Galatians chapter 3, the title
of our lesson this morning is Redeemed from the Curse. We left
off last week in verse 9, but let's read that and then go into
this week's lesson. Paul says in Galatians 3 verse
9, So then, they which be of faith are blessed with faithful
Abraham, for as many as are of the works of the law are under
the curse. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them." Now, this is why the blessing,
the blessing of Abraham must be by faith and cannot be by
the works of the law because everyone who is of the works
of the law, Scripture says, is under the curse. They are cursed
by the law. Now, the law is not a curse. The law is holy. Just and good
is God's law, so of course it's holy and good. And believers
love God's law. Three times in the Psalms, David
said, I love thy law. We do love the law. But people
who use the law as a means of sanctification, a means of justification,
they use it all wrong. They use it in the wrong way
for the wrong purpose. The law was never given. as a
way man could save himself by his own obedience to the law,
the law was always given to show us our sin and drive us to Christ. I give you five reasons why no
man wants anything to do with the law. Number one, the law
was written on tables of stone to show us how unbending God's
requirements are. He didn't write it on paper in
scrolls that you can bend and roll. He wrote the law on tables
of stone to show the inflexible requirements of God's law. Second,
the law was written by the finger of God to show us it's God himself
who will enforce the penalty of the law. Men don't want anything
to do with that. Third, no man wants anything
to do with the law because consider how the law was given. The law
was given in a fearful way. The law was given in a time of
thunder and lightning and the blast of a trumpet and it scared
people to death. And God gave the law that way
to crush our hope of obedience to the law. He gave it in a fearful
way to show us you needn't be afraid of this. It crushes our
hope of our own obedience to the law. Fourth, no man wants
anything to do with the law. The law was given to men through
a mediator, to show us we can't deal directly with God through
the law. God gave the law to Moses, and Moses, the mediator,
gave the law to the people. The people of Israel were afraid.
They wanted it that way. They said, Moses, don't let God
speak to us. Let God speak to you, and then you speak to us. We're afraid for God to speak
to us. The law was given through a mediator to show us we can't
deal directly with God by the law. And fifth, and this is what
the lesson concerns this morning, no man wants anything to do with
the law, because all the law can do is curse sinful men. Now,
what's a curse? Well, a curse is the pronouncement
of judgment, the pronouncement of bad things. If you're here
Wednesday night, Cody said that Walter's greeting to everybody,
it's all good things. All good things, he says. Well,
a curse is the opposite of that. A curse is the opposite of blessing. It's all bad things. Well, now,
who's under this curse? Who's under this pronouncement
of all bad things? All men, all women, all boys,
all girls who try to keep the law are under the curse. If we
try to earn righteousness by the law, if we try to make God
happy with us by how good we keep the law, how good we do
what we're supposed to do, We're under the curse. And all the
law can do to you and me is curses. Because we have a sinful nature
that we received from our father Adam. And if we try to be justified
by keeping the law ourselves, we've placed ourselves under
the curse of the law. Because when we try to earn or
be justified by our own obedience to the law, we put ourselves
under obligation to do the whole law. You know, a lot of times
we say, well, we'll just keep this one law. This one law, that's
going to be important, you know, and we'll keep it. We'll keep
the Sabbath. We'll keep it on the wrong day, but we'll keep
a Sabbath. Putting ourselves under obligation
to keep that one law puts us under the curse, because that's
put us under obligation to keep the whole law. And listen, we
have to keep the whole law perfectly at all times. You can't just
do the best that you can do. You can't keep it sometimes.
God doesn't require obedience to a few laws a few days of the
year. God requires perfect obedience
every second of our lives. That's what Paul says. Cursed
is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them, to do them perfectly. So
if we're not perfectly obedient to the entire law, We're under
the curse and that curse is eternal damnation, which is just the
opposite of the blessing, the blessing of eternal life. It
puts us into eternal death. And this is very serious. This
perfection, constant perfection. Suppose you could keep the law
perfectly and you kept the law perfectly for 70 years. And then you told one lie. Then,
after 70 years of perfection, you thought one sinful thought,
one thought of greed, one thought of lust, you're under the curse. And you ruined 70 years of perfect
obedience. Because God doesn't require pretty
good. He requires perfection. And false religion tells you,
now you get saved and start keeping the law. That's what these Judaizers
told the Galatians. Now you get saved and now you've
got to start keeping the law. Now you've got to start living
like the Jews do under the law. Well, suppose you do get saved.
