There was once a little boy who
had a sister who needed a blood transfusion. The doctor explained
that she had the same disease that the little boy, her brother,
had recovered from two years earlier. And her only chance
for recovery was a transfusion from someone who had previously
conquered the disease. And since the two children, being
brother and sister, had the same rare blood type, the boy was
the ideal donor. Would you give your blood to
Susie? The doctor asked and Johnny hesitated. His lower lip started
to tremble and quiver. Then he smiled and he said sure
for my sister. Soon the two children were wheeled
into the hospital room and Susie was pale and thin but Johnny
was robust and healthy, and neither spake, but when their eyes met,
Johnny grinned, and as the nurse inserted the needle into his
arm, Johnny's smile faded. He watched the blood flow through
the tube, and with the ordeal almost over, his voice, shaky,
broke the silence, and he said, Doctor, when do I die? Only then did the doctor realize
why Johnny had hesitated when first asked, why his lip had
trembled when he had agreed to donate his blood. He thought
giving his blood to his sister meant giving up his life. And in that brief moment, he
had decided to give his life up for his sister's. Fortunately,
Johnny didn't have to die to save his sister. But each of
us has a condition much more serious than Susan's. And it
required, absolutely required, Christ to not just give His blood
but his life. Therefore, I would have you consider
this morning the amazing and marvelous subject of substitution. I could take my text from many
places in the scripture, but as I read earlier, turn with
me to Galatians again, chapter 3, and I take verse 13 this morning
as my main text. Let me read it again for you. being made a curse for us. For
it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. Now Paul
had been teaching the Galatians that salvation was in no way,
shape, or form according to the works of the sinner. We read
pretty much the whole chapter in the beginning. He said, verse
10, he says, For as many as are of the works of the law are under
the curse, for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth
not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do
them. Verse 11, But that no man is justified by the law in the
sight of God. It's evident. It's evident for
the just shall live by faith. That's how Abraham was saved. He believed God. It was counted
to him for righteousness. Verse 12, And the law is not
a faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them. In other
words, if you're going to try to live by the law, you're going
to have to live by it perfectly. You're going to have to dot every
I, cross every T, and you can't offend in one point, for if you
do, you're guilty of the whole law. So Paul shows him first
that the law could not give the blessing of salvation. Since
all men and women have broken it, all that the law can do is
curse. And he quotes the substance of
the 27th chapter of Deuteronomy, which is, Cursing is every one
that continueth not in, and the key two words there, all things. all things which are written
in the book of the law to do then. And since no man can claim
that he's continued in all things, can any of us here this morning
claim that we have continued in all things of the law? No,
we break the law every second, it seems, if not indeed most
definitely and thought. No man can claim that he's continued
in all things that are in the law. And he points out the clear
conclusion then that all men are under the law and were subject
to the curse of the law. He then reminds the Galatians
that if any had ever been blessed in the olden times, that their
blessing came not by the law but by their faith. Abraham's
blessings came by faith. The children of Abraham's blessing
came by faith. And people today's blessings
still come in the faith and love of Christ. And he proves this
by quoting a passage from Habakkuk 2 verse 4 which distinctly states
that the just shall live by faith. That's how the just live, by
faith. And if the just lives by faith, then those who were
just and righteous did not live before God on the grounds of
the obedience of the law. It's either works or faith, and
they can't be mixed. They can't be joined together
to accomplish. It's by grace or it's by works.
Chosen sinners are justified and made to live on the grounds
of believing and trusting in Christ. That's your only hope.
That's my only hope. Not by works of righteousness
that we've done it, but by believing, trusting, and clinging to Christ
and Christ alone. Now if the law curses us all,
now listen to me, give me your attention just for a while. If
the law curses us all, and if the only people who are said
to have been preserved in gracious life were not justified by works,
but by faith, then it is certain beyond a shadow of 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." Would you agree with that? So with
that said, and as verse 13 is my text, I want to ask you five
questions. And I want, by the grace of God,
to endeavor to answer them for you. Concerning Christ's substitution
and being made a curse for us. Christ has 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. My first question
to you is what is the curse of the law? What is the curse of
the law? Simply put, it's the curse of
God. This is a curse of God. The great
God who made the law has strict provisions and consequences in
the breaking of it. It's not the curse of the mere
law itself. It's the curse from the lawgiver. It's He that we've offended.
