Good morning to you all. It's great to
be with you. Um, this is a chapel series
you may know that's on the on the first
five books of the Bible, the penitent,
Genesis through Deuteronomy. And so
that's been a selection criteria for our
passages throughout the semester. And
it's also had a theme of unquipping
God's people. And today we get to read
and ponder one of my um my favorite Old
Testament laws. Um one that I think is
pretty shocking in some ways. Uh I I
will say I uh I actually wrote my
doctoral dissertation in part on this
which should immediately strike fear in
your hearts. Um the wise among you are
thinking I should have brought a pillow.
And um and others of you are probably
thinking that this is probably not going
to be your average everyday sermon. And
in that, you're correct. We're going to
do a bit of study of a law and its use
in the New Testament. And then and then
there'll be real, I hope, devotional
consequences at the end. Things that we
can ponder in our life. We actually have
two passages. Um, one is from the Old
Testament and it actually, I think, will
strike us as very complex and at least
mildly concerning.
Um, and this we need to situate in its
ancient neareastern context. And then
the other from the New Testament is also
quite complex and probably it's very
deeply profound. We won't be able to
exhaust it today. But from this we get a
a heart of the simplicity of the gospel
amidst the great wisdom of God. Because
what we'll see is that embedded in the
law 1500 years before Christ is a law
that Jesus will fulfill in the very way
that he that he dies in his death on a
cross.
So amid a a fairly eclectic series of
laws in Deuteronomy chapter 21, there is
this passage and I think we can turn to
the passage Deuteronomy 21. It reads
like like this.
Sorry, I'm in the wrong place. There we
go. And if a man has committed a crime
punishable by death, and he's put to
death, and you hang him on a tree, his
body shall not remain all night on the
tree, but you shall bury him the same
day. For a hanged man is a cursed of
God.
You shall not defile your land that the
Lord your God is giving you as an
inheritance. And then it's in Galatians
chapter 3 that Paul cites this passage
in the midst of an extended discussion
of what Christ accomplishes and our need
to follow him in faith. In Galatians
3:10 it reads, "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 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." Would you pray
with me? Father, as we ponder uh these
two amazing texts, complex as they are,
we pray that you give us some sense of
their meaning, beyond that, that we see
the profound wisdom of your gospel. A
gospel that proclaims on us rightly. Uh
that in our sinfulness, we are we're
cursed. We're cursed by you. And that
yet the very son of God incarnate comes
that he might bear that curse in our
behalf that we might have victory in
you. that we might have resurrection
life, that we might follow the
resurrected son and to your adopted
family. And for this, we give you
thanks, and we ask that in these next
few minutes, help us make that even even
more clear to us in some ways through
looking at these passages. To your
glory, in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Amen. So, um, we're going to go back to
the Deuteronomy passage. Um, I think
right there. And I am just going to
start with some observations. And as I
say, this is going to be a bit of a
study for a second. We're going to go a
little bit into the technicalities of
the passage and then a little bit into
the technicalities of Galatians and then
then see that this applies to us in some
profound ways. But just a few uh
observations about the text. One of the
things to note is the crime is un is not
specified. It's just a crime punishable
by death. So somebody deserves the death
penalty, but the specifics of the crime
are not noted. Uh, another thing to note
is is that the person is said to hang on
a tree.
Now, when you and I hear the word hang,
especially when it says a hanged man in
that English translation, uh, in the
English-speaking world, especially in
the US, um, there is a form of execution
that involves hanging somebody. That is
not at all what's going on here. So, we
think of a noose applied around
somebody's neck. And so you read that
and you naturally think of that because
that's the modern expression of somebody
hung a loft on a on a tree. But in the
first century they wouldn't have thought
of that. And certainly back in the time
of Moses they wouldn't have thought
about that. In the time of Moses we'll
see it would have be something of an
impalement. And in the time of Jesus it
would be something of a of a
crucifixion. But that's what's going on
that context. Though one of the things
that's actually hard to see in this text
and I think we might have it on the next
slide. Yeah. is that passage that's
translated um in the ESV. Uh hang hang
man is a cursed by God.
Um actually a very literal rendering. Uh
this is where I can be a professor with
you guys as as uh seminarians. And I
will do something here that I wouldn't
do in most churches, which is I'll just
go straight to the Hebrew. Okay? And
I'll say to you that a straight
rendering of the Hebrew would be a curse
of God is the one who is hung.
