Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel. And as promised from last week, today we are gonna talk about Galatians 3 and the curse. What on earth does it mean for Jesus to become a curse? This is, of course, a passage that you'll hear a lot of times when people are talking about atonement, particularly when they're talking about penal substitutionary atonement, or PSA for short. And I know that this is actually a topic that has been pretty new for people, even though they may have heard a lot of the stuff from the pulpit or in the classrooms or in different kinds of studies that they've done with the Bible. They haven't had a name to put on it because a lot of people just presume that all of this stuff is part of the gospel, part of the Bible, and so on. So I know that this series has probably been a little bit tough for some people. And then I know that there's a lot of other people who have recently come upon this, so maybe this series hasn't been the introduction to the idea, but they're still not quite sure what to think about it, and they're wrestling with all of the ideas here.
[00:01:32] So I truly hope that this series has been very helpful. I will be moving on from the topic, I promise. We still have a lot of flood narrative to get to and a lot of primeval history in Genesis to get to. But I couldn't leave off not talking about this passage. I know there's a number of other passages I could also talk about, and maybe I will later. But for now I don't have any plans to get through every single proof text of PSA. But, you know, if there's one that you want me to talk about, I'm more than happy to do so. So you can go ahead and shoot me an email or connect with me on Facebook or in my biblical theology community and let me know if there's anything that I haven't hit on that you would really like to hear me talk about, especially from the realm of frame semantics.
[00:02:21] But this passage in Galatians 3 is really crucial for us to kind of wrestle with. And I say that because it seems really obvious when you read it from the framework of PSA. It's like, well, it's talking about a curse, and Jesus became a curse for us. Therefore, this kind of sums up the P and the S in penal substitutionary atonement, because the curse aligns with the penalty or the penal aspect. And of course, a lot of people think that the “for us” language aligns with substitution. And then we're in the realm of general atonement here, just the idea of God reconciling himself to the world or reconciling the world to himself, whatever direction you wanna talk about that with.
[00:03:14] And I get all of those points because when you're reading this text and you're just going along in Galatians, Paul is making a really difficult argument because it's an unexpected argument. And so it's really easy to read this in a proof texting kind of way, where we think that Paul is making systematic statements or dogmatic statements. And so we pull these passages out of the book of Galatians or the book of Romans or the book of Ephesians, and we think that Paul is giving us capital-T theology. And honestly, it's a little bit easier to read Paul if that's how you're reading him because you're like, well, I already have this theological framework and surely Paul is talking about my theological framework and so I'm going to fit what these statements of Paul are within my theological framework. The problem with that is that you really have to read the whole letter that Paul wrote in order to understand his argument and understand why he's saying what he's saying. These are not just dogmatic statements that he has strung together. And so we really shouldn't use them like that, just pulling them out of the context of the letter as if they have no bearing with the rest of the things that Paul is saying. But I understand how easy it is for us to do that because we do tend to approach things in theological ways. And a lot of churches really solidly say that atonement is part of the gospel, and this is why Jesus came. And when they use the word atonement, it's really often a shorthand for PSA, which is why a lot of people have never heard of PSA or again, penal substitutionary atonement. But PSA is an entire idea of itself. It has a logical consistency within itself. Whether or not that's actually biblical is another question. But within itself, it has particular points that it needs to have in order for it to be PSA. So in that framework, curse needs to be related to substitution.
[00:05:32] There's a necessary relationship there. The problem is the substitutionary-like language is more solidly in Galatians one, and it is clearly about Exodus-like deliverance. And the curse language is in Galatians 3. Now, both of those are about deliverance, and they do kind of go in parallel. But the deliverance, as we see in Galatians one, is not from a penalty. It's not from a debt. Now, we do have, of course, a covenant curse context here, but that is framed directly by Paul as slavery and not penalty. So again, when we are thinking of frame semantics and we're thinking of the conceptual frames that Paul is bringing up within this text, he's not talking in the realm of penalty. He is talking in the realm of slavery. And that is very, very important. And honestly, Paul is very, very consistent in his letters about this. He talks about slavery all the time, and he's putting Jesus' work in the context of a new Exodus. So this is why even dismantling PSA does not lead to anything like us saving ourselves, because the context is still one of deliverance from slavery and dominion and death, and all of these things that there's nothing we can do about that. We need a savior to save us from these things. It is not a savior to save us from God himself. But there are things that we are under dominion of, and we need to be released from them. And so that is the context of the whole letter of Galatians.
[00:07:31] And I really want you to look at the whole letter. It's very short as far as some books of the Bible go, so you can pretty easily read it in one sitting. So I highly recommend if you haven't done that for a while, go find your Bible, whatever version you like to read, and read the entire book of Galatians. And I want you to ask yourself what Paul is saying. How does he build his argument? Because Galatians 3:13 is not just a passage that we can detach from the rest of the letter. It is a curse-centered statement within a whole letter argument about deliverance from slavery into spirit freedom and new creation. So in other words, Paul is not explaining how God managed to punish someone. He is explaining how Christ has broken the enslaving old order and opened the blessing promised to Abraham. And it really is kind of a complex, surprising argument. I expect this was very surprising to his audience.