David said, against thee and thee only have I sinned and done
this evil in thy sight. and His arm is strong to defend
His statutes and commandments. And knowing that our great God
delights to show mercy, we know that. We're told that in the
Scriptures quite frequently. Let us be assured that the curse
of the law must be supremely just. and it's unavoidable. You see, because of man's great
fall, the curse then must be a necessary one. For God can
by no means clear the guilty and still be holy and righteous
and remain the holy sovereign that He is. But be assured, when
God curses, it's a curse of the worst kind. And it's never without
cause. And it comes to offenders with
overwhelming power. Sin must and will be punished. I think about this often. I say
something like that knowing that if God does not make that effectual
to your heart, it won't have any effect on you whatsoever.
You'll walk out of here just the way you walked in. Oh, how
I pray that God will penetrate your heart and soul and cause
you to see that without Christ you're going to die. You're going
to be eternally condemned. You're without God and without
hope in this world. And I can scream and holler and
shout and jump, post it up on a big TV screen, and it won't
make any difference unless God makes it effectual to your heart.
Oh, how I pray right now that God will make this effectual
to your heart. Sin must and will be punished. Yes, God is angry
with the wicked every day. And let me tell you something,
He destroyed the whole world except Noah and his family who
were saved only because Scripture says, Jonah found grace in the
eyes of the Lord. And the only reason that any
of you will be spared from the wrath of God is that you found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. And He called you by His love
and He redeemed you and He washed you in the blood of Christ. You
found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Genesis 6, we refer to
that passage so much. God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth. And it still is. And that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it still is. And it repented
the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved
Him at His heart. God Himself, the Holy Sovereign,
is grieved that He made man because of His wickedness. And the Lord
said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face
of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping thing. And the
fowls are there, for repenteth Me that I have made them. That
sounds like the judgment of God, the wrath of God. But Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. Oh how I pray today that you
find grace in the eyes of the Lord. Now there's something so
terrible in the very idea of the omnipotent God pronouncing
a curse upon a transgressor. If we have been given any inclination
or understanding of who and what God is, that should cause our
blood to curdle. It's just the thought of God
pouring out His wrath upon us. But there again, that's the problem.
Men have been taught that God is love. Oh, God's pleading,
God's begging. Won't you just let God have His
way? And so men have no fear of God.
Nahum 1.2 says, 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." You see,
to be cursed of God is total terror and dismay. Sorrow and
anguish lie in that curse of God, and death is involved in
it. If fallen men and women would
truly understand what's involved in the curse of God, I'm telling
you, they'd shiver and they'd shake in terror. When the day
of His wrath and judgment shall come, Revelation 6 verses 15
through 17 says, and the kings of the earth and the great men
and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and
every bondman and every free man hide themselves in the dens
and in the rocks of the mountain. and said to the mountains and
rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth
on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day
of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" Friends,
there again, unless God give you ears to hear, I cannot convince
you of how terrible it will be to face God without a substitute. Men and women, again, as I say,
know little about the horrible wrath and judgment of God because
men have preached and proclaimed a weak, puny God that loves everybody
and wants everybody to be saved. And it's a lie. It's just a lie. And I'll tell anybody that preaches
that it's a lie. His desire to cause no harm to
anyone and the fact that He's softly and tenderly calling and
patiently waiting for men to change their minds concerning
Him, to change their ways concerning Him, men say, so that He will
not have to do them harm. Now, I know that God's long-suffering
and that God is patient. There's no doubt in my mind that
He's a merciful God. But let me tell you this, He's
not a mansy-pansy, want-to-do-good-to-everybody God. We're studying in the book
of Joshua on Wednesday nights. And when the people of Israel
took the land of Canaan, and we just looked this past week,
especially in the taking of Gibeon, it says that the army of Israel
slaughtered their enemies. Slaughtered them. All those that
were opposed to God. I said Wednesday night that I've
had men say to me many times, man, this book, this Bible, it's
a bloody book. Yes, it is. Because God is holy
and God is angry with the wicked every day. And unless you're
holy and righteous as God and trust his blessed son, who is
our holiness and our righteousness, you better be prepared to deal
with God and wrath. And it's a bloody thing. It's
a bloody thing. 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, verses 5 and
6. It's in your Bible. Look at it,
Nahum 1 verses 5 and 6 at your convenience. Now listen, the
curse is a sign of God Almighty's displeasure. That's what I want
you to see. Though God is long-suffering
towards sinners, yet sin exceedingly provokes His holy mind. God hates sin. And God is going
to punish sin. We've established that. 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 it. He observes every sin,
and His holy soul is stirred by it. His eyes are too pure
to behold iniquity. He will not endure it. He's a
God that will certainly execute vengeance upon every evil work.
