What does it mean that we are redeemed from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13)?

But, blessed, thrice blessed message! "Christ has redeemed us out from the curse of the law." The word means to buy us out from the curse, just as a man, in days of old, could buy a slave out from the slave market. The word is used especially in connection with buying out slaves from their slavery to set them free. So Christ has bought us out from the curse of the law and set us free. What a price He paid! We read in chapter 1:4 that He "gave Himself for our sins," and we read in 2:20, that He "loved me and gave Himself up for me." This was the price He paid to buy us out — even "Himself." Could He have given more? "For our sakes He became poor" (see 2 Cor. 8:9); but this is even more than that: "He bought us out from the curse of the law, having become a curse on our behalf." Think, reader, what this means: The holy, spotless Son of God became a curse on our behalf! Eternity will be too short to ever fully understand all that this means.

We were hopeless to redeem ourselves. We had brought the curse on ourselves, but we had no way to escape from it. Then "Christ redeemed us out from this curse, being made a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed (is) every one hanging on a tree." Deut. 21:23. The word used for tree is sometimes translated "gallows." Christ hung on the gallows for us: this, according to the law, made Him a curse. The law had no claim against Him. The law could not curse Him. He had never broken it. He had always remained constantly in all the things written in it. But of His own voluntary will He went to the gallows for us; of His own voluntary will He became a curse to buy you and me out from the curse that lay upon us.

In verse 10 we read that we are "under the curse." Then in verse 13 we read, "Having become a curse on behalf of us." This literally is "over" or "above" us. He is made a curse "over us," and finally in the same verse, Christ has redeemed us out from under the curse. Think of the curse as a great sword hanging by a thread over my head. It may fall at any moment and destroy me. Christ came above me, between me and the sword. The sword fell on Him; He received the blow that must have taken us down to hell; He took us out from under the curse. This preposition translated "on behalf of," or "over," or "above," is really the preposition of substitution, used already in chapters 1:4 and 2:20 to show that the Lord Jesus Christ is our Substitute.

In verse 13 he closes this part of the subject, and shows that our position as Christians is entirely different. He begins with the Jew. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." It is exceedingly blessed to find that, as in 2 Corinthians 5, it is said that Christ was made sin, so here it is said that "He is made a curse for us." In Corinthians Paul is merely putting himself with the believers — he is not drawing a contrast between us and the Jew; consequently the "we" in Corinthians includes all. But here the "us" means the Jewish part of the believers; for he refers particularly and distinctly to the Gentiles afterwards — "That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ." And then he puts them all together — "that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." The "us" there is emphatic; whereas in verse 14 the word "we" is not so at all, but is used in a general way of all believers, whether Jews or Gentiles. So that the point is very plain. First, if Jews were concerned, he would say, We equally needed Christ; because we had not continued in all the things that are written in the book of the law to do them; and Christ came and redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. Then, as to you Gentiles — you who never had anything to do with the law, are you seeking to be blessed on the very ground where we can only expect cursing? The apostle quotes from Deut. 27, where we have a very striking disclosure, as has been well remarked by another. Half of the tribes were to stand upon one mountain to bless, and the other half upon another mountain to curse. But when, immediately after, the provision comes out, only the curses are mentioned, and there is no blessing at all! Why? "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse." God had spoken of the tribes being divided for blessing and cursing; but when you come to the fact, only the curses follow, and not the blessings. What a very solemn confirmation of the truth we have been looking at! God did not positively provide for any thus to get the blessing. As sure as they took legal ground, they could only get a curse; and accordingly the curses alone are heard.

The apostle, therefore, triumphantly closes this part of the subject. After coming to the full acknowledgment of the law's curse because of sin, then through the grace of God can the believer say, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." It is not merely that He has been made accursed for us, but "a curse." What could more forcibly convey how fully He identified Himself with that condition as a whole? The consequence is, that those He represented in grace are completely delivered from it; yea, and the blessing, once flowing, bursts far beyond the old channel. So he says, "As it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ." First of all, God must remove the curse out of the way; and when that was holily done for these believing Jews, the same cross of Christ overflows with mercy to the Gentiles. Christ had accomplished the work of redemption; and though its primary application was to the Jew, yet surely the efficacy and glory of it could not be hid. The blessing of Abraham comes on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ — "that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."

