THE CURSE OF THE LAW

                                                     THE CURSE OF THE LAW

        “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.” Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:10-14).

Introduction

 Previously, we saw that people today are blessed by hearing and obeying the same gospel Abraham heard and obeyed. “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Gal. 3:6). As it was for Abraham, so it is for us. I wrote that Abraham was justified on account of the gift of faith God gave him. I’ve since come to realize that it’s possible to take this the wrong way. Why? Because many today have a wrong understanding of what faith is. So, I need to spend a moment, if I may, elaborating on this.

In the old cowboy movies, it was common to see a cowboy “rope a steer.” Faith is a lasso. God, as it were, is at one end of the rope and you are at the other. He has got hold of you, but after a fashion, you’ve also got hold of Him. This “rope” is your lifeline. It is the means by which you received the righteousness of Christ. This “rope” is called “Faith.” Faith is what connects us with God.

How are we joined to God? We are connected by a Mediator. Your faith, then, is really Christ with one hand on you and the other on God.

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        To have faith is to have Christ, which is to have HIS righteousness. Therefore, speaking chronologically, Abraham received the gift of faith before God justified him. Or to put it another way: God do not justify Abraham while he was unbeliever. He declares righteous only those who have faith in Christ and His righteousness. Faith, then, is like the telephone wire through which the transaction was made. The message down the wire is: “Abraham, now that you can hear Me, I declare you righteous!”

Faith is not something Abraham worked up within himself. If that were the case faith would be his own work. And Abraham would have been saved by his own works. Faith, then, is the umbilical cord by which we are attached to God. Christ is the lifeline and His righteousness flows through Him to us.

When we receive His righteousness through faith, then, God declares us justified in His eyes. But for the record, let’s make it clear that no one is saved simply because of they have faith. We are saved because what Christ did has been accredited to us and received by us through faith.

Abraham was justified by faith in the righteousness of Christ as revealed in the gospel. And the nations are to be saved in the same manner. They are to be justified by faith like Abraham. Abraham believed in the same gospel we today believe. That is the blessing with promise. This blessing of the gospel is now intended to be a blessing for all the nations. The blessing is that we are declared righteous through God’s gift of faith and not through our own works. This is the blessing of the Covenant God made with Abraham the father of the faithful.

And we who belong to the Gentiles (i.e., the nations) are today receiving this same blessing. This blessing is good news. It is the gospel of salvation by grace through faith not works.

Now, what we’re looking at in the following is the flipside of this. To keep on believing in Christ and His righteousness is to be blessed. It is to be under the Covenant of Grace. But not having faith is the same as not having Christ. And those without Christ are under the curse until such times as they are rescued, or, if you will, lassoed by Him.

We’ll focus our attention on a couple of things: First, the demand for your continual perfect obedience is part of the curse of the Law. And secondly, another related part of the curse is its demand that full payment be made for your imperfect obedience to the Law.

Perfection

The curse of the Law demands perfection. The trouble with this demand is that we live in an imperfect world. How can anything be done perfectly in a fallen and therefore imperfect world? Therefore, it’s not hard to see that we are cursed before we even begin. So, we need to ask the question: When did the world become an imperfect place? And all Bible scholars know that this happened when Adam sinned against God.

The world became imperfect when Adam broke the Law of God. The Law was written on mankind’s heart. It was Adam’s guide for keeping perfect obedience to God. The Law was his helper, his compass, his map, his Indian Scout. The Law was like Tonto, his good, faithful and reliable friend.

You have to admit that it would have been easier to keep the Law in a perfect world. Adam was perfect, and the world was perfect because God had made all things very good (Gen. 1:31). God had made a covenant with Adam. We call this covenant: The Covenant of Works.

Now, I want you to keep in mind that God always relates to His creation in terms of covenant. You’ll remember that we borrowed a useful definition of covenant from Charles Hodge, “A covenant is a promise suspended upon a condition.” If you keep this in mind it will help you to understand the relationship between Adam had with God in the Garden. It was covenantal. The deal was that if Adam lived perfectly by the Law, then he would receive the gift of everlasting life. In other words, the period of his probation would be over, i.e., complete. God would then have placed Adam into a new relationship with Himself. Let me once again emphasize the grace of God involved here.

God wasn’t obligated to promise Adam a thing. But, again, the relationship between God and Adam was covenantal: “If you do this, Adam, you’ll die – you’ll be cursed. But if you do this, Adam, you’ll live – you’ll be blessed!”

