Jesus was cursed on the cross

JESUS WAS CURSED ON THE CROSS
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Galatians 3:13 13Christredeemed us from the curse of
the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written:
"Cursedis everyone who is hung on a pole."
New Living Translation
But Christhas rescued us from the curse pronounced
by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took
upon himselfthe curse for our wrongdoing. For it is
written in the Scriptures, “Cursedis everyone who is
hung on a tree.”
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Curse Of The Law And The Curse Of The Cross
Galatians 3:13
W.F. Adeney

I. THE LAW BRINGS A CURSE. It is not itself a curse, though it is a heavy
burden. It was not sent for the purpose of injuring us, nor, rightly obeyed,
would it cause any evil to fall upon us. It is the breach of the Law that is
followedby the curse. But we have all brokenthe Law. So long, then, as we
continue to live under the Law the curse hangs over us. Instead of hankering
after a religion of Law, as the Galatians were doing, we should regard it with
horror as for us sinners only a prelude to a fearful doom. The curse is the
wrath of God, banishment from God, death.
II. CHRIST REDEEMS FROMTHIS CURSE. This greattruth implies three
things.
1. Christians are setfree from the curse of the Law,
(1) by the free forgiveness that stays the curse from falling on those who have
incurred it in transgressing the Law; and
(2) by removal from the dominion of Law for the future, so that its
requirements no longerapply, and principles of love resulting from grace
have full sway. Obligations to righteousness are notthereby diminished, but
increased;the motive for fulfilling them, however, is no longerthe terror of a
curse, but the spontaneous devotion of love.
2. This liberation is effectedby Christ. We cannot fling off the yoke of Law
nor dispel the curse. If done at all it must be done by One mightier than us.
Hence the need of a Saviour. The gospelproclaims, not only deliverance, but a
Christ who accomplishes it.
3. The deliverance is at a cost. It is redemption. The costis Christ's endurance
of a curse.
III. CHRIST SUFFERED THE CURSE OF THE CROSS. He was not cursed
of God. It is significant that that expressionis omitted in the quotation from
the Old Testament(see Deuteronomy21:23). We have no evidence of any
mysterious spiritual curse falling upon Christ. On the contrary, we are told in
what the curse consisted. It was the endurance of crucifixion itself. That was a
death so cruel, so horrible, so full of shame, that to suffer it was to undergo a
very curse. Christ was crucified, and therefore the curse fell upon him.

Moreover, this curse is very directly connectedwith the breach of the Law by
us.
1. Deathis the penalty of transgression. Christ never deservedthis penalty of
violated Law, yet, being a man and mortal, he suffered the fate of fallen men.
2. It was man's wickedness, i.e. nothing else than man's violation of God's
Law, that led to man's rejectionof Christ and to Christ's death. The world
flung its curse on Christ. By a wonderful act of infinite mercy that act of
hellish wickednessis made the means through which the world is freed from
the curse of its own sins.
IV. CHRIST'S ENDURANCE OF THE CURSE OF THE CROSS
LIBERATES US FROM THE CURSE OF THE LAW. He freely endured the
curse. He endured it for our sakes. He became "a curse for us."
1. His endurance of the curse gave weight to his propitiatory sacrifice of
himself. This was the most extreme surrender of himself to God in meek
submission. As our Representative, he thus obtained for us Divine favour and
grace offorgiveness in answerto that most powerful intercession, the giving of
himself to a death that was a very curse rather than abandon his saving work.
2. Christ's endurance of the curse for us is the grand inducement for us to
leave the "beggarlyelements" ofLaw and devote ourselves in faith and love to
him who died fur us. - W.F.A.
Biblical Illustrator
Christ hath redeemedus from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.
Galatians 3:13
Sin and redemption
C. Clemance, D. D., J. Owen, D. D.
I. THE DIVINE EXECRATION OF SIN.

1. Under a moral government a righteous governorwill, yea, must, append
blessing to goodand cursing to evil.
2. There is a law above all human laws:
(1)In the perfectionof its nature;
(2)the extent of its application;
(3)the power of its condemnation.
3. If we have broken this law, then we are placed under a curse.
II. THE DIVINE REDEMPTION OF THE SINNER
1. Guilty men are under the curse;a guiltless one comes under it
(1)joyfully;
(2)completely.
2. The Lord Jesus Christ, then, represents our race, and for us has become a
curse.
(1)He was of such dignity that He could representit;
(2)His act was spontaneous;
(3)He was appointed of the Father;
(4)foreseeing the result of His work He rejoicedto do it (Isaiah 53:11;
Hebrews 13:1, 2).
3. By bearing the curse on Himself He bore it off from us.
4. The curse being thus rolled away, the wayis prepared for the coming of the
blessing.
5. The blessing comes to those who repent and believe.
(C. Clemance, D. D.)

I. THE CURSE OF THE LAW CONTAINED ALL THAT WAS DUE TO
SIN.
II. THIS BELONGED TO US.
III. IT WAS TRANSFERRED TO CHRIST. His hanging on a tree was the
sign and tokenof this (Deuteronomy 21:23 cf.; 1 Peter2:24).
IV. THIS SECURES FOR ALL BELIEVERS THE BLESSING OF
FAITHFUL ABRAHAM.
1. An interest in Christ.
2. Righteousness.
3. Acceptance with God.
(J. Owen, D. D.)
The necessityfor Christ's bearing our curse
T. Manton.
The sentence orcurse of the law must not fall to the ground, for then the aid
of God's governing the world could not be secured;His law would seemto be
given in jest, and His threatenings would be interpreted to be a vain
scarecrow, andthe sin of the creature would not seemso odious a thing, if the
law might be broken and there were no more ado about it; therefore Christ
must come to bear this curse.
(T. Manton.)
Deliverance firm the curse through Christ
James Ferguson.

1. The threatenings of the law, denouncing a curse againstthose who yield not
personalobedience to it, did not exclude or forbid a surety to come in the
sinner's room, and to undergo the curse due to him.
2. All men are by nature under the sentence ofthe law's curse, whereby in
God's justice they are under the power of darkness (Colossians 1:13), slavery
and bondage to sin and Satan (Ephesians 2:2), so to remain until they be cast
into utter darkness (Jude 1:13), except delivery and redemption intervene.
3. There is no delivery of enslavedman from this woefulbondage, but by
giving satisfactionand by paying of a price for the wrong done to Divine
justice, either by himself, or by some surety in his stead. Satisfactionis
demanded by
(1)God's fidelity (Genesis 2:17);
(2)His righteous nature (Psalm 11:6, 7);
(3)the inward desertof sin (Romans 1:32).
4. It is not in the power of fallen man to acquire a ransom for himself, by
anything he caneither do or suffer.
5. Jesus Christhas undertaken and accomplishedthis greatwork.
6. This work is to "redeem." Christ buys back what was once His own, but for
a time lost.
7. It is a real redemption, all that was forfeitedbeing restored.
8. The price paid by Christ, in order to our redemption, was no less than His
undergoing the curse due to us.
(James Ferguson.)
Christ made a curse for us
C. H. Spurgeon.

The apostle here unveils a reasonwhy men are not savedby their personal
righteousness, but by their faith. He says the reasonis, that men are not saved
now by any personalmerit, but their salvationlies in another, viz., in Christ
Jesus, the Representative Man, who alone can deliver from the curse of the
law; and since works do not connectus with Christ, but faith is the uniting
bond, faith becomes the wayof salvation. Since faith is the hand that lays hold
upon the finished work of Christ, which works couldnot and would not do,
for works leadus to boast and to forgetChrist, faith becomes the true and
only way of obtaining justification and everlasting life. Let us try to
understand more clearly the nature of His substitution, and of the suffering
which it entailed upon Him.
I. WHAT IS THE CURSE OF THE LAW HERE INTENDED?
1. It is the curse of God. Godwho made the law has appended certain penal
consequencesto the breaking of it; and the man who violates the law becomes
at once the subjectof the wrath of the Lawgiver. Hence it must be
(1)supremely just;
(2)morally unavoidable;
(3)most weighty.
2. It is a sign of displeasure. God is angry with the wickedeveryday: His
wrath towards sin is great.
3. God's curse of something more than a threatening; He comes at length to
blows. He uses warning words at first, but sooneror later He bares his sword
for execution. Cain. Flood. Sodom.
II. WHO ARE UNDER THE CURSE?
1. The Jewishnation. To them the law of God was very peculiarly given
beyond all others.
2. All nations. The law, although not given to all from Sinai, has been written
by the finger of Godmore or less legibly upon the conscienceofall mankind.

3. Those who, when offered the gospel, prefer to remain under the law
(Galatians 3:10). All that the law of works cando for men is to leave them still
accursed.
III. How was CHRIST MADE A CURSE FOR US?
1. By substitution. Christ was no curse in Himself. Of His own free will He
became a curse for us.
2. All the sins of His people were actually laid upon Him. He endured both
(1)the penalty of loss;and
(2)the penalty of actual suffering, both
(a)in body and
(b)in soul.It was an anguish never to be measured, an agonynever to be
comprehended. To God only were His griefs fully known. Well does the Greek
liturgy put in, "Thine unknown sufferings," for they must for ever remain
beyond guess ofhuman imagination. BeholdChrist bearing the curse instead
of His people. Here He is coming under the loadof their sin, and God does not
spare Him, but smites Him as He must have smitten us, lays His full
vengeance onHim, launches all His thunderbolts againstHim, bids the curse
wreak itself upon Him, and Christ suffers all, sustains all.
IV. THE BLESSED CONSEQUENCES OF CHRIST'S HAVING THUS
BEEN MADE A CURSE FOR US.
1. We are redeemedfrom the curse. The law is silenced; it candemand no
more. The quiver of wrath is exhausted.
2. The blessing of God, hitherto arrestedby the curse, is now made most freely
to flow. A greatrock has been lifted out from the river-bed of God's mercy,
and the living streamcomes rippling, rolling, swelling on in crystal tides,
sweeping before it all human sin and sorrow, and making the thirsty who
stoopdown to drink at it.
(C. H. Spurgeon.)

The nature of our redemption
Hodge.
Redemption being deliverance by means of the substitution of a ransom, it
follows that, although the ransom can only be paid to God, and to Him only as
the moral governorof the universe, we may still be said to be redeemedfrom
all that we are delivered from by means of the ransom paid in the sacrifice of
Christ. Thus we are said to be redeemedfrom
(1)our vain conversation(1 Peter1:18);
(2)death (Hosea 12:14);
(3)the devil (Colossians 2:15);
(4)all iniquity (Titus 2:14);
(5)the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13; Galatians 4:5).It is, of course, not
meant that the ransom is paid to the devil, or to sin. or to death, or to the law.
These different conceptions are not inconsistent. A captive is redeemedby a
price paid only to him that holds him in bondage, but by the same acthe may
be redeemed from labour, from disease, from death, from the persecutionof
his fellow-captives,and from a slavish disposition.
(Hodge.)
The two curses
Bishop Chris. Wordsworth., M. B. Riddle, D. D.
Two curses pronounced in the law are here referred to. All mankind was
liable to the former one. How was it to be removed?
1. He who was to remove it must not Himself be liable to it. He who was to be
a substitute for the guilty must Himself be innocent. He who was to suffer in
the steadof the disobedient must Himself be obedient in all things.