Now, uh, those of you who've had the
pleasure of being in either Greek or
Hebrew ex Jesus will know anytime you
have the word of, things gets messy
because there's different ways of
understanding how the word of works. A
curse of God. And you might remember um,
boy, let's go technical fully. Objective
and subjective genatives
with me, right? So, uh, for those of you
who don't know what I'm talking about,
uh, a love of God can be our love for
God. That can be love of God, or it can
be God's love for us. So, the genative
can go either way. Now, a curse of God
in that regard could be God's curses
upon somebody,
or it can be that they've cursed God,
uh, maybe blasphemed. And actually by
the time of the New Testament, both of
those are in active circulation in
Jewish thought. But what you have
represented in the ESV and also what
we'll see ultimately in our text in
Galatians is what the uh the Septuagent,
the Greek translation in the 3rd century
BC does with this passage, which is it's
God who does the cursing. They're cursed
by God. And we'll see that Paul's going
to go very much with that. And yet, you
can see how both could apply. I'm
stepping ahead of myself a bit to Jesus
because he was accused of blasphemy
and then he's going to bear a curse. And
so we see in a sense both going on. Um
we can also go further and see that this
idea of um hanging on a tree goes
elsewhere in the Old Testament. So we
can move on to the next slide. There are
a few places where people are hung up on
trees in the Old Testament. And again,
this doesn't look like hanging from a
noose or anything like that, but this is
probably suspended on some wooden
device, maybe impaled. And we see in
Joshua 8 one of those examples where it
says Joshua buried burned eye. He's he's
captured the king of eye in the midst of
um the conquest of the land. And he
hangs the king of eye on a tree until
evening. And then he buries him. And
you'll see that's exactly what the
Deuteronomy text said to do, which is to
bury before the night is out. Why?
because it's a curse of God to be to be
suspended on a tree. And it defiles the
land because there's that curse that's
being held out for all to see. Joshua is
going to enact that. Now, notice there's
a shift because Deuteronomy speaks to
criminal who's hung on a tree. Joshua
speaks to somebody conquered in war. And
we'll see actually widely in the ancient
near east um people and did both.
criminals could be hung on trees and uh
those who were captured in war could be
hung on trees. And yet um what we see
that the the Old Testament doing here is
limiting a widespread ancient
neareastern penalty. It's it's you're
not allowed to leave the person up for
days upon end until they wilt on the
cross until they decay. Um you you you
must bury them within the course of the
day. That's what's going on. So we see
Joshua doing that. We have another text
here, another Old Testament text where
somebody's hung on a tree. And this is
really striking if you think about it
for a second. Um, this is Hmon. And
here's what happens. You may remember
the book of Esther where um, central to
the book of Esther is there's a man
named Mori.
And uh, he's in good favor with the the
king of all of Persia.
And Hmon is jealous of this. And Hmon
opposes Morai and actually ultimately
gets so angry that he wants to put to
death every Jewish person in the entire
Persian Empire.
He is, if you would, and I I don't think
I'm overstating it all shocking. He is
the Hitler of the ancient world. That's
what he wants to be. He wants to put to
death every one of God's people in the
entire Persian Empire. And and
especially what he wants to do, the po
Morai is he wants to hang him on a tree.
That's the phrase in the Hebrew. And
what happens instead, of course, the
book of Esther is about this great
redemption of God, this reversal
where actually everything that Hmon
wants to do to the Jewish people, it
turns back on him and and actually the
Jewish people are elevated. And
especially the idea of hanging Morai on
a tree happens instead to Hmon the
Hitler of the ancient world where it
says right here and they hung Morai on
the tree which he had prepared or he
sorry they hung Hmon on the tree which
he had prepared for Mori. Right? So
striking that this theme that you have
throughout the Old Testament is there.
Now you might wonder and this is where I
I forgot to warn you that I one of the
things we'll get to do in the sermon is
I get to inflict some archaeological
pictures on you.
which is not what you normally expect in
chapel, but here we go. Right, let's go
to the first one here. This is the
Balawat gates of Shamanzar III. As you
know, these are in the British Museum.