A curse implies, now listen, something more than mere anger.
Our God is not only somewhat angry with sinners, but His wrath
is great towards sin. That describes something of the
curse of the law. Second question, who are under
this curse? He's under this curse. Now, we've
seen something about what the curse is. He's under it. Well,
obviously, the Jewish nation was under the curse of the law,
for they refused to trust Christ, and they continued in their works
of righteousness. But there's some of you here
this morning who choose to be under the law. You deliberately
choose to be judged by it. And you say, well, how's that?
Because you, like the Jews, you're trying to reach a place in heaven
by your own good works. You're clinging to the idea there's
something you can do to save you. You can't. By this, you
therefore determine 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've
not and cannot fulfill all its commands. If that is your choice,
then oh, what a foolish choice it is. That was the choice of
the Galatians, the old foolish Galatians. Has God shown you
that you must be saved by grace? I'm asking you now. Search your
own heart. Has God shown you that you must
be saved by grace and not at all by works of the law? The law was not given for you
and I to keep. It was given to show us our inability
of keeping it. And the law was our schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ. Now what does that mean? It simply
means it taught us our inability to keep it and to bring us to
the grace of God in Christ. I see the law. I can't keep it.
What am I going to do? I'm going to run to Him who kept
it for me. Who's under the curse? Every
man and woman born of woman unless God calls them to Christ in grace
and mercy. That's who's under the curse.
Question 3. Who has Christ made a curse for?
For us. For us. Well, who are the us?
Well, you know that question. The chosen elect of God. His
people. The sheep of His pasture. Those
He elected and set His affection upon before the foundation of
the world. The same ones in John chapter
17 that He said, I pray for them. I pray not for the world. but
for them which thou hast given me." That's for us. For they are thine, and all mine
are thine, and thine are mine, and I'm glorified in them. What
does that mean? That means that they were God's,
He gave them to Christ, and we belong to both. The Lord hath
done great things for us. David said, therefore we are
glad. Psalm 126 Romans 8, 31 and 32. What shall we say then to these
things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up. For who? For us. That's who He's
talking about. How shall we not with Him also
freely give us all things? For He hath made Him to be sin
for us. For us. Who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And our text says,
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us. Oh, are you in that blessed group?
Well, how do I know I am? Do you love Christ? Do you trust
Him as your all in all? Do you see that without Him you're
condemned and eternally damned for hell? Do you see that He
is your substitute and your one mediator between God and man?
And that if you don't have Him, that you don't have life? That's
how you can know if you're one of the others. He's made a curse
for us. Fourth question, how was Christ
made a curse for us? Well, there again, this is the
whole heart and substance of the gospel. And it's substitution. Substitution. Sin isn't a curse
thing, friends. God, from the necessity of His
holiness, must curse it. God is holy and He has to curse
sin. He must punish men for committing
it. It doesn't make Him unjust. It
makes him just. But the Lord Jesus Christ, the
glorious Son of the everlasting Father, became a man. Now listen,
this is the beauty of this. He became a man and suffered
in His own person the curse which was due to the sons of men, and
that so by a substitutionary offering. Well, that sounds good,
preacher, but what does that mean? God, having been just in
punishing sin, could extend His bounteous mercy towards those
who believe in the substitute. Do you see? It's God in the flesh. He lived perfectly. Kept God's
law perfectly. Here's the main point. How is
Jesus Christ a curse? And here's the heart of it all.
Observe the word, made. He was made a curse. He was made
a curse. Christ was no curse in Himself. In His person, He was spotlessly
innocent. And nothing of sin could belong
personally to Him. People get upset when you say
Christ was made to be sin for us. Well, Christ wasn't a sinner.
I know that. It says He knew no sin. In Him
was no sin. God made Him, made Him, made
Him to be sin for us. The Apostle expressively adds,
Who knew no sin. I know He wasn't a sinner by
practice. Never suppose there to be any
degree of blame or reproach in the person or character of Christ
as He stands as an individual. He is in that respect without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing. No blemish. Perfect. Perfect. Well, you said Christ
was a sinner. No, I didn't. I did not. I said He was made to be sin.
He is the Immaculate Lamb of God. Neither was Christ made
a curse of necessity. Now, what do you mean by that?
