Aaron Andrade | Redeemed from the Curse

Sunday Evening, April 12, 2026
Given by Aaron Andrade | Pastor of Shepherding and Discipleship, Christ Covenant Church

Redeemed from the Curse

Heidelberg Catechism-Lord's Day 15
Galatians 3:10-14

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Transcript

So, we've been looking at the Heidelberg Catechism, if you have not been with us for the past weeks, which has us working our way through the Apostles’ Creed. Tonight, we come to three questions based on the phrase, “He suffered under Pontious Pilate and was crucified.” Now, if you'll turn with me to Galatians chapter 3, we're going to be in Galatians 3:10-14. Hear the word of the Lord:

“For all who rely on the 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.’ Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith, but the law is not of faith. Rather, the one who does them shall live by them. 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.”

Let's pray. 

God almighty, you say in your Word that the gospel is the power of God to salvation. As we look at the gospel tonight, I pray for ears to hear, hearts that are open, minds that are focused. We need your Spirit, Lord. I need your Spirit. May we know what is the immeasurable greatness of your power towards us who believe. We ask this in your name. Amen. 

Well, many of you are probably familiar with the online marketplace Etsy. If you're not, Etsy is a place where you can buy and sell handcrafted goods online. If Amazon is kind of like the big box store of the internet, Etsy is the boutique shop where you can buy that rare item. Here's how they describe themselves in their own words on the website homepage: “Etsy is the only place you can find a perfect wedding gift and a cape for your bearded lizard while you're at it.” You know, in case you've been having trouble finding that superhero costume for your bearded lizard. Recently, Etsy had a decision to make. So, for several years, they had let people sell something on Etsy that might surprise you: curses. That's right. You could pay money to have someone cursed. So, for that terrible neighbor that's been bothering you, making your life miserable, or that horrible co-worker, you can hire a spellcaster to curse them. Well, as of February, the site decided to finally put an end to it. They took all these curses-for-hire off the storefront. And as you can imagine, there were all of three people that were really upset about this. Probably the bearded lizard people, I'm just saying. Nobody really cared that these curses were taken off the platform. And why? Well, it's because in our culture, curses aren't really anything that we take too seriously. I'm from Massachusetts, so I was raised correctly as a Red Sox fan. So, if you don't know this about baseball, it's a very, very superstitious sport. And so, when you're not winning, the team and the franchise starts to come up with reasons and things to blame. And if you're not winning a World Series for, let's say, 86 years, well, then you have to make up the curse. What kind of a curse can we point to? If you're a Cubs fan, you know what I'm talking about. Red Sox had the 86-year curse. And so, for those of you who don't know, you know, I'm a young man and these older Red Sox fans are sitting me down and they're saying, "Hey, Aaron, you know, we have to explain something to you. There's this thing called the curse of the Bambino. A long time ago, the Boston Red Sox traded away Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, and since then, we cannot win a World Series title.” Oh, so terrible. Problem was, that was the late 90s at the time. 2004 rolls around, we win not one, but we've won three more since then. So, I'm sitting here as a young man thinking, "What curse? What are we even talking about here?” In our culture, curses are something that we don't take too serious. We don't take them too seriously. Curses are silly superstitions. They're saved for fans that are having trouble winning World Series. It's not something that we really absorb and take all that seriously in our culture. And the reason I bring it up is because when we have something in our culture that's very different than the way the Bible speaks of that topic, it's important to make that distinction. So, the Bible, when it talks about curses, is very different. Very different. The Bible, when it talks about curses, puts it in a much more serious category, and we ought to pay attention to it. 

In our text today, Paul uses the word curse five times. And the curse he's referencing is, as I mentioned, nothing like these curses we just talked about. It's a very serious issue for the Galatian church, and it's something that we should take seriously as well. So, here's the big idea of this sermon, and it's the main question of our text: how do we deal with the curse? How do we deal with the curse? And to answer this question, first thing we need to do is to understand what the curse is, which is how Paul structures his argument in these four verses. He starts with identifying the problems of the curse, and then in the second half, he explains God's solution. And this will essentially become the outline that I have for today. First, the problem of the curse, which has three layers to it, as we'll see, and then the perfect solution, which will also have three layers, and that way it's sort of parallel. The problem of the curse and then the perfect solution to it. 

