Galatians 3:13Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore Christ took upon Himself such a curse, and by it destroyed the deserved curse. Just as an innocent man, resolving to die in place of one condemned to death, thereby frees him from death, so Christ also acted.

Since Christ was not subject to the curse for transgressing the law, He took upon Himself the undeserved curse in place of the curse we deserved, in order to free all from the deserved one. For "He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth" (Is 53:9).

In the words, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us" (Gal 3:13), Scripture does not say that His essence left its own glory and was changed into a curse. Not even demons would think this, nor men utterly mad and deprived of natural sense. Such a thought is both impious and senseless.

Rather, Scripture says that by taking upon Himself the curse pronounced against us, He no longer left us under the curse.

It is like someone condemned to death, while another, innocent man undergoes death, having resolved to die in his place. Thus He took upon Himself the curse by being hanged on the tree, and destroyed the curse lying upon us for not fulfilling the law. Yet He Himself was not subject to it, because He both fulfilled the law and committed no sin.

Therefore Christ redeemed us from the curse according to the law, "from the curse of the law," which is appointed for sinners. He Himself reproaches them through the prophet in these words: "Behold, you were sold for your sins, and for your iniquities I sent away your mother" (Is 50:1).

The Apostle repeats the same thing, saying: "But I am carnal, sold under sin" (Rom 7:14). On the other hand, the curses recorded in Leviticus and Deuteronomy are not fulfilled by God Himself. Rather, the prophetic spirit only proclaims what will happen to men who sin.

Therefore, if Marcion wishes to press us hard with the Apostle's words, "Those who live by the works of the law are under a curse," because it is written, "Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things written in the book of the law. To do them" (Deut 27:26), and if he asserts that all who were under the law were cursed, then we shall ask him: Are those who live under the grace of Christ's Gospel cursed or not, if they do not fulfill His commandments?

If he answers that they are cursed, then he will have in the Gospel what we have in the law. But if he says that they are not cursed, the conclusion will follow that the commandments of the Gospel were given in vain. Those who fulfill them will then remain without reward.

Both matters are therefore resolved as follows. Just as Christ freed us from the curse according to the law by becoming a curse for our sake, so He also delivered us from the curse according to the Gospel. This curse is laid upon those who do not fulfill His commandments.

He became a curse for our sake, knowing likewise that not even the smallest part of the entrusted talent will be forgiven us. The very last quadrans will be exacted from us (Mt 5:26; Mk 12:2).

According to this, the Lord appropriated to Himself our curse, our abandonment, and similar things that do not belong to nature. He appropriated them not because He is or became such, but because He assumed our person and placed Himself among us.

This is what the saying means: "having become a curse for us" (Gal 3:13).

Maximus the Confessor, Letter to Marinus. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 30. Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Saving Coming of Christ.

So the Holy Church sings to Him: "Thou hast redeemed us from the curse of the law by Thy precious Blood. Being nailed to the Cross and pierced by the spear, Thou hast poured forth immortality upon mankind, our Savior: glory to Thee."

Thus you see what moved Christ to be crucified and die for us. It was His ineffable love for us, and our extreme poverty and eternal perdition, to which we were all subject.

Read about this in the apostolic epistles, and attend diligently to the verses and hymns of the Church. You will see more clearly, understand, and acknowledge that apart from Christ there is salvation for no one.

Glory to Christ God, Who has saved us, to Whose mercy and protection I entrust both myself and you. Be saved in Christ.

Turning to the person of Jesus Christ, we see Him hanged on the Cross. Therefore He was cursed by the people as the greatest criminal before the law. Yet, being sinless, He was not a criminal and should not have been subject either to death on the tree or to the curse.

If He underwent both, it was because He took upon Himself the sins of the whole world. Therefore He also bore upon Himself the curse of the whole world (1 Pet 2:24). The curse of the law explains, among other things, why the Jews were scandalized by the teaching about Christ crucified.

Before this he explained that the law, the Old Testament institution, did not justify or save by itself, but only by faith in the Lord Who was to come. In itself, when alone, it only weighed upon all with its curse.

Now he says that the Promised One, by faith in Whom the Old Testament institution had its power, has come and offered Himself as a sacrifice for all. We have turned to Him, and by faith in Him we are justified, sanctified, and guarded from every lawful curse.

He offered Himself once, and being eternally alive, He ever intercedes for us before the righteousness of God. Standing through faith under this mediating protection, we are safe from all punishments of lawful righteousness.

This is precisely what compelled us to leave the Old Testament institution and cleave to the new one in the Lord Jesus Christ. The former is now no longer needed. Formerly it still had power under the condition of faith.

Now, even with faith in its former sense, that is, faith in the Deliverer Who was to come, it is nothing. For the Coming One has come. To believe in One Who still has to come, when He has already come, means to pervert God's order.

It means to go against God, against the law itself, and voluntarily to keep oneself under the curse. But us believing Jews the Lord has redeemed both from the curse and from the obligations of the law.

All that is gone. We walk by a new and living way, straight into the life which is in Christ. In this way we explain the relation of this passage to the preceding one.

