There are some false teachers who deny that Jesus was punished by God on the cross for the sins of His people, laid upon Him.
They do not appreciate Paul's teaching that God made Jesus to be sin for us.
But for them, the number one most despised text is Paul's teaching in Galatians 3:13: "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."
Paul lays down the truth that nobody can be justified by keeping the law, but rather, that the just live by faith. The law is not of faith, but blesses only those who keep it.
Thus, justification by law keeping or by faith are mutually exclusive.
So what does God do to rescue His people who are under His curse for law breaking?
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law! That means that He has made a full satisfaction for the just demands of the broken law against us.
Jesus paid the demands of God's justice against sinners. He paid off the judgment we should have been cursed with.
But how did Jesus redeem us? Paul exclaims that it was by Him being made a curse in our place, "for us."
Thus, Paul teaches, yet again, that Christ substituted Himself in our place to redeem us. He paid off our judgment, setting us free from it forever.
Paul reminds us that the law itself declared that anyone judged by hanging upon a tree, as Jesus was at Calvary, is cursed of God.
Thus, Jesus' crucifixion portrayed God's curse and the wrath He was under when He died to save us. What the cross openly displayed, the Lord Jesus was suffering under God's wrath in our place.
It was no mere technical designation, but rather the tangible physical sign of the reality of Christ accursed by God.
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John Pittman Hey was born in 1961 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Godly parents who from the beginning raised him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. With child-like faith he came to Christ on his fourth birthday at his mother's knee. He received his education at church...
