A Curse for Us

Earlier today as I was reading the Word I came again to that most astonishing text which is Galatians 3:10-14. It seems to me that, despite the protestations of many to the contrary, the meaning of the text is plain, and is able to be summed up as follows:
1. Those who disobey any part of God's Law are law-breakers.
2. Every law-breaker is subject to a penalty, a curse from God. Those who violate God's Law in any way at all are subject to its damning judgment (i.e.-they are declared guilty and worthy of severe penalty and punishment, being placed under the condemnation of God's wrath and subject to the very opposite of His blessing).
3. There they (we) all remain helpless in themselves (ourselves) to do anything to avoid the curse, because even if from this moment on we were to fully keep God's Law, we can never undo the fact that we have already been Law-breakers. We can do nothing to get out from under the curse of God.
4. There is One Who has been born of woman and under the Law (Galatians 4:4, 5) who has by virtue of His death become a curse (i.e.-became accursed) for us, bearing in His own Person and body on the cross the full curse and wrath due to our sin, that the curse may be lifted from us.
5. Now in the place of God's cursing we receive God's blessing (Galatians 3:14).
6. This means that Christ was cursed that we might be blessed. He got what we deserved that we might receive what He deserved.

This text is simple profound stunning gospel. It is essential Christianity. It is the single message that gets as close to the heart of what our faith is about as any text anywhere. Take away the truth of the substitutionary atoning death of Christ, and you take away the gospel; you take away everything.

Nowadays there are many who are attacking this truth as if it were an antiquated quaint embarrassing relic from primitive times. The attacks are sometimes subtle (like with those who for church growth purposes tell us to remove references to sin and blood and the like, or like those who say that the gospel is not so much about personal salvation and forgiveness of sins as it is about being a part of the kingdom of God); they are sometimes brazen (like those who simply say that such talk of atonement and cursing and substitutionary death are offensive carry-overs from primitive superstitious days).

Let me say this: if the death of Jesus was not to take away sin through blood atonement and curse-bearing sacrifice, then what in the world was it for? Don't tell me that it was to be a model of love. Don't tell me that it was to be a model of humility. Don't tell me that it was to show how willing people should be to suffer. That is unadulterated nonsense.

Christ Jesus died in my place for my sins to remove the curse hanging over my head. He was damned on the cross that I would not have to be damned forever. He was forsaken of God under a curse so severe and real that it was sufficient to guarantee that I would never be forsaken of God under any curse at all.

Here I stand; where else can I stand? Take this away and we have no hope, no faith, and nothing else to say. Embrace it and you have every reason to rejoice, break forth and shout aloud for joy (Galatians 4:27).