[00:08:41] So the first thing we're actually gonna look at is the first verse of the book of Galatians. I know it's crazy to start at the beginning of something, right? Galatians 1:1 says, quote, Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. End quote. So Galatians, this entire letter begins with resurrection. And I think that Paul is doing this on purpose because I think the cursed language of Galatians 3 must be read inside of a resurrection-shaped gospel of deliverance. And this is not about punishment. You can read the whole letter. And Paul does talk about sin. He talks about all kinds of things. But again, let's go ahead and seat this verse, Galatians 3:13, within the whole context of the letter.
[00:09:44] So Paul is grounding his apostleship in the risen Christ who was explicitly raised by God the Father. So the Father and the Son are not at odds here, but the Father is the one who vindicates and raises Him. And I think this is an exceptionally important point. Now, of course, Paul doesn't say Jesus Christ is vindicated by God the Father because he doesn't really need to say that. When God the Father raised him from the dead, that indicates something really crucial. There is no intra-Trinitarian rupture here. There is no idea that God cursed Jesus framing that starts out this letter. I think it's very illustrative to the point of the letter as well that Paul is emphasizing that he is an apostle not for men, but through Jesus and God the Father. So he's equating Jesus and God, right? This is very Christological. And so Paul's mission, his gospel, is grounded in this resurrection act.
[00:10:54] This is a bit of an aside for our point today, but really crucial to Galatians itself. It seems like Paul is countering people who think that he is making this up, like he is making up his ideas, and that they're not actually from God. And so Paul is defending himself. He is defending his position through the letter. But he's also very solidly stating a few particular things, right? I mean, I'm sure there's quite a few points that he's trying to get across to the people of Galatia. But the fact that he starts out with his apostleship as well as Jesus and his resurrection, that sets the stage for the whole entire letter.
[00:11:39] So at the end of the introduction of the book, in verse 4, Paul says that Jesus, quote, “Gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.” End quote. Okay. So again, we have the whole context of resurrection. Because it's calling back to what he just opened with. I'll call back to my seven episodes on substitution and say that “for us” language is not necessarily substitution. And what are we delivered from? We are delivered from the present evil age. We're not delivered from God. And we're not even delivered from penalty here. This is according to the will of God the Father. now you could try and say that this means that God wanted to crush Jesus. And that it was God's will to crush Jesus, but that is not what it says. God's will is for the deliverance to happen. as we've talked about with Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant, this does not have to necessitate God wanting this to happen as if He needed the satisfaction. Or he needed the penalty paid or anything like that. We don't have that language here, first of all. So we're gonna be really careful with what Paul says and what he doesn't say. That doesn't mean we can't surmise things and that we can't make some connections, because obviously we do do that But it's really crucial that we have resurrection and deliverance from the present evil age.
[00:13:24] The fact that Jesus gave himself is more along the lines of voluntary self-giving rather than a demand for justice. Now, it could also potentially be a demand for justice if we have that in Scripture. But again, I'm going to insist that we have the idea in Scripture. If God's justice demands the penalty to be paid, I actually wanna see that in Scripture, and I'm gonna repeat that over and over because it's important. a lot of people just kind of skip over that. But when we have the prophets saying again and again from God directly that penalty isn't paid by an innocent substitute. That doesn't mean we can't have voluntary self-giving, but that's not the same as paying the penalty for someone else. So again, we directly have the for our sins language here. It's not developed as punishment transfer, but again, as deliverance from the present evil age.
[00:14:33] So right from the beginning of the letter, we have the context of the resurrection. We have the context of deliverance from slavery. So Galatians 1:4 has us delivered from the present evil age. And if you flip back to the end of the book, in Galatians 6:14-15, Paul talks about the world being crucified and new creation. So this seems to be a kind of inclusio in the letter. The present evil age at the beginning of the letter becomes the crucified world at the end of the letter. But going back to chapter 1 and verse 4, we have a parallel of Jesus giving himself and the will of God the Father. So this isn't the Father turning against the Son. This is Christ's self-giving being in accordance to the Father's will, and they are united in the rescue mission.
[00:15:33] Now, that is not something that anyone denies, okay? So even within the context of affirming PSA, you actually do have theologians who will promote the idea of a rupture between the Father and the Son. This creates problems of heresy and problems that are very deeply Christological. But of course, not everybody who affirms PSA will go that direction, and I really want to acknowledge that. Most people will say that Jesus and the Father are united and that they're both doing this. And people will try and say that that makes the justice issue go away. And I'm sorry, but I don't think that it does, because again, justice is defined a certain way, and it is defined as a miscarriage of justice if someone else is punished instead of the guilty party. And I understand that it's really difficult to dismantle all of these pieces, but that is exactly why I went through all of those episodes with substitution. Because if we tie together the different ideas of vicarious and treat them as the same thing, then we are collapsing an idea that becomes very unfair to do. if all representation is a substitution, then we get a whole lot of really wonky problems. But if we see that substitution replacement and representation are actually two different ideas, then a lot of the texts that people want to use for PSA actually become quite problematic. Because if it's talking about representation and not actual substitution replacement, then it's simply not a PSA text.
