The rest of verse 13 tells us in no uncertain terms what Christ redeemed us from: “Christ hath redeemed us FROM THE CURSE OF THE LAW...” (Galatians 3:13).
The expression “the Law” as used in the New Testament refers to either the Ten Commandments, the first five books of the Bible called the Pentateuch, or the whole of the Old Testament. In the Book of Deuteronomy, which is part of the Pentateuch, Moses stated the blessings and curses of the Law.
In the first part of Deuteronomy 28, God talks to Israel about the blessings of the Law that will overtake them if they obey His commands )vv. 1-14). Then skipping down to verse 15, God says, “But it shall come to pass,if thou wilt NOT hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that ALL THESE CURSES shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.”
The curse or punishment for breaking God’s commandments is threefold: poverty, sickness, and the second death. In this discussion, we’ll only deal with the curse of poverty.
Deuteronomy 28:16-19, 38-40 "Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it. Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy coasts, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil; for thine olive shall cast his fruit."
POVERTY A CURSE - NOT A BLESSING
You can readily see these verses are talking about poverty and lack. God said poverty and lack was a curse which was to come upon the people of God because they failed to keep His commandments and His statutes (Deuteronomy 28:15).
The curse of poverty should come upon all of us - Gentiles and Jews alike - because all of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). But Galatians 3:13 tells us that instead of the curse coming upon us, Jesus was made to be a curse for us.
Jesus didn’t go to the Cross for Himself - He did it for us! The curse fell on Him instead of upon us. He bore the curse for us so we wouldn’t have to.
Jesus became our substitute and paid the debt for our sins through His death on the Cross. And God wrote it down as though we had paid the debt for sin ourselves! Now because of Jesus, we aer free from the curse of the Law - and that includes the curse of poverty!
2 Corinthians 8:9 "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich."
Some endeavor to only put a spiritual interpretation on this verse. They say it’s talking about Jesus becoming spiritually poor so we might be made spiritually rich. But there’s more to this verse than that.
Although Jesus’ needs were always supplied, if He became poor at all, it would only have been from the material standpoint because He never gathered to Himself earthly riches an treasures. For example, Jesus didn’t even have His own home. He said about Himself, “...The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).
But Jesus certainly wasn’t spiritually poor. Someone who was spiritually poor could not work miracles, raise the dead, turn the water into wine, feed five thousand with a little boy’s lunch, or heal the sick!
Often people’s thinking is out of line with the Bible, and that’s what defeats them. They use some isolated scriptures to form an erroneous doctrine that is not in line with ther whole cousel of God’s Word.
For instance, some people have made a doctrine out of Luke 18:22, where Jesus tells the young rich man to “...sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” These people try to use that verse to prove that every rich person who is born again needs to sell all his possessions and give to the poor.