The marvelous revelation of the New Testament to those who, having been under the Law, had now trusted Christ, was a complete and unqualified deliverance. "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)" (v.13). The Law was not belittled: it was fulfilled at the unspeakably awful cost of the curse resting upon the holy, guiltless head of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Law demanded (or imposed) a curse. Christ has borne it in His own body on the tree, exhausting its utmost wrath and terror. Well might we, subdued and enraptured, gaze long and meditatively back upon that scene of unfathomed woe and sorrow. It was the darkest night of earth's dark history, to behold Him bearing that dreadful curse, alone, the light of God withdrawn, so that from the depths of His soul poured forth that cry, "My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?" (Mt.27:46).

Here then we learn that the only way of deliverance is by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in Galatians 3:13 we read, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree."

The curse of the broken law must be sustained; were it sustained in us we must be for ever damned. Praise God it has been sustained by One competent to do so. Our blessed Saviour has redeemed us from the curse of the broken law, and He has done so by having been crucified, thus Himself bearing the curse. This then is the only way of redemption for the Jew to whom God gave the law, and for the Gentile to whom God did not give the law, as we read in verse 14, "that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ;" in verse 13 the reference is especially to the Jew — "us;" then Christ having been made a curse — the judgment thus being borne — blessing extends in verse 14 to Gentiles, that whether Jew of Gentile "we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."

Christ bore the curse — the judgment of God for breaking the law — by being made a curse. He so completely identified Himself with the condition of those who had broken the law — let it be clearly said and emphasized, sacrificially in His being crucified — that blessing flows freely beyond all Jewish limits.

The great divide between the old dispensation and the new was when Christ appeared. Then was the "fulness of time" and the Lord Jesus came "made of a woman," i.e., really and truly Man; "made under the law," i.e. come of the chosen stock of Israel, who were by Divine appointment under law's dominion. He came under the law, not that He might keep it for us, and atone for our failure to keep it by so doing, but that He might redeem those that were under it. How He thus redeemed has been told us in verse 13 of the previous chapter. It was by "being made a curse for us," that is, by bearing the penalty which the law inflicted. This is redemption by death or by blood, after the type of Abel's offering. The idea that disobedient sinners can be redeemed by another producing the fair fruit of obedience on their behalf is more after the type of Cain's bloodless offering.

The curse which the law pronounced was a perfectly just sentence. The Jew having been placed under the law, its curse rested upon him, and it had to be righteously borne ere it could be lifted off him. In the death of Christ the curse was borne, and hence the believing Jew is redeemed from beneath it. In the days of Moses, the curse had been specially connected with the one who died as a transgressor by hanging on a tree. Many a one in ancient days, reading Deuteronomy 21:23, may have wondered why the curse was thus linked with death on a tree, as distinguished from death by any other means, such as stoning, or the sword. Now we know. In due season the Redeemer was to bear the curse for others, thus honouring the law, by hanging on a tree. It is another case of how the Scripture foresees!

These questions admit but of one answer. The death of the cross had its inner significance, not in being the punishment of a slave or of a criminal, though both of these it was, but a death of curse according to the law; and there was in this a design of God in our behalf. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, 'Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:' that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Gal. 3:13-14). Surely it is a great mistake which some have made, to suppose that this curse from God is exhausted in the mere fact of the hanging on a tree. This is only the outward sign of it in fact, the reality consisting in the attitude of God toward Him who hung there. Nor, if this be the reality, could it be imagined that this should have significance only for Israel, as those only under the law. In fact, the Gentiles are directly stated here to be partakers of the blessing flowing from this marvelous humiliation of our Lord. Here, nothing else than wrath-bearing can fulfill the meaning — terrible as it is — of being "made a curse."

Secondly, therefore, it was not for Jews alone, or those under law, that the curse of the law was borne. The words of the apostle are surely plain here: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, … that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Clearly he says that blessing could not have been for Gentiles had Christ not borne the curse of the law, and this is, as simple as possible, as soon as we see what essentially the curse is.