God is the One who sets forth the terms of the His Covenant. A covenant, then, is a promise suspended upon a condition. The condition of receiving the promise is a perfect continual upholding of the conditions of the Covenant. And the condition of the Covenant is the Law of the Covenant. Keep the Law perfectly and you will receive the promised blessing. Fail to keep the Law perfectly & you will be cursed. However, we know that Adam did not keep the Law perfectly. When he ate the forbidden fruit he broke all Ten Commandments. But he also, as it were, broke God’s heart. But even though it was smashed by Adam, The Covenant of Works still stands. But it no longer stands as our friend, but our accuser.

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        If the Lone Ranger represents Adam and Tonto represents the Law, then the Lone Ranger has turned against his faithful friend. The Law, then, became Adam’s enemy when he turned against it. And the Law became a curse to Adam because it kept on reminding him of his sin and of the judgment to come. Therefore, all his descendants, like Adam himself, want to silence the Law once and for all.

But could you imagine the Lone Ranger tying Tonto up and torturing him? It would really demonstrate that the Lone Ranger had turned evil if he were to cut Tonto in pieces strip by strip until he was dead. Yet this is what people do as they try to appease an accusing conscience. This is the warped way in which fallen man tries to prove that he is still righteous. He tortures his once faithful friend, (God’s Decalogue), in order to silence him. But the law will not be silenced even though you put it to death.

“What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10). Even from the grave the Law points its accusing finger at your sin. The Law is spiritual. It cannot be killed. Even if you were to bury it, it would still rise to judge you. Only perfect continual obedience will silence its accusations. For “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the Law, to do them.”

What had once been able to be kept in a perfect world, had now become impossible to keep. Why? Because God placed a curse on the earth from which Adam and all his descendants come. The world has become an imperfect place and each human being adds to that imperfection. Yet the demands of the Law are still the same: Perfect continual obedience. Therefore, the conditions of the Covenant of Works remain.

The Law demands continual perfect works of obedience. But, as we have noted, none of our works are perfect because we too are part of the curse. For those under the Covenant of Works, their works are as filthy rags to God. The curse of the Law then, for mankind is that it still demands perfection, a perfect life lived in obedience to God. It still demands our most perfect and continual service to God.

But fallen men continue on trying to deny and defy the spiritual Law of God. But just as is the quest for perpetual motion, they are doomed to failure. They are doomed to failure unless God removes His curse from the ground out of which we come. And the curse remains upon all who remain under the Covenant of Works. For as Paul says, “The man who does them shall live by them” (Gal. 3:12b).

Who then can keep can perfectly continue to keep the conditions of God’s Covenant in order that he may live by them? God is still demanding the same perfect obedience he required of Adam before the fall. But now it’s even worse because we have the Curse of the Covenant to contend with too. Who then is perfect enough to keep the conditions of the covenant in order that He may receive the promise of the covenant? Well, this Person would first need to fulfill the conditions God required of Adam. And He would also need to make payment for the sins of Adam and his offspring.

Do you know of anyone who would be up to this task? The Person we’re looking for would, first off need to be a man like us. But He would need to be untainted by Adam’s sin. And in order for Him to live a life of obedience, He’d need to place Himself under the Law. And if He wanted to lift the curse from us and all of creation, He would need to become the curse. Paul says, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) (Gal. 3:13).

Payment

The curse of the Law demands payment. Death is the payment for breaking the condition of the Covenant! “Adam, the day you disobey Me by eating the forbidden fruit you shall surely die!” (Gen. 2:17). The wages of sin, then, is death! (Rom. 6:23).

But God still demands to be recompensed. He needs to be reimbursed for the sinful and criminal acts committed against Him. God needs to be paid in full, and He demands that payment from every human being. Failure to meet His demands results in everlasting death – for this is how God exacts His payment. But does this mean that those who hate God will be annihilated? Not at all. But it does mean that they will spend eternity in a state of perpetual motion.

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        The Law of God will eternally point the burning finger of accusation at those in hell. And God will continue forever to extract His payment of death from those who hate Him and His Law (as summarised in the Ten Commandments). The curse of the Law will remain upon them always. They will remain condemned under the Covenant of Works forever. “There is no rest”, says the LORD, “for the wicked” (Isa. 48:22). But they will never be able to meet with the demands of the Law. This is the curse of the Law.

The only way to be free from the curse of the Law is to pay God what you owe Him. But even if you worked forever you could never make this payment. Because all your works would remain cursed works, warped. And the Law demands perfect perpetual obedience.

