Christ has Born the Curse of the Law
Galatians 3:13-16 · Miles Driedger · Aug 24, 2025
Galatians (2025-26), No. 24
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492619403571

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right, well we do have a lot of material to cover this morning. It's quite a bit packed in these few verses here. So let's just very quickly review some of the things we've been talking about in the last few weeks. So this morning we're talking about Galatians 3, 13 through 16, and we've titled it Christ is born, the curse of the law, just coming right out of the text there.

And so for the last, couple weeks we've been looking at Paul's defense of his teaching that the Christian life is to be lived by grace through faith and not by works of the law. And so Paul is giving a defense of that whole concept, that whole idea. And he's just finished demonstrating from the Old Testament scriptures some very key points. He's shown the truth that man is justified by faith apart from circumcision and law, and that is clear from the life of Abraham. And he's also shown us that faith results in blessing, while works of the law result in cursing.

And that's because of the fact that no one can keep the law. None of us can keep the law. The law demands perfect continual obedience, and no one is capable of that. And he's shown that the law is not a faith, but works, and therefore, It can't be a source of a righteous life.

In early Paul's building on Galatians 2.21, there where he said, I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly. He's already said that back in chapter two, right? That righteousness does not come through law. And now he's kind of built on that point. God's way of righteousness for us has been provided through the cross.

If the law was a way of righteousness, then the cross was unnecessary. But the law is not a way of righteousness. The law can only result in condemnation and cursing because of the fact that we're sinners by nature. Because of who we are, because the law is a perfectly good and righteous standard, all it can do is condemn us.

You know, actually, if we pay attention to Galatians 2, verses 19 through 21, I think we'll realize that Paul is really, in those verses, laid down his whole message, really. And now, throughout the rest of this book, this letter, he's really explaining what lies behind that truth, the reasoning behind those things.

So, you know, that's important to understand because, you know, a lot of times we go to Galatians 2.20 as just sort of this, you know, nugget of truth and it is.

But you hear a lot of people reference Galatians 2.20 that really couldn't tell you a lot about what it means, right? And that's the reality with a really concise statement. Everybody knows Einstein's theory of relativity. At least they know E equals MC squared, right? But they couldn't explain the theory to you. And it's kind of the same thing.

We can quote Galatians 2.20, but what does it mean? Why is it true? It has to do with the righteous life that Christ is through us. So this is really important scripture, and it's really practical. We see that in verse 19 there. We see the importance of having died to the law. already there in verse 19. And now we see here, the verses that we're in today, that Paul's gonna flesh that out. How did that happen? Why is that so important? So that's why I just wanted to put those verses up there. Why don't we just, I'll just read through them quick.

For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in a son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly. And that's what lies behind everything that we're studying now in these verses. So these are today's verses, chapter 3, 13 through 16. So I'll read that now. He says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations. Even though it is only a man's covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, and to seeds, as referring to many, but rather to one, and to your seed, that is Christ. Now there's some interesting things in there that we'll get to. But let's start at the beginning.

And in verse 13 there, what is communicated in the expression that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law? What can we learn from that thought? Any thoughts, comments? Something that's implied, right, is that, you know, we were... A question is, were we under the curse of the law? Were we under the law's curse? Yes, we were. That's implied there. And why? Why were we under the law's curse? That comes from back in verse 10. Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law. So as lawbreakers, we're condemned. Cursed to suffer God's wrath for eternity, right? And what did Christ do about that? Did he turn a blind eye to it? No, right?

What's the verb in that? in verse 13 there. It's the word redeemed. And redeemed, a couple of definitions there. Obviously a word has a range of meaning depending on context, but here it means something along the lines of to buy out of or to secure for oneself. But the word contains the idea of paying a price. our law breaking had a price. And that's what Christ paid, right? So he fulfilled the law's righteous requirements. And that raises the question, how did Jesus do that? How did Jesus pay that redemption price? According to verse 13, what did he do?

It became a curse. Yes, he became a curse for us. Exactly. That's what he did. Now, to say that Jesus became a curse, at first, it doesn't make a lot of sense, right? Jesus is a person. A curse is not a person, right? But Mounce, in his dictionary, says that the word can be translated, a doomed one, or one on whom condemnation falls.

