Galatians 3:13

‘Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, “Cursed is every one who hangs on a tree”.'

And now Paul gets to the essence of the salvation provided in Jesus Christ. It comes about by Christ taking our place in order to set us free. It is by Christ acting in power to redeem us because of what He has done for us. By His very dying on the cross Christ has revealed Himself as bearing a curse. Deuteronomy 21:23 refers to those who hung on a tree, which was the fate of criminals, but the Jews of Jesus' day also applied the idea to anyone who was crucified. To be crucified was clearly evidence that they had come under the curse of God. (That is why later they referred to Jesus derisively as ‘the hanged one'). The Jews, and no doubt Paul himself in earlier persecuting days, made much of the fact that Jesus died on a cross and had thus come under a curse.

But Paul now seizes on the fact and makes it something glorious. This curse, he points out, did not arise from His own deserts. Rather it arose because He went to the cross to take our curse upon Himself. Through His death on the cross He has ‘redeemed us', bought us out from under the curse by the sacrifice of Himself. He became our substitute, taking our place. He acted as our representative, going there on our behalf. He went as the One Who represented us to die on our behalf and in our stead. And because He died we can live, for the curse of the Law has been removed from us and has been borne by Himself. As Paul says elsewhere, ‘He who knew no sin, He made to be sin for us' (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Some do not like the idea of substitution but it is written plainly here (and in Mark 10:45). And it is unavoidable. Not as sometimes put crudely by some, but certainly as a reality. For we have sinned, and He the sinless One has suffered for sin in our place, and we are redeemed precisely because He took our place. On the one hand He was our representative, going there for us, and on the other He was our substitute, taking our place.

‘Christ has redeemed us.' That is, He ‘has given Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity' (Titus 2:14). Redemption in Scripture always results either from the expenditure of special costly effort or from the payment of a ransom. In this case Christ has done both. He has given Himself as a ransom ‘instead of' (anti) us (Mark 10:45), redeeming us through His blood (Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; Hebrews 9:12; Hebrews 9:15; 1 Peter 1:18), and He has exercised His power at great cost in defeating the forces that are against us, triumphing over them in the cross (Colossians 2:15) and bearing our sin as He became a sacrifice for sin. He has taken what is on record against us and has nailed it to His cross, evidence that it has been paid. Indeed He has blotted out the Law (the handwriting of ordinances) which condemned us (Colossians 2:14).

The clear result is then that we are no longer under the Law's jurisdiction. Neither Jew nor Gentile who is in Christ is any more responsible to struggle to keep the ordinances of the Law. For they have been crucified with Christ. They are therefore set free to live to God by the power of the indwelling Christ (Galatians 2:20), using that Law as a guide and not as a judge. It is no longer a fearful condemning finger, but a guide book to life (as it was originally meant to be).