Deuteronomy 21

Oh, the religious implications were infinitely worse than the physical pain.

Under the Mosaic Covenant, specifically Deuteronomy 21, verses 22 and 23, there's an explicit uncompromising mandate.

Anyone hung on a tree is under the curse of Yahweh.

Right.

Exactly.

But if they could get the Romans to hang him on a tree, they could point to their own Torah and say to the crowds, look, God has spoken.

Deuteronomy 21 says he is cursed.

This cannot be your Messiah.

Thirdly, they obtained to have him hanged as a thief or a murderer, which after their belly wisdom was a cause above all causes that no man should believe in him.

For the Jews take it for a sure token of everlasting damnation if a man be hanged, for it is written in their law, Deuteronomy 21, Cursed is whosoever hangeth on a tree.

Moses also in the same place commandeth, if any man be hanged, to take him down the same day and bury him, for fear of polluting or defiling the country, that is, lest they should bring the wrath and curse of God upon them.

And therefore, the wicked Jews themselves, which with so venomous hate persecuted the doctrine of Christ, and did all the shame that they could do unto him, though they would fain have had Christ to hang still on the cross and there to rot, as he should have done by the emperor's law, yet for fear of defiling their Sabbath and of bringing the wrath and curse of God upon them, begged of Pilate to take him down, John 19, which was against themselves.

Finally, when they had done all they could and that they thought sufficient, and when Christ was in the heart of the earth and so many bills and poleaxes about him to keep him down, and when it was past man's help, then helped God.

When man could not bring him again, God's truth fetched him again.

Nevertheless, ere that came to pass, God laid him where he could neither see sun nor moon, neither any star of the sky in that many years and also undeserved, to nurture him, to humble, to meek, and to teach him God's ways and to make him apt and meet for the room and honor against he came to it, that he might perceive and feel that it came of God and that he might be strong in the spirit to minister it godly.

He promised the children of Israel a land with rivers of milk and honey, but brought them for the space of forty years into a land where not only rivers of milk and honey were not, but where so much as a drop of water was not, to nurture them and to teach them, as a father doth his son, and to do them good at the latter end, and that they might be strong in their spirit and souls to use his gifts and benefits godly and after his will.

Uh, Reuben sleeps with his dad's concubine, and, uh, Jacob disinherits him, uh, from his birthright, and it goes to Joseph.

The other thing some theologians have done is they've, uh, looked at Old Covenant, New Covenant disc- uh, Old Covenant, New Covenant continuity, and they've pointed out that in Deuteronomy 21, um, the, uh, the penalty for...

Go read Deuteronomy 21.

The penalty for a child living in open rebellion, open defiance against their parents after discipline and instruction and love and pleading and all these things in Deuteronomy 21, uh, was the death penalty, um, for, uh, an openly defiant, rebellious child.

Um, God frequently talks...

Uh, I'm reading Leviticus right now, my personal Bible reading, and he'll talk about, uh, uh, them being cut off from among their people.

You might be seeing there kind of a shape of the gospel.

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

But the surrounding chapter does something to all of this that I was not expecting.

Paul quotes Deuteronomy 21, 23.

Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

And he uses the intensified form, epikateratos, with the epi prefix adding emphatic, public force.

For a first century Jewish listener, a crucified Messiah was not a tragedy.

It was a theological impossibility.

Deuteronomy 21, 23 did not just describe a bad death.

It declared divine rejection.

Let's get right to the Word of God.

Deuteronomy 21: If someone is found slain, lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who the killer was, your elders and judges shall go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns.

Then the elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked and has never worn a yoke and lead it down to a valley that has not been plowed or planted and where there's a flowing stream.

There in the valley, they are to break the heifer's neck.

But Galatians says that Jesus, um, uh, redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us.

Let me read to you from Galatians 3:13-14.

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.'" And that, "Cursed is anyone who's hung on a pole," is a direct quote from Deuteronomy 21:23.

"He redeemed us," back to Galatians 3, "He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit." So Lord, we just acknowledge now that Jesus redeemed us from the curse, from the curse of the law and from the curse of sin.