Galatians 3:13 -  Communion’s Curse            Rev. Tim Muse    (BPC 8/12/01)

 

Note:  I give credit to Charles Spurgeon, whose own sermon on this topic helped me immensely with understanding this subject with such great clarity and with structurally organizing the sermon that follows.  

 

PREFACE

     There are many similarities in our day and the day Paul wrote this letter:

*          False Teaching is Rampant, even in the Church

*          Because there is false teaching, there is a need to examine the Scripture to see what it says concerning Salvation

*          There is a need to turn from and refute those who offer another gospel, a gospel which is “no gospel at all” and offers no true hope

*          I can say that I know the importance of the truths taught in this text because like Paul, for many years of my life, even when I was in Church & professing to be a Christian, I lived as though my own righteousness was pleasing before God; but through the work of God’s Spirit, and the truth of his word, I came to know that ANY hope in MY OWN righteousness was FALSE HOPE, and that the only true hope is not found in me (or in us), but Comes as a gracious gift from a good & loving God.

 

Let us now READ God’s Word concerning Salvation as found in Gal 3:10-14

 

PRAYER

*          Our Heavenly Father, according to your tender mercy, you have not only sent your son, but also given your word that your salvation and your son might shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, and that you might guide their feet into the path of peace.  May you reveal this salvation even this day in the hearts of those who belong to you.  May you remind us, your children, how we ought to respond, and enable us to do so, to the grace of your goodness.

*          Our Father in Heaven, you have revealed and made known your salvation and righteousness to the nations, even stating to Abraham that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed.  May that blessing be poured out here among us today, that those to whom you would contend with through your Holy Spirit might be Saved, and that we all might be prepared inwardly for participation in the sacred and communion meal.

 

SERMON

This morning I’d like for us to focus on one verse of Scripture, Gal. 3:11 which says: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’”

 

And I’d  like to being with a simple question. that demands a simple answer: What do the following questions have in common?

*          Housewife, who looks in the freezer for a tool when she wants to hang a picture

*          Older Man, who visits the dentist office when he wants to make sure certain items are left as an inheritance for his children

*          Child, who when playing hide-and-seek, peers behind the sofa/couch but does not see any of his fellow playmates

*          School Teacher, who opens the middle drawer of her desk only to discover that the red construction paper is now on the shelf

*          Baby, who begins to suck on his mother’s arm in hope of finding nourishment

*          Inmate, who goes to chaplain’s office when needs a haircut

 

Answer: In each case, the person is LOOKING IN THE WRONG PLACE to find that they need!

 

Begin there, b/c Truth: There are countless thousands (& 10/s of thousands & 100's of thousands) of sincere people just like yourself, who like yourselves attend church regularly and who read and study the Bible, but who are looking in the wrong place – they are Looking to the Law to find the righteousness they need for experiencing salvation, having peace with God, and attaining the hope of receiving eternal life.

 

The truth of the matter is:  there’s something in each one of us that tells us: We need to be good, righteous and holy to be in a right relationship with God (accepted by Him), and when we are not, then God is not satisfied, and we stand under judgment.

 

            While it’s true, the Bible never mentions one person who is rewarded for their own righteousness in keeping the standards of God’s Law, there are multitudes of people today looking to the law in order to justify themselves before God in such ways as to believe that based on their own righteousness (i.e. keeping God’s Law) they are in a right relationship with God and deserve eternal blessing

            from him.

 

But the Bible condemns that type thinking.  Gal. 3:10 “All who rely on observing the law nor (not blessed, but. are. .) under a curse. . . .”

Let me read that again: “All (100% of the people) who rely (count on) observing the law (keeping the 10 Commandments in such a way as to merit/show sufficient righteousness before God) are under a CURSE. . . “,  meaning that if apart from Christ, you think you (yourself) are keeping the Ten Commandments in such a way as to appease God and earn his blessing, then not only are you mistaken and not only do you continue to fail to meet the righteous requirements of God’s law, but you remain under a curse!

 

You see, the Law was not given to show us that we are righteous, and to determine our merit for blessing, but the opposite – it was given to legally define the standards of holiness as well as unrighteousness, and to be a measure against which our unrighteousness is revealed and proven.

 

When I served as a legal officer in the Navy and used the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice), the Military’s Law Code, how many soldiers/sailors do you think ever came to me and stated they had earned a reward for measuring up to those legal standards?  None… for they are all required to obey them all perfectly, and when they do, then they are only doing their duty.  What did I as legal officer use the UCMJ (Law) for? To hold the unrighteous sailors accountable, to prove them guilty and to determine their culpability for punishment.  You see the regulations were not given to prove the good behavior of the righteous sailors, but to be a standard by which to convince and convict the guilty. 

 

Question: Why?  Why, when we understand that that’s the purpose of the law, why, when it comes to the Ten Commandments whose laws and standard reflect God’s own holiness and righteousness and purity, why do so many people look to the law as means of obtaining and proving their own righteousness and worthiness before the Lord? 

 

If that were not enough, look at the remainder of v. 10:  “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”   God’s Law Requires Perfection!   God’s Law is a whole!

If a person breaks ANY of the Law, even the least of all the commandments, from the greater to the lesser forms, in either deed or word or even thought, then they have violated Gods Law as a whole and bring the curse of God’s law down upon themselves.