2. He who was to be the substitute for all must have the common nature of all.
He must not take the personof one individual man (such as Abraham, Moses,
Elias), but He must take the nature of all, and sum up all mankind in Himself.
3. He who was to do more than counterbalance the weight of the sins of all,
must have infinite merits of His own, in order that the scale ofDivine justice
may preponderate in their favour. And nothing that is not Divine is infinite. In
order, therefore, that He may be able to suffer for sin, He must be human;
and in order that He may be able to take awaythe sins, and to satisfy God's
justice for them, He must be Divine.
4. In order that He may remove the curse pronounced in the law of God for
disobedience, He must undergo that punishment which is especiallydeclared
in the law to be the curse of God.
5. That punishment is hanging on a tree (Deuteronomy 21:23).
6. By undergoing this curse for us, Christ, He who is God from everlasting,
and who became Emmanuel, God with us, God in our flesh, uniting together
the two natures — the Divine and the human — in His one person— Christ
Jesus, redeemedus from the curse of the law. Thus, having acceptedthe curse,
He liberated us from it.
(Bishop Chris. Wordsworth.)Christstoodfor the "every one who continueth
not," by becoming the "very one" who hung upon the tree.
(M. B. Riddle, D. D.)
The satisfactionofChrist
John Flavel.
1. The believer's discharge. The law of God hath three parts, commands,
promises, and threatenings or curses. The curse of the law is its condemning
sentence, wherebya sinner is bound over to death, even the death of soul and
body. The chain, by which it binds him, is the guilt of sin, and from which
none can loose the soul but Christ. This curse of the law is the most dreadful

thing imaginable; it strikes at the life of a sinner, yea, his best life, the eternal
life of the soul; and when it hath condemned, it is inexorable, no cries nor
tears, no reformations or repentance, canloose the guilty sinner: for it
requires for its reparation that which no mere creature can give, even an
infinite satisfaction. Now fromthis curse Christ frees the believer; that is, He
dissolves the obligationto punishment, cancels the hand-writing, loosesall the
bonds and chains of guilt, so that the curse of the law hath nothing to do with
him for ever.
2. We have here the way and manner in and by which this is done; and that is
by a full price paid down, and that price paid in the room of the sinner, both
making up a complete and full satisfaction. He pays a full price, every way
adequate and proportionable to the wrong.
3. The nature of Christ's satisfaction.(1)It is the act of God-man; no other was
capable of giving satisfactionfor an infinite wrong done to God. But by reason
of the union of the two natures in His wonderful person, He could do it, and
hath done it for us.(2)If He satisfy Godfor us, He must presentHimself
before God, as our Surety, in our stead, as well as for our good;else His
obedience had signified nothing to us: To this end He was made under the law
(Galatians 4:4), comes under the same obligationwith us, and that as a
Surety, for so He is called(Hebrews 7:22). Indeed, His obedience and
sufferings could be exactedfrom Him upon no other account. It was not for
anything He had done that He became a curse.(3)The internal moving cause
of Christ's satisfactionfor us was His obedience to God, and love to us. That it
was an act of obedience is plain from Philippians 2:8, "He became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross."(4)The matter of Christ's satisfaction
was His active and passive obedience to all the law of God required.(5) The
effectand fruit of this His satisfactionis our freedom, ransom, or deliverance
from the wrath and curse due to us for our sins. Such was the dignity, value,
and completeness ofChrist's satisfaction, that in strict justice it merited our
redemption and full deliverance; not only a possibility that we might be
redeemedand pardoned, but a right whereby we ought to be so. We pass on to
STATE SOME OBECTIONS,and to answerthem. The doctrine of Christ's
satisfactionis absurd, for Christ (say we) is God; if so, then God satisfies
Himself, than which what can be more absurd to imagine? I answer, God

cannot properly be said to satisfy Himself; for that would be the same thing as
to pardon, simply, without any satisfaction. But there is a twofold
considerationof Christ; one in respectof His essenceand Divine nature, in
which sense He is the objectboth of the offence, and of the satisfactionmade
for it. Another in respectofHis person and economy, or office;in which sense
He properly satisfies God, being in respectof His manhood another, and
inferior to God (John 14:28). The blood of the man Christ Jesus is the matter
of the satisfaction;the Divine nature dignifies it, and makes it of infinite value.
2. If Christ satisfiedby paying our debt, then He should have endured eternal
torments; for so we should, and the damned shall. We must distinguish
betwixt what is essential, and what is accidentalin punishment. The primary
intent of the law is reparation and satisfaction;he that canmake it at one
entire payment (as Christ could and did) ought to be discharged. He that
cannot (as no mere creature can) ought to lie for ever, as the damned do,
under sufferings.
3. If God will be satisfiedfor our sins before He pardon them, how then is
pardon an act of grace? Pardoncould not be an actof pure grace, if God
receivedsatisfactionfrom us; but if He pardon us upon the satisfaction
receivedfrom Christ, though it be of debt to Him, it is of grace to us: for it
was grace to admit a surety to satisfy, more grace to provide Him, and most of
all to apply His satisfactionto us, by uniting us to Christ, as He hath done.
4. But God loved us before Christ died for us; for it was the love of God to the
world that moved Him to give His only-begotten Son. Could God love us, and
yet not be reconciledand satisfied? God's complacentiallove is indeed
inconsistentwith an unreconciled state:He is reconciledto every one He so
loves. But His benevolent love, consisting in His purpose of good, may be
before actual reconciliationand satisfaction.
5. Temporaldeath, as well us eternal, is a part of the curse;if Christ have
fully satisfiedby bearing the curse for us, how is it that those for whom He
bare it die as well as others? As temporal death is a penal evil, and part of the
curse, so God inflicts it not upon believers;but they must die for other ends,
viz., to be made perfectly happy in a more full and immediate enjoyment of

God, than they can have in the body; and so death is theirs by wayof privilege
(1 Corinthians 3:22). They are not death's by wayof punishment. The same
may be said of all the afflictions with which God, for gracious ends, now
exercisedHis reconciledones. Thus much may suffice to establishthis great
truth. We proceedto make the following INFERENCES:
1. If the death of Christ was that which satisfiedGod for all the sins of the
elect, then certainly there is an infinite evil in sin, since it cannot be expiated,
but by an infinite satisfaction. Foolsmake a mock at sin, and there are but few
souls in the world that are duly sensible of, and affectedwith its evil; but
certainly, if God should damn thee to all eternity, thy eternal sufferings could
not satisfyfor the evil that is in one vain thought.
2. If the death of Christ satisfiedGod, and thereby redeemedthe electfrom
the curse, then the redemption of souls is costly; souls are dear things, and of
greatvalue with God.
3. If Christ's death satisfiedGod for our sins, how unparalleled is the love of
Christ to poor sinners!
4. If Christ, by dying, hath made full satisfaction, then God is no loserin
pardoning the greatestofsinners that believe in Jesus;and consequently His
justice canbe no bar to their justification and salvation. He is just to forgive
us our sins (1 John 1:9). What an argument is here for a poor believer to plead
with God!
5. If Christ hath made such a full satisfactionas you have heard, how much is
it the concernmentof every soul, to abandon all thoughts of satisfying God for
his ownsins, and betake himself to the blood of Christ, the ransomer, by faith,
that in that blood they may be pardoned? It would grieve one's heart to see
how many poor creatures are drudging and tugging at a task of repentance,
and revenge upon themselves, and reformation, and obedience, to satisfy God
for what they have clone againstHim: And alas!it cannotbe, they do but lose
their labour; could they sweltertheir very hearts out, weep till they can weep
no more, cry till their throats be parched, alas, they can never recompense
God for one vain thought. Forsuch is the severity of the law, that when it is

once offended, it will never be made amends again by all that we cando; it
will not discharge the sinner, for all the sorrow in the world.
(John Flavel.)
Suffering, redemption, blessing
Richard Nicholls.
I. THE SUFFERINGSOF CHRIST. He was made a curse. Upon Him rested,
for a season, the wrath of God.
1. This was the bitter experience of His life. From His standpoint of perfect
rectitude and purity, He saw how far men had wandered from God, and how
deeply they had fallen in sin.
2. This was the agonyof His death. Man's hatred to God culminated in the act
that put Christ to death.
3. That Christ endured such suffering, being made a curse, was evident from
the peculiar manner of His death. "As it is written, cursedis every one that
hangeth on a tree."
II. REDEMPTION BYCHRIST. "He hath redeemedus from the curse of the
law, being made a curse for us."
III. BLESSING THROUGHCHRIST. In this blessing is included —
1. Salvationfor the Gentiles, "Thatthe blessing of Abraham might come on
the Gentiles through Jesus Christ."
2. Blessing through Christ included the "promise of the Spirit."Lessons:
1. Christ the sufferer must be Christ the Redeemer.
2. The blessings of salvationare to be obtained in Christ (ἐν Χριστῷ). There
must be fellowship with Christ.
3. Salvationbecomes an actualand personalblessing through the ministration
of the Spirit.