[00:17:27] All right, and this is where I'm going to connect back to my episode last week with the divine council worldview. Because deliverance from the present evil age is not merely private salvation, but it fits deeply within the context of the Book of Galatians The divine council worldview is not just about identifying supernatural beings, but it's a story about God reclaiming creation, judging rebellious powers, restoring humanity, and making them what we are supposed to have been from the beginning, as well as forming the people who will inherit and rule rightly in Christ. So this framing at the beginning of Galatians fits that perfectly. And as you read through the whole book of Galatians, you will probably notice other things that pop out at you that fit this kind of idea with the divine council worldview and people being enslaved under powers. But the problem here in Galatians is not just one thing. The problem is not just the gods of the nations, but there's other problems that are going on. there are other ways that people are enslaved. So I'm gonna say that the book is a divine council-shaped atonement text because it does frame Christ's death as deliverance from the present evil age, which is the enslaving order in which sin, curse, the flesh, the world, and hostile powers all hold humanity captive. This is a rescue mission. And so again, speaking of the broad theological idea of atonement, not just Levitical purification, but broad atonement-reconciliation, if we see that as the rescue that is going on here, then yes, this is absolutely a deeply atonement-shaped text. But we have to see it within the light of what Paul is saying here.
[00:19:35] As we get into Galatians 3, we're gonna see that there's kind of a blockage that is going on. The thing that is the problem, the block that needs to be done away with is not that God needs to punish someone before He can bless the nations. But it is actually that humanity, and that includes Jew and Gentile, they are all enslaved under the present evil age. And uniquely, Israel, who is the family through whom the blessing is supposed to come, Israel itself is under Torah's curse. And that is the Galatians version of the divine council worldview problem. Like the nations are enslaved under powers, and Israel, who went through the exile, doesn't seem to have that kind of a problem anymore. They're not going after the other gods now that they are on this side of the exile, but they are still under that covenant curse. So how does the blessing of Abraham actually reach the nations in that condition? Paul's answer is not that God needs to find someone else to punish, but rather it is that Christ enters the cursed condition of Israel. He redeems those under the law. He gives the Spirit, and he makes Jew and Gentile one family of sons and heirs. I think that is how we should read the logic and the argument.
[00:21:09] All right. So if Christ has given himself to rescue us from the present evil age, then any gospel that pulls people back toward the old order is not just a small mistake. In fact, Paul talks very strongly about this. In verses eight and nine, Paul says, quote, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.” End quote.
[00:21:55] Of course, many of you know that I grew up LDS, and as an LDS person growing up, I heard this, and I still hear it now, that the LDS gospel is another gospel, and it fits within the realm of Galatians. I just wanted to acknowledge that because a lot of you know that I was LDS, and I think that that does fit. But I really also wanna say that Paul is talking about this within his own context, a context where curse was a thing, and not only just a cultural thing, but a deeply Torah thing. So again, I just wanna caution people to not lift out verses and then willy-nilly apply them wherever you feel like applying them. I'm not saying you can't do that within the context of seeing somebody distorting the gospel. I guess my point is that it is really easy to point the finger over at those LDS people over there and say they are preaching a different gospel. But Paul is talking about distorting the gospel of Christ, which was within his own context. It was within Christian churches who were teaching things that were contrary to what Paul said they should be teaching. So this isn't just Christians pointing to other kinds of denominations. We should be discussing this amongst ourselves. Where are we distorting the gospel of Christ? That should be a question we ask within the body of Christ, because that's what Paul is doing. He is talking to other Christians. He's not talking about some other sect out there. He is talking to a church that he helped grow and people he knew. So I just want to put that out there for you to consider in all of this as well.
[00:23:54] And seating this rival gospel within the book of Galatians, those who preach that are accursed because of the fact that it threatens re-enslavement. That's the focus here. I also want to point out that this English word, accursed, is actually attached to a Greek word that is not the same word as we have in Galatians 3. So we have accursed, and in Galatians 3 we have a curse, but those are two different Greek words. Now, that is not to say that the frames don't overlap, because they do. But I want you to be very clear that these are different Greek words so that people can't come and bring that up to you as if you don't know it, okay. But another point here is that I do think the frames of being accursed and being a curse overlap, but they're also different. Because notice here, this is a verb. The person preaching the gospel that is contrary to Christ is to be accursed. But we do not have that same kind of language with Christ. Galatians 3:13 says that Christ became a curse. So in Galatians 1, we have a verb. It is active. It is applied to a person. In Galatians 3, the curse is a noun. It does not say that Christ is accursed, like God cursed him. So even though these frames overlap, the fact that we have different parts of speech, and sorry to use grammatical terms for you, but we have a verb versus a noun, that changes the frame sufficiently to the point that we cannot say that Christ was directly cursed. and that's very, very important to me because if he was directly cursed, that causes all kinds of Christological problems, all kinds of problems with the theology of God.
