THE ONE TRUE GOSPEL
Meditations in the Epistle to the Galatians
Galatians 3:10-14
CURSE OF THE LAW

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THE APOSTLE Paul commences these verses with the words "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse." This is something we find almost impossible to believe. It is written deep down in our consciousness that we must be good in order to gain the favour and acceptance of God. The original covenant of God made with Adam in paradise holds sway in every human heart wherever you may go in the world. Only where the conscience, mostly seen in the more so called civilised countries, has been so blunted that there is very little consciousness of sin, is there not a sense of the fear of God and his displeasure. We are convinced the remedy to the terrible displeasure of God is that we make ourselves good enough for him to be pleased with us.

This is the remnant of the covenant made with Adam. Adam was placed on probation on behalf of all humankind. If he had not eaten of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, he would have retained God's love and favour. He would have continued in fellowship with God, and all humanity that followed would have been blessed. This covenant with Adam, which can be summed up in the words 'Do good and live; transgress and you will die' is written in every human beings consciousness. It is the only way we know of pleasing God. We cannot believe the words of the Apostle when he says that if we rely on keeping the law for life, we are under a curse. It is because of this difficulty that people find the Gospel so difficult to accept, and the reason why we think of all sorts of excuses from facing the truth about ourselves and the way of relying on the law.

In this passage Paul seeks to strip away all our confidence in the way of relying on the law for salvation, in order that we may be weaned totally away from this way, and rely instead on God's way in Christ for life and salvation.

THE MEANING OF THE CURSE

It is perhaps important in the first instant to understand what the curse means. So often we haven't got a clear conception in our minds, so that we are able to say to ourselves that the problem is not as bad as we may think, and we comfort ourselves with the thought that if the curse is exacted, it will not be very bad.

There is a verse in Deuteronomy 21 which clears our thinking. It is verse 23. This is a verse which speaks of God's rules about someone put to death for a capital crime. The instruction was that the body must not remain on the gibbet overnight. It must be buried before evening, for such capital sentence means such a person is under God's curse. The point we need to have in mind here is not the rules for the disposal of the body of this criminal, but the fact of God's curse.

When our text speaks of someone being under a curse, it means the curse of God. God is doing the cursing. This means that God is rejecting that person, and that he is judging that persons sin under pure justice, and passing eternal sentence on the sin. The curse means an everlasting decree by God of casting out of the presence of God forever. This is hell. It is to be under the just wrath of God for our sins without any hope of mercy.

It is no good to think that the curse of God is some small suffering. It does not change anything to imagine that God could not judge a person in such an eternal and irrevocable way. This is simply to put our head in the sand and refuse to face the issue. It will not save us from the curse with all its consequence. This is why the words of the Apostle in verse 10 of the scripture we are looking at is so urgent and important. It is a very serious warning, which unless we believe it, we will never seek God's mercy in the Gospel. Seeking to be right with God and gain his favour by our own efforts to keep the law of God means to suffer the curse of God.

THE REASON THAT RELYING ON THE LAW BRINGS A CURSE

Paul never makes a statement without explanation, and he gives a clear explanation here. Let us clearly understand it. He says two things. Firstly he tells that the law pronounces a curse on everyone who breaks its precepts, either in thought or deed. Secondly he tells us that God has given another way by which we are to be in his favour. Let us consider each in turn.

1. The condemnation of the law.

Paul makes it plain in verse 10 of Galatians chapter three that the law must condemn and punish every sin. When we sin just once we have ceased to continue in the law. We have broken the law and therefore we have ceased our continuing in the keeping of it. When this original covenant of works was given to Adam, it was possible for Adam to continue in the law. God created him perfectly holy, which meant that not only had Adam committed no sin when he had been created, but there was a completely holy disposition within him which desired only to obey the law. Breaking the law was unthinkable. Adam had no desire to break the law and disobey God. When Adam did in fact disobey God, this changed everything. All humanity was in Adam potentially, so Adam's action effected humanity as a whole. We are now born with all the consequences of Adam's failure. The consequence that is important in our discussion is the fact that, because of Adam's sin, we have all inherited a disposition that has a bias away from God and what is good. We are fallen beings, and we love evil rather than good. We still know that we have an obligation to be good, but our nature denies this, and causes us to turn away from the law of God.

The implications of this is far reaching. It means that it is impossible for us to keep God's law and be good as the law requires. We are not talking here about the concept of goodness in earthly terms. We may well be very good at this level, because earthly terms make concessions and calls good some lesser level of goodness. What matters here is what the law of God says is goodness, and what the law says is goodness is to commit no sin whatsoever. So if we sin once we have broken the law, however small we may imagine that sin to be.