(Richard Nicholls.)
Christ made a curse for man
From Miss Yonge's "Book ofGolden Deeds."
A man pays a ransom for slaves;but Christ took the slave's place. A doctor
gives medicine to a sick man; but Christ "took the disease onHimself." We
are told of SisterDora "that she was in the habit of bringing back to life
patients who had sunk into the first stage ofthe fatal collapse whichoften
precedes deathfrom small-pox, by actually putting her mouth to theirs, and
breathing into them, until vitality was restored." ("SisterDora,"by M.
Lonsdale.)St. Vincent do Paul was at one time almoner-generalto the prison
ships in the chief harbours of France, during the reign of Louis XIII. "While
visiting those at Marseilles, he was so much struck by the broken-downlooks
and exceeding sorrowfulnessofone of the convicts, that, on discovering his
sorrow was less for his own sake than for the misery to which his absence
must needs reduce his wife and children, St. Vincent absolutelychanged
places with the convict. The prisoner went free, whilst St. Vincent wore a
convict's chain, did a convict's work, lived on convict fare, and, worstof all,
had only convictsociety. He was soonsought out and released, but the hurts
he had receivedfrom the pressure of the chains lasted all his life .... After this
St. Vincent workedwith infinitely more force on the consciencesofthe
convicts for having been for a time one of themselves."
(From Miss Yonge's "BookofGolden Deeds.")
Our redemption by Christ
E. Hopkins, D. D.
This curse is the wretchedinheritance of all the guilty sons of Adam. And can
there any, in this forlorn and desperate ease,interpose to shelterthe
trembling sinner from so great, so deserved, so imminent a destruction? Is
there any way of escape,any door of hope opened? There is; for, behold! I this

day bring unto all penitent and humble souls the glad tidings of greatjoy; joy
which, if excess offear and horror have not altogetherstupefiedand made us
insensible, must needs fill us with the highest raptures of triumph and
exultations. A Saviour, a Redeemer:O sweetand precious names, for lost and
undone sinners! Names, full of mercy, full of life! Justice is answered;the law
is satisfied;the curse removed; and we restoredto the hopes of eternal life and
salvation. "Christ hath redeemedus," etc.
I. JESUS CHRIST, THE EVER-BLESSED GOD,WAS MADE A CURSE
FOR US.
1. What it is to be made a curse. Now to be accursed, in its proper notion,
signifies to be devotedto miseries and punishments; for we are said to curse
another when we devote and, so far as in us lies, appoint him to plagues and
miseries. And God is said to curse men when He doth devote and appoint
them to punishments. Men curse by imprecation; but God curseth more
effectually by ordination and infliction. But yet, notwithstanding, every one
whom God afflicts must not be esteemedas cursedby Him. Every one,
therefore, that is afflicted is not presently accursed. ForGodhath two ends
for which He brings any affliction upon us. The one is the manifestation of His
holiness;the other is the satisfactionofHis justice. And accordinglyas any
affliction or suffering tends to the promoting of these ends, so it may be said to
be a curse or not.
2. How Jesus Christ, who is God blessedfor ever, could be made a curse or
become accursed. This, at the first glance of our thoughts upon it, seems very
difficult, if not impossible, to be reconciled. And the difficulty is increased,
partly because the true faith acknowledgethour Lord Jesus Christto be the
true God, blessedfor ever; and partly because the apostle tells us, "Thatno
man, speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth. Jesus accursed"(1 Corinthians
12:3).(1) Then certainit is that Christ is essentiallyblessed, being the most
blessedGod, co-equaland co-eternalwith the Father, possessing allthe
infinite perfections of the Deity, invariably and immeasurably. Yea, and He is
the fountain of all blessing, whence flow all our hopes and happiness. But
although He is for ever blessedessentially, yet,(2)Mediatorily, He was
accursed;and that because the economyand dispensation of His mediatory

office required that tie should be subjectedunto sufferings, not only as they
were simply evil, but as they were penal, and inflicted on Him to this very end,
that justice might be repaired and satisfied.(3)But the curse of the law being
only duo unto sin and guilt, it remains yet to be inquired how this curse could
be justly inflicted on our Saviour, who was infinitely pure and innocent; and
to whom the Scripture gives this testimony, that He did no sin, neither was
guile found in His mouth (1 Peter2:22). To this I answer:That sin may be
con. sidered either as personalor imputed.
(a)Christ was free from all personalsin, whether of corruption of nature or
transgressionof life.
(b)Yet He was not free from all imputed sin and guilt. The sins of all the world
assembledand met togetherupon Him.
3. Is it consistentwith the justice of God to punish an innocent person for the
sins of those that are guilty? To this I answer:(1) In general, that it is not
unjust for God to punish the sins of one person upon another who hath not
committed them. We find frequent instances of this in the Scripture (Exodus
20:8; Lamentations 5:7; Genesis 9:25;2 Samuel21:1-14;2 Samuel 24:17).(2)
It is just with God to inflict the punishment of our sins upon Christ, though
innocent. And there are two things upon which this justice and equity are
founded — conjunction and consent.[1]There is a near conjunction between
Christ and us, upon which accountit is no injustice to punish Him in our
stead. And this conjunction is twofold-eithernatural or mystical.1st. There is
a natural conjunction betweenus, as Christ is truly man, and hath taken upon
Him our nature, which makes a cognationand alliance betweenus. We are
bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh. It was therefore necessarythat Christ
should take our nature upon a threefold account.(1st)Thatthereby the same
person, who is God, might become passive, and a fit subjectto receive and
bear the wrath of God; for had He not been man, He could not have received
it; and had He not been God, He could not have borne it.(2ndly) That
satisfactionmight be made to offended justice in the same nature which
transgressed;that as it was man which sinned, so man also might be punished.
And yet farther,(3rdly) that the right of redemption might be in Christ, being
made near of kin unto us, by His taking our flesh and our nature. For we find

in the law that the person who was next of kin was to redeem to himself the
lands of his relations, when they were fallen to decay, and constrainedby
poverty to sell them (Leviticus 25:25; Ruth 3:12; and 4:4). Whereby was
typified unto us our redemption by Jesus Christ, who, having a body prepared
for Him, is now become near of kin unto us, and is not ashamed to callus
brethren. Now, because ofthis natural conjunction, the transferring the
punishment from us, who are guilty, unto Christ, who is guiltless, doth, at
leastin this respect, answerthe rules and measures of justice; that although
the same personbe not punished, yet the same nature is. But this is not all, for
—2ndly. There is a nearer conjunction betweenChrist and us, and that is
mystical, whereby we are made one personwith Him. And by reason of this,
God, in punishing Christ, punisheth not only the same nature, but the same
person. For there is such an intimate union by faith between Christ and a
believer, that they make up but one mystical person.[2]As Christ is thus
conjoinedto us, both naturally and mystically, so He has also given His full
consentto stand in our stead, and to bear our punishment.
4. Did Christ bear the same wrath and curse which were due to us for our
sins, or some other punishment in lieu thereof? For answerto this, we must
carefully distinguish betweenthe substance ofthe curse and the adjuncts and
circumstances ofit. Forwant of rightly distinguishing betweenthese, too
many have been woefully staggeredand perverted in their faith; and have
been induced to believe that Christ died not in the steadof any, but only for
the goodof all, as the Socinians blaspheme. Now certainit is that Christ
underwent the very same punishment, for the matter and substance ofit,
which was due to us by the curse and threatening of the law, though it may be
different in very many circumstances andmodifications, according to the
divers natures of the subjects on whom it was to be inflicted. For the
substance of the curse and punishment threatened againstsinners is death.
"In the day that thou eatestthereofthou shalt surely die."
5. Forwhose sake was Christthus accursedand punished?(1) He died in our
place and steadas a Ransomfor us.(2) He suffered our punishment to free us
from it.

II. CHRIST BEING THUS MADE A CURSE FOR US, AND SUFFERING
ALL THE WRATH AND PUNISHMENT THAT WAS DUE UNTO US,
HATH THEREBYREDEEMED US FROM THE CURSE AND
CONDEMNATION THREATENEDIN THE LAW.
1. Let us considerwhat redemption is. Redemption, therefore, may be taken
either properly or improperly. An improper redemption is a powerful rescue
of a man from under any evil or danger in which he is. Thus Jacobmakes
mention of the angelwhich redeemed him from all evil (Genesis 48:16);and
the disciples profess that they hoped that Jesus had been He who should have
redeemedthe Israelites from under the Roman yoke and subjection, etc. A
proper redemption is by paying a price and ransom. And that either fully
equivalent: thus one kinsman was to redeemanother out of servitude
(Leviticus 25:49, 50);or else what is given for the redemption of another may,
in itself, be of a less value, but yet is acceptedas a recompense and
satisfaction:thus the first-born of a man was to be redeemed, and the price
paid down for him no more than five shekels (Numbers 18:15, 16). Now the
redemption made for us by Christ is a proper redemption, by way of price;
and that price, not only reckonedvaluable by acceptation, but, in itself, fully
equivalent to the purchase, and compensatoryto Divine justice.
2. The reasons which moved God to contrive the method of our redemption by
substituting His own Sonto bear the punishment of our offences.(1)God
substitutes His Son to undergo our punishment that thereby the exceeding
greatness ofHis love towards us might be expressedand glorified.(2) In the
sufferings of Jesus Christ, God manifests the glory both of His justice and
mercy, and with infinite wisdomreconciles them one with the other.(3) By this
means also Godmost effectually expresses His infinite hatred and detestation
of sin. For it is expedient that God should, by some notable example, show the
world how provoking a thing sin is. It is true He hath already demonstrated
His hate againstit by ruthful examples upon all the creatures. As soonas ever
the leastbreath of this contagion seizedupon them, God turned the angels out
of heaven, and man out of Paradise;He subjectedthe whole creationunto
vanity, that nothing but fears, care, sorrow, anddisappointment reign here
below; and under these woefuleffects of the Divine wrath we groanand sign
awayour days. But all these are but weak instances ofso greatand almighty a

wrath; and their capacityis so narrow, that they can only contain some few
drops of the Divine indignation, and those, likewise, distilled upon them by
degrees and succession. And, therefore, Godis resolved to fit a vessellarge
enough, a subject capable enough, to contain the immense oceanof His wrath;
and because this cannot be in any finite and limited nature, God Himself must
be subject to the wrath of God.(4) God so severelypunisheth His Son that the
extremity of His sufferings might be a cautionto us, and affect us with a holy
dread and fear how we provoke so just and so jealous a God. Forif His own
Son, dear to Him as His ownessence, couldnot escape,whenHe only stoodin
the place of sinners, how thinkest thou, O wretch! to escape the righteous
judgment of God if thou continuestin thy sins and provocations?
3. Who the persons are for whom Jesus Christhas wrought out this great
redemption.(1) That Christ died for all men, with an absolute intention of
bringing all and every one of them into a state of salvability; from the which
they were excluded by their guilt and God's righteous judgment, and that He
is not frustrated in this His intention, but, by His death, hath fully effected
and accomplishedit.(2) The secondargument is this: The covenantof grace is
propounded to all indefinitely and universally. (Mark 16:16)"Whosoever
believeth shall be saved." And, under these generalterms, it may be
propounded unto all, even the most desperate and forlorn sinners on earth.
But if Christ had not died for all, as well for the reprobate as the elect, this
tender could not be made to all, as our Saviour commands it to be (v. 15), "Go
ye into all the world and preach the gospelto every creature."(3)It must
needs be acknowledgedthat Christ died for all men, in such a sense, as He is
denied to have died for the fallen angels;then His death was not only a
sufficient, but an intended, ransom for all. For the death of Christ had
sufficient worth and value in it to have redeemed and restored them, being an
infinite price, through the infinite dignity of His person.(4)All are bound to
the greatduty of believing in Christ; therefore He died for all.(5) All men in
the world are obligedto return gratitude and obedience unto Christ upon the
accountand considerationofHis death; therefore His death had a respectto
all (See 1 Corinthians 6:20; 2 Corinthians 5:15).(6)Christ challenges unto
Himself supreme authority and dominion over all by the right of His death
(Romans 14:9). But if Christ's authority over all, as Mediator, be founded on

His death, it will follow that, as His authority is over all, so His death was for
all; otherwise He must exercise His jurisdiction over those persons over whom
He hath no right nor title.
III. PRACTICAL INFERENCESAND COROLLARIES.
1. Be exhorted to admire and adore the infinite love of our Lord Jesus Christ
towards fallen and undone mankind, in that He was pleasedto substitute
Himself in our stead, and, when the hand of justice was lifted up againstus, to
thrust Himself betweenus and the dread effects of the Divine wrath, receiving
into His own bosom all the arrows of God's quiver, every one of them dipped
in the poisonof the curse(1)Considerthe infinite glory and dignity of our
Lord Jesus Christ.(2)Consider our infinite vileness and wretchedness.(3)The
infinite love of Christ, in being made a curse for us, is mightily glorified, if we
consider, not only what He was, and who we are, but the severalbitter and
direful ingredients that compounded the curse which was laid upon Him.
2. If Christ has thus borne the curse for us, why should we think it much to
bear the cross forHim?
3. Here is abundant satisfactionmade to the justice of God for all the
transgressions oftrue believers. They, by their Surety, have paid to the full,
yea, and supererogatedin His sufferings. For God could never have been so
completely satisfiedin exacting the penalty from us in our own- persons as
now He is by the punishments laid upon His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
For those very sufferings of thy Saviour, which were an expiation for the sins
of the whole world, were all of them tendered to the Father as an expiation for
thine, and the full value of His infinite satisfactionbelongs allof it entirely
unto thee. And, therefore, look upon thy sins as horrid and heinous as thou
canst;yet, unless thine in particular have been more than the sins of all the
world, unless thine have been more sinful than sin itself canbe, know, for thy
comfort, that a full atonement is made, and now nothing is expectedfrom thee
but only to accept, it, and to walk worthy of it.
(E. Hopkins, D. D.)