Let me start by just giving a little context, though, for Galatians. So, Paul's writing to the Galatian church primarily because he's heard that they are about to abandon the message that Paul preached to them. This is a church plant that Paul had on one of his missionary journeys, and the main tension in the book is that Paul is dealing with a group of people that is ready to throw away the gospel that he preached to them. And the reason that they're doing that is because of a group of people – we'll call them the Judaizers. They're trying to force these new Gentile Christians to live like Jews, to keep the law of Moses, is what's happening. And so, Paul is making a very earnest appeal. And if you look in Galatians, you can see from almost the very start to the end, he's pleading with them, “Do not abandon the true gospel.” And so, when we come to our passage here tonight in chapter 3, we're getting to a portion of Paul's argument which is focused on making an appeal to the curse. Making an appeal to the curse of the law. 

So, starting with the problem of the curse, we're going to see that the curse has multi-layers to it. And here's how we can think about them. We're cursed to do. We're cursed to do more. And we're cursed to die. Cursed to do, cursed to do more, and cursed to die. 

So, let's start with that first layer of the curse. We're cursed to do. Look at verse 10, and look at verse 12. Verse 10, Paul quotes from Deuteronomy. He says, "Cursed is anyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to do them." Verse 12, quotes from Leviticus, “The man who does them shall live by them.” So you can hear very clearly in the weight of Paul's argument that it rests on doing. Paul is emphasizing for the Galatian church that this decision they're about to make to come under the law of Moses will require them to do things. What kinds of things are we talking about? Pastor Kevin preached through the book of Leviticus not too long ago. And so, when you thumb through Leviticus or Deuteronomy, which are the two passages that Paul quotes, you can see there are all kinds of different activities that fall into the category of the law of Moses. So, what do we have? Offerings, right? You got the burnt offering, you got the grain offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, fellowship offering. So, there's a whole category of offerings that they were walking into. Dietary restrictions. I mean, when you look through Leviticus at the dietary restrictions, I mean, it's worse than being gluten-free. I mean, it's one of those things that's – my goodness, how do I keep track of all these things? Purification rituals. I mean, the meticulous nature by which they had to wash and cleanse themselves. And then there were the festivals. Paul talks about this in Galatians 4. You had days and months and seasons and years. I mean, you get the sense that there was not a month that goes by that these Israelites didn't need to prepare some sort of a festival or some sort of a great feast of some kind. So, what Paul's trying to tell them is you realize that if you get into this law thing, you will be having to do a lot of different things. And Paul knew this because he was a Jew who actually followed the law. And he knew that it was a heavy weight to bear – always doing – and there were many, many categories for it. Now, I'm a first child, and some of you might be cursed with this same thing. When you're a first child, you're born with something that you just can't seem to shake, and that is you have a fixation to please. And if you're a first child, you know what I mean. You just – you're trying to please others. No one needs to teach you how to do it. You're just born that way. It's just one of those things. I won't call out my firstborn, because she'll be embarrassed. So, as you think about that, and you're a firstborn, and you're doing things, I remember being a kid and doing, doing, doing. There was one day I was just obsessing about doing something, overdoing it. My dad stopped me. He looked me right in the eyes, and he said, "Aaron, you are a human being, not a human doing.” You're a human being, not a human doing. And it still sticks with me today. This is the essence of what the law is. The law turns us into human doings. Always doing, doing more, doing more, doing more and more and more. And all we want to do is take a breath. We want to take a breath and just be. Maybe you're here tonight, and you're feeling that way. You're feeling like a human doing. Here's what Paul is saying. As you walk into the law, Galatians, that's what you're getting yourself into. 