So what Paul is expressing is that Jesus took the curse of the law, which belonged to us, and took it upon himself. He took the displeasure and the wrath of God against our sin upon himself, and that's the way that the law was satisfied. The curse of the law fell on him. He took it upon himself. And so the law was satisfied. legal righteous requirement was satisfied.

You know, and what's kind of interesting, right, is that if you think about people standing around the cross on the day when Christ was crucified, They couldn't see this taking place, right? But there was a transaction that was taking place on the cross in the death of Christ. There's something that was going on between God the Father and God the Son. And one of the things that Jesus was doing is that he was taking upon himself the guilt of our sin and bearing the penalty for it.

So he was taking the wrath of God against our sin and he became the cursed of God in our place. So very, very important truth there. And it's all tied back to what he said back there in chapter 2. Verse 19, for through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God. There's a purpose behind that, right? Because the law condemned us to death. But being freed from the law by Christ's work, we're now free to live to God. So, in verse 14, sorry I missed that. In verse 14, We have, sorry, gotta figure out if I can move this little zoom bar.

It covers my screen and it makes it difficult to see my first line on every slide. I don't know how to move it. Let me try something quick here. Well. Can you minimize the zoom? That's what I was just trying to figure out how to do. But nothing shows up on my screen here. So what does it say at the top of my screen there right now? Oh, look at that. Somebody moved it. I don't know. I didn't do it. The Lord moved it.

Yeah. Okay. Great. So, okay. We add that question. Maybe I duplicated that slide. Okay. Here we go. Verse 14. Let's look at verse 14, because what Paul does here is he gives us the purpose here. in what Christ was doing and taking the curse of the law, right? And the word there, in order of that, is the word Hina. And it gives us the purpose, the purpose for what he just talked about, right? The purpose of Christ becoming a curse for us. So why did Jesus do what he did? And Paul says that it has to do with the blessing of Abraham, in order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles."

Well, what blessing is that, right? Well, it's the one that he mentioned in verse 8, where he says, all the nations will be blessed in you. That's a quote from Genesis 12, 3, right, in the Abrahamic covenant, that all the nations, Gentile nations, it's all, everyone other than Israel, will be blessed And Abraham, so that's the blessing, contextually, that Paul is talking about here. And now he's telling us that the purpose of Christ redeeming us from the curse of the law has to do with us, as Gentiles, being allowed to receive the blessing of Abraham. We're going to say this more than once today, that Paul is not transferring Israel's blessings to the church. He's explaining that blessing was promised to both Jew and Gentile in this Abrahamic covenant. And what we're going to see in the next few verses is that the only possibility of blessing from God, whether you're Jewish or Gentile, rests on God's promises to Abraham, way back in Genesis 12, and kind of reiterated throughout 12 through 17 of Genesis.

And really it all has to do with the seed of the covenant, which we'll get to. But let's ask another question here about the last part of verse 14, where it talks about the promise of the Spirit. Because what we actually have here is we have Hina, in order that and then we have that you see where it says so that that's also the word hena so they're really the same word in greek and they just i guess wanted to give us a little variety uh in the english translation but it says in order that in christ jesus the blessing of abraham it comes to the gentiles in order that we would receive the promise this promise of the spirit through faith um now How do you take the promise of the spirit?

That's a little bit of a grammatical challenge, because the words of the spirit are really just the spirit in the genitive case. And we add the word of in English to indicate that or translate that. Well, the genitive case functions sort of like an adjective. And here, uh the spirit modifies the promise so if we were to ask what kind of promise paul uh he would answer the spirit kind of promise that's that's kind of the idea behind the genitive and um but the question is what is the relationship of the spirit to the promise right to tell me the spirit kind of promise doesn't really help um but Here's the real question.

Is the Holy Spirit the one who gave the promise, or is the Holy Spirit the thing that was promised, so to speak? And grammatically, it could be either. So the question is, is this the Spirit's promise, or is this the promised Spirit? And different translations, some will actually say the promised spirit.

And a lot of translations, even if it says the promise of the spirit, there will be a footnote or something in a study bible to say this is the promised, indwelling Holy Spirit. So, which way do we take that? So, what contextual clues do we have? Now, this is why there is some disagreement on this, because there's some contextual clues that might lead us in either one of those two directions.