The substitute
Dr. Guthrie.
One of our boys had committed an offence so bad that Mr. Gibb, his teacher,
though rarely using the rod, felt it necessaryto make an example of him. The
punishment .was to be publicly inflicted, "that others might fear." But when
the culprit, who had only been a few days in our school, was stripped, he was
such a living skeleton, that the master had not the heart to beat him. At his
wit's end what to do — for the crime must be punished — it occurred to him
to make such an appealas, to compare small things to great, reminds us of the
mystery of salvation, and the love of Him who "was wounded for our
transgressions, andbruised for our iniquities, and by whose stripes we are
healed." Turning to the others, "It goes,"he said, "againstmy heart to lay a
hand on that miserable creature. Will any one take his place, and be punished
in his stead?" The words bad hardly left his lips when, with tears of pity
brimming in his eyes, a boy steppedbravely out, pulled his jacketoff, and
pushing the culprit aside, offered his own back and shoulders to the rod. A
raggedschoolboy, he was a hero in his way, presenting an example of courage
and kindness, of sympathy and unselfishness, rare in schools — or anywhere
else.
(Dr. Guthrie.)
Christ our substitute
W. Birch.
Damon, a Grecianphilosopher, is remarkable for his devotion to Pythias, his
friend. Pythias having been condemned to death, he obtained leave of absence
to go home and settle his affairs, and Damon pledged himself to endure the
punishment if his friend did: not return. Pythias was absentat the time for the
execution, but Damonwas punctual, and ready to die for his friend, and the
king was so pleasedwith the friendship of Damon that he pardoned him.
(W. Birch.)

Enduring the curse for another
From, The Yorkshire Post
"About a fortnight ago a man was admitted to the BristolRoyal. Infirmary,
suffering from an affectionof the throat, supposedto be diphtheria. The
operationof tracheotomywas performed by Mr. W. C. Lysaght, M.R.C.S.,
assistantmedicalofficer to the Infirmary; but the tube becoming choked, the
last chance of saving the man's life was for some one to apply his lips to the
tube and suck the moisture. This Mr. Lysaght did, but without avail, for
shortly afterwards the patient died of suppressedscarlatina. Mr. Lysaght
caught the disease in its worse form, and died."
(From "The Yorkshire Post," Aug. 6, 1887.)
Christ made a curse
C. G. Brown, D. D.
I. "CHRIST MADE A CURSE." Firstof all, I lay down this position as
certain (howeverunlikely it might have seemedto us beforehand:), that the
curse which the apostle speaks ofis the curse of God. True, there was no lack
of the cursing of this blessedOne, in a secondarysense ofthe word, from
other quarters, — no lack of the cursing of Him by men and devils, in the
sense ofmaligning, blaspheming — wishing, calling Him accursed. But Paul
assuredlydoes not speak of anything of that kind. Besides thathe says
"made" — not called, or wished, but (γενόμενος) made a curse, — see how
certain it is from the entire context that it is the curse of God which he speaks
of, and which he says Christ was made. He had begun to speak of this curse at
the tenth verse, saying, "As many as are of the works of the law are under the
curse:for it is written, Cursedis everyone that con-tinueth not in all things
which are written in the book of the law to do them." Then in the thirteenth
verse, where the text lies, "Christ," says he, "hath redeemedus from the curse
of the law, being made a curse for us." It is out of the question to imagine the

sense ofthe term to be entirely changedin this second:clause. Beyondall
doubt the meaning is, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,
having borne that curse — been made the curse of the law for us. And then, as
it is God's curse which the apostle says Christ was made, so was it God
Himself who made Him that curse. God alone canbring His curse on any
man. And you may only further notice as to this, that the word "made" here is
the same the apostle uses in the fourth verse of the next chapter, "Whenthe
fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made
under the law" — made by God, of course. Our first position then is, that it is
the curse of God "which the apostle says Christ was made, and God Himself
who made Him that curse.
II. But, secondly, at once the question arises, HOW COULD SUCH A THING
EVER BE? Forthe righteous God will bring His curse on no guiltless one. But
it is certain He will not bring His curse on the guiltless. Wickedmen may
curse them — may wish, or callthem, accursed.
III. But now, thirdly, there was a mysterious manner, yet most realand true,
in which Christ was not guiltless. I might remind you of those words of the
ransomed Church in Isaiah, "All we like sheephave gone astray; "we have
turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity
of us all." But let us fix our attention a little more closelyon those words of 2
Corinthians 5:21, "Godmade Him to be sin for us, that we might be made the
righteousness ofGod in Him." "Made Him to be sin" — the entire expression
is, "made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us." So much is certain,
therefore, negatively, that the apostle's meaning is not, and cannot be, that He
was made our sin in the pollution, or stain, or turpitude of it, either in nature
or in life. For, besides the frightfulness of such a thing to be even imagined, it
were in contradiction to the express words, "He hath made Him who knew no
sin to be sin for us." So that the question remains just as before, what that sin
was which was transferred. It could not be the pollution, the turpitude, on the
one hand; it was not the suffering simply, on the other. But there was a great
intermediate element betweenthe turpitude and the suffering;and this it was
that Christ was made in the whole fearful reality of it — even the guilt (the
reatus, as the Latins spoke) — the just liability in law, and in the eye of the
lawgiver, to endure the suffering, the punishment, the curse. For Christ, by an

altogetherpeculiar Divine constitution — of infinite grace alike onthe
Father's part and on His own — had become the Head of His body the
Church, — takentheir place in law — become one with them in law for ever.
Readagain, for instance, that fourth verse of the following chapter, "When
the fulness of the time was come, Godsent forth His Son, made of a woman,
made under the law" — under the law? But what could the Son, the very
Lawgiver, have to do with subjectionto the law? Nothing, assuredly, for
Himself — nothing save as a public Person, Surety, Representative. And now
turn we for a moment to the passagecitedby the apostle from the Pentateuch.
Let no one be startled in the reading of it. It is the twenty-first of
Deuteronomy, the twenty-secondand twenty-third verses — "If a man have
committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang
him on a tree; his body Shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt
in any wise bury him that day (for he that is hanged is accursedof God); that
thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy Godgiveth thee for an
inheritance."
IV. Fourthly, thus have we the wondrous explanation of the whole life of our
Lord Jesus Christ, which otherwise were an inexplicable enigma. Even had
His sufferings proceeded simply from the hands of men and devils, the
mystery would not have been removed, since neither devils nor men could be
more than instruments — voluntary and guilty, yet only instruments — in the
hand of Jehovahfor the executing of His designs. But the fact, unquestionably,
was that the principal sufferings of this Just One came from the immediate
hand of the Father himself. It is impossible to read the Gospelhistories
without perceiving that by far His deepestagonies were those whichHe
endured when there was no hand of man upon Him at all, or when, at least,
He himself traces the suffering to another hand altogether — saying, for
example, "Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me
from this hour? but for this cause came I unto this hour." — "My soulis
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here and watch with Me" —
"Oh My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me" — "My God, My
God, why hast Thou forsakenMe?"Ah! behold the explanation of all — of
the travail of Messiah's soul — of an agonythat wrung the blood from every
pore of His sacredbody — of what He himself declared to be His own Father's

desertionof Him — see, not the source of it only, but the soul also of its
deepestbitterness and anguish, in these words, "made sin," "made a curse,"
— not accursedsimply, but — as if all the curses due to a world's sin had been
made to meet in His person — "made curse," that we might be redeemed
from the curse of the law!
V. Fifthly, THERE ARE CERTAIN GREAT CENTRALTHINGS AMONG
THE TYPES OF THE OLD TESTAMENTWHICH CAST MUCH LIGHT
OVER THE MYSTERIOUS FACT IN OUR TEXT, AND, IN THEIR TURN,
RECEIVE IMPORTANT LIGHT FROM IT. Let me selectthree — the
brazen serpent, the burnt offering, and the sin offering.
1. The brazen serpent. At first view it seems very strange that the chosentype
of the blessedRedeemershould have been the likeness ofa serpent, — that,
when the Israelites were dying of the bite of serpents, the medium of their
cure should have been the likeness ofone, "Make thee a fiery serpent, and set
it upon a pole; and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he
lookethupon it, shall live." But the wonder ceases, orrather is turned into
another wonder of holy admiration, when we find that the only possible way
of our deliverance from sin, was the Redeemer's taking it, in its whole guilt
and curse into His own person — being made sin and a curse for us. What
glorious light is thus caston the words of Jesus, "As Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, evenso must the Son of man be lifted up; that
whosoeverbelievethin Him should not perish, but have eternal life!"
2. The burnt offering. There is no doubt that the fire of all the burnt offerings
of the law, whether it came down immediately from heaven to consume the
victim, as on various memorable occasions, orwas kindled naturally, was the
emblem of the Divine holiness and justice, consuming the substitute lamb on
which the sin had been laid — the sacrifice in place of the sinner. What a
picture of Christ made a curse, enduring the fire of "the wrath of God
revealedfrom heaven againstall ungodliness and unrighteousness ofmen!"
What a picture of the prophet's "Awake, O sword, againstMy shepherd, and
againstthe man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts;smite the
shepherd!" What a picture of Him who cried, "My heart is like wax; it is
melted in the midst of My bowels. Mystrength is dried up like a potsherd;

