Galatians 3:10-14

Introduction:

On November 4th, 1979 Iranian Islamists stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, overtaking the embassy and taking 66 hostages.

-However, six embassy staff members are able to escape and find shelter in the home of Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor

-The US state department learns of the 6 hiding staff members and begins to devise a way to get them out of the country

-Ton Mendez, a CIA specialist comes up with a daring idea to rescue the 6 staff members: he proposes that the CIA send him over to Iran as a Canadian filmmaker who is scouting out exotic locations to film a new sci-fi movie

-The CIA runs with the crazy idea, setting up a fake film production company, publicizing their coming movie

-Mendez is able to enter into Iran, where he secretly meets with the 6 hiding staff members. He issues them Canadian passports and fake identities. After a few days of posing as a film production cast, Mendez and the 6 staff members board an airline flight leaving the country and safely escape

-Due to the sensitive nature of the operation, all US involvement was disavowed and the escape is framed as an entirely Canadian operation until almost 20 years later.

Horrible problems require incredible solutions

-And in our text today, Paul introduces us to the giant problems of seeking to obtain salvation through the Law, and the even greater solution that God Himself provides

**review**

**Read the text**

**The Curse of the Law, the Futility of the Law, the Redemption from the Law**

**Pray**

1. The Curse of the Law (3:10)

*vs. 10

There’s a lot to unpack here in this verse:

-Why are the people who are relying on the works of the Law under the curse?

-What does it mean to be under the curse? What curse are we talking about? What is a curse?

I think the easiest way to untangle this passage is to go to the passage that Paul is quoting (deut 27:26)

Deuteronomy is the last book of what we call the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of your Bible that Moses wrote

-Deuteronomy is a collection of sermons by Moses where he is preparing the Israelites to go in and take possession of the land (which they had failed to do 40 years earlier)

-In these sermons, Moses is reminding them of God’s faithfulness to them over the years, he’s giving them the Law, and he’s encouraging them to keep this Law

And he gets near the end of the book in chapter 27, and he tells them, “when you get into the promised land, you all are to have a ceremony where you read the blessings and the cursings of this law as a reminder to yourselves.”

-And so he’s telling them the curses they are supposed to read aloud

-And the very last curse that sums it all up is this verse that Paul quotes:

Deuteronomy 27:26 (NKJV)

‘Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law by observing them.’

-What does curse mean?

**Curse doesn’t have to do with witches or hexes: witches and potions; beauty and the beast; black cats**

So what does it mean?

-in biblical terms, it really means pronouncing judgment or harm on someone for something that they’ve done

-Furthermore, the only One who is truly capable of pronouncing such a thing with authority is God, since He alone is powerful and sovereign

-So for example, when Adam and Eve sinned in Genesis 3, God pronounced a curse on the Serpent, on Eve, and on Adam

-He was pronouncing judgment and harm on them because of their sin

-And what Moses is saying here is that God’s judgment and punishment will be upon the person who does not keep all the words of the Law

So Paul says in Galatians 3: “anyone who is trying to keep the Law for their salvation is under a curse, because the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”

Now, if you’re reading the text observantly, you understand that Paul is implying something here

-What’s he implying?

-If you try to keep the Law, you’re cursed

Why? Because you have to keep all of it perfectly

What’s the implication . . . no one can keep it perfectly

-One commentator I read suggested that this verse would have been very poignant for Paul

-We know from 2 Corinthians 11 that Paul was whipped by the Jews on 5 separate occasions, receiving the 40 lashes minus one

-What’s interesting is that whenever someone was being whipped, there would be someone standing by reading the curses of the law

-Perhaps as he was receiving the final lashes of his punishment, Deuteronomy 27:26 would have been read

Deuteronomy 27:26 (NKJV)

‘Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law by observing them.’

And Paul knew something: no one can keep all of the Law

**the law is not a salad bar to pick and choose which commands you want to keep**

**when you ask people to do if they’ll get to heaven, they’ll name the laws of God that they’ve kept and ignore the ones they don’t want to keep**

“you want to earn salvation by keeping the Law?? You can’t! You’re not good enough

-righteous enough

-pure enough

-holy enough”

You’ll only end up bringing the curse of the Law upon yourself

-You’re going to try to earn God’s favor and blessing, and all you’ll end up earning is God’s judgment and punishment

-You will end up in hell, eternally suffering calamity from God because of you’re inability to keep the whole law

Brothers and sisters, let me bring both a gentle correction and encouragement to you this evening: you’re not good enough to please God with your good works and efforts

What’s the correction?