Now, the thing is, right, is that we do know that Jesus promised the Holy Spirit. You know, John 14, 15, 16, those chapters there, he's talking about the promised Holy Spirit. So there is a promise of the Spirit to the believers in Jesus who at that point did not yet have the Holy Spirit. So that's why I think that leads some people to take it as the promised indwelling Spirit.

But we also have contextual clues in Galatians that might lead us to that. conclusion, we have in chapter 3, verse 2, where Paul asks the question, did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by bearing with faith? So the you know, within this chapter we have this talk of receiving the Spirit, and that's similar to the words, receive the promise of the Spirit. So we could take it that Paul's referring to the same thing there, the receiving of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

And then down in chapter 4 verse 6, Paul says, because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out the Father, right? And so again, we have another contextual example of the Spirit being sent to us or into our hearts. And you know, without a doubt, it's true that we receive the Holy Spirit when we put our faith in Jesus Christ. As we saw, Paul references that at least twice in this epistle. It's true that Jesus promised the Holy Spirit in John 14 and 16.

However, As much as that's true, I think there are other contextual clues, and it's related to the word the promise. Because Paul is introducing this word promise here in verse 14, and it's a key word all the way down to the end of chapter 3. We're going to see a lot between here and the end of the chapter. And in verse 16, the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. So contextually, this is a promise made to Abraham that's being referred to here. Down in verse 18, what does verse 18 say was granted to Abraham by means of a promise?

Someone identify that in 3.18. We're going to find that here, except the law. Yeah, so it says there in verse 18, for if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise, but God has granted it, what? The inheritance. God has granted the inheritance to Abraham by means of a promise. So, contextually, and as we go on through chapter three, what we see is that Christ, actually, the seed, is the heir of the promises made to Abraham. And that because we've become sharers, because we're united to Christ, we become sharers in that inheritance, right? We're co-heirs.

In verse 29, no, there is no verse 29. What did I write down here? It should be, oh no, there is, there is. Yeah. I was looking at the wrong chapter in my Bible. 3 verse 29 says, if you belong to Christ, then you, plural, are Abraham's descendants, that literally should be seed, singular, heirs, plural, according to promise. Those are someone else's verses for a future week. So I'm not going to spend too much time on these verses here.

But just to show that contextually as we go on through chapter 3, the promise that Paul is introducing here in verse 14 is the promised blessing, the promised inheritance that was promised to Abraham, not the promised indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And so that's the way I take verse 14. that the promise of the Spirit in verse 14 is the blessing promised to Abraham and his seed by the Holy Spirit because it was the Holy Spirit who gave those promises to Abraham back in Genesis 12. So that's the way I interpret that genitive in verse 14. So what we could say really is that the blessing of Abraham in the first half of verse 14 is the same thing as the promise of the Spirit or the Spirit's promise in the last half of the verse.

And the condition for the Gentiles to receive the blessing is to be in Christ, right? That's conditioned there upon being in Christ. He doesn't just say in order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, but he says in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. So there's a condition on it. And in the last half, he gives a condition for receiving the Spirit's promise, and he says that it's through faith. And of course we know that those two things are directly connected, right? It's through faith that we are placed in union with Christ.

And Paul is saying that this is the means by which Gentiles receive the blessings promised to all nations in Genesis 12 verse 3. But notice one important difference between these two statements. In the first part there, Paul says that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles And in the last part, he says, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit. Paul includes himself in this. Paul is not a Gentile, right? So what we have here is we have in the first part that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. And all of a sudden, Paul includes himself, right? So we have Gentiles and then we have we. And essentially, I believe that what Paul is saying is that And now my slides won't advance. That's interesting. What a great. Okay, there we go. Essentially, what Paul is saying is that.

Christ became a curse on behalf of all men, Jew and Gentile. And because of that, because he became a curse on behalf of all men, therefore the blessings promised in the Abrahamic covenant, which were made to both Jews and Gentiles, right, are made available to both the Jews and the Gentiles. Does that make sense? I know we had a big pause there between the first thought and the punchline there.

But, you know, Paul is making this argument that the blessing of Abraham is available to the Gentiles, and then he says, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit, or the Spirit's promise. And what I believe he's saying is that what Christ did on the cross allowed the blessings promised in the Abrahamic Covenant to come to the Gentiles and to the Jews. Because remember, there are specific promises in the Abrahamic Covenant, those for the Gentiles as well as those for the Jews.