In itself, however, the passage is clear. The curse lay upon us. The Lord, being crucified on the Cross, took this curse upon Himself for us, though He was not subject to it, since He is holy and blameless. For "he who hangs on a tree is cursed before God" (cf. Deut 21:23).

In the indicated passage of Deuteronomy, it is prescribed that a disobedient son, a lover of pleasure and a drunkard, be killed and hanged on a tree. In the evening he is to be taken down and buried, so that he not remain overnight on the tree.

For one hanged in this way is cursed before God. Such hanging was a display of the extreme depravity of the one hanged. For this reason he was cursed before God.

It was not the hanging itself that brought the curse, but the sin that led to such an execution. "Not everyone hanging on a tree is cursed before God, but the one who sinned with a sin worthy of death, was put to death for it, and was hanged on a tree.

He is not cursed because he hangs on a tree, but because he fell into such a sin that he deserved to be hanged" (Blessed Jerome).

This passage is a typological prophecy. Since everything in the Old Testament is a shadow of what was to come, this ordinance also was a type of the Lord's death on the Cross. He too was hanged on a tree and taken down in the evening.

There was no sin in Him. But since in the law hanging properly signified sin and curse, the Lord's hanging also signified this and had the same force. Yet it did not touch Him Himself, for He was blameless, but the whole of mankind.

On the Cross the very curse was hanged, so that it no longer exists for anyone who hides beneath the shelter of the Cross.

Saint Chrysostom says of this: "He who wishes to destroy the curse must himself be free from the curse. He must take upon himself an undeserved curse in place of the deserved one. Christ took such a curse upon Himself, and by it destroyed the deserved curse.

As someone not subject to condemnation, resolving to die for a man condemned to death, thereby delivers him from death, so Christ also acted. Since He was not subject to the curse for transgression of the law, He took upon Himself an undeserved curse in place of the one we deserved.

He did this in order to free all from the deserved curse. For 'He committed no iniquity, nor was deceit found in His mouth' (cf. Isa 53:9). As one who dies for those condemned to death frees them from death, so He Who took the curse upon Himself freed them from the curse."

Blessed Jerome writes: "No one should be troubled that Christ became a curse for us. God, Who made Him a curse, Himself also made Him sin for us (cf. 2 Cor 5:21).

The Savior, from the fullness of the Godhead, humbled Himself even to taking the form of a servant (cf. Phil 2:7). Yet the humiliation of our Lord is our glory. He died that we might live. He descended into Hades that we might ascend to heaven.

He became foolishness that He might become wisdom. From the fullness of the Godhead He diminished Himself, taking the form of a servant, so that the fullness of the Godhead might dwell again in us, and we might become lords from being servants.

He hung on the tree in order to destroy, by hanging on the tree, the sin we committed at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He became a curse so that blessing might descend upon us and rest in us."

Thanks be to the Lord, all we believing Christians are hidden beneath the shelter of the Cross from every threatening curse of the law. Yet this is not unconditional. There is now no condemnation for us, but how? If we walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit (cf. Rom 8:1).

In other words, this is true if we withdraw from every sin and are zealous to fulfill all the commandments of the Gospel, strengthened by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Without this, the curse hangs over us in all its force.

Let no one think that since the Lord redeemed us from the curse, and since we believe, we may live however our soul desires. No. As soon as we sin, an even greater punishment lies upon us.

Our advantage is this. When, while zealous to fulfill the commandments, we stumble and fall, then, having acknowledged, confessed, and wept over the sin, we immediately receive forgiveness and absolution.

This is granted for the sake of the eternal mediation of the crucified Lord, Who ever stands before the righteousness of God on our behalf. It is also for the sake of our labors, insofar as we can, to blot out sin.

Through these labors, with faith in Him, the power of that heavenly mediation is grafted into us.

The curse of the law follows on the heels of every transgressor of the law. It is joined to transgression of the law, just as blessing is joined to its fulfillment.

In Paradise it was said: "In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die" (cf. Gen 2:17). This is the curse, and it came into force immediately after the eating. The curse written in the law is known.

A curse also lay upon the Gentiles, though not through the written law, but through the law of conscience. For what else is the pang of conscience, if not the action of the curse laid by the righteousness of God upon every transgression of the law?

Those who are under the Gospel are not free from the curse as soon as they fail to fulfill the commandments of the Gospel (cf. Blessed Jerome, at length).

True life is found in the strict, complete, and all-embracing fulfillment of the will of God, expressed in the commandments and prescriptions of the moral law (cf. Mt 7:21).

The whole New Testament economy of salvation, the Incarnation, the Cross, and the grace of the Spirit, exists in order to supply what was weak in the law. It does not set the law aside or relegate it to the background.

All our attention, all our powers, and all our cares must be directed to this. Whoever turns his attention elsewhere is shifted from the main point. He loses the mark and takes a wandering direction.

Faith belongs here. The mysteries belong here. All the sanctifying and strengthening rites of the Church belong here. All ascetic labors belong here.

Everything must be directed toward this: that we may appear as children of God, blameless at the coming of the Lord.