[00:26:08] So in Galatians 1, the person preaching the gospel is anathema. You've probably heard that term perhaps. But Christ is not anathema, okay? It's a very big point to make. Paul is pronouncing anathema on people who preach the rival gospel, but he is not pronouncing anathema on Christ. I do think the anathema language is anticipating the curse argument. But again, there's a very distinctive difference here Like there is a reason that the false gospel would be cause to call somebody anathema, because it threatens to re-enslave the people. But Christ is not re-enslaving people. He is freeing them. So Jesus becoming the curse is not doing what is happening here in this language, okay?
[00:27:02] All right, so we have the context of Galatians where Paul is talking about his history, and he's talking about his connection with other people. And as I say, I think this reason is because he is addressing people who are critical of him, saying that what Paul is teaching is not from God, and Paul is showing that it really is, because both he and the apostles in Jerusalem came to the same conclusion, even if some of the apostles in Jerusalem acted hypocritically. They came to the same conclusion, and that's what Paul is saying here. So this is not something that he made up, and it is not something that one of the apostles in Jerusalem made up. But the fact that we have two independent lines of apostles who are preaching the same thing, and they didn't talk to each other about preaching the same thing, that is evidence to his readers that this is not a man-made gospel, but that it is a gospel that comes from God.
[00:28:03] So then we come to the end of Galatians chapter 2. I'm gonna read verses 19 through 21, which say, quote, “For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.” End quote. It's a very crucial section for what we're looking at today. Because if we're presuming that Paul is talking about Jesus as a substitute for us, this section right here basically just blows that out of the water.
[00:29:01] In the first two chapters of Galatians, the only language we have that might be substitutionary, like Jesus is a replacement for us, is the fact that he gave himself for our sins. That is not necessarily substitutionary, as I have talked about at length. So Paul is framing this whole thing right here very deeply He is describing the cross in participatory terms. So the ram dies instead of Isaac. And we talked about that earlier and how that can't be PSA without making God want human sacrifice. And in Galatians 2, Paul says that he died with Christ. So the ram dying instead of Isaac in the context of sacrifice is not what this is. This is Paul dying with Christ. So the cross is not an event that Christ undergoes instead of Paul. It is the event into which Paul has been drawn so that the old self under the old order dies and Christ's life becomes the source of new life. In other words, the cross is the death of the old enslaved self and the beginning of life in Christ. This is why Christ came. In fact at the end of chapter 2, Paul directly says that if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
[00:30:39] Now, I understand that he's contrasting righteousness through the law with what Jesus did. But, if the purpose of Christ's death is what Paul is actually saying here, that it is a participatory reality that puts to death the old enslaved order, It's not directly Paul saying that the purpose of his death is not penal, but if what Paul said about being crucified with Christ is why Christ died, then the purpose of Christ's death is not penal. Now, I know that you could say, "Well, sure, right here at the end of Galatians 2, the crucifixion is presented as representative and participatory. But it could still be about punishment, would be the argument from the PSA side. But if you've read the letter to this point, there is still zero context of God punishing Jesus instead of us. We move into chapter 3. we have the people receiving the Spirit. We have Paul in verse three talking about being perfected by the flesh that is as opposed to having that work begun by the Spirit, which tells us that this is a transformative process. This isn't imputation. Paul is not talking about imputation. He is talking about something that is actually perfecting the believer. And that is not by the law. It's not by the flesh. That is done by the Spirit And so the coming of the Spirit is very crucial to that. It's very crucial to Paul's whole entire argument in Galatians So without reading the whole of chapter 3, the flow of the chapter is the question of how did you receive the Spirit? And then Paul brings up Abraham and the fact that those of faith are Abraham's sons. Paul brings up the nations because Scripture foresaw Gentile inclusion. He talks about Torah or the works of the law, which cannot be the root to that blessing because Torah itself testifies to the curse. But Christ comes along and redeems us from the curse by becoming a curse. And this is the route for the Spirit and the blessing.
