April 3, 2015
Galatians 3:13
(All scripture is from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.)
This is the eighth blog concerning Questions Concerning The Cross, and we will finish the last two things of What Is Redeemed By The Cross? Our scripture is Galatians 3:13: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”)…” We learned in the last blog that “the curse of the law” was trying – and always failing – to obey the 613 God-given laws found in the first five books of the Bible, the Torah. Paul described in Romans 3:20 the reason God gave Israel all those laws: “Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His [God’s] sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Further, in Galatians 3:24, the apostle wrote, “Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” The law was given to help man realize he could not obey God completely! He would never be justified by his own sinful works! So he had to seek another way of justification – faith in what Jesus Christ accomplished in his behalf on the cross!
But, as stated in the last blog, the Jewish law was given because God had put an original curse upon creation after man sinned (see Genesis 3:14-19). Man now had a sinful nature. He was estranged from God. He had lost his physical as well as his spiritual perfection. God had given Adam a simple singular command in Genesis 2:16 and 17:
Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the know-
ledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you
shall surely die.
Adam ate and Adam died – spiritually at first, shown by the fact that he hid from God in Genesis 3:8. It was not until many years later, according to Genesis 5:3-5, that the first man died physically. And “…so death spread to all men, because all sinned…” (Romans 5:12).
So What Is Redeemed By The Cross?
• God redeemed my soul when I put my faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on my behalf! As it says in John 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life….” But there is more that has been Redeemed By The Cross!
• God has also redeemed my body! We were originally created by Him to be perfect – no sickness, death or sorrow. We were designed to live in harmony with our Creator and with each other forever! What Adam lost because of his disobedient sin, Jesus Christ regained by His obedient sacrifice! (See I Corinthians 15:42-58).
In I John 3:2 it is written:
Beloved, now we are the children of God; and it has not yet been revealed
what we shall be, but we know that when He [Jesus] is revealed, we shall be
like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
What will He be like when He comes again in glory? Jesus will be much like He was when He came out of the tomb on resurrection morning! He want into the tomb beaten, battered, bloodied and dead! He came out perfectly whole, healthy and vibrant! As it says in Romans 6:9, “…Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.” But He was – and is – still a physical being. After the resurrection, in Luke 24:36 and 37, the disciples thought that He was an apparition when He appeared to them in the upper room. But Jesus told them, “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” (Luke 24:39). He ministered for 40 days upon the earth in that perfect physical body (see Acts 1:3), and then He arose into heaven in that same body (see Acts 1:9), and He is there forever, “…at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2) – His physical body perfectly adapted to eternal spiritual living! And when we are resurrected (see I Corinthians 15:51), “…we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” It is yet for the future, but it will surely happen!
• Finally, God has redeemed all creation! All creation was put under a curse for the sake of mankind (see Genesis 3:17-19). Man would now have to expend his energies scratching a survival in a cursed creation. This was actually God’s gift to us to keep us out of trouble! Remember Grandma’s wise saying? “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings!”
But within the redemption Jesus purchased by His sacrifice on the cross was the reclamation of all creation! Paul described creation waiting for that time in Romans 8:19 through 23:
For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing
of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly,
but because of Him [God] who subjected it in hope; because the creation
itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans
and labors with birth pangs together until now…eagerly waiting for the…
redemption….
The world, and all creation will once again be perfect – as God originally intended it to be!
So What Is Redeemed By The Cross? The souls of people, their bodies, and all creation! Make sure you are a partaker of all this wonderful redemption by accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior!