Galatians 3:10-14

Curse: For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; 

Crash:  for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 

Cross: 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. 

“Christianity is not the movement from vice to virtue. It’s the movement from virtue to grace”.  – Gerhard Forde 

Last week Paul described the very natural struggle for every person who professes trust in Jesus: Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (3:3).   Many of us here don’t have a problem saying we were saved by God’s sovereign, electing grace.  We acknowledge our hearts were dead in sin and that the Holy Spirit had to breathe spiritual life into us in order for us to willingly come to trust in Jesus’ perfect law-keeping life and sacrificial death and glorious resurrection.

But when we get right down to the day-to-day grind of our lives, the goals we want to achieve, bringing about the circumstances we believe will make us happy, we are all functional Arminians; God was strong to save us but now we need to get strong and get to work.  God may have gotten us in, but we must struggle and strive to achieve our best life now as we perfect ourselves by performance to “stay in.”

We love “moral improvement by elbow grease” because the sin nature is certain that is the way to obtain some moral leverage with God and men.  “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.”  Grace needs a “Yes, but…” because too much grace will encourage sin; so said the nice men from Jerusalem.  Paul gave you the ‘grace thing’ but now we’re going to tell you what to do.

But the fact is we may see moral improvement in one area of our life only to find failure in another area because God’s Law reaches down past the depths of our souls, dealing not only with our public and private acts, but with every thought and attitude we have at any given moment.  God is not tame.  He is not manageable. He is not safe. His Law is a statement of His character.  To believe that His Law is manageable by performance is to proclaim with Lucifer, “I will be like the Most High.”  It is the occult practice of “give something to get something,” perform these steps and achieve this result.

Paul continues to distinguish Law and Gospel in our passage this morning by showing us why God’s Law is utterly good, how we cannot keep it, and what God has done to remedy those two facts. 

    1. CURSE (3:10a)
  • Wall Not Shrubbery
        1. Paul is continuing his argument that we and Abraham receive God’s approval in the exact same way: by trust, not Law-keeping.  For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse….
        2. J. Gresham Machen, one of the founders of Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia, wrote this: “A new and more powerful proclamation of law is perhaps the most pressing need of the hour; men would have little difficulty with the gospel if they had only learned the lesson of the law. …’Making Christ Master’ in the life, putting into practice ‘the principles of Christ’ by one’s own efforts–these are merely new ways of earning salvation by one’s obedience to God’s commands. And they are undertaken because of a lax view of what those commands are. So it always is: a low view of law always brings legalism in religion; a high view of law makes a man a seeker after grace.”
        3. A low view of God’s Law always brings legalism because it views God’s law as a low-growing shrubbery, not an impenetrable wall.  Grace becomes a law-cheapening agent that allows us to do our best at Law-keeping.  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” becomes “love God more than sports on Sundays.”  “Be perfect” is diluted into “do your best.”
        4. A high view of the Law sees God’s demand for perfect love toward him and towards you neighbor as totally impossible, not merely as good advice. 
  • Eye Problem
      1. Remember last week?  Paul pointed out the Galatians had an eye problem.  The nice men from Jerusalem had given the Gauls “the evil eye.”
      2. As a result of getting “the evil eye” the Galatians could no longer see Christ publically portrayed as crucified.
      3. Their view of God’s law was blurry.  They were practicing “fuzzy Law” – be nice to your neighbor when you can; try to make room for God in your life when you’re able; go to church when you don’t have something else scheduled and you’re not too tired from that party Saturday night; pony up money for the collection plate if you have some extra denarii lying around.”
      4. Watered-down Law gives us a false sense of personal victory over guilt and failure.  If we can perform watered-down Law, we can draw some moral credit to help overcome whatever hauntingly bad things we have done or whatever devastating things that have happened to us in our past that were beyond our control.
      5. Fuzzy law is no substitute for looking at Jesus Christ crucified.  Fuzzy law cannot overcome guilt; it cannot atone for shame. It cannot manage our lives to achieve our idolatrous goals. It covers over nothing but our spiritual eyes.  It nullifies grace and breathes life into the sin nature, our flesh.
      6. When our eyes are covered, we cannot see that wall into which we are constantly crashing head-on at 100 miles per hour. 
  • CRASH (3:10B-12)
  • Everybody Must Get Stoned
        1. Paul explains, “…for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” (Deut. 27:26)
        2. One teacher tells the story of two ministers being rowed across a lake, one arguing for justification by faith and the other arguing for justification by works.  The boatman interrupted and said, “It seems to me that salvation is like this rowboat; if I paddle with only one oar, we just go around in a circle.  But if I used both of the oars (faith and works), we get where we want to go.”
        3. That would be a beautiful illustration if we were going to heaven in a rowboat.  But Paul says that if we cannot earn anything but God’s curse if we seek divine approval through our performance.  One modern translation reads, “Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law.”
        4. IF a person could begin their first breath in this world with obedience to God’s Law, as long as he continues to breathe he is in danger of falling away from the Law’s required perfection.  
        5. He would be constantly singing, “When he shall come with trumpet sound, O MAY I then in him be found” (that’s number 521 in our hymn book), instead of singing “O then I SHALL in him be found.” 
        6. What a terrible burden to earn God’s approval by perfection!  There is no “good news” there at all.   That is Palagianism.
        7. Grace cannot water down the Law’s demand of total perfection; that is Semi-Palagianism.  One who relies on the Law – either in whole or in part – can never be sure she has done enough to earn God’s approval.  That is why Rome invented the concept of Purgatory as a place to help atone for your weak performance; that is why our hearts naturally long for performing penance to “make up for” poor performance.
        8. What a tragedy to not trust God’s proclamation that Jesus has paid it ALL.  Jesus performed every detail of the entire Book of the Law, not just the 10 commandments.  
  • The Whole Enchilada
      1. Some teachers to this very day are anxious to preserve some bit of moral leverage for the professing Church; they declare that Paul is only writing about issues of ceremonial law (i.e. circumcision, keeping kosher, not wearing clothing of multiple fabrics, etc.) – how Gentiles “get in” to God’s covenant.
      2. But Paul is speaking of the whole enchilada of the Mosaic Law, not just abstaining from pork enchiladas!  “[Paul says] that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law. But the Gentiles were never under the curse of the Ceremonial Law. …Christ would have achieved too little if He had freed us from circumcision, Sabbaths, clothing, foods, and washings, and not to a far greater extent from the more grievous sins against the Law—lust, greed, wrath, godlessness. Then He would really not have been a Savior of souls; He would have been a Savior of bodies….”
      3. “12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” [Lev. 18:5; Rom. 10:5].  “The Law does not give life or justify before God; but he who does the things that belong to the Law will, as a human being, live by them, that is, he will evade the [earthly] penalty of the Law and will gain the Law’s [earthly] reward; but he will not live in God or as a child of Abraham.”
      4. There is temporal benefit to the legalist who strives to keep God’s Law.  But it earns no heavenly reward.  It merits no divine approval and it constantly accuses of failure.
      5. Let’s take ONE example of the true nature of God’s Law from the first commandment (have no other gods before me) as the Westminster Larger Catechism explains it (in part!):

The sins forbidden in the first commandment, are, Atheism, in denying or not having a God; Idolatry, in having or worshipping more gods than one, or any with or instead of the true God; the not having and avouching him for God, and our God; the omission or neglect of any thing due to him, required in this commandment; ignorance, forgetfulness, misapprehensions, false opinions, unworthy and wicked thoughts of him; bold and curious searching into his secrets; all profaneness, hatred of God; self–love, self–seeking, and all other inordinate and immoderate setting of our mind, will, or affections upon other things, and taking them off from him in whole or in part; …unbelief, heresy, misbelief, distrust, despair, …hardness of heart, pride, presumption, …carnal delights and joys; corrupt, blind, and indiscreet zeal; lukewarmness, and deadness in the things of God; estranging ourselves, and apostatizing from God; …making men the lords of our faith and conscience; slighting and despising God and his commands; resisting and grieving of his Spirit, discontent and impatience…, charging him foolishly for the evils he inflicts on us; and ascribing the praise of any good we either are, have, or can do, to fortune, idols, ourselves, or any other creature.

  1. Now, what was to happen to the violator falling short of that command?  DEATH BY ROCK.  Honestly, I marvel at the nice men from Jerusalem’s insistance that the entire world must live under the commands and penalties of the book of the law while still struggling with their sin natures this side of the New Heaven and New Earth!
  2. What would happen on that day when the world has been finally subjected to Mosaic Law and one does not show up for Sabbath worship because they had a “scheduling conflict”? DEATH BY ROCK.  
  3. The nice men from Jerusalem would respond that when they have managed to subject the whole world to OT Law, there will no longer BE any conflicting activities on the Sabbath day.    
  4. Really? So society is to blame when you cannot show up for worship every Sunday in the here and now?  Yet the Law still cries, “DEATH BY ROCK!” 
  5. I subscribe to a particular Christian magazine.  The last issue was devoted to how technology is inherently flawed and often dangerous.  The internet is bad; television is bad; movies are bad; printed books are more acceptable than electronic formats, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada.
  6. The idea was that certain forms of expression are inherently more intellectually and spiritually righteous than other forms.  Modern Western culture values inferior forms of expression.  Therefore, Western culture is declining spiritually and intellectually and morally because of their use of bad media.
  7. Our flesh LOVES that kind of moralism: “I am NOT a person of unclean amusements.  But I dwell among a people of unclean amusements.”  We come to see our culture, not our own inherent and indwelling sin, as the problem with the world.  It’s not MY sin, but culture’s sin; it’s not the evil of MY heart, but the evil of the medium.
  8. The angels, created to serve God and keep his Law, dwell in in the physical presence of the Godhead — the most perfect culture imaginable.  Yet an untold number of them followed Lucifer in rebellion against God.  They did it without television, without movies, without the internet; they did it without books (the cutting-edge mass media in Luther’s day!).  The angels dwelled in THE perfect, Law-keeping society that worshipped God in the ultimate way that you and I could begin to imagine.
  9. Things – items without life and soul – CANNOT be inherently evil.  Only moral agents can be inherently immoral.  It is what sinful hearts do with things, how sinful hearts worship things, which is the ultimate issue of the Law.
  10. It is what man chooses to do with the living, breathing, sharper-than-a-double-edged Word of God that defines the essence of THE GOOD and THE EVIL.  God’s Law reaches down into hearts: thoughts, feelings, attitudes expressed through human actions.
  11. What was Adam’s defense for his sin?  He blamed his culture, his society.  “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Gen. 3:12). Not only does Adam implicate society, he blames the medium God used to establish his Law.  If you hadn’t put that pleasing-looking fruit in the garden, we would not have sinned.  Adam claimed the medium ruined the message.  So Adam sought out his own medium of fig leaves to cover over his sin.  He created his own, new culture for moral improvement and enslaved himself to live by the (little “l”) law of fig leaves that could only be destroyed by the person and work of the Promised Seed.
  12. God’s Law (big “L”) is an impenetrable wall of both outward and inward and perfect condemnation.   “But the law is not of trust, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” The Law curses.  The Law crushes. It demolishes every excuse we make for our sins, including our cultural environment and objects of human invention. Whatever does not proceed from trust is sin (Rom. 14:23).
  13. I can repent for envying my neighbor his new car; but I am still a lawbreaker the moment I covet his car.  Penance does not save me; I could buy and donate a new car to a ministry.  But that act will not undo the fact that I am a lawbreaker.  I can blame society and our materialist culture and the television, or magazine, or internet advertisement that showed me an image of a shiny new car.  But that will not change the fact that I AM A LAWBREAKER.
  14. I need someone perfect to atone for my law-breaking, not something to blame for my sinful thoughts and actions.
  15. The cross displays the consequences of God’s cursing and crushing and paves the way for that “Great getting’ up mornin’” when your sin nature will have been utterly wiped out and you will keep God’s Law perfectly.
  • CROSS (3:11, 13-14)
  • Prepositions of Exchange
        1. 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” …13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. 
        2. The answer to the curse of and crash into the Law is NOT more Law.  It is not more people keeping the Law.  The only remedy for the curse and crash is the cross.
        3. Notice the prepositions in the text?  All who rely on the Law are UNDER a curse. But Christ redeemed us FROM (“out from under”) the curse by being made a curse FOR or OVER (ὑπέρ hyper “over”). Christ has placed himself OVER us, the curse fell upon him, not those who trust into him. 
        4. What a beautiful proclamation in three prepositions: under, out from, and over.
        5. This is what conservative Protestant theologians refer to as “The Great Exchange.” The curse under which I labor falls upon Jesus at Calvary; instead of being cursed, I receive Abraham’s blessing of God’s total, eternal, unchangeable approval through faith in God’s Promised Seed.  I receive God’s Spirit to enjoy God’s fellowship.  I have Abraham’s promise of living in an eternal city whose builder and maker is God alone.
  • Life
      1. If we once lived without trust and under a curse, then now we live freely when we trust in Jesus.
      2. “He died in order that we might be life in Him. He was brought to shame in order that we might be made an honor in Him. He became all things for us in order that we might become all things in Him. This means: If we believe in Him, we are already fulfilling the Law and are free from the curse of the Law. For what we deserved—to be cursed and damned—He underwent and paid for us.”
      3. One modern translation of vv. 13-14 reads: Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse. And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham’s blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God’s life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing—just the way Abraham received it.

To trust into Jesus’ work is to live under the banner of “Done!” not “Do” because the Law that was once a curse, has become a promise.  One day, in glory, I WILL love both God and neighbor perfectly because my sin nature will be fully and finally dead.

In the “here and now” I have been given EVERYTHING I need in my Journey towards the New Jerusalem.  Don’t be bewitched by the nice men from Jerusalem.  

Their lips may drip honey as they appeal to our old nature, to our pride, to our longing for a moral society. In the end they offer only DEATH BY ROCK, not life in the Rock that is Christ Jesus.