But it's not just that we're cursed to do. It goes deeper. We're cursed to do more. Look at verse 10 a little closer. There's actually another painful layer of this curse. Paul says we're cursed – “Cursed is anyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law.” So it's not just that we're cursed to do, we're cursed to do more, to abide by all the things written in the law. So, it's not just doing one thing. It's not just doing one thing for a little bit. That word abide means that you have to stick with it. This is a lifetime commitment. So, you can imagine the Galatians – they're sitting there thinking to themselves, okay, how bad could this be? I'll get circumcised. That's going to be tough, but I'll get through that, and then I'll get through all the rest of it. It shouldn't be that big of a deal. Paul says, "Oh no, you don't understand. Let me explain to you what you're getting into when you put yourself into this Jewish law, when you come under the law." Remember, Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees, he calls himself. And so, the group of Pharisees that he was with, they were known for their meticulous focus on God's law. And they had to figure out how do we apply this law? So, it wasn't just the law itself, but how does the law apply? So, you take it from hundreds of laws to then thousands of applications. And before you know it, you're not only just doing, but you're doing more and more and more and more. And this is Paul pleading with them, why? Why would you do this? They are trying – these Judaizers are trying to get you to do that so that they can lay more and more burdens on you. I have a friend who happens to be the foremost authority on cults. For four decades, he and his wife have researched and helped hundreds of people to get out of cults. They've testified on grand juries. They fly all over the world to give talks on any number of these cult groups or what they call aberrational Christian groups. Very sad, very sad that people get caught up in these groups. But he says that once these groups get a person to join, guilting them into doing more and more and more is exactly how their leaders operate. So, it doesn't take long before their members are being told how much money they must give, how much time to spend recruiting, how many meetings they must attend, what jobs they can take, who they can marry. I mean, the list goes on and on. These members start by doing a few things, but before you know it, they're in deep, doing more and more and more, suffering for God, but in reality, not. They're suffering for these narcissistic cult leaders. So, Paul, as he's describing this and these Judaizers, is putting those people in a similar category. They wanted the same kind of influence on this Galatian church. Here's how he describes them in chapter 4, verse 17: “They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.” So, like cult leaders out of their own exaltation and prestige and all the things that they wanted, Paul knew that this was a mistake, that if this Galatian church were to go this route, they would be adding more and more and more and more, and signing up for this one part of the law was much more than signing up for just that. It was going to extend well beyond that. 

So, first we have two layers of the curse. We have the curse to do and the curse to do more. Now, before I get to the third layer of the curse, we need to stop. We need to stop and ask a good question that I think might be on your minds. You might say to yourself, "Well, we're not first century Jews, so how does this relate to us?" And it's a good question. It's a good question. Why is it that we need to worry about these layers of the curse? We're not first century Jews. That seems like more of a problem that they were dealing with. Well, here's what Romans 2:14 says. It says, "Gentiles who do not have the law, but by nature do what the law requires, they show the work of the law written on their hearts." So, the Bible actually contends that even without the law of Moses, all people feel this pressure to do and to do more. Let's call it the law of conscience. And this is alive and well, even in our culture today. Wilfred McClay is a professor at Hillsdale College, and he describes the feeling as “the infinite extensibility of guilt.” Here's how he puts it when he reflects on our current culture: “We like to speak romantically of the interconnectedness of all things, failing to realize that the same principle means there's almost nothing for which we cannot be in some way held responsible for. I can see pictures of starving children in a remote corner of the world on my television and know for a fact that I could travel to that faraway place and relieve that child's immediate suffering if I cared to. Whatever donation I make to a charitable organization, it can never be as much as I could have given. I can never diminish my carbon footprint enough or give to the poor enough or support medical research enough. Structural poverty, water pollution, deforestation. There's an endless list of items for which you and I can take the rap. To be found blameless is a pipe dream, for demands on an active conscience are literally as endless as an active imagination's ability to conjure them.” Do you see what's happened? Though many modern people might call themselves atheists or put themselves in that category of none or no religion, I would contend that it's perhaps the most weighed-down moral society that we've had in any given generation, and part of that is because of technology. We're so connected to all these different causes. I mean, think about it. Caring for the planet, defending animal rights, ending poverty – all these different things that we see and are flooded with for things that we can do. And it's not just joining those causes, is it? Not at all. We don't celebrate joining a cause. We're compelled almost universally once we join to do something. There's got to be some doing that happens, and it's almost like a curse. So, we take shorter showers. We bike to work. We raise money. We volunteer our time. We adjust our diet. We spread the word to others. We read. We research. We organize meetings. Do, do, do, do. It's no accident for any of these moral causes, without fail, you will likely find a core group of people effectively cursed with a deep conviction that they must do and do and do and do some more, and they're not doing enough. So, this is not just an ancient Jewish curse back in the first century that they dealt with. This is something very real to all of us. We all feel that sense that we need to be human doings and though we want to be just human beings. 

