No. 25. >> Thank you. I have a different question from this portion of Paul's letter to the Galatians. What does it mean that Jesus is cursed on the cross? >>DR. ARTHUR A. JUST, JR.: Josh, you are anticipating here Paul's own argument. And I think you can see from what we said before about the series of Bible passages that Paul is referencing here, that he is building his argument. Now, we just talked about how Paul in quoting Deuteronomy 27 talks about how everyone is cursed who tries to keep the law. And he now kind of puts before them kind of the reality of what the Scripture is really teaching. And this is a passage we all know very well. Verse 11 Paul says that no one in the law will be declared righteous before God. It is evident. He puts that at the end. We have to translate this one. It is very clear, it is very evident, that no one is declared righteous before God because -- and here he quotes Habakkuk. Remember this is only the second place in the Old Testament where righteousness and faith are together -- the righteous one by faith will live. Not by works of the law. But by faith. Now, some translate the righteous one will live by faith, putting living as kind of the ac September. Righteous by faith will live. In a sense it amounts to the same thing. But what it does is make clear -- later on in the prophets when they go back and interpret Genesis 15:6 where righteousness and faith are in the same verse, the only other place, that the way in which one is saved, the way in which one is made righteous by God is not by works of the law but by faith. I should say declared righteous by God is by faith, not by works of the law. Now, that leads into I think a statement which I think perhaps his opponents used. But Paul was very happy to use, as well. Here is a passage that if he didn't hear it from his opponents, it's one that Paul would have cited. And this is Leviticus 18:15. And I think you can see why he cites it at this point. Having said that the righteous one by faith will live, he says: But the law is not by faith. Now, this is going to be a point he's going to make later on. Why then the law? Don't pit the law against faith Paul is saying. Because he's saying: The Old Testament doesn't do that. He says: Recognize that the law has its work to do. And faith has its work to do. But don't make them try to do the same work. We're going to see how carefully he's going to argue that in the later part of this doctrinally section of this epistle. But here he puts it before us: The law is not by faith. These are two different things. And here he quotes that Leviticus passage that I think is very penetrating: The one who does them shall live by them. What he's meaning here is but on the contrary. But on the contrary. The one who tries to keep the law, the one who does the law, is going to have to live under that. Now, this is something that I think is pretty evident but I think we need to illustrate it. Once you go under the law, then that's it. There's no out. In the ancient world if you were thrown into a debtor's prison, that was it. There was no way you could pay your way out. Because there was no way to earn anything unless someone liberated you by paying off your debt. But you yourself could not work your way out. Because he was in prison. There was no way for it to happen. I always use this illustration. I'm a from the East Coast and I'll never forget on the fifth reunion of college, one of my classmates who was working in Boston came back for the reunion. And he was a deeply distressed and very, very depressed man. And it took us a while to get out of him what it was. And here is the deal: He had within, you know, the first years out of college had found himself working for the Mafia. And once you're in the Mafia, that's it. You can't get out. Your life is there. And he knew that. And he was deeply distressed that for the rest of his life, he was going to be under their thumb unless somehow he would simply disappear. But then he would never it see his family or anything like that. You know, once you're in the law, once you try to make yourself right with God by means of the law, that's it, you're in it forever. And Paul wants that to be clear. That's why it's a curse. Because there is no out. And so Paul gives the antidote now. And this is the answer to your question, Josh. Verses 13 and 14 I think are some of the most marvelous Gospel there is. And it's anticipated in Chapter 2 as we said in the previous part of the study here that: I died to the law through the law. This is now where it's explicated by Paul what that means. Verse 13 says: Christ snatched us, rescued us -- this is the same word that's used in the beginning of the epistle -- snatched us out of the curse of the law. The law's curse. Remember, the law is what curses. Cursed is everyone who does not remain in all the things written in the book of the law in order to do them. They are cursed. But Christ snatched us from that curse by becoming on our behalf cursed. Now, there is the same language Paul uses later on where Christ who knew no sin, became sin for us. Christ who knew no shame -- I think this is what we might want to say here -- became a curse on our behalf. And Paul cites Scripture here. And it's the most famous passage I think about the crucifixion in the Pentateuch. For it is written: cursed who is everyone that hangs on the tree. That's Deuteronomy 21. Notice, that it comes right before Deuteronomy 27 where the curse of the law is mentioned. Now, the ultimate curse was the shameful death of being crucified. And there Jesus redeems us, snatches us back, rescues us from being cursed by the law by becoming on our behalf a curse. Now, why is that? Well, let's go and rehearse that again. On the cross there is this collision between Christ and the law. Christ who knew no sin becomes sin, becomes shame. And when the law sees a sinner, it condemns them, it curses them. And it killed him in a sense. The law killed Jesus. Because it had to bring him to death because he was the embodiment of the sins of the entire world. It was all laid on him. And as he collided with that law, it had to result in death. So Jesus becomes the most accursed man on the cross so that we don't have to be cursed. So that the law's curse is now fulfilled, satiated, completed in him. That's why in a sense -- now we're going to see how Paul nuances this -- in a sense the law no longer obtains for us. The law has been fulfilled, brought to its complete fulfillment as Paul says in Christ's act of love -- that's what Paul is going to call it later on. The act of love of giving up his life for us and becoming a curse for us. Now, that is I think one of the most extraordinary statements of the Gospel, that the law's curse and Christ meet at the crucifixion and results in the death of Jesus. Now, look at what he says in 14 and this is a beautiful statement of purpose why this happened. He becomes cursed for us so that, in order that, in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham -- notice the blessing of Abraham, he comes back to Abraham where he began, might come to the Gentiles. So the curse of Jesus on the cross results in the blessing of Abraham extending to all nations. Exactly what God promised to Abraham in Genesis 12 cited earlier by Paul. And in order that -- and this is a second purpose clause -- in order that we -- notice now he talks about we. We might receive the promised Spirit -- remember how he talked about the receiving of the Spirit. We might receive the promised Spirit through faith. How did you receive the Spirit? Works of the law or the proclamation that elicits faith? Notice that he goes from the blessing of Abraham to Gentiles. So he's not talking about Jews. Just the Gentiles but Jews are of course included. And then he says we might receive. Now you have to look at Paul in his personal context. Paul is a Jew. Pharisee of Pharisees. Top in his class. Greatest exegete in the world. And here he's saying alongside these Gentile Galatians, there's mercenaries, these pagan sinners, that he, Paul, the Jew of Jews, and these pagan soldiers receive the Spirit in the same way. They receive the promise of the Spirit by faith. He uses the word promise there to go back to Abraham. The promise that was given to Abraham that in his flesh all nations would be blessed. That promise trumps the covenant of circumcision. So that even though in the Old Testament you could tell you were a Jew by means of circumcision. The larger promise to all nations as we saw in the Acts 15 citation of Amos by James, the bishop of Jerusalem, the teaching of the Old Testament is that the promise to Abraham that all nations including Gentiles would be blessed in his loins is now what is brought to fulfillment when Christ is cursed on the cross.