and My tongue cleavethto My jaws;and Thou hast brought me into the dust
of death!"
3. The sin-offering. Let these words, for example, be carefully observed
(Leviticus 16:27, 28), "The bullock for the sin offering, and the goatfor the
sin-offering, whose bloodwas brought in to make atonement in the holy place,
shall one carry forth without the camp; and they shall burn in the fire their
skin, and their flesh, and their dung. And he that burneth them shall washhis
clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterwardhe shall come into the
camp." That is to say, the victim, as having had the whole iniquities
transferred to it by the laying of the hand upon its head, had become an
unclean and accursedthing, and so behoved to be carried awayout of God's
sight without the camp, and consumed in the fire. This is what our apostle
refers to in those words in Hebrews, "The bodies of those beasts, whoseblood
for sin is brought into the sanctuaryby the high priest, are burned without the
camp. Wherefore Jesus also, thathe might sanctify the people with His own
blood, suffered without the gate." As if to say that when God appointed the
sin-offerings of the law to be carried forth outside the camp as unclean and
accursed, and to be burned in the fire, it was but a figure of our Lord Jesus,
laden with our accursediniquities, made sin and a curse, numbered with the
transgressors, dealtwith as the vilest of all — not by man so much as by God,
the Holy One of Israel — because the Lord had, with His own most free
consent, made to meet on Him the iniquities of us all. When Jesus was led
forth out of Jerusalem, and there crucified betweenthe thieves, it was as if all
the innumerable multitudes of sinners whom He representedhad been in that
hour carried out, and had there endured, in their own persons, the curse of
the Divine law due to their whole ungodliness, unrighteousness, pride,
falsehood, vanity, uncleanness, rebellion, and I know not what other crimes
and sins.
VI. But thus I observe, once more, that we do not get at the full explanation of
the mysterious fact in our text till we have takeninto view the wondrous
design and issue of all, as setforth in the passage thus — "Christ hath
redeemedus from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, that the
blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that
we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." And now, not only

are we thus delivered from the law's terrible sentence, but — the stone which
lay overthe grave of our corruption once removed — the way is open for the
Holy Ghost's descending into it to make an end of our corruption too, — yea,
open for the whole blessing of the Abrahamic covenant, "I will be a Godto
thee," coming on believers everywhere, of the Gentiles and of the Jews alike
— from which blessing the apostle singles out the promise of the Holy Ghost,
as being the centre and sum of it all, saying, "Christ hath redeemedus from
the curse of the law, etc., that the blessing of Abraham might come on the
Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit
through faith." Three words in conclusion.
1. The apostle, in the opening chapterof this Epistle, speaks of "another
gospel, which is not another." Very rife in our day is another gospel, which
truly is not another gospel. Substantiallyit is this, that God never has had a
quarrel with man, but only man a quarrel with God, — that God never has
been angry with men, but men only jealous of Him; and that the whole design,
of Christ's coming into the world, and of His suffering unto death was to
convince men of this — who, as soonas they are persuaded to believe it — to
believe that God loves them, and has loved them always, are saved. Another
gospeltruly — which in factturns the whole mission and work of our Lord
Jesus Christ into an unreality! But see the apostle's gospelin verses 10, 13, 14,
of this chapter. Ver. 10, God's quarrel with guilty men — "As many as are of
the works ofthe law are under the curse;for it is written, Cursedis every one
that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do
them." Then, the wondrous settlement of that quarrel (ver. 13), "Christ hath
redeemedus from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." And hence
the settlementof our vile quarrel also with God (ver. 14), "that the blessing of
Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might
receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Now at length a conscience
purged, and righteously purged, from dead works, to serve the living God!
Now all possible motives, of love, and fear, and gratitude, and hope, and joy,
unto a new and child-like obedience!"O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; I am
Thy servant, and the sonof Thine handmaid: Thou has loosedmy bonds."
2. Beholdhere the very soul of the Lord's Supper, which might have for its
motto, "Christ hath redeemedus from the curse of the law, being made a

curse for us," — "This is My body brokenfor you: this cup is My blood of the
new covenant, shed for remission of the sins of many." Oh for a profound self-
abasement, and fervent love, and lively faith, in the observing of it!
3. Be it well known to all, that we become partakers of this whole redemption
by faith alone without the deeds of the law.
(C. G. Brown, D. D.)
COMMENTARIES
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
(13, 14) The Law brought a curse, but the Christian is delivered from that
curse. How? Christ has taken it upon Himself. The Crucifixion brought Him
under the curse of the Law. At the same time, it abolished the dominion of the
Law, and threw open the Messianic blessednessto Gentiles as well as Jews:in
other words, to all who gave in their adhesionto the Messiahby faith.
(13) Christ hath redeemed us.—Better, Christredeemed us. The opening of
this verse without any connecting particle lends sharpness and emphasis to the
contrast. The Law brought a curse. There it stopped short. That was all it
could do. The first thing that Christianity does is to undo this result of the
Law by deliverance from the curse.
This deliverance is representedunder the form of a ransom. Christ “bought
off” the human race from the penalty of its sins, the price paid being His
death. Comp. 1Corinthians 6:20; 1Corinthians 7:23, “Ye are (were) bought
with a price;” 2Peter2:1, “The Lord that bought them;” Revelation5:9,
“Thou wastslain and hast redeemed (bought) us to God by thy blood;”
Revelation14:4, “These were redeemed(bought) from among men.” The
word used in these passages, as wellas in that before us, is the generalword
for “buying.” But that the “buying” intended is that more definitely conveyed

by the idea of “ransom” appears from the use of the specialwordfor ransom
in Matthew 20:28 ( = Mark 10:45), “The Son of Man came to give His life a
ransom for many;” 1Timothy 2:6, “Who gave Himself a ransom for all.” The
word commonly translated“redemption” (Romans 3:24; 1Corinthians 1:30;
Ephesians 1:7; Ephesians 1:14; Ephesians 4:30; Colossians 1:14;Hebrews
9:15) also contains the same specialidea of “a ransoming.”
Us.—In the first instance, “the Jews,” but not to be confined too strictly to
them. The Apostle is writing to a Gentile (though Judaising) Church, and he
does not wish to exclude any of his readers. Though the Gentiles do not come
directly under “the curse of the Law,” they came under God’s condemnation.
From this they were released, andthe blessings ofthe theocracyhitherto
annexed to the Law were thrown open to them by the death of Christ.
From the curse of the law.—Fromthat curse which the Law pronounced upon
all who failed to keepits precepts.
Being made a curse.—Being treatedas if He were accursed. Comp.
2Corinthians 5:21, “Forhe hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no
sin”—i.e., treatedas sinful One who was not sinful. The idea is somewhat
strengthenedby the use of the substantive for the adjective. The curse
identifies itself with its object:seizes, as it were, upon the person of its victim.
For us—i.e., “onour behalf,” “for our sakes,”not“in our stead.” It is
impossible to escape the conclusionthat St. Paul, like the rest of the Apostles,
regardedthe sufferings of Christ as undergone in our stead. The idea is,
indeed, distinctly expressedin this very passage;but it must be gatheredfrom
the context, not from the use of the preposition. The preposition which means
“instead” is found in Matthew 20:28; 1Timothy 2:6. (See Note on Galatians
1:4.)
As it is written.—The way in which the curse of the Law fell upon Christ was
through His death. The ignominious death by which He died was one to which
the curse of God speciallyattached. The Law expresslydeclaredthat that
criminal who died upon the cross orgibbet was an objectof the divine wrath.
Christ died as such a criminal, and so came under the curse.

It is to be observed, in considering the doctrinal bearings of this passage, that
the curse which fell upon Christ was not the same curse as that described
above as the consequence ofhuman guilt in failing to keepthe requirements of
the Law. It is not the accumulatedpenalty for the whole mass of human
disobedience, but rather an incidental defilement, contractedby an in-
voluntary breach of a particular ceremonialprecept. The death of Christ
involved a curse because the manner of it was by suspensionfrom a cross.
Nothing more than this is said. Christ, the sinless One, died for sinful men. If
He had not died they must have died. And His death acted(in some
inscrutable way) so as to propitiate the wrath of God. But it is not saidthat
the actualload of human guilt was laid upon Him. It is not said that His death
was the actual punishment of that guilt. The death of Christ removed the
necessityfor the punishment of men, but it could not be regardedas a
punishment in relation to Christ Himself. In this respectit would seemas if
the symbolism of the scapegoat(whichis sometimes adduced in explanation of
the presentpassage) was imperfectlyapplicable. In the case ofthe scapegoat,
the high priest was to lay his hands upon his head, and to “confessoverhim
all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all
their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat;” and the goatwas to “bear
upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited” (Leviticus 16:21-22).
No such process as this really took place in the case ofour Lord; nor is it
applied to Him even in 1Peter2:24, otherwise than in vague and general
metaphor. The literal application derives no countenance from the present
passage, but is rather contradictedby it. It expressly distinguishes betweenthe
curse which fell upon Christ and the curse which was due to the sins of men,
though the incurrence of the one led to the abrogationof the other.
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.—FromDeuteronomy21:23. The
Hebrew and LXX. insert “ofGod”—”He that is hanged is cursed of God”—
which St. Paul instinctively omits. The reference in the original is to the
exposure of the body upon a stake or gibbet after death.
BensonCommentary

Galatians 3:13-14. Christ— Christ alone; the abruptness of the sentence
shows a holy indignation at those who rejectso greata blessing; hath
redeemedus — Or, hath bought us off, whether Jews or Gentiles;from the
curse of the law — The curse which the law denounces againstall
transgressors ofit, or the punishment threatened to them. Dr. Whitby proves,
in his note on this verse, that the violation of the law given to Adam was
attended with a curse, as well as that given to the Israelites by Moses,and that
it is the more generalcurse. Nearlyto the same purpose speaks Dr.
Macknight, thus: — “Thatthe persons here said to be bought off from the
curse of the law, are the Gentiles as well as the Jews, is evident from Galatians
3:10, where the apostle tells us, As many as are of the works of the law are
under the curse;for the proposition being general, it implies that the Gentiles
as well as the Jews are under the curse, and need to be bought off. This
appears likewise from the purpose for which Christ is said (Galatians 3:14) to
have bought us off; namely, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the
nations, that is, on both Jews and Gentiles. Next, the curse of the law, from
which all are bought off by Christ, is not a curse peculiar to the law of Moses.
For as the Gentiles never were under that law, they could have no concern
with its curse. But it is the curse of that more ancient law of works, under
which Adam and Eve fell, and which, through their fall, came on all their
posterity. Also it is the curse of the law of nature, under which all mankind, as
the subjects of God’s universal moral government, are lying for having
broken that law. These curses are calledby the generalname of the curse of
the law;not as being peculiar to the law of Moses, but because they were
published in the law of Moses. Fromthis curse of the law of works, Christ
hath bought us off, by becoming a curse for us. Forin the view of his death, to
be accomplishedin due time, God allowedAdam and his posterity a short life
on earth, and resolvedto raise them all from the dead, that every one may
receive reward, or punishment, according to the deeds done by him in the
body. Further, being bought off by Christ from the curse of the law of works,
mankind, at the fall, were bought off from law itself; not indeed as a rule of
life, but as a rule of justification; and had a trial appointed to them under a
more gracious dispensation, in which not a perfect obedience to law, but the
obedience of faith is required in order to their obtaining eternal life. Of this
gracious dispensation, orcovenant, St. Paul hath given a clear account,”

Romans 5:18. The same writer observes further here, “Christ’s dying on the
cross is called his becoming a curse;that is, an accursedperson, a person
ignominiously punished as a malefactor:not because he was really a
malefactor, and the objectof God’s displeasure, but because he was punished
in the manner in which accursedpersons, ormalefactors, are punished. He
was not a transgressor, but he was numbered with the transgressors, Isaiah
53:12.” Thatthe blessing of Abraham — The blessing promised to him; might
come on the Gentiles also;that we — Who believe, whether Jews or Gentiles;
might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith — As the evidence of our
being justified by faith, and of our being the sons of God, Galatians 4:5-7. This
promise of the Spirit, which includes all the other promises, is not explicitly
mentioned in the covenantwith Abraham, but it is implied in the promise,
(Genesis 22:17,)In blessing I will bless thee; and is expressly mentioned by the
prophets, Isaiah44:3; Ezekiel39:29; Joel2:28.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
3:6-14 The apostle proves the doctrine he had blamed the Galatians for
rejecting;namely, that of justification by faith without the works of the law.
This he does from the example of Abraham, whose faith fastenedupon the
word and promise of God, and upon his believing he was ownedand accepted
of God as a righteous man. The Scripture is said to foresee,becausethe Holy
Spirit that indited the Scripture did foresee. Throughfaith in the promise of
God he was blessed;and it is only in the same way that others obtain this
privilege. Let us then study the object, nature, and effects ofAbraham's faith;
for who can in any other way escape the curse of the holy law? The curse is
againstall sinners, therefore againstall men; for all have sinned, and are
become guilty before God: and if, as transgressorsofthe law, we are under its
curse, it must be vain to look for justification by it. Those only are just or
righteous who are freed from death and wrath, and restoredinto a state of life
in the favour of God; and it is only through faith that persons become
righteous. Thus we see that justification by faith is no new doctrine, but was
taught in the church of God, long before the times of the gospel. It is, in truth,
the only way wherein any sinners ever were, or canbe justified. Though
deliverance is not to be expectedfrom the law, there is a way open to escape
the curse, and regain the favour of God, namely, through faith in Christ.

Christ redeemedus from the curse of the law; being made sin, or a sin-
offering, for us, he was made a curse for us; not separatedfrom God, but laid
for a time under the Divine punishment. The heavy sufferings of the Son of
God, more loudly warn sinners to flee from the wrath to come, than all the
curses of the law; for how canGod spare any man who remains under sin,
seeing that he sparednot his own Son, when our sins were chargedupon him?
Yet at the same time, Christ, as from the cross, freelyinvites sinners to take
refuge in him.
Barnes'Notes on the Bible
Christ hath redeemedus - The word used here ἐξηγόρασεν exēgorasenis not
that which is usually employed in the New Testamentto denote redemption.
That word is λυτρόω lutroō. The difference betweenthem mainly is, that the
word used here more usually relates to a purchase of any kind; the other is
used strictly with reference to a ransom. The word used here is more general
in its meaning; the other is strictly appropriated to a ransom. This distinction
is not observable here, however, and the word used here is employed in the
proper sense ofredeem. It occurs in the New Testamentonly in this place, and
in Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 5:16; Colossians4:5. It properly means, to
purchase, to buy up; and then to purchase anyone, to redeem, to set free. Here
it means, that Christ had purchased, or setus free from the curse of the Law,
by his being made a curse for us. On the meaning of the words redeemand
ransom, see my notes at Romans 3:25; Isaiah 43:3, note; compare 2
Corinthians 5:21.
From the curse of the law - The curse which the Law threatens, and which the
executionof the Law would inflict; the punishment due to sin. This must
mean, that he has rescuedus from the consequencesoftransgressionin the
world of woe;he has savedus from the punishment which our sins have
deserved. The word, "us" here, must refer to all who are redeemed; that is, to
the Gentiles as well as the Jews. The curse ofthe Law is a curse which is due
to sin, and cannot be regardedas applied particularly to any one class of
people. All who violate the Law of God, howeverthat law may be made
known, are exposedto its penalty. The word "law" here, relates to the Law of
God in general, to all the laws of God made known to man. The Law of God

denounced death as the wages ofsin. It threatened punishment in the future
world forever. That would certainly have been inflicted, but for the coming
and death of Christ. The world is lying by nature under this curse, and it is
sweeping the race on to ruin.
Being made a curse for us - This is an exceedinglyimportant expression.
Tyndale renders it, "And was made a curse for us." The Greek wordis
κατάρα katara,the same word which is used in Galatians 3:10;see the note at
that verse. There is scarcelyany passagein the New Testamenton which it is
more important to have correctviews than this; and scarcelyanyone on which
more erroneous opinions have been entertained. In regardto it, we may
observe that it does not mean:
(1) That by being made a curse, the Lord Jesus'characterorwork were in
any sense displeasing to God. He approved always ofwhat the Lord Jesus did,
and he regardedhis whole characterwith love and approbation. The passage
should never be so interpreted as to leave the impressionthat he was in any
conceivable sensethe objectof the divine displeasure.
(2) Jesus was not ill-deserving. He was not blame-worthy. He had done no
wrong. He was holy, harmless, undefiled. No crime chargedupon him was
proved; and there is no clearerdoctrine in the Bible than that, in all his
characterand work, the Lord Jesus was perfectlyholy and pure.
(3) Jesus was not guilty in any proper sense ofthe word. The word guilty
means, properly, to be bound to punishment for crime. It does not mean
properly, to be exposedto suffering, but it always, when properly used,
implies the notion of personalcrime. I know that theologians have used the
word in a somewhatdifferent sense, but it is contrary to the common and just
apprehensions of people. When we say that a man is guilty, we instinctively
think of his having committed a crime, or having done something wrong.
When a jury finds a man guilty, it implies that the man has committed a
crime, and ought to be punished. But in this sense, and in no conceivable sense
where the word is properly used was the Lord Jesus "guilty."
(4) it cannotbe mean that the Lord Jesus properly bore the penalty of the
Law. His sufferings were in the place of the penalty, not the penalty itself.

They were a substitution for the penalty, and were, therefore, strictly and
properly vicarious, and were not the identical sufferings which the sinner
would himself have endured. There are some things in the penalty of the Law,
which the Lord Jesus did not endure, and which a substitute or a vicarious
victim could not endure. Remorse ofconscienceis a part of the inflicted
penalty of the Law, and will be a vital part of the sufferings of the sinner in
hell - but the Lord Jesus did not endure that. Eternity of sufferings is an
essentialpart of the penalty of the Law - but the Lord Jesus did not suffer
forever. Thus, there are numerous sorrows connectedwith the consciousness
of personalguilt, which the Lord Jesus did not and cannot endure.
(5) Jesus was not sinful, or a sinner, in any sense. He did not so take human
guilt upon him, that the words sinful and sinner could with any propriety be
applied to him. They are not applied to him any way in the Bible; but there
the language is undeviating. It is that in all senses he was holy and undefiled.
And yet language is often used on this subject which is horrible and only a
little short of blasphemy, as if he was guilty, and as if he was eventhe greatest
sinner in the universe. I have heard language used which sent a chill of horror
to my heart; and language may be found in the writings of those who hold the
doctrine of imputation in the strictestsense, whichis only a little short of
blasphemy. I have hesitated whether I should copy expressions here on this
subject from one of the greatestand best of men (I mean Luther) to show the
nature of the views which people sometimes entertainon the subject of the
imputation of sin to Christ. But as Luther deliberately published them to the
world in his favorite book, which he used to callhis "Catharine de Bora,"
after the name of his wife; and since similar views are sometimes entertained
now; and as it is important that such views should be held up to universal
abhorrence, no matter how respectable the source from which they emanate, I
will copy a few of his expressions on this subject. "And this, no doubt, all the
prophets did foresee in spirit, than Christ should become the greatest
transgressor, murderer, adulterer, thief, rebel, and blasphemer, that ever was
OR could be in the world. For he being made a sacrifice forthe sins of the
whole world is not now an innocent person and without sins; is not now the
Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary; but a sinner which hath and carrieth
the sin of Paul, who was a blasphemer, an oppressor, and a persecutor;of

Peter, which denied Christ; of David, which was an adulterer, a murderer,
and causedthe Gentiles to blaspheme the name of the Lord; and, briefly,
which hath and beareth all the sins of all people in his body: not that he
himself committed them, but for that he receivedthem, being committed or
done of us, and laid them upon his own body, that he might make satisfaction
for them with his own blood.
Therefore, this generalsentence ofMoses comprehendethhim also (albeit in
his ownperson he was innocent), because it found him among sinners and
transgressors;like as the magistrate taketh him for a thief, and punisheth him
whom he findeth among other thieves and transgressors,though he never
committed anything worthy of death. When the Law, therefore, found him
among thieves it condemned and killed him as a thief." "If thou wilt deny him
to be a sinner and accursed, deny, also, that he was crucified and dead." "But
if it is not absurd to confess andbelieve that Christ was crucified betweentwo
thieves, then it is not absurd to say that he was accursed, andof all sinnerS,
the greatesT.""God, ourmost merciful Father, sent His only Son into the
world, and laid upon him all the sins of all people, saying, be thou Peter, that
denier; Paul, that persecutor, blasphemer, and cruel oppressor;David, that
adulterer; that sinner which did eatthe fruit in Paradise;that thief who hung
upon the cross;and, briefly, be thou the personwho has committed the sins of
all people; see, therefore, that thou pay and satisfyfor them" - Luther on the
Galatians, Galatians 3:13. (pp. 213-215.London edition, 1838).
Luther was a great and holy man. He held, as firmly as anyone can, to the
personalholiness of the Redeemer. But this language shows how imperfect
and erroneous views may warp the language of holy people;and how those
sentiments led him to use language which is little less than blasphemy. Indeed,
we cannot doubt that in Luther had heard this very language usedby one of
the numerous enemies of the gospelin his time, as applicable to the Saviour,
he would have poured out the full torrent of his burning wrath, and all the
stern denunciations of his most impassionedeloquence, onthe head of the
scofferand the blasphemer. It is singular, it is one of the remarkable facts in
the history of mind, that a man with the New Testamentbefore him, and
accustomedto contemplate daily its language, couldever have allowedhimself
to use expressions like these of the holy and unspotted Saviour. But what is the

meaning of the language ofPaul, it will be asked, whenhe says that he was
"made a curse for us?"
In reply, I answer, that the meaning must be ascertainedfrom the passage
which Paul quotes in support of his assertion, that Christ was "made a curse
for us." That passageis, "Cursedis every one that hangeth on a tree." This
passageis found in Deuteronomy21:23. It occurs in a law respecting one who
was hanged for a "sin worthy of death," Deuteronomy 21:22. The Law was,
that he should be buried the same day, and that the body should not remain
suspended over the night, and it is added, as a reasonfor this, that "he that is
hanged is accursedofGod;" or, as it is in the margin, "the curse of God." The
meaning is, that when one was executedfor crime in this manner, he was the
objectof the divine displeasure and malediction. Regardedthus as an object
accursedofGod, there was a propriety that the man who was executedfor
crime should be buried as soonas possible, that the offensive objectshould be
hidden from the view In quoting this passage, Paulleaves out the words "of
God," and simply says, that the one who was hangedon a tree was held
accursed.
The sense ofthe passagebefore us is, therefore, that Jesus was subjectedto
what was regardedas an accurseddeath. He was treated in his death As If he
had been a criminal. He was put to death in the same manner as he would
have been if he had himself been guilty of the violation of the Law. If he had
been a thief or a murderer; if he had committed the grossestandthe blackest
crimes, this would have been the punishment to which he would have been
subjected. This was the mode of punishment adapted to those crimes, and he
was treatedas if all these had been committed by him. Or, in other words, if
he had been guilty of all these, or any of these, he could not have been treated
in a more shameful and ignominious manner than he was;nor could he have
been subjectedto a more cruel death. Since it has already been intimated, it
does not mean that Jesus was guilty, nor that he was not the object of the
approbation and love of God, but that Jesus'death was the same that it would
have been if he had been the vilest of malefactors, and that that death was
regardedby the Law as accursed.

It was by such substituted sorrows that we are saved; and he consentedto die
the most shameful and painful death, as if he were the vilest criminal, in order
that the most guilty and vile of the human race might be saved. With regard
to the way in which Jesus'death is connectedwith our justification, see the
note at Galatians 2:16. It may be observed, also, that the punishment of the
cross was unknownto the Hebrews in the time of Moses, andthat the passage
in Deuteronomy 21:23 did not refer originally to that. Noris it knownthat
hanging criminals alive was practiced among the Hebrews. Those who were
guilty of greatcrimes were first stoned or otherwise put to death, and then
their bodies were suspendedfor a few hours on a gibbet. In many cases,
however, merely the head was suspendedafter it had been severedfrom the
body. Genesis 40:17-19;Numbers 25:4-5. Crucifixion was not knownin the
time of the giving of the Law, but the Jews gave suchan extent to the Law in
Deuteronomy 21:23 as to include this mode of punishment (see John 19:31 ff).
The force of the argument here, as used by the apostle Paul, is, that if to be
suspended on a gibbet after having been put to death was regardedas a curse,
it should not be regardedas a curse in a less degree to be suspended Alive on a
cross, and to be put to death in this manner. If this interpretation of the
passageis correct, then it follows that this should never be used as implying,
in any sense, that Christ was guilty, or that he was ill-deserving, or that he
was an object of the divine displeasure, or that he poured out on him all his
wrath. He was, throughout, an objectof the divine love and approbation. God
never loved Jesus more, or approved what he did more, than when he gave
himself to death on the cross. Godhad no hatred towardhim; He had no
displeasure to express toward him. And it is this which makes the atonement
so wonderful and so glorious. If God had been displeasedwith Jesus;if the
Redeemerhad been properly an objectof God's wrath; if Jesus, in any sense,
deservedthose sorrows, there would have been no merit in Jesus'sufferings;
there would have been no atonement. What merit can there be when one
suffers only what he deserves? Butwhat made the atonement so wonderful, so
glorious, so benevolent; what made it an atonementat all, was that innocence
was treatedas if it were guilt; that the most pure, and holy, and benevolent,
and lovely being on earth should consentto be treated, and should be treated
by God and man, as If Jesus were the most vile and ill-deserving. This is the

mystery of the atonement; this shows the wonders of the divine benevolence;
this is the nature of substituted sorrow;and this lays the foundation for the
offer of pardon, and for the hope of eternal salvation.
Jamieson-Fausset-BrownBible Commentary
13. Abrupt exclamation, as he breaks awayimpatiently from those who would
involve us againin the curse of the law, by seeking justificationin it, to
"Christ," who "has redeemedus from its curse." The "us" refers primarily to
the Jews, to whom the law principally appertained, in contrastto "the
Gentiles" (Ga 3:14; compare Ga 4:3, 4). But it is not restrictedsolelyto the
Jews, as Alford thinks; for these are the representative people of the world at
large, and their "law" is the embodiment of what God requires of the whole
world. The curse of its non-fulfilment affects the Gentiles through the Jews;
for the law represents that righteousness whichGod requires of all, and
which, since the Jews failedto fulfil, the Gentiles are equally unable to fulfil.
Ga 3:10, "As many as are of the works ofthe law, are under the curse," refers
plainly, not to the Jews only, but to all, even Gentiles (as the Galatians), who
seek justificationby the law. The Jews'law represents the universal law which
condemned the Gentiles, though with less clearconsciousness ontheir part
(Ro 2:1-29). The revelationof God's "wrath" by the law of conscience, in
some degree prepared the Gentiles for appreciating redemption through
Christ when revealed. The curse had to be removed from off the heathen, too,
as well as the Jews, in order that the blessing, through Abraham, might flow
to them. Accordingly, the "we," in "that we might receive the promise of the
Spirit," plainly refers to both Jews andGentiles.
redeemedus—bought us off from our former bondage (Ga 4:5), and "from
the curse" under which all lie who trust to the law and the works of the law
for justification. The Gentile Galatians, by putting themselves under the law,
were involving themselves in the curse from which Christ has redeemedthe
Jews primarily, and through them the Gentiles. The ransom price He paid
was His own precious blood (1Pe 1:18, 19; compare Mt 20:28; Ac 20:28; 1Co
6:20; 7:23; 1Ti 2:6; 2Pe 2:1; Re 5:9).
being made—Greek, "having become."

a curse for us—Having become what we were, in our behalf, "a curse," that
we might ceaseto be a curse. Notmerely accursed(in the concrete), but a
curse in the abstract, bearing the universal curse of the whole human race. So
2Co 5:21, "Sin for us," not sinful, but bearing the whole sin of our race,
regardedas one vast aggregate ofsin. See Note there. "Anathema" means "set
apart to God," to His glory, but to the person's own destruction. "Curse," an
execration.
written—(De 21:23). Christ's bearing the particular curse of hanging on the
tree, is a sample of the "general" curse whichHe representativelybore. Not
that the Jews put to death malefactors by hanging; but after having put them
to death otherwise, in order to brand them with peculiar ignominy, they hung
the bodies on a tree, and such malefactors were accursedby the law (compare
Ac 5:30; 10:39). God's providence ordered it so that to fulfil the prophecy of
the curse and other prophecies, Jesus shouldbe crucified, and so hang on the
tree, though that death was not a Jewishmode of execution. The Jews
accordingly, in contempt, call Him Tolvi, "the hanged one," and Christians,
"worshippers of the hanged one";and make it their greatobjectionthat He
died the accurseddeath [Trypho, in Justin Martyr, p. 249](1Pe 2:24). Hung
betweenheaven and earth as though unworthy of either!
Matthew Poole's Commentary
If the law curseth all those who continue not in all things contained in the law,
(as the apostle had said, Galatians 3:10, and proved from Deu27:26), it might
be objected: How will believers then escapemore than others; for none of
them continue in all that is written in the law? The apostle here obviateth this
objection, by telling the Galatians, that, as to believers, Christ had
redeemedthem from this curse. The word generally signifies delivering; here
it signifies a deliverance by a price paid. This was by being himself
made a curse for us, not only execrable to men, but bearing the wrath and
indignation of God due for sin:

for so it was written, Deu 21:23:He that is hanged is accursedofGod; that is,
hath borne the wrath or curse of God due to him for his sin. The apostle
applying this to Christ, teachethus, that Christ also, hanging upon the cross,
bare the curse of God due to the sins of believers; in whose stead, as wellas
for whose goodand benefit, he died. And indeed he could no other way
redeem believers from the curse of the law, but by being made himself a curse
for them. Some think, that under the law he who was hanged was made a
curse, not only politically, but typically, as signifying that curse which Christ
should he made on the behalf of the elect.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
Christ hath redeemedus from the curse of the law,.... The Redeemeris Christ,
the Sonof God; who was appointed and calledto this work by his Father, and
which he himself agreedto; he was spokenof in prophecy under this
character;he came as such, and has obtained eternalredemption, for which
he was abundantly qualified; as man, he was a near kinsman, to whom the
right of redemption belonged; and as God, he was able to accomplishit. The
persons redeemedare "us", God's elect, both of Jews and Gentiles;a peculiar
people, the people of Christ, whom the Fathergave unto him; some out of
every kindred, tongue, people, and nation: the blessing obtained for them is
redemption; a buying of them again, as the word signifies;they were his
before by the Father's gift, and now he purchases them with the price of his
own blood, and so delivers them "from the curse of the law";its sentence of
condemnation and death, and the executionof it; so that they shall never be
hurt by it, he having delivered them from wrath to come, and redeemedfrom
the seconddeath, the lake which burns with fire and brimstone. The manner
in which this was done was by being
made a curse for us; the sense ofwhich is, not only that he was like an
accursedperson, lookedupon as such by the men of that wickedgeneration,
who hid and turned awaytheir faces from as an abominable execrable person,
calling him a sinner, a Samaritan, and a devil; but was evenaccursedby the
law; becoming the surety of his people, he was made under the law, stoodin

their legalplace and steadand having the sins of them all imputed to him, and
answerable forthem, the law finding them on him, charges him with them,
and curses him for them; yea, he was treatedas such by the justice of God,
even by his Father, who spared him not, awoke the swordof justice against
him, and gave him up into his hands; delivered him up to death, even the
accurseddeathof the cross, wherebyit appeared that he was made a curse:
"made", by the will, counsel, and determination of God, and not without his
own will and free consent;for he freely laid down his life, and gave himself,
and made his soulan offering for sin:
for it is written. Deuteronomy 21:23,
cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree: it is in the Hebrew text, "he that is
hanged":which is the very name the Jews (y) commonly call Christ by way of
reproach;that is, "everyone that hangeth", as the apostle rightly renders it;
which is always the sense ofan indefinite phrase, unless a restrictionis put:
adding out of the same verse, "on the tree", by wayof explanation; for which
he cannot upon any accountbe found fault with, since it is manifest one
hanged on a tree is meant, "who is accursedofGod", or "the curse of God";
the curse of God, in vindicating his righteous law, was visibly on such a
person; as it was on Christ, when he hung on the cross, in the room and stead
of his people; for he was made a curse, not for himself, or for any sins of his
own, but for us; in our room and stead, for our sins, and to make atonement
for them: upon the whole, the Jew (z) has no reasonto find fault as he does,
either with the apostle's sense, orcitation of this passage;for whether it be
rendered "hangeth", or is "hanged", the sense is the same;and though the
apostle leaves out the word "God", it is clearfrom what he says, that his
meaning is, that the curse of God lighted upon Christ as the surety of his
people, standing in their legalplace and stead, in order to redeem them from
the law and its curse; since he says, he was "made a curse" for them, which
must be done by the Lord himself: and whereas the Jew objects, that it is
impossible that anyone, even an Israelite, should be delivered from the curses
of the law, but by the observance ofit, this shows his ignorance of the law,
which, in case ofsin, requires a penalty, and which is its curse;and it is not
future observance of the law will free from that: and as for the Gentiles, he
says, to whom the law was not given, and who were never under it, they are