And then suppose, and you can't do it, but just suppose for a
moment that you could start keeping the law perfectly from here on
out. Suppose you could do that. That'd be fine, I suppose. But
it's already too late. You're already under the curse
for all your past sins. If you sin just one time, It's
too late. You're under the curse. I told
you the law was never given as a way for a man to earn his own
justification by his own obedience. The law was given to drive us
to Christ. This is what Paul says in verse
11. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God.
It's evident. For the just shall live by faith. Now look in Habakkuk chapter
2. If you've got the authorized version, that's page 1162. Jonah,
Micah, Nahum, and then Habakkuk. You may want to go to the end
of the Old Testament and go backwards. You'll find it quickly. Paul
here is quoting the Old Testament. This is not a brand-new idea,
a brand-new New Testament idea that just comes up in the New
Testament to just to live by faith. This is the eternal commandment. The just shall live by faith.
Habakkuk 2, verse 1. Now I will stand upon my watch, and
set me upon the tower, and I will watch to see what he, what God,
will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am approved. And
the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it
plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the
vision is yet for an appointed time. But at the end it shall
speak, and not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it,
because it will surely come. It will not tarry. Behold, his
soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but the just
shall live by his faith." And that's what Paul's quoting in
Galatians. Now, the man who's the person whose soul is lifted
up in him, that person is proud of his own law-keeping. It's
just like the Pharisees, like the legalists, like these Judaizers
that came to Galatia. They're proud of their own law
keeping. Their soul is lifted up. They think they're righteous
and they're right proud of themselves. But God says his soul is not
upright in him. God says he's not righteous.
That man thinks he is. His neighbors thinks he's righteous.
But God says he's not righteous. And this is so obvious. to anyone
that has eyes, I mean, even a dead heathen ought to be able to see
this, that the just, justified people shall not live by keeping
the law because we can't do it. The just should live by faith,
to live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this was written
in the Old Testament. This plainly tells us salvation's
always been by faith in Christ. Salvation was not one way in
the Old Testament. Salvation wasn't by the law. Man wasn't justified by the law
in the Old Testament. Now in the New Testament, Christ
came and there's a new way of salvation. Now we change gears
and now salvation is by faith. No. No man ever has been justified
by the law. And the perfect Old Testament
example of that is Lot. We know many, we read of many
people in the Old Testament who were justified. They were not
justified by the law. They're justified by faith. And
we think of the example of Abraham. I'll give you a perfect example.
Justification is by faith, not by deeds of the law. It's Lot.
Scripture calls Lot, who never kept the law. Lot didn't keep
the law because he lived before the law was given. So Lot never
kept the law. Lot did so many wrong things. The law didn't have to be given
for Lot to know what he was doing was wrong. Yet, how does Scripture
refer to Lot? Just Lot. Lot was justified. Clearly, Lot was not justified
because he did the right thing. Lot could only be justified by
faith. By faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
not by his own deeds of the law. And here's the issue. Paul says,
in the sight of God. But no man is justified by the
law in the sight of God. We're not talking about being
justified in the sight of men. It's in the sight of God. He's
the judge. You can fool men. We can fool
one another. You can't fool God. Can't do
it. And look at Luke chapter 16.
Here's another issue, the problem of being justified before men.
in being justified in our own eyes or what we think of ourselves.
Man is so sinful that what we think is holy, what we think
is justified, is really an abomination. It's the opposite of holy. Look
at Luke 16, verse 15. And our Lord said unto them,
Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your
hearts. For that which is highly esteemed
among men is abomination in the sight of God." Now, I looked
up that word abomination to see how to, I mean, we all have an
idea when you hear abomination, what that is. The word abomination,
as our Lord uses it here, means not just a foul thing. It means
something that's related to idols. What we think is righteous, what
we highly esteem is something relating to idols, something
offered to idols. Man is so lost in sin, what we
think is holy is really idol worship. And when we think we're
justified by our own needs to the law, our soul is lifted up
in us because I think I'm righteous and justified by what I've done.
You know who my idol is? Old Frank. And if I'm my own idol, brother,
I've got a bad idol. I mean a bad idol. Well, of course,
we're under the curse if I'm my own idol. The law clearly
prohibits idolatry, forbids idolatry, doesn't it? So the just should
live by faith, not by our own deeds to the law, but by faith
in Christ and the faith of Christ, but faith in the obedience of
Christ, what he accomplished for his people. Look at Romans
chapter 1. We live by faith. By faith that
comes, faith in Christ that comes through the hearing of the gospel,
through the preaching of Christ. Romans 1 verse 15. So as much as in me is, I'm ready
to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I'm not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It's the power of God unto salvation.