 

Some might object and say:  “Surely God will not hold us accountable for the little things”  Spurgeon puts this into perspective when he says “If it is so little, then how much more easily U could/should have avoided it.  The fact that it is so little, proves your guilt to be so much more greater!”  Rom. 3:23 states “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  Gal. 3:11 says “Clearly no one is justified. . . before God. . . by the law. . . “  The point is:   God did not give the law for us to prove our righteousness.  The Law was given that we might recognize our unrighteousness and therefore discover our need to find pardon (for past sins) as well as a new righteousness (which is found in Christ).

 

Paul says in Gal. 2:21: “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!       

 

           Spurgeon puts it well:  “When God proclaimed the law on Sinai, it was with thunders, and lightnings, and clouds and fire, and smoke, as if he would say, ‘O man, hear my law, but tremble while thou hearest it!. The law was intended, by

            its terrors, to crush every hope of self righteousness, and, by its lightnings, to scathe and demolish every tower of our own works, that we might be brought humbly to accept a finished salvation through the one almighty mediator who has magnified the law, and made it honorable, and brought in an everlasting

            righteousness wherein we stand complete in Christ, if indeed we are in him by a living faith.”

 

It is the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that brings both: righteousness and blessing; but in the law, what we find IS A CURSE!.

(That’s NOT to say the Law is bad, it IS God’s grace to us, but because of our nature, we find a curse through it because we cannot keep it)

 

With that in mind, this morning, knowing that in Adam, in our own nature apart from Christ, we all stand guilty, … I want you to consider with me: 

        I.       The Curse of the Law

            II.      The Removal of the Curse

       III.     The Purpose for its Removal

            IV.     If that Removal Belongs to us; what that means to us, and how it relates to the Lord’s Supper

 

I.  The Curse of the Law

 

Meaning of Curse in Scripture:
      Opposite of blessing
 Prov. 3:33“The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the righteous.

§          Bring Suffering & Bad Name

Num. 5:24 “He shall have the woman (woman suspected of adultery) drink the bitter water that brings a curse and this water will enter her and cause bitter suffering. ²⁵The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. ²⁶The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar;  after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. ²⁷If she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, then when she is made to drink the water that brings a curse, it will go into her and cause bitter suffering: her abdomen will sell and her thigh waste away, and she will become accursed among her people.

§          Bring Judgment and Destruction
 Num. 5:18-19 “After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. ¹⁹Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has slept with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. ²⁰But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have defiled yourself by sleeping with a man other than your husband? –²¹here the priest is to put the

woman under this curse of the oath–“may the Lord cause your people to curse and denounce you when he causes your thigh to waste away and your abdomen to swell. ²² May the water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells and your thigh wastes away.”

*          Be Defeated (Num 22:6)

*          Be Driven away (Num 22:11)

*          Shown No Favor (Jer 16:11)

*          Be Forsaken

2 Kings 21:14  “Since God’s people did not keep the whole law. . Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalem as

one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. I will forsake the remnant of my inheritance and hand them over to their enmies. They will be looted and plundered by all their foes, because they have done evil in my eyes and have provoked me to anger from the day their forefathers came out of Egypt until this day.”

 

Summary: “curse” includes Rejection (of, and by God), Sentence (resulting in Divine Judgment), and the Ruin (thereby inflicted)”

                  (Zodhiates)

 

The Bible tells us:  God’s curse is upon all those who do not completely keep his law.  This means those who are trying to keep his law, but don’t completely receive not only physical death, but eternal death (separation from God, in HELL, where the worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched).

 

           The curse doesn’t just apply to those who are socially unrighteous in this world, 
to those who murder, rape, and have filthy mouths, but to everyone of us as we stand in our own nature before God apart from His grace.  It doesn’t matter  if U are doctor, lawyer, or indian chief.  It doesn’t matter if you are trying to be good, or if you think you’re pretty good, if you’re better than those who live around you, or if others in this community think of you as a moral man.  The truth is that every one who looks to the law to confirm his own righteousness is under the curse of the Law.  Every One who lives under the law instead of under grace remains under the curse of the Law.

 

II. The Removal of the Curse

 

Gal 3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. . . .”

  I watched a World Track & Field Championship.  I saw an event between a U.S. & Cuban sprinter.  In a prior Olympic race, the runner from Cuba beat the U.S runner in the high hurdles, but in this race the U.S. runner won.  The announcer stated: “the U.S. runner (name)  redeemed himself tonight”  What did the announcer mean?  Answer - He accomplished in this race that which he had formerly been unable to achieve, for whereas before he did not personally possess and demonstrate what it took to meet the standard (to prove he was a world class champion), in this later performance, he both met the standard and proved his worthiness as a world class athlete. 

 

In a similar way, though we fail to meet the standard of God’s Law, CHRIST has met the standard for us and delivered us from our former state of unworthiness!

 

How did Christ do it? How did he REDEEM us from the law and remove the curse?

     Gal. 3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

 

When Jesus was taken to Calvary, he wasn’t just stoned and then hung on a pole in his death, but he was crucified on the cross signifying his

receiving the fullest curse of the law.

 

Here we find the Doctrine of Substitution. Of Substitution Jesus (vicariously) stood in our place and in his own body both: he became and bore the curse of the law for us in order that the curse of the law might be removed from us.  Though he was sinless and did not deserve to die, OUR sins were laid upon him, that He might take on the curse (of death by diving wrath) for us)