Mark's thoughts: Vindication of the cursed Messiah

 

Quoting Deuteronomy 27:26 Paul told the Galatians, “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’” (Galatians 3:10).  The apostle was making the point that doing the works of the law can never bring about justification.  Instead, this way of approaching God can only bring God’s curse because no one can ever do the law as God requires.

A little later in the same chapter, Paul went on to explain, “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’” (Galatians 3:13-14).  Here Paul quoted Deuteronomy 21:23 which said that anyone hung upon a tree was cursed.  In the first century A.D., the word “tree” was understood to be the cross commonly used by the Romans to execute people in the provinces.

Paul was saying that Christ was cursed for us – those who can’t do works of the law.  By being cursed in our place he freed us from the slavery of God’s curse.  We now have forgiveness and salvation.

We have read these verses so many times that it scarcely strikes us as strange to say that the Christ – the Messiah – was cursed by God.  However, to any Jew, Jesus’ crucifixion would have been proof that Jesus could not be the Messiah.  The most commonly quoted verses about the Messiah around the time of Jesus were Psalm 2:9 and Isaiah 11:4. The psalmist wrote about the Messiah, “You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.” The prophet said of him, “and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.”  While there was a variety of expectation about the Messiah, the feature that ran through all of them was the fact that the Messiah would be mighty, powerful, and victorious.  Death at the hands of the Romans was proof that a person was not the Messiah.

Yet Jesus had not just been executed by the Romans.  He had been crucified.  Jesus had been hung on a tree, and so Jesus was not only a false Messiah.  He had, in fact, been cursed by God.

While the New Testament most commonly uses the word “cross” to describe the instrument of execution, there are a number of verses that use the word “tree” (such as in Galatians 3:13 above).  Peter proclaimed, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree” (Acts 5:30).  Later Peter told Cornelius, “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:39-41).  Paul said to the listeners in Psidian Antioch, “And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people” (Acts 13:29-32).

 

The use of the word “tree” for cross bears this meaning that Jesus had been cursed by God.  Jesus was a cursed Messiah. When the disciples went to bed on the evening of Good Friday it appeared that there was nothing more to say.  However, you will notice that when the word is used in Acts to refer to the cross it is linked with the resurrection.  Jesus was cursed by God when he died on the cross.  But cursed in our place, he was vindicated as the Messiah when God raised him from the dead. 

 

To speak of a crucified Messiah was absurd to first century Jews.  Paul freely granted that the preaching of Christ crucified was “a stumbling block to Jews” (1 Corinthians 1:23).  Yet Paul and the apostles went forth and proclaimed this very thing.  They did so because they had met the risen Lord.  They now understood why Jesus had been cursed.  It was in order to bring forgiveness and salvation to us.  They also knew that Jesus had been vindicated as the Messiah. They knew this because God had raised him from the dead.