[00:33:08] So there is a definite flow to this section of Galatians. And we start with the Spirit. Galatians chapter 3, verses 1 through 5, Paul begins this section of the letter by asking how the Galatians received the Spirit. This question is very important because they understood the Spirit as the mark of the new age, the Messianic age, the end of the exile and the point at which they are back into receiving the blessings. The Spirit is also seen as the alternative to the flesh. The Spirit is the sign of sonship and the Spirit is also connected to the life of freedom that people have in Christ. And then Galatians chapter 3, verses 6 through 9 moves to Abraham and the nations. I want you to note here that the nations are under the slavery of elemental principles, but also Israel is under slavery due to curse conditions. So both of them have problems that need to be solved. Both of those problems are solved in Christ. Both of the problems are solved in the Spirit. That is also very important for Christological reasons. Now, going back into the divine council worldview, the nations are not neutral space. They are, of course, enslaved under the powers. But Abraham's family is the answer. And notice in Genesis that Abraham's family is God's answer to bless the nations. And so Paul, in Galatians 3, he is arguing that Christ has opened up that Abrahamic blessing to the Gentiles, and he's done it by dealing with the curse that stood in the way, because the curse was kind of that midpoint reality.
[00:35:00] So we have the primeval history. We have the three falls that happen. We have the problem of the nations and the problem of slavery under the gods. And God chooses Abraham and his family to be the vehicle of blessing, the reversal of all of the falls. and so Abraham's family treks along in history. And we have the inheritance, and we have the line going down into Israel. Israel itself becomes enslaved in Egypt. Israel comes out of Egypt, redeemed by God. They come into unique covenant with God, and the covenant is a blessing to them. It is something that is good, but the covenant is also going to lead to their death because they're not gonna be able to do everything under the law. They're not gonna be perfect. And as we see in history, they do fall under that covenant curse. So even though the covenant is not a bad thing, and it is meant to lead them to life and to lead them to blessing, in the end, what happens is that it leads them to death. They become enslaved under that law. We have the exile, and the exile seems to have actually worked. It actually brought the people, at least the people who are left over, the remnant, they are no longer worshiping false deities. But they have a new problem now. They believe that being in covenant is now the way that everybody has to relate to God. They have forgotten the promise of Abraham. They have forgotten the blessing of the nations. They have kind of forgotten that the covenant at Sinai was a mid-story reality in all of this. And so even though there's nothing wrong with Torah, there's nothing wrong with the covenant, and the curse did some good things, honestly, there is still this covenantal blockage. Of course, that is not biblical language, but I'm trying to describe things in ways that it seems like the people of Paul's day kind of innately knew, so Paul wasn't describing it in the way that I have to describe it now.
[00:37:18] In Galatians 3:10, Paul says, quote, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.'” End quote. This is a quotation of Deuteronomy 27:26 So this is the reality that they're under. And because they are under curse, because they didn't do all of the things, because righteousness doesn't just come by doing all of the things, the framing of Torah cannot be the route by which the nations receive Abraham's blessing because Torah itself testifies that those under it are exposed to curse. so the way to fix reality is not to bring everyone to the works of the law. That's not because there's something wrong with those, but in this sense, we have a covenant administration that exposes the covenant condition and the way that people aren't able to make it. Torah is not the liberator. It can show the people where they are. And it can show them their limitations, but it's not itself creating the Spirit-filled family that was promised to Abraham and the cursed reality is not that everyone deserves punishment, so God needs to punish Jesus instead of them. That is simply not the framing of Galatians. It's not the framing of the curse here. Because the people were already under the curse, if you've noticed that. Like, we don't need a substitute to be under the curse because they already were there. But the curse was a real problem Now everything from Torah to the prophets will say the same reality.
[00:39:12] , Here's an interesting thing. In Galatians 3:11-12, Paul cites Habakkuk 2:4, where the righteous shall live by faith, and he also calls back to the midpoint of the Torah in Leviticus 18:5: The one who does them shall live by them. So there is a contrast here that Paul is showing. Life by faith. And Torah is kind of a, we're gonna do this now kind of a situation. But Torah had an inability to provide the promised life in the present situation because there's a strain of people who are trying to bring everybody back to the works of the law. And that is not the way to the promised life. Life is always through faith or faithfulness, not through simply doing the things. that does not make Torah bad, but Torah is not the life-giving Messiah, the one who gives the people the Spirit. The one who transforms everyone.
[00:40:19] So now here we are to the root of the matter in Galatians 3:13 Which says, quote, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. So that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.” End quote. There is no sense here of Jesus being punished instead of the people. We have Deuteronomy 21:23 quoted, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree." While Paul is quoting the cursed is everyone language of Deuteronomy 21, he seems to be very careful to not say that Christ himself was cursed. Because in the ancient world, the idea of being cursed was a spiritual reality. So if Christ actually was cursed, this would be God cursing him or him cursing himself, one or the other. And that is why we have some very clear Christological problems in PSA if somebody's going to say that the Father cursed the Son instead of cursing us has a very big problem. Christ does not become cursed because the Father turns against him. Christ becomes a curse because he enters the place marked by covenant curse, being hung on a tree, and he brings that condition to its end. The thing that's being addressed is not Jesus being punished instead of us, but the curse condition ending.
