What does Galatians 3:13 mean?
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 2009.
You ask about the meaning of Galatians 3:13. Here are my thoughts on the subject.
What it does and does not mean:
a. It does not say: 'Christ was made, by God or anyone else, an active curse to us'.
b. What it does say: 'Christ became a curse on our behalf'.
What the curse was:
a. It was the curse pronounced and imposed on all those who were under the law if they did not perfectly fulfil all the demands of the law. None of the Jews, who were under the law, ever kept all of its demands.
b. The law, therefore, pronounced a curse on them. For an example of the law's curse being executed, see Matthew 25:41; Revelation 20:10, 15.
What it means when it says that Christ became a curse on our behalf:
a. We deserve to have the law's curse executed on us.
b. But Christ bought us out from the curse of the law, by identifying himself with us and taking on himself the whole curse of the law which we deserved. Nothing is left of that curse for us to suffer.
The purpose of the command in Deuteronomy 21:22–23
a. In Israel, capital punishment was normally by stoning or by the sword, not by crucifixion; that is, crucifixion as a means of putting someone to death, as used by the Romans, was not allowed in Israel. If the Israelites hung a criminal on a tree, the criminal had to be dead before he was hanged on the tree.
b. If the crime had been sufficiently shame-worthy and dastardly, the Israelites were allowed to shame the criminal's body by hanging it on a tree, so that all might see that not only the Israelites but God himself was disgusted by the crime.
c. Even so, God himself prescribed a limit to this shaming. Even a criminal was not to be denied a proper burial. He was not to be allowed to hang on a tree indefinitely until his body disintegrated. He was to be buried the same day; cf. Joshua 8:29; 10:26–27.
d. Ponder Acts 13:29.
I hope that these remarks will help towards the solution of your question.
Yours very sincerely in Christ,