Actually, this is a reconstruction of
them. And if you see right in the
foreground there is Tasha, my beloved
wife, and our daughters, our beloved
daughters. They're for scale. These are
immense things. And actually, what was
discovered were just the copper bands,
the bronze bands that were across them.
And those bronze bands have um impressed
in them scenes scenes of the victorious
Assyrian king. Because one of the things
you have to understand is this hanging
on a tree was something that was
widespread in antiquity. It was used by
the Egyptians. It was used by the
Assyrians, by the Babylonians. It was
found at Ugarit. It was also found in
the Persian Empire. And here we see in
Assyria that. And if you go on to the
next image, one of those Balawat bands,
you see the picture on the left. I'm I
should have this is I should have given
you a trigger warning because this gets
kind of gruesome here for a moment. Um
what you see is people impaled outside
the city. And that's what we're talking
about probably in the Old Testament
period is this kind of penalty that's
being wreaked. And especially in times
of war, it's done in order to um show
complete and utter conquest and defaming
of your enemies as a as a warning to
others. And and frankly, the same kind
of thing is going on in criminal
contexts as well. It's for the very
worst of penalties that you impale
people in these kinds of ways in order
to provide a a warning to anyone else.
Don't don't go here. This is this is the
worst thing that we can do to you and
we'll do it in space. I'll show you
another image.
Um this is a image of um a a prism of
Sonocr who's well known in the Old
Testament as well and it mentions that
he hangs their bodies on sakes around
the city which we saw another image if
we could.
This is actually where Sinakarb has
captured the Jewish city of Lakesh not
far from Jerusalem. And uh he has a
whole room in his palace that's devoted
to release celebrating this event. And
it's rather hard to see the one on the
left although you can imagine that that
arrow is pointing at something
significant. What it's pointing at is
the draw drawing right there. Um namely
people being impaled outside of the
city. And if you're reading the text of
Deuteronomy, Joshua, Esther, that's what
you should have in mind. This is this is
what was going that's what the original
readers would have known in terms of
their context there. Um if we could go
on to the next slide. So we're back to
the Deuteronomy text. But one of the
questions that we might have is how was
this passage read in Jesus's day?
And one of the things to say there is is
that in Jesus's day um the very activity
of hanging somebody up on a piece of
wood was widely practiced by the Romans
but in a slightly different form. And
yet in the very same context, criminals
of the worst criminal acts and in times
of war, they hung people up on on pieces
of wood. They did it in a cross shape,
which is just a variation, I would
argue, from the very Old Testament kind
of impalements that we saw earlier.
And actually, we see this if you go to
the next text. Um, so here's Josephus, a
first century Jewish person, applying
the book of Deuteronomy to crucifixion
in the first century when he says that a
different land, the Idians, actually uh
cast out the corpses without burial. But
Josephus says, "We as Jewish people
don't do that because we're so careful
about funeral rights that even evil
criminals, malifactors who have been
sentenced to crucifixion." And he uses
the Greek word for crucifixion there,
are taken down and buried before sunset.
And you you see that he's applying
Deuteronomy 21 there. And actually, if
we go to the next passage, one one last
passage, we'll be done shortly with all
my historical background stuff. Um,
Josephus also says that Hmon was
crucified.
He he actualizes that activity of the
Old Testament where somebody's hung a
loft on a tree and he says that's we
it's the same thing as crucifixion. He
uses the Greek word for that. Also,
actually in the Hebrew um texts of the
first century, time of Jesus, the way
that you said somebody was crucified is
you said they were hung on a tree. So
it's very natural to go back to
Deuteronomy and think
this person who is crucified is hung on
a tree just like in Deuteronomy. And
then the shocking thing about that is of
course that means that the person is
cursed. Cursed of God, cursed by God. So
if you'll go on to the next slide, we're
back to Deuteronomy.
And the question we might ask then is um
how did Paul approach this?
We can imagine there was a conundrum for
Paul. Um it it was when he was Saul and
he was persecuting the church. Probably
one of the reasons he was doing this is
the church was following a messiah that
clearly in his estimation could not be
the Messiah. Why? Well, because this
so-called Messiah had been crucified
and yet Deuteronomy pronounces over that
person a curse.