[00:42:11] That is what needs to happen. Because again, the people are already in the situation. They're already under the curse. They need the curse to be done away with, to be ended And there's a focus here on Israel's curse condition because Torah is Israel's covenant administration. And now the Gentiles are enslaved under powers, under the elementary spirits in the context of idolatry to the gods of the nations and to false spirits. But to contrast that, Israel is no longer doing that stuff. They're no longer doing what the prophets were talking about, but they're still under Torah's curse. So Christ, as Israel's Messiah, deals with the Israel side problem so that Abraham's blessing can reach the Gentile side problem, but also loop the Israelite people into the same blessing. So if you kind of picture it like a timeline, like a chronological timeline, we have the three falls of Genesis 3, 6, and 11.
[00:43:25] Then we have the coming of Abraham and the calling of him as God's chosen vessel, Abraham's family, to be the blessing of the nations. Basically, this is how we're gonna solve the problem of the three falls. But of course, we hit a whole bunch of bumps of things along the road. We have even the covenant of Sinai, which is a great thing, like I said. But that is going to trap the people themselves under the curse because they're going to go after those false gods. They're gonna worship other deities who are not God. They are going to be put under covenant curse, not just because of that worship, but because that worship is tied to the way that they behave and the justice that they provide their own people and so on. So it's a very complex situation. This is not just a matter of worshiping other gods. It is a matter of formation. The connection of worshiping other gods and forming themselves as people who are not acting justly, that needs to be seen together. And that leads to the exile. That is them being under covenant curse. And even the people who are not wrapped up in idolatry of the nations are still under the covenant curse Because the covenant is a communal reality. If you're in a covenant and the head of your people breaks that covenant, that's your problem, even if you did nothing wrong. And so the whole people are under the covenant curse because the people are a corporate body. The problem is going to be solved by becoming a new corporate body in Christ. That is still within the whole flow of the narrative, though. So we don't have a disconnect between Old Testament and New Testament, old covenant and new covenant, because it's all leading to Christ as the end goal of it all, right? He is Abraham's offspring. Paul even says that directly here as we read into Galatians 3. And so for the Israelite or the Jew of Paul's day, if they are only calling back to the covenant at Sinai, and they're saying, "This is the resolution." And Paul is like, "No, no, that's not the resolution. You guys are missing the fact that that is part of the promises of Abraham." You only became the people of Godthrough covenant on account of the fact that you are the descendant of Abraham, who is going to lead to the Messiah. That is Israel's unique situation. It's why Israel has unique status. It's not because Israel is so amazing. Israel is within the story of the Abrahamic family, not just the story of Israel So if the people are calling back the believers in Christ to do things that require them to follow all of the works of the law, they're missing the wider reality and the wider reason why Christ came.
[00:46:44] The purpose in the end is very clear. It is blessing and it is Spirit. Galatians 3:14: So that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. So that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. Now, Paul gets pretty confusing when he starts using pronouns, right? Who is the we? Is it all believers? Is it just the Israelites? Either way, what Paul is saying is that there is a united reality. Whether you are a Jew, whether you are Gentile, it does not matter because the promised Spirit is coming through faith in Christ So the focus on the works of the law is a distortion of that. The distortion of the reality of the gospel of Christ is that he is redeeming all of humanity. If we're just going to go back to Sinai, well, Paul is saying we already had that, and we're under the curse, and we're just going to remain in that state until we realize that the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. And his offspring was Christ. But also all people of faith are Abraham's children and Abraham's inheritors.
[00:48:07] Let's continue into Galatians 3 for just a moment here, because verses 15 to 18 provide the promise before the law context. Then verses 19 to 25 talk about Torah as a temporary guardian. Galatians 3:26-29 provide the context of the sons, the ones who are clothed, the seed, the heirs, the inheritance. And so it's really crucial to seat the idea of the curse of the law within that whole narrative Once you do that, this is simply not a PSA proof text. This is demonstrating how the curse of the law loses its claim. So let's go back to Galatians 3 13. What does it mean that Christ became a curse for us? The way I would describe it in the whole argument that Paul is giving here, and the whole context of the Old Testament that leads up to Christ and what Paul is writing. Christ died the kind of death that publicly marks one as cursed.
[00:49:20] Paul talks about the public crucifixion of Jesus, how he was crucified in front of you all. And that is the context that we have in Deuteronomy. Now, if we presume that Deuteronomy is trying to say that anyone hung on a tree is cursed by God, that's simply going to misunderstand the whole context of curse. Now, I will point you to a series of episodes that I've done on curse before, so I'm not gonna rehash all of that. But there is a spiritual reality that happens behind curse. You don't get cursed just because somebody proclaims a curse on you, or even just because you fit within the kind of context of what a curse is, right? A curse only is going to be active if there is a spiritual backing to it. So if Christ was cursed, it would have to be from God. And as I've said, that is rife with problems, and that's not what the context says. If we loop in Isaiah 53 on the suffering servant, we can see that Christ could be esteemed as cursed by the people around him because he was hung on the tree, and that does not make Christ actually cursed. There's a couple of different great papers that I would point you to, to read about this. I'm not gonna put them in the show notes, but I have already put them in my biblical theology community. So in my biblical theology community, if you go in there, it's free to join. There is a paid tier, but you can just join it for free. And in the space for Genesis Marks the Spot, you will find papers that are going to speak to this, and they're very interesting. I highly recommend reading them But again, I don't think that this passage is calling Christ cursed.