What we can't accept is the fact that the law has nothing built into it that can show mercy. In the law there is no mercy at all. What we also fail to understand is that as the law demands perfection from us as the only condition for life, if we have sinned only once, there is nothing we can do in order to cancel that sin, and make atonement for it so that punishment is excused. There is nothing in the law we can do to make reparation for past failure. Complete keeping of the law is our duty already, so we have nothing, as it were, in the bank to pay off any debts, and there is nothing we can do to earn goodness to cancel failure.

This is why if we rely on the law for favour with God we automatically place ourselves under the sentence of the law, which is God's eternal curse of death.

2. God's word.

The second reason Paul gives for us not to rely on the law for favour with God, is the declaration of God that the only way to accepted by him is by faith. This is in verse 11. Paul points out that God has declared that "The righteous will live by faith". This means that we can only find righteousness which satisfies God by faith.

Whatever covenant God originally made with Adam before Adam sinned, is of no value once he had sinned, because that covenant was broken forever by Adam's one sin. The covenant of works had failed in Adam, and so would always be a failure from then on. This is why God made a new covenant which is that righteousness which satisfies him is obtained by faith.

THE ANSWER TO THE CURSE OF THE LAW

In the rest of our passage Paul tells us God's answer to the curse of the law and how we can be saved from the curse. If God had not made a new covenant, then the covenant of keeping the law for life would have remained obligatory upon us. We cannot but help to praise God that he has not left the first covenant as an obligation upon us, but has made a new covenant with humanity. Verses 13 and 14 are such beautiful and moving verses, which bring such wondrous comfort and security to those who know they can't save themselves by relying on their keeping of the law of God.

Never, never must we suppose that the lifting of the curse upon sinners was an easy thing to achieve. It was not simply a matter of God changing his mind and saying that now he would lower the standard. No! the curse of the law could only be removed by the law being fulfilled, and the curse being exacted for our failure. Our position under the curse of the law is like a person burdened with an enormous debt - a debt we have no means of paying. There is no escape for us in thinking that the debt can be forgiven and forgotten and written off. Such a debt cannot be forgotten or lifted. The only means of escape is by the paying of the debt. If we are to be saved, someone must be found who is able and willing to pay the debt on our behalf. Only when the debt is fully paid can we be justly released from the consequences of the debt.

The curse of the law can not be lifted unless the debt of sin to the law of God is met, and the whole perfection of the law is also fully fulfilled. This is the wondrous gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he redeemed us from the curse of the law. This means he took the curse upon himself and paid the debt due for our sin, and paid it in full. The only way the curse could be lifted was for the law, in the first instance, to be kept by another Adam; and then for that Adam to take responsibility for the failure in keeping the law for all of us, and bear the curse in our place. Paul tells us the marvellous truth that Jesus became a curse for us, and so redeemed us, paid our debt to the law, from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for us.

There is wondrous love expressed here. In our understanding of the curse which we considered earlier, this sacrifice of Jesus for us meant that God cursed him instead of cursing us. The dreadful thing about this awesome fact is not just that Jesus suffered the eternal just sentence of the law against our sin and did it in out place; but that he who had been one with the Father and dwelt in perfect love with him in eternity as the only begotten Son, in this awful curse faced the rejection of the Father, and all the wrath of God upon him. We can't in any way really understand what this meant. Jesus gives just a small expression of what it meant when he cried as he suffered the curse on the cross - My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.

For us, however, who believe it is a wonderful security and certainty. Because Jesus worked the full righteousness of the law in our place, and exhausted the punishment of the law against sin, we are redeemed forever. The debt of our sins has been paid. There is nothing for us to pay or do or earn. We have only to receive with grateful and joyful hearts. The security extends into eternity, so that no other sin we may commit after we believe ever can take this acceptance with God away from us. When Christ endured the curse for us, he was enduring the curse for our future sins, just as much as for our past sins. This must be so, because when Jesus died we had not yet been born, so in dying for us and our sins, all our sins were in the future.

The wonder and glory of this redemption is that it brings us into all the blessings of God. We are God's people, his children, and we are blessed with his life within us by the gift of his Holy Spirit. There is no blessing that we are deprived of in Christ. Heaven and much more is the blessing, and nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

CONCLUSION

What was happening in Galatia was that the Christian's there had been bewitched into believing that they still had to keep the law for salvation. They had been told that Christ had done something great for them, but they still had much themselves still to do. The tragedy of this view, which we are always being tempted to hold in some form or other is, that firstly, we dishonour Christ by saying his redemption was not complete, and we dishonour God who has declared that we are justified solely by faith in Jesus and the righteousness he has worked for us.

Secondly, we fail to see that by returning to relying on the law in anyway means we lose Christ and what he has done for us, and we return to be under the curse of the Law. There is no middle way. If we rely in any way upon our keeping of the law for our salvation we place ourselves under the curse of the Law. We have renounced Christ. If we are to be saved from the curse of the law, we must renounce our own efforts and merits, and depend in faith upon the merits of Christ alone for us.

There can be no question as to what is right and best. Only by faith alone in Christ are we secure in God's love. The law can only condemn us.