How is it that the Messiah could be
cursed? How could the Messiah be hung on
a tree? How could the Messiah be
crucified? That's Paul's conundrum. And
then, of course, his answer to that is
in Galatians. So, we can move on to the
next passage. And in Galatians, we
encounter the curse of sin and of the
law. And so, the next slide,
ultimately what he says is that Christ
is cursed. Yes, but he bears the curse
that you and I properly deserve. the
curse of our sin.
And uh it's striking. I'll say a few
quick things about this passage,
although so much more we could say, but
let me just say this. It does refer to
those who rely on the works of the law.
Now, um actually the literal rendering
of that would be those who are from the
law. Um but if you go earlier in the
book of Galatians in chapter 2 16, those
who are from the law are those who are
relying on the law for salvation.
They're relying on the works of the law
for salvation. They are saying that I
can live well enough that I will be
deemed righteous and welcomed into God's
presence. And Paul says that is not
right. And here in this passage, he even
argues that those who are lying in the
in the in the law in that sense are are
ultimately cursed because everyone who
uh the the the the law itself says,
"Cursed be everyone who does not abide
by all things written in the book of the
law and do them."
That's uh by the way in Deuteronomy 27,
it's right before a whole series of
curses and blessings are pronounced on
the Israel nation. Should they follow
bless follow the Lord, they are blessed.
Should they not, they are cursed. And
and and in Paul and that he is
summarizing that to basically say in the
failure to follow the law, there's a
cursing. And anytime honestly that we
sin against God, we deserve a curse.
And so that's uh key to this. Now
actually one of the things that we can
say about that is um
uh also in the context of this he's he's
saying that Abraham is the other the
other represents the other position the
position of faith where where he's not
relying on his works but he's ultimately
believing in God and so therefore it's
counted as righteousness. And Paul is
saying that's the kind of people we
should be. It's it's not that our
lawkeeping will save us, but we need to
be faithful like Abraham is faithful to
Christ and recognize that it's his death
and resurrection that saves. That's an
obvious context here. What I'd like to
do though for a moment is just lean into
that word curse a little bit and and
acknowledge that that means our plight
is often much worse than we like to say.
So when I present the gospel to
somebody, I often want to say that you
know that wages of sin are death. I mean
if you want eternal life, you you you
need to abandon your own works
righteousness and turn to Christ. And
that's certainly true. Hardy amen.
But this says more than that. It says
more than we've just committed a um
something that demerits that causes
demerits to us. It's it's not just that
we don't merit salvation. is that
actually we stand under in in in our own
selves
in our sinfulness the curse of God the
approprium of God himself the
malediction of God he it it's it uh if
we think wrath is a harsh word for what
we deserve actually we deserve God
calling us out staring us in the face
and pronouncing a curse over us similar
maybe in the ways that in uh the Adam
and Eve deserved a curse and received a
curse curse in the garden in Genesis 3.
And yet already there there's a
redemptive moment. The curse is not
nearly as harsh as we might expect.
There's going to be death, but it's not
immediate. And there's the hope of
redemption
in the one who will be born, the
offspring of Eve, who will crush the
head of the serpent. God is gracious in
the midst of the curse, but there is
still a curse. Similarly, in in uh
Deuteronomy 28, the context of
Deuteronomy we're in, what what is a
curse? Well, it's God's approprium. It's
his maladiction. It is pronouncement of
how severe God is in opposition to those
who are not followers of him and and who
ultimately are relying on their own
sinful works for salvation.
So this is the context in a sense of
what Paul says. And then of course what
Paul does with this is he says that
Jesus bore our curse on himself. The
next slide kind of takes us uh to um
what is effectively point three that
Jesus it's is the one who bears that
curse. And you see that that's the curse
of Deuteronomy 21. And and then we start
to see this amazing logic of the gospel.
This amazing way that God baked into
this little law in the middle of
Deuteronomy amidst all these other
various laws. something 1500 years in
advance that would effectively be the
great goodness of the gospel that we who
deserve a curse that that curse instead
goes to the very incarnate son of God.
You recognize this as the gospel and
it's an astounding thing when we think
of that. Um it's a profound mystery too.
