot. In addition, God has promised to punish any disobedience of his commandments. That is where we are by nature, under the curse of the law. As Paul points out, it is a failed way of salvation and it is also a form of salvation that is not based on true faith. 

 

Instead, faith must be based on what is real and certain, and Paul points out that the divine answer is the way of redemption that God has provided. This is what we have to accept by faith. He mentions the method of redemption in verse 13 and the consequences of redemption in verse 14. The method involved Jesus becoming a curse and the consequence is that a blessing promised to Abraham in the covenant God made with him would become ours.

 

The method of redemption

Paul mentions who provided the redemption and what was the cost he would have to pay. Here he refers to Jesus by the title ‘Christ’. This title indicates that Jesus is the Messiah, the promised Deliverer who would come to rescue his people. Those promises were given gradually right from the beginning in the garden in Eden. It is interesting that all the promises are connected to divine grace, that in one way or another they belong to salvation. 

There are many predictions of the Messiah’s activities in the Old Testament. Usually, the name indicates that he is the prophet, priest and king that God would send to deal with the problem of sin. We could summarise it by saying that Jesus as prophet teaches us about salvation, as priest he provides the sacrifice, and as king he reveals the power necessary for providing salvation. 

When we consider the events of the cross, we see that the convicted criminal was instructed by Jesus about his destiny, he recognised that Jesus had a kingdom, and that the substitutionary death of Jesus was the way by which sinners like him could get there.

 

Jesus came to redeem us. Redemption presupposes that a person is imprisoned to some extent under a power that dominates and confines him. Paul tells us here that the place of imprisonment is the curse of the law – it enchains us, and we will be in chains until the penalty is paid. The One who imprisons us is God. If a person is under the curse, he is in God’s prison and cannot be set free until the penalty for his sins against God has been paid. Obviously, this is a terrible place to be and it is a place we cannot escape from by our own abilities. 

 

In this prison are all kinds of prisoners, some much worse than others, but all of them have failed to keep God’s law and are therefore under the sentence he has imposed, and they are waiting for its punishment, which is to endure his wrath forever. We are born in this prison, live in this prison and will die there unless someone can provide an arrangement whereby we can be released. Since God is the One who has placed here and done so righteously, it means that the only way we can be released is through a righteous payment. 

 

How did that occur? Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse himself. He became a curse, not in the sense that he became like us, but in that he paid the penalty for our sins. On the cross, he bore the wrath of God. Although he was not a prisoner, he went into the prison and suffered in the place of those who yet would accept his offer of mercy, as well as those who had trusted in him before he went to the cross, all those who down the centuries looked ahead to his coming.

 

We see the intensity of the distress of Jesus in the cry that he made on the cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ His forsaking was not an indication that God was absent. Rather he was present, but present in his wrath. Obviously, wrath can be different depending on the power of the person inflicting it. It would not cause much distress if the person had little power. Yet God has infinite power, and he does not have to take breaks while he is exercising it. Instead, his power will continually be at its strongest.

 

Here we see the cost of our redemption. As Peter says, ‘you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot’ (1 Pet. 1:18-19). Jesus was willing not only to become a shame and a laughingstock, but the sinbearer. He was the lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. And he did, because even as he suffered physically on the cross, his soul was bearing the fullness of divine punishment.

 

The payment was a private transaction between the Father and the Son. No one knows what the payment price was in the sense of trying to put a financial value on it. People today are wondering how the chancellor is going to repay the debt that we are in nationally because of the response to the pandemic. We find it hard to conceive the meaning of the figures mentioned. Imagine if every country’s debt was lumped together – it would be an incredible amount. Yet that total would not even be the equivalent of one per cent of the payment Jesus had to make. 