So Paul's not erasing the Church-Israel distinction. In fact, he doesn't even really mention the church here. He's simply talking about Gentiles and Jews. There are no other categories in terms of ethnicity. You're either a Jew or you're a Gentile. But the Abrahamic covenant promised blessing to all men, because there's no other category you could belong to other than Jew or Gentile, right?

So I think that's what Paul is saying in verse 14. Now, we only have five minutes left now, thanks to our technical difficulty. So we're going to go, which is Crazy fast now. No, look at verse 15. Verse 15 at first can look a little bit like, Paul, what are you talking about?

All of a sudden you're talking about, I speak in terms of human relations, even though it is only a man's covenant, yet what has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it. What Paul is essentially saying, he's just, he's saying, guys, this is all about a covenant that God made with Abraham. And you know, even in terms of human covenants, the covenants that you make between yourselves, that nobody changes covenant, or it's not a covenant, right? That destroys the covenant, right?

You wouldn't be too happy if your bank came along later and said, by the way, the payments that you've been making on your house, we're taking those allegorically, not as real payments. And therefore, you still owe us all the money. So, that's all Paul is saying.

You know that in terms of human covenants, you do not change the terms. And the reason Paul is bringing this up doesn't connect until next week's verses, when I believe Bob covers verse 17, where he says, what I'm saying is this, the law which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God so as to nullify the promise. In other words, the law does not change anything about what the Lord already laid down in the Abrahamic covenant. So that's what Paul's doing in verse 15. He's just making clear to them, you guys know what a covenant is. and you know that it does not change or vary. But we want to spend more time on verse 16, because there's some really amazing stuff here. It connects a lot of dots.

And I told Roger when he assigned me these three portions of chapter three, I said, you know, Roger, I spent a year studying Galatians chapter three, because I told Brad Mastin when I was doing a course with him, I told him I was going to do it kind of exegete, a portion or a chapter of scripture, kind of in written form. And I chose Galatians 3 because there are some questions in there that I wanted to answer for myself. And after a year of grappling with it, Brad said, why don't you choose another passage and just finish the assignment and move on? And I did, but there were some things that really stumped me.

And so let's connect some of these dots here. Paul makes an argument from the singular noun seed found in Genesis 12 verse 7, Genesis 13 verse 15. Genesis 17, verses 7 and 8, and then Genesis 24, verse 7. There may be others, but those are some of the key ones. And he's very emphatic that the seed of Abraham is singular. Now, if you go back and read these verses, If you have the NASB like me, it might say descendants plural. The Hebrew is the singular seed.

And Paul says that this is actually very important for understanding the fulfillment of this covenant. Okay, so who is the seed, right? And thankfully Paul is very clear about that. He says that it's Christ, right? And I don't know that we really expect that necessarily when we're reading Genesis 12, you know. And we see this and it's kind of hard to get our minds around, you know. We see, okay, the seed is one and the seed is Christ.

What does this all mean? Generally, in dispensational circles, when we're talking about the Abrahamic Covenant, the debate that we're trying to talk about is, are these things fulfilled to Israel or the Church? And as dispensationalists, we say, well, the Abrahamic Covenant is fulfilled to Israel. But remember, Paul is talking about the fact that the Abrahamic Covenant has promises to both Israel and to Gentiles. And that's what Paul is discussing here.

He does not say that the promises to Abraham are fulfilled to the church. He says to the seed that is Christ. And so going back to verses, we looked at verse 29 earlier, but look at verse 28 and 29. where Paul says, there is neither Jew nor Greek, another word basically referring to Gentiles, right? There's neither slave nor free man, there's neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants. Now this, the NASB did it again. That is the same word used in verse 17 the Greek word for seed in the singular. They should have translated that word singular, seed, so that we caught the connection. Heirs according to promise. Now in those verses, you is plural. For you, plural, are all one, singular. And then in verse 29, if you, plural, belong to Christ, then you, plural, are Abraham's seed, singular, heirs, plural, according to promise.