[00:51:17] But I will say that Israel's Messiah and Abraham's offspring, the representative in whom Israel's story reaches its whole climax, Christ entered the place of covenant curse, which is a place of shame, rejection, death, exposure outside the camp. But because he is the faithful Messiah, the curse reaches him and is brought to an end in him. his resurrection, because remember the whole context of the letter of Galatians is the resurrection of Christ, his resurrection means the curse does not get the final word. Therefore, the old Torah custody curse situation is broken open and the Abrahamic blessing can go to the nations. And that includes the nation of Israel. So this is to redeem Israel from the curse and redeem those under the law, but it's a wider reality that includes all of humanity. But Paul is just showing how Israel and the Gentiles are under two different problems, but they're really kind of the same problem because they're both slavery.
[00:52:32] I'm not gonna get too deep into the rest of Galatians, but it's really important to see the entire argument that Paul provides. So then we get into Galatians 4, and this restates and expands Galatians 3 using the language of slavery, sonship, spirit, and inheritance. So Galatians 3 tells us that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law so that Abraham's blessing might come to the Gentiles, and so that we might receive the promised Spirit. So who has received the Spirit? Well, it's everybody in Christ, so Jew and Gentile. Galatians 4 then says that God sent his Son, born under the law, to redeem those under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because we are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. So this chapter is confirming that the goal of the last chapter is not just that, well, now we don't have a curse, but there is a purpose here. The goal is sonship and inheritance by the Spirit. So it's a liberation story. It is a new exodus. Christ is not just removing the curse, but he's bringing the slaves into sonship. There's a whole bunch of really interesting context here with the heirs and connection to that with slavery. The way that Paul talks about it can be really very strong Even in the book of 2 Corinthians, Paul talks about the ministry of death in relation to Sinai versus the ministry of Spirit. He talks about the ministry of condemnation versus justification. And we get to another PSA text where it says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, quote, For our sake, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” End quote. Like if you read Paul consistently and he's talking about slavery and he's contrasting these ideas here, it's not really any different in any of his letters. Paul is talking about the burdens that we are under, the dominions that we're under, the things we need to be rescued from so that we can become righteous. I've said it before, but it's a real transformative reality. It is not imputation.
[00:55:12] Galatians 4 gives us some great apocalyptic language. The fullness of the times and all of that. That really matches well with the beginning of the letter, where we are being delivered from the present evil age. And the whole concept is new creation. God sent forth his Son to redeem those who were under the law so that they could be adopted as sons. Those under the law are no longer slaves but sons and heirs. And that probably was awfully shocking to the readers because it's like, well, we were already God's people. Surely we were already heirs. And yet Paul is telling them that they weren't. They weren't yet heirs because they had not received the Spirit. Then of course, in Galatians 4, we get the Hagar and Sarah allegory, which is just absolutely fascinating. It flips things on its head because the people of Israel, the Jews of Paul's time, are like, "Well, we are the people of promise." And Paul just basically flips that around and says, "No, you're the sons of the slave woman. It seems awfully harsh. And again, I don't think he's saying that there's anything wrong with Torah except for the fact that it leads to what he's seeing right in front of him. People who are trying to make themselves slaves and not accept the freedom in Christ.
[00:56:40] Then we move into Galatians 5. This is the lived shape of freedom Galatians 5:1 says, quote, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” End quote. Freedom is not just a side effect of the gospel, but it is a stated purpose of Christ's work. if we're trying to loop in this idea that God needs to punish us, but He's not gonna do that, He's gonna punish Jesus instead, that is not anything that Paul is talking about here Galatians 5:3 says that accepting circumcision obligates one to keep the whole law, which calls directly back into Galatians 3. we're having that logic reinforced. If you choose Torah as the root to belonging, then you are choosing the entire old Torah order. And that is going to put you under the curse. You're just gonna be under the curse in that situation. That is not the freedom that is presented in Christ through the Spirit by faith.
[00:57:54] Of course, Paul does what he's really good at, and he flips this around and says, "Freedom doesn't mean that you can just go and do whatever you want. You are called to freedom, but that's not an opportunity for the flesh because now you are living a Spirit-life. The freedom you have is for a purpose. It is for love and mutual service. And the whole reason why you are under the Spirit is so that you can walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh. Of course, we have that beautiful passage of the works of the flesh versus the fruit of the Spirit. And again, he calls back to what he said of himself. Galatians 5:24 says, quote, And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. End quote. so Galatians 5 shows the lived result of Christ's curse ending, the slavery-breaking thing that Jesus did. He frees his people from the old yoke, but not into autonomy, but into spirit-shaped love. The flesh has been crucified and the spirit freedom is the life of the redeemed. Then we get into Galatians six, which widens the lens one final time. Through the cross, the world itself has been crucified to Paul and Paul to the world.