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek. It's the same gospel, same Savior. For therein, in
that gospel, the gospel of Christ is the righteousness of God revealed
and it's revealed from faith to faith. As it's written, the
just shall live by faith. They'll live by faith in Christ. The Christ is revealed in the
preaching of the gospel. So, no man can live by our own
obedience to law. That's evident. That's obvious. We can't live even by our own
interpretation of the law. It's in the sight of God. So
the only way a sinful man can have eternal life is in Christ. It's by having faith in Christ
and we're justified by the faith of Christ, by the work that he
did for us, keeping the law for us as our representative. Now
look in Jude, verse 24. And those who have faith in Christ
They are made righteous in Christ by what Christ did for us. The only way we can be perfect
is in Him. Jude verse 24. Now unto Him that is able to
keep you from falling and to do what? Present you faultless,
present you perfect before the presence of His glory with exceeding
joy. The only way a sinful man can
be made righteous and be made faultless is in Christ, through
faith in Christ. And the law can't be of any help
to us in this matter. It's all of Christ or it's nothing,
because the law is not an option. The law cannot help you and me
in this matter of justification. Look back in verse 12 in our
text, Galatians 3. And the law is not of faith.
but the man that doeth them shall live in them." Now again, Paul's
quoting from the Old Testament. Look back in Leviticus, chapter
18. He's quoting from the Old Testament, showing us the law
was never given as a way for a man to earn his own righteousness,
his own justification. It's always been through faith
in Christ. Leviticus 18, verse 1. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,
I am the Lord your God. After the doings of the land
of Egypt wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do? And after the doings
of the land of Canaan, whether I bring you, shall ye not do?
Neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. Ye shall do my judgments,
and keep mine ordinances to walk in them. I am the Lord your God. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes
and my judgments. Which, if a man do, he shall
live in them. I am the Lord. Now he didn't
say that. So we'll say, well, I'll do his
judgments and his statutes and his commandments and I'll live.
No, God said that to make it obvious. I'm going to die because
I can't do his judgments. I can't do his statutes. I can't
keep the commandments of the Lord. Now, it's true. We'll have
eternal life if we keep all of God's law. all the time. If you've
done that, you can have eternal life. But here's the problem. Our nature is incapable. It's
impossible. It's incapable of keeping the
law. You're more than welcome to do
it, but your nature won't let you. When we had vacation Bible
school, I wanted to drive this point home to the children. I
had Maggie come up. I was standing down here and
I told her, now I've given you permission. To jump up and touch
the ceiling. Just jump up there and touch
that ceiling. Go ahead. And she wouldn't do it. I said, why won't
you try? She said, I'd rather save myself the embarrassment.
You know why she couldn't jump up and touch that ceiling? Her
nature prohibited her from doing it. She's not capable. The same
thing is true of you and me. Our nature prohibits us from
being able to keep the law. The law cannot help us to stop
sinning. Matter of fact, you know what
the law does? Incites our nature to sin more. Just tell me I can't
do it and that's what I want to do. God gave us the law, said
thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. My nature says
I don't want to do that. And God said thou shalt, thou
shalt, thou shalt. My nature said I don't want to
do that. We're incapable of keeping the
law. The just shall live by faith. The only way we can have eternal
life is by faith in Christ. And the law knows nothing of
faith. So you don't want anything to
do with the law. All the law knows is obedience. And when
we rebel, and that's what all sin is, it's rebellion. Rebellion
against God, and our nature loves to rebel. We're a rebel without
a cause. So when we rebel, when we sin,
the law doesn't know anything about forgiveness. The only thing
the law can do is condemn us, say guilty. broke the law. And
when we defile ourselves with sin, the law doesn't know anything
about cleansing. All the law knows is how to reveal
our garments spotted by sin. That's all the law knows how
to do. And when we sin, we make ourselves full of sin, full of
the disease of sin. And that's what leprosy is given
to us in Scripture as a picture of, is the disease of sin that's
all the way through us. Well, the law doesn't know anything
about healing. The law does not know anything about healing a
leper. All the law can do is say you're a leper and cast you
out. Cast you out of the presence
of men because of our disease. The law knows nothing of healing.
