Sovereign Grace Baptist Church

Series: Galatians

Title: Redeemed from the Curse         

Text: Gal 3:10-14 

Date: 11-19-20 

Place: SGBC, NJ 

  

Abraham did not have the law given at Sinai.  He could not even do the works of the ten commandments because he did not have the law.  How then was Abraham made righteous? 

  

The Lord sent the preaching of the gospel declaring that in Abraham’s seed—in Christ—shall God’s elect be blessed in every nation in the earth.  God sent the Holy Spirit and regenerated Abraham to faith in Christ.  Therefore, Abraham believed God, and God counted Christ’s obedience unto him for righteousness. 

  

Thus, being just by Christ’s Righteousness, the rest of his days Abraham lived by faith looking to Christ alone for all things.  He did not look to what he did or did not do as contributing or taking away from his complete standing in Christ.  He lived looking to Christ to provide from Christ’s fulness.  That is what it is to be “of faith.” 

  

But the opposite is true of those who are of the works of the law.  

What does it mean to be “of the works of the law?”  To put it simply, those who do not believe on Christ alone, and rest in Christ for all acceptance with God, who do not live by faith receiving all fulness from Christ alone, are of the works of the law.  Some trust in their works to save apart from Christ.  Other insist certain works must be done before one can believe on Christ.  Some think after faith is come their works are necessary to add to Christ or they can’t be saved.  But all who think their law keeping, in some way, is necessary to salvation are “of the works of the law.”  All who are of the works of the law are guilty before God as sinners therefore they are under the curse of the wrath and condemnation of God. 

  

This is why those of the works of the law are under the curse.  This is God’s word—“for it is written”—God is speaking; this is God’s word on why they are under the curse.  It is because every one must continue from first life to death doing all things which are written in the book of the law. 

  

The law requires the same of all.—"Cursed is EVERY ONE…” Be they a prince or a pauper, rich or poor, male or female, the law requires the same of everyone. 

  

The law requires “continual” obedience—"Cursed is every one that CONTINUETH NOT in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”  This is God’s word from Deuteronomy 27: 26.  He says, “Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.”  God requires we must continue.  We must begin perfect.  But also we must not make it almost to the end then stop. No, beginning to end we must continue.

  

God requires we not leave out obedience to even one law—"Cursed is every one that continueth not IN ALL THINGS WHICH ARE WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW TO DO THEM.”  If we depend upon God’s law for any part of our salvation then must do all God’s law: moral, ceremonial and civil.  We do not get to pick and choose which of God’s law we will do.  We must obey all the law, including every word of God’s law beginning to end in perfection.

  

  

For God to count our law-keeping as obedience we must be as righteous and holy as God himself, with no sin ever.  Obedience must be perfect.  God demands perfect righteousness continually in all the law from a perfectly holy heart, with no sin ever.  It is not obedience to do our best or to be sincere or to be obedient outwardly.  It must be perfect righteousness from a perfectly pure heart to be accepted of God. 

  

God looks on the heart.  The law is spiritual.  It finds sin in thoughts, desires, imaginations, and motives—even in our sin-nature itself.  A man may be moral outwardly but the heart and intent are what the Lord looks upon.  If a man does nothing wrong, yet if he fails to do that which is right, he is guilty: omission is sin as much as commission; missing the mark is missing whether we shoot over or fall short of it. If we waver or have a slight deviation in love to the Lord thy God or omit one thought of love to your neighbor then the man is cursed! The slightest failure means you are under the curse. 

  

Do you know how holy God is?  Do you know what God requires?  If so then we will be honest and say that we have never kept the law of God—not before, not after conversion.  We have never loved the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength and our neighbor as ourself.  In every saint there is a sin-nature.  Sin is mixed with all we do.   We have not kept the law in perfect righteousness from a perfectly pure heart with a total absence of sin! So God says, "There is none righteous no not one…all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  There is only one Man who has kept the law and that is the GodMan, the only begotten Son of God who alone shall receive the glory for righteousness.  Any person—professing believer or not—who would boast that they have kept God’s law, except they mean in Christ alone, is a liar.  May God save them from such a delusion lest they be found in the last day under the curse. 

