The Crucified God

Sam Powell

Galatians • Sermon • Submitted a year ago

Galatians 3:10–14

Jesus dies on the cross

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Assurance

John 3:16–17 NKJV

16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

Prayer

You are our steadfast and merciful Father

You make covenants and you keep them, for you cannot lie and you do not change

O Lord, remember your lovingkindness. Hear our prayers. You have said that your house shall be called a house of prayer, and you have said that where two or three are gathered in your name you are in our midst.

Hear our prayers, faithful and loving Father.

We pray that your would build up and strengthen your people here today. Increase our faith, preserve us, let us never be confounded. Keep our path steady and our footsteps firm.

May we live as a people of hope, that others might see us and know that we have a faithful God who keeps promises, that others might see that we have a father in heaven and bless your name.

So fill us with your spirit. Shine the light of your word upon our hearts and cleanse us from hidden sin

Forgive us, father. Wash us clean by the blood of the lamb. In your mercy and in your justice, remove our sins from us.

We remember that you hear prayer. You have given us our daily bread, as you have promised. You have not forsaken us, as you have promised. You have healed our diseases, as you have promised.

And you have opened the windows of heaven and filled our mouths with good things. Your corn and your wine you have provided for us and we thank you.

Thank you for music and beauty; thank you for feast days and friends. Thank you for families and shelter and home.

And Lord God, remember mercy. We pray that you would comfort the lonely, strengthen the weak, establish the fearful and downhearted, and bring the wandering back home.

Forgive and restore those who are straying. Deliver us from the cunning of the evil one.

And heal those who are sick. Provide for our needs. Guide our steps over the next few weeks and lead us to green pastures.

Thank you for our children and our children’s children. Bless the young ones here today. Give them wisdom while they are young. Draw their hearts to you in their tender years. Set their feet firmly on solid ground.

As your word is preached this morning, we pray that you would give boldness and faithfulness to your ministers and that you would tear down false shepherds and those who hate your word. We pray that you would guard your sheep and not let them become prey to the wolves who prey upon them.

And that your word would comfort, reprove, encourage, strengthen your people today. Apply it to the heart by your holy spirit and breathe upon us.

Make these dead bones live, dear Father.

We pray for our nation and our state. We pray that you would not treat us as we deserve, but treat us according to your kindness. Give wisdom to President Biden. Give wisdom to our judges and senators and representatives. Tear down those who seek their own, and who seek to subvert and destroy.

And in our own community, protect the foreigner and the stranger, for our fathers were strangers in the land of Egypt and you care for them. Deliver the oppressed from the oppressor. Free those in bondage to alcohol, pornography, drugs and be merciful to them.

And teach us to be merciful to all we come in contact with during our time on this earth. Teach us to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, for our community is full of violence and despair, anger and hopelessness – breathe your holy spirit upon us, and gather your sheep into the fold, wherever they might be. We remember, Lord Jesus, your compassion – for you saw that the sheep had no shepherd. Remember that compassion in our community and gather your sheep together.

We commit our way unto you. Direct our steps. Give us our portion, for you know what is best. And when we are afraid, teach us to trust in you, that we might be faithful servants of our Lord Jesus.

And lets pray together:

Psalm 19:14 NKJV

14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.

Scripture

Isaiah 53 NKJV

1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. 3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. 9 And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth. 10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. 11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.

Text

Galatians 3:10–14 NKJV

10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” 11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” 12 Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.” 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”), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Sermon

The person of Christ

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

The God that spoke to Moses from the burning bush

The God that thundered from Mt Sinai

The God that appeared to Isaiah, high and lifted up

THIS God became flesh and walked with us.

This one true eternal God is revealed in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But there is only one will in God. The will of the Father and the will of the Son and the will of the Holy Spirit are one undivided will. There can be no authority and submission in God for there are not multiple wills. Only one will of God - F,S and HS

Only the second person became flesh, but this was the work of the undivided trinity. In his flesh, Jesus submitted to the Father, but according to his divine nature, that will was one.

We will never fathom the Trinity, but it is important to get it right. Otherwise, our salvation is based on divine child abuse.

It is NOT true that the Father punished the Son for man’s sin. The truth is that God took upon himself the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race in the person of the Son.

When Jesus said, “Your will, and not mine be done” he is speaking according to his human nature, for he had both human will and divine will.

Justice and the law

The Lord God who revealed himself to the patriarchs and prophets is the God of all power, might and dominion. He does as he pleases, he created the world out of nothing with simply his word. God, by the Son through the Spirit created and upholds all things by his almighty power.

And this almighty power, according to Paul, is known by every human being born of Adam

Romans 1:20 NKJV

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,

In every religious system in the world, the salvation of the world will come from God - or the gods - exercising their power.

