“Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.”
–Galatians 3:13.
Scripture teaches us that there
are two points of view from which we may regard Christ’s death upon the cross.
The one is the REDEMPTION OF THE CROSS: Christ dying for us as our complete
deliverance from the curse of sin. The other, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE CROSS:
Christ taking us up to die with Him, and making us partakers of the fellowship
of His death in our own experience.
In our text we have three great
unsearchable thoughts. The law of God has pronounced a curse on all sin and on
all that is sinful. Christ took our curse upon Him — yea, became a curse — and
so destroyed its power, and in that cross we now have the everlasting
redemption from sin and all its power. The cross reveals to us man’s sin as
under the curse, Christ becoming a curse and so overcoming it, and our full and
everlasting deliverance from the curse.
In these thoughts the lost and
most hopeless sinner finds a sure ground of confidence and of hope. God had
indeed in Paradise pronounced a curse upon this earth and all that belongs to
it. On Mount Ebal, in connection with giving the law, half of the people of
Israel were twelve times over to pronounce a curse on all sin. And there was to
be in their midst a continual reminder of it: “Cursed is every one that hangeth
on a tree” (Deuteronomy 21:23, 27:15-20). And yet who could ever have thought
that the Son of God Himself would die upon the accursed tree, and become a
curse for us? But such is in very deed the gospel of God’s love, and the
penitent sinner can now rejoice in the confident assurance that the curse is
forever put away from all who believe in Christ Jesus.
The preaching of the redemption
of the cross is the foundation and center of the salvation the gospel brings
us. To those who believe its full truth it is a cause of unceasing thanksgiving.
It gives us boldness to rejoice in God. There is nothing which will keep the
heart more tender towards God, enabling us to live in His love and to make Him
known to those who have never yet found Him. God be praised for the redemption
of the cross!
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