Well, then how can a sinner like you and me be delivered from
the requirements of the law? How can we be delivered, sinners,
be delivered from the curse of the law? We know God's not going
to set aside His law. The law has to be kept. It has
to be kept perfectly. Well, then how can I be delivered
from those requirements? Well, here's what we established
so far. The law is holy and it's good, but the law can't do anything
for me. All the law can do is condemn
me because of my sin. So how can I be set free? The
law can't do anything for me, but Christ can. Here's our hope. Christ can do something for me.
Scripture says there is only condemnation in the law, but
there is no condemnation in Christ. All the law knows is condemnation,
but there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who have faith in Christ. Well, how did God do that? Look
at verse 13, Galatians 3. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written,
Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Now, all men are laboring
under the curse because we're born guilty. We're born guilty
in Adam. And trying to keep the law now,
now that we're guilty in Adam, is like closing the barn door
after all the cows have left. It's too late. And we're laboring
under the curse of the law because we're already guilty in ourselves,
too. We're still trying to close the barn door after the cows
left. It's too late. We're already under the curse.
So there's no hope in us. There's no hope in keeping the
law. But brethren, there's hope. Now there is hope. There's no
hope in the law. There's no hope in our obedience,
but there's hope. There's a good hope. There's
hope in Christ. Christ has already, not he will
someday, he has already redeemed his people from the curse of
the law. Now redeemed means bought back. We're not set free from
the law. Because God ignored the law.
We're not set free from the law because God lowered the standard
of perfection. I was looking at my notes this
morning. You know, there I thought about lowering the standard.
There was a day I could have high-jumped X number of feet.
I don't know how high that was, but it was a certain height.
I can promise you today I couldn't come close to clearing that.
So if I'm going to jump over the bar today, the standard's
got to be lowered. God didn't lower the standard
of the law because I can't jump that high. He didn't lower the
standard of the law because I can't be perfect. God requires perfection. He didn't change the law to match
something that I could keep. No, God's holy. The Lord Jesus
Christ bought His people back from the curse of the law with
the blood of His sacrifice. He paid the price with the blood
of His sacrifice. Now, all of us have broken God's
law, yet physically. Here we are living our lives,
you know, we're going about living our lives, you know, and we think
that we're free. You know, because I can choose
to walk down these steps and go into that room, somehow I
think I'm free. We're not free. We do not have
a free will. We're alive physically, but all
we're doing is waiting the time of judgment. We're just being
held in that holding pen, waiting our time of judgment. The price
for our sin must be paid. The penalty must be suffered
for the broken law. So Christ the substitute paid
the price. He paid the price for his people.
Christ suffered all of the penalty of the broken law as a substitute. The Father made Christ to be
sinned for his people. And Christ suffered everything
that that meant. He suffered everything that was required
to pay for that sin. He shed his blood and he died
to satisfy the law. The law says a soul that sinneth
must die. Christ was made guilty and he
died to satisfy the law. Death is the curse of the law.
Christ suffered the curse. He died so that his people would
live. Well, now the price is paid. The blood has been offered. Christ
took the blood before the Father. The price has been paid and the
law has no claim on anyone for whom Christ died. The law doesn't
even want to have anything to do with anyone for whom Christ
died, because the law is satisfied. And the law itself, God's holy,
just law says, go free. Christ died for you, you go free.
And that sinner says, free? Are you kidding me? Free? You
mean I can just go free, go anywhere I want? Yes, you go free. Because
the price has been paid. The law has been satisfied. Well,
don't I have to start keeping the law from here on out? No. Don't I have to keep the law
in order to stay free? No. That would be a waste of
time. Now, have we already established
that about our nature? You know, God saved you, but
you still got that same old nature you used to have. We can't keep
the law. But believers, those who live
by the faith in Christ, They don't have to keep any part of
that law because they have faith in Christ. Christ already kept
the law for us as our representative, and we just rest in Him. The
work's finished. We rest in Him. Christ gave His
people perfect obedience. He gave His people perfect righteousness,
made them righteous in Him. But the price still had to be
paid. The law still required death
for sin. So Christ died and he died bearing
the curse. He died taking that curse away
from his people forever. And God showed us to remove all
doubt and to give us confidence and assurance. Christ died the
way he died, showing us he took the curse away by the way he
died. Crucifixion was not the means
of capital punishment the Jews used. The Jews stoned a person
to death. They didn't crucify him. They
didn't hang him on a tree. That's what the Romans did. Christ
didn't die by stoning. He died by crucifixion. To show
us beyond a shadow of a doubt, the curse is gone. We're set
free from the curse. Now look in Deuteronomy 21. I'll
show you that. I love the exactness of Scripture.
that all throughout scripture, every line, it's Christ. The Old Testament's not the law.