  

  

  

No man is justified by the law in the sight of God because God alone must justify and God only justifies through faith in Christ: The just shall live by faith.  To be just is to have no record of sin before God ever—past, present or future with no possibility that God will lay even one charge against you ever.  Justification is to be clear of sin with no record.  It is only through God-given faith in Christ that God purges our conscience from dead works, teaching us that Christ has justified us before God and there is therefore now no curse upon us. 

  

Then by the same Holy Spirit we live unto God.  We must be dead to the law before we can live unto God.  And we must be made to know that we are dead to the law before we can live unto God (Ps 143:2). Only those who believe on Christ, trusting we are justified by Christ alone, cease from dead works of trying to come to God by the works of the law.  As long as I am trying to keep the law then I am not believing on Christ.  We cannot do both.  We cease attempting to soothe our conscience into thinking we are just before God by what we pretend is law-keeping.  For a believer to say they have kept the law is to say they are just by their law-keeping.  We have not kept the law.  And we are not just by our law-keeping.  Only by faith in Christ do we establish the law in the perfection that God demands—it is by Christ’s obedience not ours.  Believers do not live in bondage, fearful that if we do not keep the ten commandments we will be rejected of God.  We live a life knowing we are justified.  God has taught us we are complete in Christ.  As Christ is at God’s right hand so are we in this world.  We live unto God, knowing we are accepted, we live comforted by the gospel, in peace, full of joy in the Holy Ghost. 

  

From the time God gives us faith in Christ, we live the rest of our days looking only to Christ.  Everything we need is freely given us out of Christ’s fulness.  It is from Chris that we receive all things.  Everything we need Christ provides—grace for grace—wave upon wave of grace.  He provides in Spirit through the preaching of the gospel through faith—from Faith to faith.   He provides our rule, our strength, our comfort, as well as all things.  He commands us to abide in him.  Would you keep Christ’s commandment?  Would you be under the law of Christ?  Then believe on Christ and follow him alone, not Moses and the law.   Christ said that without him we can do nothing. 

  

Catch this “and the law is not of faith but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.”  The man who goes to the law as a necessity to live spiritually and to live the rest of his days under the law’s rule, has left faith and come under law.  The law says he must do the whole law to live.  The just live by faith and the law is not of faith.  It is impossible to live and walk by faith in Christ under the rule of Mt Zion and at the same time live under Moses and the rule of Mt Sinai.

  

God the Father set up Christ as the Head of his people from eternity.  Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  In Christ, God has always accepted his elect.  The one reason God did not destroy the world when we all fell in Adam is because God had a people who stood eternally justified in Christ our Surety by God’s sovereign grace and purpose.  

  

To be redeemed the ransom had to be paid.  The price of our redemption was the curse of the second death. Deuteronomy 21: 23 says cursed is every man who hangs on a tree.  God made this the sign of a cursed man.   It is remarkable that the Son of God came down to die on a cross which the divine decree made to show us that God had made him a curse for his people. 

  

Every sinner is under the curse by Adam’s broken law: every sinner must and shall die under the curse suffering the second death which God’s justice demands.  But Christ took the place of his people under the curse of the law.  His perfect love fulfilled the righteousness of the law.  And the way Christ manifest that perfect righteous love is by being made a curse for us that he might redeem us from the curse, that he might justify us from all our sins.  If any professing believer wants to boast that they have kept the ten commandments—that is why it is so offensive—the righteous love of the law that God equates as perfect righteousness was the love Christ fulfilled by being made a curse for God and for his people.  No man—saint or sinner—has ever fulfilled that righteous love of the law which God declares true righteousness but Christ alone! 

  

Christ gave the law the price it demanded for God to remain just and Justify his people.  He laid down his life and was made a curse for us.  The darkness that fell on the land for three hours tells us that we cannot enter into what he suffered in our place.  It was the hell we deserved.  Oh, not going to a place a called hell.  Hell is a living death.  It is being forsaken of God.  It was that forsaking that we, his people, deserved.  He endured that living hell while he was alive on the cross in order to redeem us from the curse of the law.  That is the love that God declares is obedience to the law.  He fulfilled the law in righteousness by justifying us from its curse.  Therefore only Christ established the law.  And Christ only established for God’s elect, and no one else.  Justice is satisfied!  He gave the law perfect righteous love from a perfectly pure and holy heart without any sin—and all his elect established the law in him! 

