“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” (Galatians 3:13)

The apostle had been showing to the Galatians that salvation is in no degree by works. He proved this all-important truth in the verses which precede the text, by a very conclusive form of double reasoning. He showed, first, that the law could not give the blessing of salvation, for, since all had broken it, all that the law could do was to curse. He quotes the substance of the twenty-seventh chapter of Deuteronomy, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them;” and as no man can claim that he has continued in all things that are in the law, he pointed out the clear inference that all men under the law had incurred the curse.

He then reminds the Galatians, in the second place, that if any had ever been blessed in the olden times, the blessing came not by the law, but by their faith, and to prove this, he quotes a passage from Habakkuk 2:4, in which it is distinctly stated, that the just shall live by faith: so that those who were just and righteous, did not live before God on the footing of their obedience to the law, but they were justified and made to live on the ground of their being believers. See, then, that if the law inevitably curses us all, and if the only people who are said to have been preserved in gracious life were justified not by works, but by faith, then it is certain beyond a doubt that the salvation and justification of a sinner cannot be by the works of the law, but altogether by the grace of God through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

But the apostle, no doubt feeling that now he was declaring that doctrine, he had better declare the foundation and root of it, unveils in the text before us a reason why men are not saved by their personal righteousness, but saved by their faith. He tells us that the reason is this: that men are not saved now by any personal merit, but their salvation lies in another—lies, in fact, in Christ Jesus, the representative Man, who alone can deliver us from the curse which the law brought upon us; and since works do not connect us with Christ, but faith is the uniting bond, faith becomes the way of salvation. Since faith is the hand that lays hold upon the finished work of Christ, which works could not and would not do, for works lead us to boast and to forget Christ, faith becomes the true and only way of obtaining justification, and everlasting life.

In order that such faith may be nurtured in us, may God the Holy Spirit this morning lead us into the depths of the great work of Christ; may we understand more clearly the nature of his substitution, and of the suffering which it entailed upon him. Let us see, indeed, the truth of the stanzas whose music has just died away—

“He bore that we might never bear
His Father’s righteous ire.”

I. Our first contemplation, this morning, will be upon this question, WHAT IS THE CURSE OF THE LAW HERE INTENDED?

It is the curse of God. God who made the law has appended certain penal consequences to the breaking of it, and the man who violates the law, becomes at once the subject of the wrath of the Lawgiver. It is not the curse of the mere law of itself; it is a curse from the great Lawgiver whose arm is strong to defend his statutes. Hence, at the very outset of our reflections, let us be assured that the law-curse must be supremely just, and morally unavoidable. It is not possible that our God, who delights to bless us, should inflict an atom of curse upon any one of his creatures unless the highest right shall require it; and if there be any method by which holiness and purity can be maintained without a curse, rest assured the God of love will not imprecate sorrow upon his creatures.

The curse then, if it fall, must be a necessary one, in its very essence needful for the preservation of order in the universe, and for the manifestation of the holiness of the universal Sovereign. Be assured, too, that when God curses, it is a curse of the most weighty kind. The curse causeless shall not come; but God’s curses are never causeless, and they come home to offenders with overwhelming power. Sin must be punished, and when by long continuance and impenitence in evil, God is provoked to speak the malediction, I wot that he whom he curses, is cursed indeed. There is something so terrible in the very idea of the omnipotent God pronouncing a curse upon a transgressor, that my blood curdles at it, and I cannot express myself very clearly, or even coherently.

A father’s curse, how terrible! but what is that to the malediction of the great Father of Spirits! To be cursed of men is no mean evil, but to be accursed of God is terror and dismay. Sorrow and anguish lie in that curse; death is involved in it and that second death which John foresaw in Patmos, and described as being cast into a lake of fire, Revelation 20:14. Hear ye the word of the Lord by his servant Nahum, and consider what his curse must be:

“God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies ... The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell herein. Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.” (Nahum 1:2,5-6)

Remember also the prophecy of Malachi:

“For behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” (Malachi 4:1)

Let such words, and there are many like them, sink into your hearts, that ye may fear and tremble before this just and holy Lord.