The Old Testament's not history. It's Christ. But look here, this
is such a good example of that. Deuteronomy 21, verse 18. If
a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the
voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that when
they have chastened him, he will not hearken unto them, then shall
his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him unto
the elders of his city, and under the gate of his place. And they
shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn
and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, he is a glutton and
he is a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall
stone him with stones that he die. So, and this is why they
do that, so shalt thou put evil away from among you, and all
Israel shall hear and fear." Now that sounds pretty extreme,
doesn't it? How rebellious does your son
have to be for you to take him down to the city of stoning?
I mean, that sounds very extreme, doesn't it? Is that what the Father did to
the Son? God the Father did that to His own Son. He made Him guilty
of our rebellion. He made Him guilty of our stubbornness.
He made Him guilty of our gluttony. He made Him guilty of our drunkenness. And God Himself put Him to death.
Go on, I'll show you, this means Christ died bearing the curse.
Verse 22, And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he
be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall
not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise
bear him that day. For he that is hanged is accursed
of God. So you bear him before nightfall,
that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth
thee for inheritance. Now, the Jews stoned a criminal
to death. But in cases of just particularly
heinous crimes, I don't know what those crimes were, but if
it was just particularly heinous, they'd stone him to death and
they'd hang that dead body on a pole as a warning to others,
this is what happens to you if you commit this crime. And God
said, you do that, everybody else won't know fear and everybody
else won't commit this same crime. And that was the most Disgraceful
way to die. Because if a person died that
way, they were stoned, and then their body was hanged on a tree,
it showed that person was under the curse of God. They died under
the curse, and it was the most disgraceful thing that could
happen to your body. Hanging on a pole was the worst
punishment that could be done to the body of a criminal. But,
God said, he died under the curse. He died hanging on that tree,
showing he died under the curse. But you buried his body by nightfall.
Now, there's a reason God said that. That death, that cursed
death, was fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Christ
was crucified. He hung on the tree, showing
that when the Father made Christ to be sin, He made Him to be
a heinous criminal. I can't explain that. He was
made to be sin, bearing the curse. And the father showed, here's
this heinous criminal. He's not just made guilty of
sin. He's made sin, is what Scripture says. And he died under the curse,
hanging on that tree, bearing the curse of his people. He didn't
die for his own sin. It was the sin of his people.
He died bearing our sin and bearing our curse. And he died with them
doing the worst thing they could do to his body. Hanging him on
a tree. But that precious body was buried
by nightfall. You know why? The curse is gone. When the curse is removed, it's
gone forever. That sin that was laid on him
is gone. The law can demand no more. The curse is removed. And everyone
in him, when he died, the curse was removed from them, too. And
Revelation 22, 3 says that in glory, there should be no more
curse because Christ removed it. No more traces of the curse. And everyone is under the curse
if they've not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God in
Christ. And everyone is delivered from that curse who has faith
in Christ. Because, look back in our text,
verse 14, that, this is why Christ died this way, that the blessing
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. that we might receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith." Now, what's the blessing of Abraham?
The blessing of Abraham is being made righteous. And the Gentiles
are made righteous in Christ the same way Abraham was. It's
by faith. It's by faith in him. Everyone
who believes the same Savior Abraham believed is made righteous. And they're made righteous the
same way Abraham was, by faith. And we receive the promise of
the Spirit. through faith in Christ. Every
believer, as faith in Christ, is given the Holy Spirit to dwell
in us. Christ died for us, so we must
be born again. The death of Christ demands our
life, demands the life of everyone that he died for. And the death
of Christ also demands we receive the Holy Spirit. The Lord promised
the Spirit will come when he goes away. He suffered and died
and ascended back to the Father. And the Spirit came. And in dwells
every one of His people. We have the fulfillment of that
promise when we're born again and believe Christ. When we believe
the Gospel of Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. To do what? Show us the things of Christ.
It's all in Christ. He shows us Christ. That faith
in Christ, that looking to Christ, not only saves us, but keeps
us saved. All right. Well, I hope that
will be a blessing to you. We'll pick up there next week.