Another passage is brought in to bolster Paul’s case in verse 13 (galatians 3), namely Deuteronomy 21:23. Obviously the Israelites would have been clueless of the ultimate destiny of the words they were hearing .

Moses let them know that if they killed a criminal, who deserved death according to the law, and afterward to shame him more they hung him on a tree, that one who is hanged in this way would be considered accursed of God.

How awful to think that the One who spoke these words in heaven would one day descend to earth, descend to shame, descend to death, the death of a criminal, on a Roman tree, not already dead, but to die a slow painful death. God Himself cursed this One by the very laws of Heaven given to Moses fifteen hundred years earlier.

That curse was the price of our redemption. To redeem is to buy back. To pay a price for sin. We were in debt way over our head. He owed nothing. Yet in love He offered to pay the price we could not pay, and in so doing He incurred the wrath of God, the very curse of a holy Father.

Luther: “Christ is personally innocent. Personally, He did not deserve to be hanged for any crime of His own doing. But because Christ took the place of others who were sinners, He was hanged like any other transgressor. The Law of Moses leaves no loopholes. It says that a transgressor should be hanged. Who are the sinners? We are…

“I am told that it is preposterous and wicked to call the Son of God a cursed sinner. I answer: If you deny that He is a condemned sinner, you are forced to deny that Christ died… our sins must be Christ’s sins, or we shall perish forever.

“[God] sent His only Son into the world and said to Him, ‘You are now Peter, the liar; Paul, the persecutor; David, the adulterer; Adam, the disobedient; the thief on the cross. You, My Son, must pay the world’s iniquity.’ The Law growls… ‘He shall die on the Cross.’ And the Law kills Christ. But we go free.