free from the curses of it, without a redemption; but as this is to be,
understood not of the ceremonial, but of the moral law, it is a mistake;the
Gentiles are under the moral law, and being guilty of the violation of it, are
liable to its curse;and cannot be delivered from it, but through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus;by virtue of which, they have a part and
portion in the blessings promisedas follows.
(y) Vid. Buxtorf. Lexic. Talmudie. col. 2596. (z) R. Isaac Chizzuk Emuna, par.
2. c. 89. p. 469.
Geneva Study Bible
{14} Christ hath redeemedus from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us: {15} for it is written, {h} Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
(14) A preventing of an objection: how then canthey be blessedwhom the
Lord pronounces to be accused?BecauseChristsuffered the curse which the
Law laid upon us, that we might be acquitted from it.
(15) A proof of the answerby the testimony of Moses.
(h) Christ was accursedforus, because he bore the curse that was due to us,
to make us partakers ofhis righteousness.
EXEGETICAL(ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
Meyer's NT Commentary
Galatians 3:13. Connection:“Through the law no one becomes righteous
(Galatians 3:11-12);Christ has redeemed us from the curse.” See on Galatians
3:11. The asyndeton renders the contraststronger. Comp. Colossians3:4.
Rückert(comp. also Flatt, Koppe, Schott, Olshausen)reverts to Galatians
3:10, supplying μέν in Galatians 3:10, and δέ in Galatians 3:13. This is
incorrect, for Χρίστος finds its appropriate antithesis in the words
immediately preceding; and, as in generalit is a mistake thus to supply μέν
and δέ, it is here the more absurd, because ὅσοι in Galatians 3:10 has
expresslyreceivedin γάρits reference to what precedes it. Against Hofmann’s
interpretation, that Galatians 3:13 is apodosis to Galatians 3:11-12, see on
Galatians 3:11.

ἡμᾶς]applies to the Jews;for these were under the curse of the law[126]
mentioned in Galatians 3:10, and by faith in Christ made, themselves
partakers of the redemption from that curse accomplishedby Him, as Paul
had himself experienced. Others have understood it as the Jews and Gentiles
(Gomarus, Pareus, Estius, Flatt, Winer, Matthies). But againstthis view it
may be urged, that the Gentiles were not under the curse of the Mosaic law
(Romans 2:12); that a reference to the natural law as well (Romans 2:14-15)is
quite foreign to the context(in opposition to Flatt); that the law, even if it had
not been done awayby Christ, would yet never have relatedto the Gentiles (in
opposition to Winer), because it was the partition-wall betweenJew and
Gentile (Ephesians 2:14 f.); and lastly, that afterwards in Galatians 3:14 εἰς τὰ
ἔθνη is placed in contrastto the ἡμᾶς, and hence it must not be said, with
Matthies, that it so far applies to the Gentiles also, since the latter as
Christians could not be under obligation to the law,—which, besides, would
amount to a very indirect sort of ransom, entirely different from the sense in
which it applied to the Jews.
ἐξηγόρασεν] Comp. Galatians 4:5; 1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Corinthians 7:23;
Ephesians 1:7; 2 Peter 2:1; Matthew 20:28;Revelation5:9 Diod. Exc. p. 530.
4; 1 Timothy 2:6; Polyb. iii. 42. 2. Those who are under obligation to the law
as the recordof the direct will of God,[127]are subject to the divine curse
expressedtherein; but from the bond of this curse, from which they could not
otherwise have escaped, Christ has redeemed them, and that by giving up for
them His life upon the cross as a λύτρον paid to God the dator et vindex
legis,—having by His mors satisfactoria, sufferedaccording to God’s gracious
counselin obedience to the same (Romans 5:19; Php 2:8), procured for them
the forgiveness ofsins (Ephesians 1:7; Colossians1:14;Romans 3:24; 1
Timothy 2:6 : Matthew 20:28;Matthew 26:28), so that the curse of the law
which was to have come upon them no longer had any reference to them. This
modus of the redemption is here expressedthus: “by His having become curse
for us,” namely, by His crucifixion, in which He actually became the One
affectedby the divine ὀργή. The emphasis rests on the κατάρα, whichis

therefore placed at the end and is immediately to be vindicated by a quotation
from Scripture. This abstract, used instead of the concrete, is purposely
chosento strengthen the conception, and probably indeed with reference to
the ‫ִק‬ ‫ל‬ְ‫תַל‬ ‫א‬ֱ‫ֹל‬‫ֹלה‬‫,םל‬ Deuteronomy 21:23;comp. Thilo, ad Protev. Jac. 3, p. 181. But
ΚΑΤΆΡΑ is used without the article, because the objectis to express that
which Christ has become as regards the categoryofquality
He became curse, entered into the position, and into the de facto relation, of
one visited with the divine wrath; it being obvious from the contextthat it was
in reality the divine curse stipulated in the law, the accomplishment of which
He suffered in His death, as is moreoverexpresslyattestedin the passageof
Scripture that follows. Comp. Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 321, d; Kahnis, Dogm. I.
p. 518 f., III. p. 382;Delitzsch, Z. Hebr. p. 714. The idea of κατάρα as the
curse of God—obvious of itself to every reader—forbids us to explain away
(with Hofmann) the “becoming a curse” as signifying, not that God
accomplishedHis curse on Christ, but that God decreedrespecting Christ
that He should suffer that which men did to Him as fulfilment of the curse of
the law, which was not incurred by, and did not apply to, Him. The exactreal
parallel, 2 Corinthians 5:21, ought to have prevented any such evasive
interpretation. And if Paul had not meant the curse of God, which Christ
suffered ὙΠῈΡ ἩΜῶΝ,—asno reader, especiallyafterthe passageof
Scripture which follows, couldunderstand anything else,—he wouldhave
been practising a deception. Christ made sin by God, and so suffering the
divine curse—thatis just the foolishness ofthe cross, whichis wiserthan men
(1 Corinthians 1:25). Comp., besides, Rich. Schmidt, Paulin. Christol. p. 81,
who, however, regards the contents of our passageandof 2 Corinthians 5:21
under the point of view of the cancelling of sin (sin being viewed as an
objective power), and thus comes into contactwith Hofmann’s theory.
ὙΠῈΡ ἩΜῶΝ]That ὙΠΈΡ, as in all passagesin which the atoning death is
spokenof, does not mean instead of (so here, Bengel, Koppe, Flatt, Rückert,
Reithmayr, following earlierexpositors;comp. also Lipsius, Rechtfertigungsl.

p. 134f.), see onRomans 5:6. Comp. on Galatians 1:4. The satisfactionwhich
Christ rendered, was rendered for our benefit; that it was vicarious,[128]is
implied in the circumstances ofthe case itself, and not in the preposition. The
divine curse of the law must have been realized by all, who did not fully satisfy
the law to which they were bound (and this no one could do), being compelled
to endure the execution of the divine ὀργή on themselves;but for their
deliverance from the bond of this curse Christ intervened with His death,
inasmuch as He died as an accursedone, and thereby, as by a purchase-price,
dissolvedthat relation to the law which implied a curse. Comp. 1 Corinthians
6:20; 1 Corinthians 7:23; Colossians2:14. This effectdepends certainly on the
sinlessnessofChrist (2 Corinthians 5:21), without which His surrendered life
could not have been a λύτρον (Matthew 20:28), and He Himself, by the
shedding of His blood, could not have been a ἱλαστήριον(Romans 3:25),
because, with guilt of His own, He would have been amenable to the curse on
His own account, and not through taking upon Him the guilt of others (John
1:29
Expositor's Greek Testament
Galatians 3:13. The Law pronounced a blessing and a curse;but since it made
no allowance forhuman infirmity, the blessing proved barren in result; while
the curse, which invoked the just wrath of an offended God for the
punishment of the guilty, proved, on the contrary, fruitful in condemnation.
From this hopeless state ofjust condemnation Christ delivered us by revealing
the infinite mercy of an Almighty Father, and so reviving hope and thankful
love in the heart of the condemned sinner by faith in His love.—ἐξηγόρασεν.
The figure of a ransom, which this word conveys, is doubly appropriate in this
connection. Menneeded a ransom, for the Law had left them prisoners under
sentence ofdeath, and Christ had Himself to pay the price. He had to become
a man like His brethren save in sin, and to endure the penalty denounced on
malefactors and hang on the accursedcross,as if He had been guilty like
them.—γενόμενος κατάρα. Hebrew thought tended to identify the man on
whom a curse was laid with the curse, as it identified the sin-offering with the

sin, calling it ἁμαρτία (Leviticus 4:21-25). Hence the scapegoatwas regarded
as utterly unclean by reasonof the sins laid upon it.—Ἐπικατάρατος … This
passageis quoted from Deuteronomy21:23 with one significant alteration. In
the originalthe criminal executedunder sentence ofthe Law is pronounced
κεκαταραμένος ὑπὸ Θεοῦ, so that the Law is affirmed to be the voice of God,
carrying with it the fulness of divine sanction. But here the words ὑπὸ Θεοῦ
are omitted, inasmuch as the new revelation of God’s mercy in Christ has
supersededfor Christians the previous condemnation of the Law.
The original passagerefers to criminals executedunder the JewishLaw, and
commands the speedy burial of their dead bodies before sunsetin opposition
to the vindictive practices prevailing in Palestine among the surrounding
nations of nailing up unburied bodies in public places (cf. 1 Samuel 31:10, 2
Samuel 21:10). It made, of course, no reference to crucifixion, which was a
Roman mode of execution, not a Jewish.
Cambridge Bible for Schools andColleges
13. ‘Christ redeemedus from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for
us’. In Galatians 3:10 the Apostle has shewnthat by the very terms of the
Law, all who are under the Law (i.e. all who seek to be justified by their own
obedience)are under the curse. To rescue us from that terrible malediction,
Christ submitted to an accurseddeath. He, though sinless, bore, nay became
the curse, that on us might come the blessing.
hath redeemedus] ‘ransomed us’, from the thraldom of the curse at the cost
of a death of shame and anguish unutterable.
a curse for us] ‘Who’, asks Bengel, ‘woulddare to use such an expression
without fear of uttering blasphemy, if we had not the example of the Apostle?’
Here, as in 2 Corinthians 5:21, we have the abstractnoun put for the concrete,
to give force and comprehensivenessto the statement. Our Divine Lord in

Jesus was cursed on the cross

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