All of mankind is to live by the sweat of his face. He has to toil all of his days until he dies. Yet he will never be able to pay back to God the debt of obedience he owes. He has become a slave to the Law. The Law which once worked for him now works against him. Man is a slave to sin, but he is not an innocent slave.

Just as sure as sinful Cain turned round and killed his righteous brother Abel, so all of us are guilty of turning round smashing all the Commandments of God. And we all know in our consciences, somehow amends need to be made for this. And it gets worse and worse the more we are reminded of the Ten Commandments. Like the Pharisees, we think we’re doing a good job of keeping the Law, until Jesus reminds us of the spiritual nature of the Law. Even by hating someone in your heart you are as good as killing that person. And the penalty for wilfully killing someone is death.

James says, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble on one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). The Ten Commandments are not like ten windowpanes. The Law is more like a windscreen on a car. Break any portion and the whole needs to be replaced.

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        Moses climbed Mount Sinai and received the Law of God. While he was away, Israel was busy breaking the Second Commandment by making the golden calf. Deuteronomy 9:17 records what happened next: “Then I [i.e., Moses] took the two tablets [i.e., of the covenant] and threw them out of my hands and broke them before your very eyes” (Deut. 9:17). God displayed His anger through the anger of His prophet Moses The people had broken His covenant in their hearts just as Moses had smashed the tablets before their very eyes. These Tablets were the covenant of God with His people. The Lord through His prophet Hosea says, “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant, they dealt treacherously with Me” (Hos. 6:7).

To break the Law is to break God’s covenant. God’s Covenant is the righteousness of God on display. God’s Covenant is the revelation of Himself and His will. They reveal God’s character. The Ten Commandments, if you will, are written on God’s heart. The Law is the outward expression of what’s on God heart.

When Adam transgressed God’s covenant all humanity transgressed it in him. And each one of us has personally transgressed and continue to transgress that covenant. When Adam smashed that covenant our whole relationship to it changed. Therefore, a new covenant was needed because the relationship to old one has been broken. God, by His grace, began to display His righteousness in another way. By way of what we call the Covenant of Grace – which the gospel has revealed.

The revelation to man of this Covenant of Grace began right after the Fall (Gen. 3:15). The Ten Commandments given to Moses was revelation of the Covenant of Grace. However in the Covenant of Grace there is also the strong reminder of the broken Covenant of Works – as heard in Christ’s command for us to “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). We are to repent of our law-breaking and trust in the law-keeping of Christ revealed in the gospel.

The Lord had His people watch Moses break the Tablets of the Covenant of Grace in anger. This showed the people that God was angry with them for breaking the conditions of the covenant. They were far from loving God in their heart and loving their neighbour as themselves.

Now then, if the Commandments are the revelation of God’s righteousness, and the Gospel is also the revelation of God’s righteousness (eg, Rom. 1:17), then we’d have to conclude that both the Law and the Gospel reveal the exact same thing. But what the Gospel does is show us how to attain this righteousness, which is through faith in this righteousness as it is revealed in Christ. However, you need to understand that God in His wisdom left a door open. But no sinner can ever enter through this door because Adam closed it on us. The door I speak of is the perfect keeping of the Law as a Covenant of Works.

Speaking of the Works of the Law Paul says, “The man who does them [i.e., the works of the Law] shall live by them” (Gal. 3:12b). The Pharisees are proof that God hadn’t put the lock on the door. They knew it was possible for a man could receive everlasting life through the keeping of the Law. But before you form a lynch-mob and hang me from the nearest tree, listen! Where the Pharisees went wrong was in their understanding of their own righteousness. If the Law were a great oak tree, they had shaved it so much that it resembled a matchstick. Then they held up this match stick as it were the light of the world. However, only Adam, before the Fall, could have kept the Law of God perfectly and have received everlasting life. But he didn’t! No son of Adam since the fall is capable of doing this because he is a born sinner. But God made another Adam, didn’t He? Jesus Christ the Second or Last Adam.

And Paul says, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Gal. 3:13). So, Christ redeemed us from the curse. Literally He bought us out of the hands of the curse. And who did He make the payment too? You’d be surprised how many people think Christ purchased us back from the devil. But to be under the curse is simply to be sinners in the hands of an angry God; the same God who expressed His anger before the eyes of His people when Moses smashed the Ten Commandments.