If we would look further into the meaning of the curse that arises from the breach of the law, we must remember that a curse is first of all a sign of displeasure. Now, we learn from Scripture that “God is angry with the wicked every day” (Psalm 7:11); though towards the persons of sinners God exhibits great longsuffering, yet sin exceedingly provokes his holy mind; sin is a thing so utterly loathsome and detestable to the purity of the Most High, that no thought of evil, nor an ill word, nor an unjust action, is tolerated by him; he observes every sin, and his holy soul is stirred thereby. He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity; he cannot endure it. He is a God that will certainly execute vengeance upon every evil work.

A curse implies something more than mere anger. It is suggested by burning indignation; and truly our God is not only somewhat angry with sinners, but his wrath is great towards sin. Wherever sin exists, there the fullness of the power of the divine indignation is directed; and though the effect of that wrath may be for awhile restrained through abundant longsuffering, yet God is greatly indignant with the iniquities of men. We wink at sin, yes, and even harden our hearts till we laugh at it and take pleasure in it, but oh! let us not think that God is such as we are; let us not suppose that sin can be beheld by him and yet no indignation be felt. Ah! no, the most holy God has written warnings in his word which plainly inform us how terribly he is provoked by iniquity, as, for instance, when he saith, “Beware, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” “Therefore saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies.” “For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Moreover, a curse imprecates evil, and is, as it comes from God, of the nature of a threat. It is as though God should say, “By-and-by I will visit thee for this offense. Thou hast broken my law which is just and holy, and the inevitable penalty shall certainly come upon thee.” Now, God has throughout his word given many such curses as these: he has threatened men over and over again. “If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.” (Psalm 7:11). Sometimes the threatening is wrapped up in a plaintive lamentation. “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?”

But still it is plain and clear that God will not suffer sin to go unpunished, and when the fullness of time shall come, and the measure shall be filled to the brim, and the weight of iniquity shall be fully reached, and the harvest shall be ripe, and the cry of wickedness shall come up mightily into the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth, then will he come forth in robes of vengeance and overwhelm his adversaries.

But God’s curse is something more than a threatening; he comes at length to blows. He uses warning words at first, but sooner or later he bares his sword for execution. The curse of God, as to its actual infliction, may be guessed at by some occasions wherein it has bee a seen on earth. Look at Cain, a wanderer and a vagabond upon the face of the earth! Read the curse that Jeremiah pronounced by the command of God upon Pashur; “Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it.”

Or, if you would behold the curse upon a larger scale, remember the day when the huge floodgates of earth’s deepest fountains were unloosed, and the waters leaped up from their habitations like lions eager for their prey. Remember the day of vengeance when the windows of heaven were opened, and the great deep above the firmament was confused with the deep that is beneath the firmament, and all flesh were swept away, save only the few who were hidden in the ark which God’s covenant mercy had prepared—when sea-monsters whelped and stabled in the palaces of ancient kings, when millions of sinners sank to rise no more, when universal ruin flew with raven wing over a shoreless sea vomited from the mouth of death. Then was the curse of God poured out upon the earth.

Look ye yet again further down in time. Stand with Abraham at his tent door, and see towards the east the sky all red at early morning with a glare that came not from the sun; sheets of flames went up to heaven, which were met by showers of yet more vivid fire, which preternaturally descended from the skies. Sodom and Gomorrah, having given themselves up to strange flesh, received the curse of God, and hell was rained upon them out of heaven until they were utterly consumed.

If you would see another form of the curse of God, remember that bright spirit who once stood as servitor in heaven, the son of the morning, one of the chief of the angels of God. Think how he lost his lofty principality when sin entered into him! See how an archangel became an archfiend, and Satan, who is called Apollyon, fell from his lofty throne, banished for ever from peace and happiness, to wander through dry places, seeking rest and finding none, to be reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the last great day. Such was the curse that it withered an angel into a devil, it burned up the cities of the plain, it swept away the population of a globe.

Nor have you yet the full idea. There is a place of woe and horror, a land of darkness as darkness itself, and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is darkness. There those miserable spirits who have refused repentance, and have hardened themselves against the Most High, are forever banished from their God and from all hope of peace or restoration. If your ear could be applied to the gratings of their cells, if you could walk the gloomy corridors wherein damned spirits are confined, you would then with chilled blood, and hair erect, learn what the curse of the law must be—that dread malediction which comes on the disobedient from the hand of the just and righteous God. The curse of God is to lose God’s favor; consequently, to lose the blessings which come upon that favor; to lose peace of mind, to lose hope, ultimately to lose life itself; for “the soul that sinneth, it shall die;” and that loss of life, and being cast into eternal death, is the most terrible of all, consisting as it does in everlasting separation from God and everything that makes existence truly life. A destruction lasting on forever, according to the scriptural description of it, is the fruit of the curse of the law (Matthew 25:46).