It makes sense to our natural sensibilities. We are overcome by powerlessness and say to ourselves, If only we had a champion, a king to come over the hill, a powerful ally. We long for the Millenial Falcon to arrive at the exact right moment and save the day.

We desire justice - and long for a king or ruler that will bring justice. And that can only be done by power.

The king says, “Here is the law. Here are the punishments if you break the law. Here are the rewards if you keep the law.”

And this is the only kind of justice that the world knows. A just king punishes evildoers and rewards righteousness.

But there is even more. There is a power in society, in nature, in everything around us.

A person who is lawless, who steals, rapes, mistreats others or is just generally unpleasant to be around will generally find himself without friends and cast out, unless he has money.

A person who believes that gravity is a hoax will find himself with broken bones. If you spend your whole life eating cheetos on a beanbag chair while binging netflix, you will be poor, friendless, and miserable. As well as unhealthy and overweight.

There are laws in the universe, and relentless, powerful, impersonal justice in enforcing those laws. It is woven into our DNA.

And so we take those things woven into our DNA and apply them to God. If people do bad things, God will get them. If they do good things, God will bless them.

But injustice is inescapable. Proverbs speaks about the natural justice in the world, where everything works as it should. But then there is Job and Ecclesiastes - where everything isn’t as it should be.

The history of the world is that there are oppressors and there are the oppressed. And the goal of every kingdom of the world is to amass enough power so that the right people are the oppressors and the wrong people are oppressed.

These are “them”, and not “us”. We are the ones with the power, and they are the them - at the bottom, for a reason.

They are sinners and don’t know the law.

The curse of the law

In our text, Paul talks about those “under the works of the law”. Other versions say, “Those why rely on the works of the law”

This is every man born of Adam. All of us - we are subject to the inflexible laws of justice, retribution, punishment and reward. We are all under powers that are stronger than we are.

All of us naturally rely on the works of the law. That the power of God is with those who offer the right sacrifice, hold the right opinions, wear the long robes and are greeted in the marketplace.

We see the homeless outcast and we wonder what he did that caused him to end up there. We see the police beating a man, and say to ourselves that if the man had just complied, the power of the state would have rewarded him instead of punished him.

We long for justice and rely on the works of the law.

The law, according to Paul in verse 11, is anything that we believe will bring us the blessing of God. “The man who does them will live by them”.

Right doctrine, right friends, right living, right opinions, right personalities, right families - the one who does them will live.

And thus the world is divided between the ones who live, and the others - the sinners who don’t know the law.

And one day, God will come and will agree with our assessment; he will execute justice on them, and save us from them by his power.

This is what the world was longing for when God became flesh and walked among us.

They saw his power. He walked on water, just as the Psalms described Jehovah - his footsteps on the water.

He fed the multitudes, just as God did in the wilderness when Israel was wandering.

He healed the blind and the lame and the deaf, just as the prophets said he would...

But then he touched the untouchable lepers. He spoke to the women. He ate with sinners - with the deviants and the unclean. He touched the demon possessed.

How can he be God? Doesn’t he understand the law? Doesn’t he get justice and how it is supposed to work.

The scandal

When they saw his power, They cheered him as the Son of David. When he entered Jerusalem in triumph they sang praises. His closest disciples were still talking about sitting on his right hand and on his left when he came into his kingdom.

The first one that figured out the scandal of the cross was Judas. And he wanted nothing to do with it.

Because Jesus, being God, did not lift up his voice in the streets. He didn’t call lightening down from heaven. He didn’t breathe fire and brimstone.

For if he came to enforce justice according to the law, there would be no one left.

All who are under the law are under its curse. And all we have to do is look around and see the curse.

Well-known to Reformed people is the wrath and curse of God against the sin of the whole human race. But this involves so much more that we usually imagine.

The curse of the law is so much broader and deeper. Do you want to know the bondage of the curse of the law? Look to the cross. Look around - sickness, misery, alienation, shame, degradation - death.

We see the filth and the rot and the mud of this world, from the destruction of the environment to the injustice of the robber barons to the cruelty and hatred of the powerful. The oppressors oppress.

Desmond Tutu worked for justice in South Africa and he was immensely concerned about the oppressed turning around and becoming the oppressor. When the oppressed gain power, they crush those that oppressed them. The curse - from generation to generation.

Injustice, illness, death, misery.

But the greatest part of the curse is this - there is nothing that anyone can do about it. You can’t gain enough power to overcome it. You can’t amass enough wealth, or have enough wisdom.

In the scripture, sin is far, far more than a series of misdeeds. When we think of sin, we think of homosexuality, fornication, theft, idolatry, adultery - and such like.