**you may be more moral than your neighbors or coworkers, but that doesn’t get you closer to heaven**

-do not be puffed up in self-righteousness when you look at your neighbors, or coworkers, or the politicians who are running for office

What’s the encouragement?

**stop putting the pressure on yourself to earn something from God; you can’t. Stop living under the discouragement of not living up**

-As we move through this text, you’ll actually see that’s good news, because someone else’s efforts have made you right with God

So first we’ve seen the curse of the Law

-Trying to earn salvation through keeping the Law only brings the displeasure and punishment of God

But second, Paul points us to . . .

2. The Futility of the Law (3:11-12)

*vs. 11-12

What is Paul saying here?

-Once again, we’re going to have to go our OT to understand the point Paul is making

Let’s look at his first quote from Habakkuk 2:4.

The book of Habakkuk is an earnest and courageous conversation between the prophet Habakkuk and God.

-Habakkuk is confused as to why God is not stepping in and acting when the people of Judah are living in horrible sin

-God replies to Habakkuk that He will act: He will bring the Babylonians to kill and destroy His people and take them into Exile

-This leaves Habakkuk with more questions: how could God do this? How could God judge a wicked nation by bringing against them an even more wicked nation?

God gives a poignant answer in chapter 2

Habakkuk 2:4 NKJV

“Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.

God says the the righteous person, the just person, will find life through his faith

-How can someone possibly be right with God and live for Him in such a hard world of sin and cruelty?

-How can someone possibly be just before God and live accordingly when sometimes we don’t even understand God’s own ways and judgments?

by faith

So what’s Paul saying?

“We know that no one is justified by the Law, because God already told us in Habakkuk that we’re justified by faith! He already told us! So why are you trying to be justified by keeping the Law? It doesn’t work!”

That’s not the purpose of the Law!

-Have you ever tried to use something for a purpose it was never intended for?

**illustration of woman who bought her dad an iPad and asked how he liked it; he was using it as a cutting board, rinsed it off, and put it in the dishwasher**

-The Law wasn’t made for that!

-It’s like using your lawnmower to vacuum the carpet!

-It’s like using paint as salad dressing!

-It’s like using your dryer to warm up your leftovers!

-When you try to keep the Law to obtain salvation, you’re using it for a purpose that it was never intended for.

It’s futile

It’s pointless

It’s empty

-It’s like thinking you can get on the freeway and if you drive long enough, you’ll eventually make it to the moon

-So you might then ask, “well what’s the purpose of the Law then?”

-That’s a great question! . . . if you come back next week, we’ll let Paul answer that question

-But for now, you’ve just got to trust him that it’s futile to trust the Law for salvation, because it was never intended to bring salvation. Salvation has always been through faith.

Perhaps someone would say, “well, isn’t keeping the Law a kind of faith.”

-And when it comes to obtaining salvation, the answer Paul gives is no

He quotes from Leviticus, which might be the book of the Bible that contains more commands and regulations than any other book.

Leviticus 18:5 (NKJV)

You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them:

-The Law is about what I can do

-Faith is about what Christ has done

-The Law is about working for it

-Faith is about trusting for something I could never work for

When it comes to salvation, the two cannot be merged

-Like two north poles of a magnet, they will never come together but always repel each other

John Calvin said, “The law justifies him who fulfils all its commands, whereas faith justifies those who are destitute of the merit of works and rely on Christ alone. To be justified by our own merit and by the grace of another are irreconcilable.”

Brothers and sisters, keeping the Law to earn salvation is futile

-it’s pointless

-it cannot be accomplished

And this leaves us with very bad news

-The Law brings a curse upon us because none of us can fully live up to it

-And we can’t overcome this curse because the Law is not a means of salvation!

-So that leaves us all condemned, crushed under the weight of God’s divine displeasure and punishment, unable to crawl out from a whole that is infinitely deep and dug deeper each day as we disobey Him

What is the solution?

-We’ve seen the curse of the Law, we’ve seen the futility of the Law, but now, we see . . .

3. The Redemption from the Law (3:13-14)

*vs. 13-14

-This passage in many ways is the pinnacle of the doctrine of salvation, because it gets the means of how we are freed from the displeasure and punishment of God for our lawbreaking

-How is it that we can escape the divine curse of sin?

-How can we be freed from divine punishment, wrath, and displeasure?