And how did Christ make payment for our sins? Well, He became the curse for us, didn’t He? There’s that little verse of Scripture that has come to mean so much. Paul quotes that verse as it was written in the Septuagint which was the Hebrew Old Testament written in Koine Greek. “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Gal. 3:13b). It’s curious to note the lead up to this verse in Deuteronomy 21:23 speaks of dealing with disobedient sons. They were to be stoned by all the men of the city. And anyone who had committed a sin worthy of death was to be hanged on a tree. He was to be hanged on a tree as a thing accursed by God after he was dead. It would remind us that Adam sinned the sin worthy of death when he ate of the tree.

The sin worthy of death, the unpardonable sin, is to turn your back on Christ and His righteousness. The Galatians were on the verge of doing just that. Therefore, Paul wants to remind them once again of the righteousness revealed in the Gospel. For in the Gospel God expresses His righteous anger by breaking His only Son on a cross (Isa. 53:5). In the Gospel He smashes the curse of the Law before our very eyes. Just as surely as Moses smashed the Covenant before the eyes of the rebellious people of God, and as did Paul when he proclaimed the Gospel to the now becoming rebellious Galatians, “Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified” (Gal. 3:1).

However, when Christ became the curse, He didn’t become a sinner. A sinner is someone who breaks the commandments of God. No! Christ on the cross kept the Covenant of Works perfectly. That’s what He was doing. And because He, as well as being a Man, is the eternal God, His work stands forever. The work of Christ at Calvary was a perpetual motion. It was a perfect work done by a perfect man.

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        By His work He transferred us out of the arms of the curse of the Law and into His everlasting arms. And if you’re thinking, “Aren’t these the same arms then?”, then you’d be correct. For the blessings and the curses of the covenant are pronounced in Jesus Christ. God pronounces them upon the wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats, through Jesus Christ. As Jesus in Matthew says, “Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world... Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:34, 41).

Paul says to the Corinthians, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Christ became, not a sinner, but sin for us. And God took that SIN and, in His anger, He SMASHED it before our very eyes. Why? That we might become the “righteousness of God in Him.” Christ, then, is our righteousness, and His righteousness is revealed in the Gospel, and His righteousness is received through faith.

Christ was hung on a tree. Why? To remove the curse of the Law. The curse of the Law has been removed in Jesus Christ. Isn’t that good news? Jesus Christ removed the curse of the Law, “That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:14).

The Curse of the Law, as we have seen, was in its demand for continual perfect obedience. The Pharisees were the New Testament expression of the Law working as a curse. The Law constantly worked against them and they constantly worked against the Law. But in Jesus Christ we see the Law as it really is, i.e., our guide, our faithful friend.

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    The Ten Commandments are simply the expression of the righteous character of God. Therefore, to have the curse of the Law removed from you as to have God back as a friend. No longer is He your enemy whom you constantly fight against. Scripture calls Abraham God’s friend forever (2 Chron. 20:7b). And I don’t have to tell you how God treats His friends, do I? He blesses them and blesses them and blesses them.

The blessing of Abraham is to continue until the last day. All the nations are to hear the Gospel. And in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed in Christ. Therefore, the Gospel is the new Covenant, the Covenant of Grace, fully revealed.

We now have a new covenantal relationship with God. Instead of keeping the Law for everlasting life as it was for Adam before the Fall, now it is through faith in Christ and His righteousness. Christ has removed the CURSE OF THE LAW from us. But as we look around we see Christians acting as if Christ had removed His LAW from us. Yet the Promise throughout Scripture is that He would put His LAW in our hearts. That’s what it means to have received the promise of the Spirit. You know you have been blessed when God’s Law is your delight and not your enemy. Just as you delight in a close friend – like the Lone Ranger and Tonto. For instance, the Lord says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them” (Ezek. 36:26-27). But we see little evidence of this, and yet it remains as the promise of God. Therefore, we have a glorious and wonderful task ahead of us, don’t we?

Conclusion

It’s our great privilege to take the blessing of the Gospel to this present generation. And we have God’s own promise that He will bless all the nations. He will bless the nations by revealing to them His Law, but not as a Covenant of Works which condemns us. In the Gospel He will reveal to the nations His Law as our faithful friend – the One who guides us into the Promised Land. For the Law of God points us to Jesus Christ who kept the Law as a Covenant of Works for all who have faith in Him, and that Christ has made full payment for all our transgressions – even those of Adam.

The Condition for receiving the righteousness of Christ as revealed in the Gospel is faith. By faith and by faith alone are we justified before the eyes of God. Thus the Curse of the Law has been removed from you and me as believers.