Oh, heavy tidings have I to deliver this day to some of you! Hard is my task to have to testify to you thus the terrible justice of the law. But you would not understand or prize the exceeding love of Christ if you heard not the curse from which he delivers his people, therefore hear me patiently. O unhappy men, unhappy men, who are under God’s curse today! You may dress yourselves in scarlet and fine linen, you may go to your feasts, and drain your full bowls of wine; you may lift high the sparkling cup, and whirl in the joyous dance, but if God’s curse be on you, what madness possesses you! O sirs, if you could but see it, and understand it, this curse would darken all the windows of your mirth. O that you could hear for once the voice which speaks against you from Ebal, with doleful repetition: “Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out.” How is it you can rest while such sentences pursue you? Oh! unhappiest of men, those who pass out of this life still accursed. One might weep tears of blood to think of them. Let our thoughts fly to them for a moment, but O let us not continue in sin, lest our spirits be condemned to hold perpetual companionship in their grief. Let us fly to the dear cross of Christ, where the curse was put away, that we may never come to know in the fullness of its horror what the curse may mean.

II. A second enquiry of great importance to us this morning is this: WHO ARE UNDER THIS CURSE?

Listen with solemn awe, O sons of men. First, especially and foremost, the Jewish nation lies under the curse, for such I gather from the connection. To them the law of God was very peculiarly given beyond all others. They heard it from Sinai, and it was to them surrounded with a golden setting of ceremonial symbol, and enforced by solemn national covenant. Moreover, there was a word in the commencement of that law which showed that in a certain sense it peculiarly belonged to Israel. “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.” Paul tells us that those who have sinned without law shall be punished without law; but the Jewish nation, having received the law, if they broke it, would become peculiarly liable to the curse which was threatened for such breach.

Yet further, all nations that dwell upon the face of the earth are also subject to this curse, for this reason: that if the law was not given to all from Sinai, it has been written by the finger of God more or less legibly upon the conscience of all mankind (Romans 2:12-16). It needs no prophet to tell an Indian, a Laplander, a South Sea Islander, that he must not steal; his own judgment so instructs him. There is that within every man which ought to convince him that idolatry is folly, that adultery and unchastity are villanies, that theft, and murder, and covetousness, are all evil.

Now, inasmuch as all men in some degree have the law within, to that degree they are under the law; the curse of the law for transgression comes upon them. Moreover, there are some in this house this morning who are peculiarly under the curse. The apostle says, “As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse” (Galatians 3:10) Now, there are some of you who choose to be under the law; you deliberately choose to be judged by it. How so? Why, you are trying to reach a place in heaven by your own good works; you are clinging to the idea that something you can do can save you; you have therefore elected to be under the law, and by so doing you have chosen the curse; for all that the law of works can do for you, is to leave you still accursed, because you have not fulfilled all its commands. O sirs, repent of so foolish a choice, and declare henceforth that you are willing to be saved by grace, and not at all by the works of the law. There is a little band here who feel the weight of the law, to whom I turn with brightest hope, though they themselves are in despair. They feel in their consciences today that they deserve from God the severest punishment; this sense of his wrath weighs them to the dust. I am glad of this, for it is only when we come consciously and penitently under the curse that we accept the way of escape from it. You do not know what it is to be redeemed from the curse till you have first felt the slavery of it. No man will ever rejoice in the liberty which Christ gives him till he has first felt the iron of bondage entering into his soul. I know there are some here who say, “Let God say what he will against me, or do what he will to me, I deserve it all. If he drive me forever from his presence, and I hear the Judge pronounce that awful sentence, ‘Depart, accursed one;’ I can only admit that such has been my heart and such my life, that I could expect no other doom.” O thou dear heart, if thou art thus brought down, thou wilt listen gladly to me while I now come to a far brighter theme than all this. Thou art under the curse as thou now art, but I rejoice to have to tell thee that the curse has been removed through Jesus Christ our Lord. O may the Lord lead thee to see the plan of substitution and to rejoice in it.