[00:59:25] Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is the point anymore. What counts is new creation. Paul began the letter with the resurrection, with Jesus being brought forth from the dead, I think that even here in the end of the letter when Paul is really talking a lot about the cross, I don't think he's leaving behind the idea of the resurrection I think when he references the cross of Christ, he's referencing the whole picture. Because this is our way of freedom. This is our new creation. This is the rule by which we are to walk now.
[01:00:06] The curse is not the whole problem. The curse removal is not even the final goal. But the goal is blessing. The goal is Spirit-filled life. And it's not even that everybody in the world is under the curse because that was only described as an Israel reality because they were the ones who were actively trying to follow Torah. So Galatians 3:13 isn't even about all of humanity. He's not dropping some systematic dogmatic quotation here And we have to fit it within the whole argument of the entire letter. God raised Jesus from the dead. Christ gave himself to deliver us from the present evil age. The rival gospel threatens re-enslavement. Believers are crucified with Christ. Christ redeems from the curse so that blessing and Spirit can come. Slaves become sons and heirs. The flesh is crucified. The world is crucified. And what counts now is new creation. when we wrap all of that up back into the idea of atonement, atonement is not that God has a problem with us, and He needs that problem to be solved by pouring out his punishment, his wrath, his judgment, the debt, whatever word you wanna use here, I don't really care. The problem is not that God has justice in the sense that He needs somebody to be punished. That is just not the context. That is not what Paul is saying here in the letter. That is not what Paul talks about elsewhere, because the problem is slavery. The problem is false dominion. And we need to come into the freedom in the Spirit in Christ Not because we have a new slave master, but because we have an inheritance. We are becoming a new creation, a new formation entirely. And that is what atonement is.
[01:02:15] So I hope you see why and how Galatians and this idea fit so well with a divine council-informed biblical theology. It's not that the gods are the center of that whole entire picture, there's bigger problems as well that we have layered upon. The gods are part of the problem because they do enslave the people. And Israel is the chosen vessel for blessing, but they come under their own problem. They come under covenant Torah curse. And so Christ, the faithful son, the seed of Abraham, enters Israel's cursed condition so that the blessing can reach the nations and the Spirit can be outpoured upon all. The powers are a really big part of that problem, but they're not the point of the divine council. Just like the covenant is a midpoint reality, it's an important one. It's a good one. It's one that is meant to lead people to life. But the whole point is to bring people together in this inheritance and the context of sonship. We are now the sons of God. If that's not a divine council reality, then I don't know what is. The gospel is not that Christ took something bad for us so that now we get to avoid something bad. The gospel is that Christ has broken the order that enslaved you and me and everyone else and brought us into the family of God by the Spirit when we become one in Christ. We have to participate in that Christological reality. Not that we become Christ, but we become the sons of God.
[01:04:04] So if we want to understand Christ becoming a curse, we have to follow Paul all the way through the letter. The curse is something that is real that Christ did something about, but it's only a part of the picture, just like the gods of the nations are only a part of the picture. The law's curse loses its claim, slavery loses its claim, the flesh loses its claim, the powers lose their claim, and the world loses its claim. And what counts now is a new creation. When we read the word curse, we're thinking, well, of course, that is something that God needs to have resolved in order for his justice to be satisfied, right? That is not the reality that Paul is presenting here. And so that is also not how we should see it. And I hope that you can see also how the divine council worldview fits into this and helps provide this context of why it matters that we are in Christ, that that is a real reality for us, and that is a transformative reality. Jesus' resurrection matters because it is part of this as well. And it is part of the way that we are crucified in him because we will be raised with Him.
[01:05:27] All right. Enough of that for now. Gonna wrap up the episode, and as always, thank you guys for listening. And I really appreciate everybody who has gone through this whole series with me. I will probably be looping back around at some point. But for now, I think I have said what I think I needed to say on the topic. And I very much hope that it has been helpful for you guys. Again, if you have any questions or anything that you didn't think I touched on or explained well enough, please feel free to go ahead and reach out to me. You can find me on my website at genesismarksthespot.com. Fun little note, you can actually leave me a voice message there. I haven't gotten very many of those, but it's really fun when I do. So just an idea. If you guys want to actually give me a voice message, I would love to hear it. You can also find me on Facebook, and you can find me in my biblical theology community at onthisrock.com. Links to that will be in the show notes. And again, I have left some resources in that community as well. So if you wanna go check those out, that would be great. But for now, that is it for this week. And I appreciate you guys sharing the episodes, and really appreciate all of you who support me financially. However you do that, I deeply appreciate you and thank you very much for that. But that is it for this week, and I wish you all a blessed week. And we will see you later.