Let's just simply acknowledge how in the
world can the second person of the
trinity bear a curse on our behalf? How
can the incarnate son of God who is
righteous in all his ways be cursed? And
that that leads us to mysteries that we
hopefully can p ponder in other classes
in some ways. But ultimately we're going
to throw up our hands and say, you know,
all we can do is worship at this moment
and thank
um our God who would step into the human
world and then walk to a cross on our
behalf and bear even the malediction on
our behalf that that could be removed
from us. This is the wonder of the
gospel in so many ways. So, if we can,
let's move on to the next slide. There's
some implications and a response as we
draw this to a close. Um,
one of the reasons I really love this
Deuteronomy passage is is it again, it
brings out just how deep our plight is.
There's times when I I think it's
certainly the case early in our
Christian lives. It's enough for us to
just say, "I'm sinful and that's
horrible and I I need salvation."
But there's times as we walk deeper and
deeper into the Christian faith when
it's real it's it's it's it's really
good for us to ponder just how
astounding our plight was. How we so did
not deserve to be in God's presence. We
deserved
a curse on us. We deserved him saying
words that defame and denigrate
because that's who we are in some
measure. And that going into that is is
helpful in some ways because for for
one, I think a lot of the consequences
that we think about in our lives, the
the the guilt we feel or shame that we
feel can be seen to pale in comparison
to this. Let me show you how that works.
I I would argue that in throughout the
New Testament, there is no clear passage
that says that Jesus took our shame upon
himself.
There's no clear passage that does that.
And yet we of course feel shame. There's
there's not even a a clear sense where
it it's focused on our
deep sense or profound sense of of just
feeling guilt. He doesn't take our
feelings of guilt upon himself.
Yet he does something even deeper. He
takes a curse that we rightly deserve, a
maladiction against us that rightly
calls for a sense of guilt, calls for a
sense of shame.
and he he accomplishes something even
great. That maladdiction is removed.
That curse is removed. And so therefore
we can walk into a sense of we are
guilt-free because he has alleviated
that. We are shamefree because of that.
So these these kinds of consequences
that sometimes we want to front even in
our gospel present. They're really
actually secondary things and they spill
out of a deeper sense of go that Christ
did even greater things. He took a
maladiction on our behalf. Second, with
regard to the Savior, we we see even
more the glory of the Savior. So much
greater what he does on our behalf when
he takes our sin on on we just sang
about that. But but but even more that
the curse of our sin on himself
and that should call us to just fall
down in worship and recognize that we
can walk. We can walk as adopted
children. you you just in the immediate
context of the book of Galatians, we
don't just have a crucified savior, but
a resurrected savior. It was Paul seeing
that it was the risen Jesus that seeing
the risen Jesus on the Damascus road
encountering him in that regard made him
realize that what the one he thought was
a cursed and therefore couldn't be the
Messiah was the Messiah. And then he had
to wrestle with what does that mean that
this Messiah was cursed?
And here we can see that the depth of
that thought took him back to realizing,
oh, this is exactly what we need in our
Messiah in ways that were completely
unexpected to Paul in the midst of his
first century Jewish context. And that
resurrection then becomes the hope that
allows us to understand the meaning of
the curse. And beyond that, also in
Galatians, we're adopted as a
consequence that we're adopted children.
We are redeemed. We're justified by
faith in Christ, we're freed in Christ
to live out the fruit of the spirit. And
that is a glorious, glorious thing. So
next time you're happening to read
through the book of Deuteronomy, which I
hope you do regularly, and you're
reading and studying the laws, and
suddenly you encounter there's this
pronouncement of a curse upon the one
who's hung on a tree. Hopefully you'll
remember just a little bit more the
depth of our misery,
the glory of Christ's salvation, and how
in light of that we can walk as people
who are free, justified,
adopted children because Christ did this
on our behalf. That is the gospel. Amen.
Amen. So from that, we are equipped as
God's people reading the penetuk to walk
in God's grace. Let me pray for us.
Father, as we ponder these things, we
are astounded that Christ, our savior
did this on our behalf. That we who are
rightly cursed instead can walk in
freedom because he did something so
grand, so glorious, so mysterious. That
we can walk as children of you. We pray
that we would be a little bit more free
today recognizing that that burden is
released, that guilt is released, that
shame is released as a consequence, but
beyond that, that we would be
worshippers of this Christ who went to
such an extent, who loves us that
deeply, whose grace extends that fully
that we can be
adopted children of God. In Jesus name
we pray. Amen.