Well, there was no necessity in Him that He should ever suffer
the curse. Nothing in Him that should cause
Him to suffer the curse. No necessity except that which
His own love for His own people created. Now, are you beginning
to see the beauty of substitution here? No necessity in Him. His
own holiness kept Him from sin, and that same holiness kept Him
from the curse. He was made sin for us. Not because of His own account,
but wholly because He loved us and chose to put Himself in Sandy
Wilson's place. He chose to do it, which we ourselves
should have occupied. He was made a curse for us because
he had voluntarily undertaken to be the covenant head of his
people and to be their representative. And as their representative,
listen, he bore the curse which was due to us. That's what substitution
is. God gets no glory if man can
merit his own salvation. But in this message of the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, God gets all the glory. He bore the
curse which was due me. Christ never was and never could
be a sinner. In His person, in His character,
in Himself considered, He could never be anything but well-beloved
of God, perfect, holy, and righteous. We must lay great emphasis on
those words. He was made a curse. constituted
a curse, set as a curse. And then again, we must emphasize
those other words, for us. That's the Gospel. He was made
a curse for us. Oh, there again, substitution.
Not on his own account at all, but entirely out of love to us
that we might be redeemed. He stood in the sinner's place
and was reckoned to be a sinner. He was treated as a sinner. and
made a curse for us. How was Christ made a curse?
Well, in the first place, He was made a curse because all
the sins of His people were actually laid on Him. Remember the words
of the Apostle. He made Him to be sin for us.
And let me note another passage from the prophet Isaiah. The
Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. The whole world? No,
all His people. And yet another word from the
same prophet, He shall bear their iniquities. Their iniquities,
not His. Substitution. The sins of God's
people were lifted from off them and imputed to Christ and their
sins were looked upon as if Christ had committed them Himself. But He didn't. That was my sin.
That was your sin. He was regarded as if He had
been the sinner. He actually and in very deed
stood in the sinner's place. Now listen, He had to for me
to ever have His righteousness. For next to the imputation of
sin came the curse of the law, the law looking to punish sin. Now look, that's what the law
does. Law is going to punish sin. There's a quick eye in doing
so. And it detected sin laid upon
Christ and it must curse sin wherever it's found. And it cursed
the sin as it was laid on Christ. So Christ was made a curse. Do you see that? Those are wonderful
and awful words at the same time. But they are scriptural words.
And we must bow to them, friends. Sin being on Christ, the curse
came on Christ, and in consequence, our Lord felt a horror of soul. Surely it was that horror that
made Him sweat great drops of blood in the garden. When he
saw and felt that God was beginning to treat him as if he had been
a sinner, he knew no sin. The holy soul of Christ shrunk
in deepest agony from the slightest contact with sin. So pure and
perfect was our Lord that never an evil thought had crossed His
mind, nor had His soul ever been stained by even a glance of evil. And yet he stood in God's sight
a sinner. Dear child of God, Christ who
made a curse for us. Lastly, and I'm finished. What
is the blessed consequence of him being made a curse for us?
This makes me smile. The consequence are that he hath
redeemed us from the curse of God. of being made a curse for
us. He's redeemed me from the curse.
Do I need to say it again? He redeemed us from the curse. as many as Christ died for are
forever free from the curse of the Law. And when the Law comes
to curse a man who believes in Christ, we say, what have I to
do with thee, O Law? The Law says, I must curse you.
And the saved sinner says, you've cursed Christ instead of me.
You've cursed my Lord and my Savior. Can you curse twice for
one offense? And the Law is silenced. It's
a done deal. No wonder our Lord said it's
finished. God's law, having received all
it can, demand is not so unrighteous as to demand anything more. All
that God can demand of a believing sinner, Christ has already paid.
He can't demand it from you and Him both. Christ has already
paid. There's no voice in earth or
heaven that can accuse a soul that believes in Jesus Christ.
You were in debt, but a friend paid you debt. No judgment can
be served on you. The debt's paid. It doesn't matter
that you didn't pay it. You see, it's paid and you have
the receipt. And that's sufficient in any
court, especially the holy court of God. So with all the penalty,
friends, it was due us. Christ bore it in His own body
on the tree. That's what Peter said who his
own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree that we
What about us being dead to sins? I'm dead to sin Christ has paid
my sin that past present future all gone It's gone You should
live under righteousness. Now that's our responsibility.
That's a whole other message. By whose stripes you were healed.
Friends, the only thing that I can say, four words that come
to mind. Hallelujah. What a Savior. Hallelujah. What a Savior.