Paul says that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, because he became a curse for us

-And he cites Deut. 21:23 as his text to prove it

Please turn to Deut. 21 because we really need to understand this

-I’ve already given you the context of the book of Deut

-In this section of Deut, some specific sins of law-breaking are dealt with

-Some of them so severe, that the law-breaker deserves the death penalty

And we read these verses at the end of the chapter:

Deuteronomy 21:22–23 NKJV

“If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God.

-It’s important to really take time to understand this text and what it’s saying

-First of all, it is important to understand that being hung on a tree is a sign of divine punishment and displeasure

So it’s not that if you were hung on a tree, God would see that and get angry with you.

-That doesn’t make sense, since the person is already dead. He can’t help it that he was hung on a tree

No, to show that this was a person who was under the wrath, displeasure, and anger of God, they would hang the body on a tree

-It was a way of saying: “this person was a person who was disobedient and sinful. This person is rejected by God, a person who incurred the divine displeasure of God Himself.”

We have some examples of this in our OT:

For instance, Joshua did this multiple times when the Israelites were conquering the land:

Joshua 8:28–29 NKJV

So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, a desolation to this day. And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until evening. And as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his corpse down from the tree, cast it at the entrance of the gate of the city, and raise over it a great heap of stones that remains to this day.

Another time, Joshua defeated 5 kings in a battle. The kings fled the battle to a cave, so Joshua went over and found them

Joshua 10:26 NKJV

And afterward Joshua struck them and killed them, and hanged them on five trees; and they were hanging on the trees until evening.

When David first came to the throne, Saul’s son Ishbosheth was also trying to maintain power.

-Two of Ishbosheth’s men, Rechab and Baanah, came in and assassinated him while he was sleeping

-They took the head to David, thinking he would reward them

-What did David do?

2 Samuel 4:12 NKJV

So David commanded his young men, and they executed them, cut off their hands and feet, and hanged them by the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ishbosheth and buried it in the tomb of Abner in Hebron.

Being hung on a tree was a sign of divine displeasure and punishment

-Jesus being killed by being crucified, hung upon a tree, was no random or insignificant detail

-It was theologically significant

-It was was weighty

According to Paul, it was Jesus suffering under the divine wrath, displeasure, and punishment of God Himself

-Why?

-Because He was redeeming us from the curse of the Law, by becoming a curse for us

Christ became a curse for us

This is what we call “penal substitution”

-It is the doctrine that Christ bore the punishment and wrath of God for our sins so that we could experience God’s blessing in salvation

This is what the prophet Isaiah prophesied about the coming Messiah in Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53:4–5 (NKJV)

Yet we esteemed Him stricken,

Smitten by God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,

And by His stripes we are healed.

Isaiah 53:10 (NKJV)

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise crush Him;

Isaiah 53:11 (NKJV)

By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,

For He shall bear their iniquities.

There are people who hate this doctrine

-They think it is cruel and unfair that God would do such a thing

Brothers and sisters, this is the very heart of the Gospel

That Christ bore the sins of His people, those who were under the divine displeasure of God for their lawbreaking, and Christ bore the curse, bore the wrath, took the punishment for our sins

Galatians: Crossway Classic Commentaries Chapter 3

It is an extraordinary consolation for all Christians to clothe Christ with our sins, to wrap him in my sins, your sins, and the sins of the whole world, and so to behold him bearing all our iniquities. Seeing him like this will easily overcome all ideas of justification by works.

What’s the result?

*vs. 14

-You and I, Gentiles, get to experience the blessing of the promise through faith

-We get to experience God’s favor, God’s love, God’s adopting us into His family, all because of the sacrifice of Christ

-He became a curse for us, so we could experience blessing

-There are two distinct paths attempting to obtain salvation

-One is by works

-by Law

-by doing

-and it brings only a curse

The other is by faith

-through the promise

-through believing

-And it ends in blessing — because of the finished work of Christ

Application:

So what does this mean for us?

Let me make two applications to your life and be done:

Worship the Lord

**worship the Lord because you were condemned, and Christ came and took your punishment**

2. Stand fast on the Gospel

**Because of that, stand fast. Don’t move away from the true Gospel**

3. Because of the glorious truths of the Gospel, you can trust God today

**Randy Reed construction worker, 1995, unharnassed himself on a water tower, fell 110 feet, only complained about a sore back, told the paramedics don’t drop me**

**he fell 110 feet and survived yet was worried about dropping 4 feet??**

**you’ve been redeemed by God and yet you’re worried about a bill, an election, a hurricane**