 

Responding to the Rescuer

What should be our response to this reality? As we look at the suffering Saviour, our hearts should be melted in repentance and we should turn to him in grateful faith, thanking him for going to the cross to pay the penalty on behalf of sinners. In contrast to keeping the law, which does not take us close to God, faith in Jesus brings us into the family of God. The simple, but effective personal response to the gospel is how a sinner draws near to God and discovers that the One who punished the Saviour now desires to bless those who have trusted in the crucified and risen Christ.

 

Paul’s way of describing the new position of the redeemed person is to say that he is ‘in Christ’ or ‘in Christ Jesus’. This phrase is a short way of saying that a person is united to Christ. Union with Jesus can be described in different ways. Sometimes it refers to eternal union, chosen in Christ. At other times, it describes positional union, that we are justified in Christ. And it can refer to practical union, that we experience divine blessings through him. It is this last option that is described here. In a sense, Paul is stating what it means to be a Christian.

 

What the redeemed receive

Already in Galatians Paul has spoken about the role of Abraham. Abraham was the man with whom God made a covenant in which he said that through Abraham all nations of the world would be blessed. The promise to Abraham was now being fulfilled in the church as the gospel spread around the world and people responded by believing the message of salvation that they heard.

 

When people believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to indwell them. Because he has come, we can enjoy all the spiritual blessings that the Bible indicates will belong to Christians. So how can we describe this possession of the Spirit?

 

First, we can say that he is the common blessing. By this, I mean that he indwells every Christian. There is no such person as a Christian without the Holy Spirit. His presence in them is a sign that they belong to God. Paul says in Romans 8:9 that ‘Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.’

 

Second, the Holy Spirit is a covenant blessing. We can even see this emphasis in the way that Paul describes the Holy Spirit here when he calls him the ‘promised’ Spirit. Jesus promised his disciples that they would receive the Holy Spirit, but that promise was based on an earlier one that the Father made when he promised to give the Holy Spirit to Jesus when he ascended to heaven after completing his work on the cross.

 

Third, the Holy Spirit is a constant blessing. Once he has come to indwell a believer, he never leaves that believer. It is the case that every believer will sin in numerous ways, and it is the case that every sin is offensive to the Spirit. Nevertheless, he never leaves a Christian.

 

Fourth, the Holy Spirit is the comforter, the One that Jesus promised would come to his disciples and function in their lives in the same ways that Jesus had done when he was with his disciples literally. The Spirit works in our minds and hearts through the Scriptures to give spiritual comfort to them in all kinds of situations.

 

Fifth, the Holy Spirit convicts his people when they sin. He convicted them before they became believers as he led them to Christ, and he continues to deal with the many sinful tendencies that they have after they have come to Christ. Of course, he also points them to Christ as the way by which they can have their sins forgiven.

 

Six, the Holy Spirit conforms believers to the image of Christ. They often look in the mirror of the Bible and wonder if they are being changed by the Spirit. The truth is that they are, and they are also enabled to be aware of the areas where they fall short in their lives. They are not yet perfect, but they will be in heaven, and the perfection they will have is Christlikeness.

 

Seventh, the Holy Spirit confirms to them that they are the heirs of glory. Paul reminded the Ephesians that one of the two blessings the Spirit would give would be when he acted as the earnest of the inheritance (Eph. 1:14). Sometimes, he does this by giving to them great joy whereas at other times he can do it by leading them to groan because of the trials that come their way in life.

 

All these blessings and many more should cause us to be thankful that we have been given the Holy Spirit.

 

As we close, we can rehearse the main points that we considered. First, while the law of God is good, obedience to it by sinners is impossible, which means that it cannot be the way of salvation. 

Second, instead of human ability bringing us into contact with God, it can only be realised by repentance and faith. 

Third, Jesus bore the curse due to sinners when he became the substitute of sinners on the cross. 

Fourth, when we believe in Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit and he indwells us a common blessing, a covenant blessing, a constant blessing, a comforting blessing, a convicting blessing, a conforming blessing and a confirming blessing. 

It is truly amazing that they who once were under the curse of God for breaking his law are going to be conformed to the image of his Son because he became a curse for them.