So, if those are the first two layers of the curse, let's think about this third layer of the curse. The third layer of the curse is that we're cursed to die. Cursed to die. I want you to look at verse 12. Paul says, “The one who does them shall live by them.” The one who does them shall live by them. Now, there's an important implication wrapped up inside of that phrase, and I do believe it's what Paul is implying with the phrase: if the one who does them shall live by them, then isn't the opposite true? The one who does not do them shall die. At its deepest level, the most compelling evidence that we're cursed is that every single one of us in this room is going to die. We know that it's going to happen. We avoid it, but the reality is we're all going to die. And that is indeed the most important argument that I think Paul is making in this text is that you're going to die. We know it happens. We try to avoid it. We put traffic laws in place, safety belts, we have all kinds of medical professionals. We do all this work to preserve life. Why? Because we know that all of us are cursed to die. Now the question becomes where did it come from? Where did this curse come from? Christianity has the answer. Theologians call it the covenant of works, and it's the first covenant that we see in Scripture. Think back to Genesis chapter 2. God said to Adam, "You may eat of any tree of the garden, but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.” The truth is the reason we die is because one man, Adam, took from the tree, and by taking from the tree, he brought upon all subsequent generations the miseries of sin and the curse of death. That's where it came from. People walking around – they don't want to think about this, and they probably don't have a satisfying answer. Christian, you do. This is where the curse came from. This is why we die. It's because Adam in that garden took from the fruit and we're cursed to die. And not only that, but when he took from the tree, God's agreement with Adam was broken, and we take the curse as what the catechism called “his posterity,” which means every single one of us. When he took, we also, by connection to him, were also cursed with death. Now, you might say to yourself, "Well, that doesn't seem fair. That doesn't seem fair. Adam's there, and he's in the garden. I wasn't in the garden. I didn't take from the tree." But if we reflect just a little bit deeper on that, we realize this is exactly how the world works. Your father and mother's choices determine many of your life circumstances. Think about it. The way you look, your financial situation, the relationships that you have – all of those things are determined by what? By your father and mother. In the same way, from a spiritual perspective, you inherit from Adam the spiritual condition of your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. And there's nothing you can do about that. You can say it's not fair. You can pump your fist in the wind, but at the end of the day, the reality is that you're cursed to die, and the reason is because of his choice. And that's what we're born into. So, the problem of this curse has three layers. One, it's we're cursed to do. Two, we're cursed to do more. And three, we're cursed to die, and it's a bad situation. But thankfully, we don't have to leave it there. There's good news. 

We're going to turn from the problem of the curse to God's perfect solution. There's a dramatic shift, and it happens fast. I don't know if – when I was looking at these verses, I thought wow, this is – he just gets right into it in the beginning of verse 13. And it shifts from the bad news of the curse, and now we're going to get into the perfect solution, God's perfect solution. Let me read for you again, verses 13 and 14. And just let it hit you. “He 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.” Do you feel that? That's the good news of the gospel. That's the good news of the gospel. In these two verses, God lays out the perfect solution. If we were writing this story, here's how I think we would expect Paul – what we think he would say. We might think he would say, "He destroyed the curse for us. He eliminated the curse for us. He erased the curse for us.” No, God's decree for all of eternity was that Jesus Christ would become the curse for us. And this is indeed the perfect solution. Before eternity past, the Lord decreed this exact thing, that Jesus Christ himself would become the curse for us. It's beautiful, and it's marvelous. It's unexpected. And so, when we think about it, we've got to just marvel at it. We got to marvel at the beauty of it. 