But these are symptoms of sin. Sin, according to the scripture, is a power that enslaves us that we cannot overcome. It is an incurable cancer. He who commits sin is the servant of sin.

We are slaves to a power that we can’t do anything about.

That is the curse of the law. That power crushes and destroys us, pounds us down. And the result is shame, fear, pain, death.

Imagine this: knowing that God sees and exposes all of your thoughts and words and actions, and that nothing is hidden in his sight - how eager are you to meet him?

That is the curse of the law. It drives us into hiding, exposes our nakedness, crushes us with injustice and pain and degradation and unimaginable shame. And God responds to the curse of the law with...

Compassion. Such love, that he became flesh and walked among us.

And Jesus, everywhere he went in this cursed world took all of that curse on himself. He touched the leper, and took it to himself, and the leper was cleansed. He touched the blindness, and took it on himself.

He touched the homeless and lonely - taking it to himself.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows...

And then that last week. That Thursday night, the soldiers of the Temple came to arrest him.

They asked “Are you Jesus of Nazareth?” and he said, “I AM!” and they couldn’t bear his glory and fell away backwards.

Then they got up, and asked again. They tied him up and dragged him to the house of the high priest.

He was beaten and abused all night, and the next morning, he was taken to Pilate.

Pilate knew that he was innocent of all charges. But he sentenced him to be crucified anyway.

He who created the heavens and the earth, he who speaks I AM and the world falls on its face = goes like a lamb to the slaughter, and doesn’t even open his mouth.

The gospels don’t spend any time on the details of crucifixion, because everyone in the Roman empire had seen it done.

There is nothing in our modern sensibilities to even compare. We have turned the cross into a work of art, we wear them around our necks. We have made godlessness something beautiful and godly -

But there was nothing beautiful or godly about a cross. It wasn’t just that Jesus died. It wasn’t just that Jesus was executed.

It was that he was crucified. Crucifixion was designed to be as painful, slow, degrading, and shameful as possible.

It wasn’t done in private, or even hidden away. It was done on the highways, right on the corner of Colusa and 99, where the most traffic was.

The point was the message. This thing hanging here is worse than an insect, a beast worthy only of degradation and shame. They have forfeited their right to exist, they have forfeited their right to dignity. They were stretched out naked on a pillar and torn to shreds with a Roman scourge, then nailed to an ugly, brutal post to die slowly, with their filth and ugliness and shame exposed for all to see.

Everyone passing by was expected to take part in the torture and ridicule.

It was the death of a slave, property - to be hung naked, bleeding, torn to shreds by the whip, with the face so marred as to be unrecognizable.

To Rome, the person on the cross was no longer a person, simply an object to be tortured and mocked for fun. It was a punishment reserved for slaves. It was so hideous that no one talked about it in polite society.

To a Jew, it meant that God himself had turned his back. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

We can’t imagine it - we have moved the concept of death to behind the closed doors of hospitals. If executions take place, we make them as dignified as we can and they aren’t public.

We can’t imagine the horror. The closest might be the drawn and quartering of England a few centuries back, but that was done to the wealthy and the poor alike.

Crucifixion was only done to the powerless, the slave, the poorest of the poor - the outcast.

To be crucified is to be considered the worst of the worst, and not even that. But to be utterly powerless and without dignity, naked, bleeding and dying in front of your friends and family who are now mocking and ridiculing you as you are suffering unspeakable agony.

God made him to be sin for us…the scripture says. And nothing revealed that to the whole world more fittingly than the horror and hopelessness and the power of a Roman Cross.

Sin in all of its forms. He knew no sin, that is, he never committed any sin, in thought word or deed. He was perfectly righteous before God, the son in whom God was well-pleased.

But the cross held him powerless, stripped, naked and dying as the wrath of God was poured out on him. He pronounced woe to the Pharisees and then took that woe upon himself. He pronounced judgment on Israel, thundering from Sinai, and then took it upon himself.

He told Adam, “The day you eat from this tree you will surely die” and then he took it upon himself.

He took on himself the power of sin, and then he put it to death.

He took the greatest injustice upon himself, so that we might KNOW that he took upon himself the curse that lay upon me.

And the whole world was scandalized. God on the cross??

What sort of religion is this?

The Bible says that the cross was scandalous and foolishness to both the Jews and the Gentiles. Both the religious and the irreligious - it is the most irreligious and godless thing.

In the first century in Rome the cross was NOT a religious object. It was a filthy, stinking, godless, depraved object of torture, the ultimate in being an outcast.

The cross was everything about the curse in one thing. The thorns, the degradation, the shame - the thousand deaths in one.

On the cross, he became the lowest slave, the worst of the worst, the scum of the earth, the foreskin of the world.