So where are we going here? What is this all about? We know that the church... My slides are all duplicated. Okay. We know that the church is in Christ. And that makes us heirs according to promise. So again, does that mean that the church has taken over the Abrahamic covenant after all? And again, this is why I spent a year grappling with chapter three. Some of these interpretive problems have bothered me. I think we can begin, but like we said, he's not even talking about the church so much as his Jews and Gentiles here. But I think we can begin to unlock this if we have a look at 1 Corinthians 15, Where Paul says, How many men are there? There's only two. There are only two possibilities, right?

By a man came death, by a man came the resurrection of the dead. And in verse 22, for as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. Notice the plurality there of those in Adam and in Christ. So again, we have this two singular men, one man, a man, singular, and a man, singular, Christ, Adam and Christ. But we have a plurality of those who are in Adam and those who are in Christ. But there are only two men in whom all men must be found and there's no third option.

And what Paul is saying here is that the promised blessings of the Abrahamic covenant will be fulfilled to all those who are in Christ, the seed, and not to those who are in Adam. we're very familiar with talking about the churches in Christ, right? And that's true. And we see that as unique about the church because it is at this point, nobody, nobody else is in Christ. Um, but, Will there be any other people participating in the resurrection besides the church, the future bodily resurrection? Absolutely, right? We've got Old Testament believers, both Jewish and Gentile. We've got tribulation saints, right? And we have to answer the basic question.

Are any of those resurrected believers going to remain in Adam? Are there going to be any resurrected believers who are still in Adam? And the answer is it's not possible, because in Adam all die. So every single resurrected individual entering into the kingdom of Christ must be part of the one new man in Christ. every person every single person who participates in the resurrection to eternal life must be part of the new creation man because there are only two options the one is is uh death right in adam all die in christ all will be made alive so no longer a part of adam's condemned race but part of christ's acceptable race um however ever within the new race of mankind, there are nevertheless distinctions.

The church and Israel remain distinct for all eternity. We have different roles, we have different places in God's eternal economy, right? But I think part of the reason we get confused here is because Paul's not dealing here with the distinction between church and Israel. That's really not his point.

Paul is simply explaining that everyone who shares in God's promised blessings to Abraham must be raised to life in Christ, separated from Adam, alive in Christ. And one day that will be true for believers from every from every age of history, from every dispensation. For us, and this is really big, right? For us, this is true right now, because we know that we've already been raised with Christ, right? We've been made alive together with Christ. Even so, reckon yourselves dead and ye descend, but alive. to God in Christ.

So Paul has not erased the church-Israel distinction, but he's made it clear that the only way to receive the blessings promised to Abraham is through faith in Christ. But in closing, let's not lose Paul's main point in these verses. Paul is arguing that God has covenanted to bless the seed of Abraham He promised that in his eternal, unchangeable covenant with Abraham. And no one can add any condition to that covenant or ever change it in any way. And so whether you're Jew or Gentile, it must be received by faith alone. And that's really Paul's point in this portion of Scripture, I think.

We're now 5 minutes over, which is not too bad considering I thought I was going to be short on time. 5 minute intermission and so. But I did pursue that last part really fast. So. Please, if you have any questions we can, we can handle, you know. Something anything really quick here if you thought or comment. Was that was that a. It was very good. Thank you. Well, I would absolutely appreciate any comments or thoughts. Do you want to email them to me or whatever? I know there's some things I brought up in there that are like, wow, that's kind of an interesting thought. But I really, like I said, spent a lot of time grappling through some of these things.

What is Paul saying? Because there's a real possibility of approaching those verses and feeling that the church-Israel distinction has kind of been muddled, blurred. And I don't think that's Paul's point at all. But there is a really interesting point in that Paul is very emphatic that the promised blessings, the blessings promised to Abraham by the Spirit are There's an aspect of it for all men, but the only way to receive those is to respond by faith, to one day be resurrected in Christ into one new man, part of that new race of mankind, so to speak, which is true for the Church now and will be throughout all eternity. But I believe when all men are resurrected, they will be part of that one new man, not part of the Church, but a part of the new race of humanity.

Let's close in prayer, and I'd love any further discussion later. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. Continue to teach us these things that sometimes challenge us and stretch our understanding and thinking. But Lord, we want to understand rightly. what you've communicated and most of all, Lord, just impress upon our hearts the ever important truth that grace is your operating principle towards us and faith is the means by which we receive it. In Jesus' name, Amen.