Do you know how, in great movies or plays, they always build towards that climactic scene? Sometimes we call it the end scene, and it just feels so good, so satisfying. I'm the type of person that likes to rewatch movies again. My wife, not so much, but me, I like to watch them again. Maybe you're in the same category. But honestly, if I can't watch the whole thing again, I'm going to fast forward to that climactic scene. You know, the one. The one where everything gets put right. And so, when you take a step back and think about that, right? Why is it that we love those climactic end scenes? And why is it that every good movie has one? Well, there's a reason for it, and it's very deliberate. And it's a technique in storytelling that helps us to pull it all together. And it's because three things are happening in that climactic scene. One, all the major loose ends from the story or the play are tied up. Two, it happens in one symbolic moment. The more compact the moment when all of these loose ends can be tied up, the better the scene is. And then lastly, all is made right again. In these verses, Paul's describing God's perfect solution to the curse – the death of his Son, Jesus, on the cross – and all three of these elements are at play. All the major loose ends are tied up in one symbolic moment where everything is made right again. Let's go through those. And these are our three points on God's perfect solution. 

First, in the cross, all the major loose ends of the curse are dealt with. It was a human curse that we were under. So, Jesus, being fully man, was sentenced by Pontius Pilate in a human court. He suffered the physical death of a man so God could show for all the world his Son was truly cursed by man in our place. So that's the one side. That was a loose end that needed to be tied up. Jesus did that. But it was also a divine curse. So, Paul cites Deuteronomy 21:23, “A man hanged on a tree is cursed by God.” Seems like a seemingly obscure passage, seemingly obscure verse, but it becomes the linchpin and the incredible proof that indeed Jesus suffered the spiritual wrath of God. So, he was cursed by man on the one hand, tying up that loose end, and he was cursed by God on the other. Cursed by man and cursed by God. Who's the only one that could do that? Jesus himself, the perfect atoning sacrifice. Two natures, one man. Jesus Christ himself. He's the only one who could absorb both of those layers of the curse. And in the cross, those loose ends are dealt with. 

Second, on the cross, we see the perfect symbolic moment, which ties together all of redemptive history. We think about symbols here in our church. We don't do saints. We don't have pictures of God. We certainly don't have images. But there is one thing that we do have, and you've probably noticed it. There are crosses everywhere. You walked through a cross when you came through the door. You can see there's seven crosses behind me. There's crosses on the doors. There's crosses. And you think to yourself, well, what is it about that symbol? Why is it that we as Christians have adopted that? Well, here's why. It's the perfect symbolic moment that ties together all of redemptive history, and we want to remember it, because on one level, the cross was the ultimate symbol of being shamed or cursed there in Jesus' time. So, there's a lot of ways that Jesus could have died. And the catechism asked the question, why? Why is it important that he died and was crucified? Couldn't he have been poisoned, stabbed, thrown off a cliff? No. Those would not have been cursed ways of dying. No. The unique symbol in all of history was the Roman cross. People would go to the cross, and they would be completely ashamed, completely cursed. Oftentimes they were naked, gasping for breath, banished to the outskirts of the city. I mean, if you walked by someone being crucified, there would be no doubt in your mind this person is cursed, and this person is shamed. And so, that rugged tree was the perfect symbol for us to see with our eyes and visualize that Jesus was being cursed, and that was the symbol for that time. But on another level, the tree was also the way for God to convincingly show us that Jesus Christ was undoing what Adam did way back in the very beginning. The cross echoes back to Adam and the origins of the curse. Think about this visual with me for a minute. Adam took for himself from the tree, and now Jesus gives of himself on the tree. The dripping fruit ripped from the first tree is now the dripping flesh of Christ ripped open on the second tree. Do you see how incredibly perfect this is? This is God giving us the perfect symbol to show us, quite literally, that he is indeed fulfilling all of the requirements of the curse of the law. And he does so perfectly in that one symbolic moment. And that is why we celebrate the cross. That is why we have images of the cross around to remind us of that symbolic moment. So, the cross was the perfect symbol, chock full of significance, like nothing else in history. 