God on a cross is a contradiction, God forsaking God...

And on the cross the wisdom of God showed itself wiser than the foolishness of men.

Without the cross there is no reconciliation. For we all know shame and disgrace, we all know what it means to be driven away, unwelcome.

All of us have imposter syndrome. I don’t deserve a place here. Soon everyone will know what I am really like and I will be driven away in shame.

And we are driven out of churches, driven out of society, and our worst fear is that God thinks of us the same way that our oppressors thing of us.

Paul wrote the epistle of Galatians to Christians who were afraid of being caught out as unclean. They weren’t circumcised. They weren’t Jewish. We are tired of eating alone, outside the camp. Maybe we should get circumcised to fit in...

They forgot that they worship God on the cross. The God we serve and the blessings we seek cannot ever come by the law. Any law - for it was the law, the curse of the law, that nailed Jesus to the cross. The curse of the law is the injustice, and cruelty and hatred of the world. The pain and sickness and death. That is what you want to go back to?

You get circumcised to end the shame, but where will it stop? The only one who can take the shame away is the one who took it all upon himself on the cross and put it to death.

He was forsaken, so that we might be welcomed at the marriage supper of the lamb. He was brutalized, so that we might have peace with God. He died, that we might live.

The author of Hebrews also speaks to an outcast, suffering church. They confessed Jesus and were driven out of the synagogues.

How can Jesus be worshiped, the Jews asked? He died on a cross. a bloody beaten God under the curse of the law? And you are worshiping a god that can’t even protect him from a cross?

God is the lawgiver. How can God be under the curse of the law?

And the writer of Hebrews says this:

Hebrews 13:10–16 NKJV

10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. 13 Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. 14 For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. 15 Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. 16 But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

So here is the figure. In the old covenant, which was still going on when this was written, you brought your animal sacrifice to the altar. It was then sacrificed by the priest, and the meat was eaten in a fellowship meal. It meant peace with God after the death of the substitute.

And then the carcass of the animal, which bore the sin of the worshiper, was taken outside the camp and burned in the garbage dump.

The Hebrew Christians had been excommunicated from the temple. They were no longer allowed to eat anything offered on the altar. They were thinking about going back to Judaism. The offense of the cross was too much. If they returned to Judaism, perhaps the shame of being an outcast would stop.

They wanted to go back to the rigid rules, the orderly lifestyle, the clear do-s and don’t’s....which really meant back to the curse of the law.

Because how can you worship a god who was crucified outside the city as the most despicable, unclean thing?

Do you see the connection. The animal sacrifices pointed to it continually.

And we - WE have an altar that those who serve the temple have no right to eat from. That altar is the cross, the broken body and shed blood of Christ, the sin-bearer of the world.

And you, Hebrew Christians, are ashamed of being outside the camp?

Where do you think your altar is? Where do you think Christ is?

Let’s bear that reproach, that insult - and go outside the camp to join our husband and our head.

That is where the marriage supper of the lamb is. Outside the camp of the law.

The camp of the law is under the curse of the law. The city of man always devolves into ruin.

The sin-bearer is outside the camp. With the sinners and the publicans and the tax collectors and the homeless and the oppressed and the weak and the victims of injustice…as well as the brokenhearted rich and influential who are not afraid of bearing the reproach of Christ.

But we have become far too impressed with being in the camp. Being the ones in control, the ones in power. We have oppressed the weak, the minorities, the indigenous, the women, the children, all to stay in power, to stay in the camp. We hang on to power for dear life, even if we have only a scrap. Even if it destroys us.

Because that city is being destroyed. That altar is being cast down, because it is under the curse of the law. Everyone under the law is under its curse.

But outside the camp, the sacrifice has taken it all away. The curse of the law fell on him who was made sin for us, in all its ugliness, degradation and power.

So now, no matter what shame we carry, no matter what reproach, no matter what we fear - we are justified in the sight of God.

We who are afraid to stand before God can now see what God will do to bring us to himself. He became a curse for us so that we can stand before him without fear of the curse.

Because he became the curse for us - that WE might receive the blessing. Resting in his arms complete, totally, at peace.

Nothing left to complete, no fear, no shame, no hiding in the bushes. Naked and without shame before the judge and lord of the whole earth.

That is the inheritance of Abraham, which has come upon us because God himself took the curse of the law upon himself. Let’s join him - even if we have to go outside the camp to do it. Let’s bear that reproach, for we are citizens of a greater city, a greater kingdom, and we serve a greater king who broke and conquered the greatest power of all - the power of sin.

So lift up the head, for the marriage supper of the lamb awaits, and no one will be cast out who is dressed in HIS robes.

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