  

  

  

This is why Christ was made a curse.   It is so we might be blessed of God with the same free blessings Abraham was given at a time when Abraham did not even have the ten commandments.  By Christ’s redemption, we Gentiles, receive the same free blessing Abraham did.   Christ was made a curse for us, "That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

  

Remember the blessing of Abraham?  Abraham did not have the old covenant law of Sinai; neither were we Gentiles under that covenant.  Abraham was under the curse due to Adam; so were we.  But God preached the gospel to Abraham promising to bless Abraham and all his spiritual children with all spiritual blessings in Christ.  By God’s Holy Spirit Abraham believed on Christ.  Therefore, God imputed the righteousness of Christ to him.  Abraham’s blessing was through Jesus Christ who stood as his Suretyship Redeemer. Likewise, it is through Jesus Christ who has redeemed us from the curse that God’s elect today are blessed.  

  

Christ redeemed us “that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”  Christ gave Abraham the Spirit of God by whom he was regenerated and given faith in Christ.  God promised Abraham that he would pour out the Spirit on all flesh—elect Jew and elect Gentile—after Christ redeemed us and took the law of Sinai out of the way.  The Spirit of God would make us alive and will never be taken from us according to God’s promise. 

  

  

  

So God sent us the Holy Spirit and worked in us like he did Abraham bringing us to faith in Christ 

  

  

  

God promised to write the law on our hearts.  It is not the ten commandments—that was part of the old covenant.  God writes on our hearts the law of the everlasting covenant of grace.  In place of the law of Sinai God writs the law of faith—by faith in Christ we have established the whole law of God.   And God writes the law of love on our heart—love is the fulfillment of the law; by God’s grace and power we keep these two statutes of God.  We walk by faith constrained by love.  Our sufficiency comes directly from Christ through the Spirit by the faithfulness of Christ working in us through faith in him.  That is the believer’s rule of life.  

  

Having the law of faith on our heart we believe on Christ: we know by his faithful witness in our hearts that we have established the law in perfection by his obedience. We know no charge shall be laid against us because we are righteous with Christ’s righteousness on.  Therefore, we live to Christ receiving all blessings from him through faith. 

  

Having the law of love on our hearts we do nothing by the constraint of law, not of necessity, not fearful of men’s bondage, but constrained by Christ’s love.  We learn love by looking to Christ.  Christ teaches us love in a way the old covenant law did not.  Having the law of Christ on our heart: we speak to a brother directly about their sin.  Then we cover our brethren’s sins: meaning we do not broadcast it as Ham did who God cursed due to it.  Then bear our brother’s sins—we put up with it until God has chastened him and made him submissive.   All the while we forgive our brother’s sins, putting it behind our back even as God, for Christ’s sake, has done unto us.   All the while we restore them to Christ, pointing them to our Salvation.  These are all the thing Christ did in love to us.  This is love. 

  

Having the law of liberty on our heart: we know we are redeemed from the curse of the law so we walk by faith rejoicing in Christ, keeping ourselves unspotted from the world, especially by standing fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and no more being entangled with the yoke of bondage 

  

  

God promised Abraham an inheritance.  We have the same promise.  Christ is our Portion in that city which has foundation whose builder and maker is God and we are his.  

  

Beloved, through the substitutionary work of Christ all the free blessings God promised to Abraham are ours.   We are now dead to the law and the law is dead to us.  We have no record of sin in God’s sight and shall never have a record of sin; the law cannot curse us.  Our righteousness is Christ—our doing or not doing does not change it; in Christ "he that believeth on him is not condemned”; we are “accepted in the Beloved.”  Therefore, all the promises of God are yes in Christ and in him amen to the praise of the glory of God even as they were to Abraham.  By Christ’s dwelling in us, by his faithful operation in our hearts, we know Christ has justified us so we live unto him by faith and his great love for us constrains us to love one another.  That is what it is to for the just to live by faith.