And then, finally, on the cross everything was made right again. Everything was made right again. This passage is ultimately about one of the most glorious truths in the Christian faith: justification. Simply put, in justification there is a great exchange. God gets our sin, and we get his righteousness. His merit to our account; our sin to his account. And this passage in Galatians 3:13-14 is the primary place where we get this doctrine. It's hard to notice in the English, but if you look at the text, the Greek word “he became” - ginomai – in verse 13 is the same root verb that's used in verse 14 – genetai – to describe the blessings that come to us. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us,” and then skipping to 14, “so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.” Here's the sense of it. He became a curse for us so that we could become the blessing of Abraham. That's the great exchange. That's the justification that God is making clear to us in this text. You probably even hear an echo of 2 Corinthians 5:21 where Paul puts it this way, “He made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” In the cross, he makes everything right again, ties up all the loose ends, does so in one beautifully symbolic moment, and he makes all things right again for us. Like a master storyteller, he unveils this perfect solution to the problem of the curse. 

So how do we respond to these glorious truths? We know it's not by doing something. That would pretty much defeat the purpose of what we've just heard. No, it's not about doing. It's about believing. Paul gives us an invitation to believe. Did you catch right in the middle, in the heart of the passage, Paul quotes from Habakkuk in verse 11, “The righteous one shall live by faith.” If we want to accept God's perfect answer to the curse, there's only one way to accept it. It's by faith. This is also how he ends verse 14. If you want the blessings of Abraham to come to you, a Gentile – if you want the promised Spirit – how does it come? It comes by faith. We've already seen though that this does go against our natural instinct. Here's what we want to do. We want to suffer ourselves. We want to be the ones that suffer. But here's the thing. That's been a temptation all the way back to Jesus' time. I want you to think about Peter. There was a time when Jesus told Peter that he was going to suffer, that he was going to die. And if you remember, Peter took him aside, and Matthew tells us that he started to rebuke Jesus: “Far be it from you, Lord. This shall never happen to you.” This is Peter who takes Jesus aside. Far be it from you, Lord. You won't suffer. No, no, no, no, no. If worse comes to worse, even if I have to die, I will die for you. That's what Peter said. Didn't work out very well for him, did it? But he couldn't take the fact that Jesus told him, "I'm going to suffer, and I'm going to die." He couldn't take it. And the rest of the disciples, they didn't understand it either. But afterwards, when they saw what actually took place on the cross, that all changed. They dedicated their lives to the truth. They believed that he was who he says he was, and they were saved. 

So tonight, we've all seen through the fresh eyes of Galatians 3 the same thing. We've seen Christ on the cross taking the curse for us. And now, what are we going to do with that? Maybe you're a Christian here tonight, but you're feeling crushed under the weight of doing, doing, doing, and doing some more. God's inviting you, perhaps this evening, to a gospel renaissance, to remember that he took all the wrath. There's none left for you. Sometimes we go around thinking, "Oh, but there's probably just a little bit that I need to atone for, so I'll do another church service or pray a little bit harder." No. Come back to the true gospel. It's not about doing. It's about faith. It's about believing that what was needed to be done was done on the cross, and Jesus did it for you. Or maybe you're here tonight, and you've never heard the gospel, and God is enlightening your eyes for the first time. And in that case, God is inviting you to faith. He's inviting all of us to faith. By the works of the law, no one is justified, but Jesus Christ became the curse so that you and I could become blessed children of God. Let's pray. 

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this word, for this reminder of exactly what happened on the cross. Thank you that you sent your Son not just to look and see, but to come and become our atonement, to take all the wrath of God, the cursed death on the cross for our redemption. We thank you for that, and we praise you for that. We ask, Lord, that you would help us as we go this week to remember these truths, that they would sink down deep into our hearts, that when we're tempted to do things that we would remember that it isn't about doing, it's about what you've done on the cross, and it's about our faith. And so, we thank you for that, God. We praise you for that, and we ask that you'd let that sink in deep into our hearts and minds in Jesus’ name. Amen.