Christ Himself bore up our sins in His body on the tree; He also took our curse and even became a curse on our behalf, being absolutely abandoned our God, and accomplished a wonderful redemption.
How we thank and praise the Lord for His redemption accomplished on the cross! If we read the Bible carefully, we will realize that many wonderful and deep things took place on the cross while Christ was crucified.
One of the things that took place is that Christ accomplished the great work of bringing us out from the curse of the law, working to bear our sins and to remove the curse.
How deep is our appreciation concerning the great work that Christ accomplished for us on the cross? As we come to the Lord’s Table meeting to break the bread and drink the cup, do we remember the process that He went through for us?
Or do we come to the Lord’s Table meeting in a routine and ritualistic way, week after week, singing some songs, yet with no realization or deep conviction of what He passed through?
If we would realize what did the Lord pass through to get us a seat at His table, we would be convicted, we would weep, and we will be full of appreciation toward Him.
We were not only sinful and full of sin, but we also came under a curse; we were not only under God’s judgement, but we were under a curse.
We were born in sin, under the curse, and the law made the curse official; but Christ came and bore up our sins in His body on the tree, and He took our curse and even became a curse on our behalf.
We deserved to die; we deserve the punishment for our sins, but Christ was hanged there on the tree, bearing our sins and becoming a curse for us, being judged by God on our behalf.
May the Spirit touch us and make us more sensitive toward the Lord so that we may have a feeling and conviction of Christ’s great work; may we be full of feeling that He has paid the highest price, being hanged on the tree to bear our sins and our curse, and even becoming a curse for us.
We deserved death, we deserved the curse, but He took our place. How we love Him! How we appreciate Him!
Now the law no longer places demands on us for we are no longer under the law – we are now in Christ, enjoying Christ, and being filled with Christ, so that this Christ would be wrought into us and live in us day by day.
Christ Bore up our Sins in His Body on the Tree, Suffering God’s Judgement so that we may Live to Righteousness
According to 1 Pet. 2:24, Christ Himself bore up our sins in His body on the tree. Can we bear our own sins or the sins of others?
No, we are not qualified; but here is One in the whole universe who is qualified to bear the sins of all mankind!
This One is Jesus Christ, our Savior; He is the perfect and spotless One, the only One who is righteous. There is no one on the whole earth that is righteous, not even one; only Christ is the righteous One, the Head of the whole creation.
Only He is qualified to bear all our sins in His body on the cross.
The word “tree” in 1 Pet. 2:24 is the cross made of wood, a Roman instrument of capital punishment used for the execution of the malefactors, as prophesied in Deut. 21:23; elsewhere in the New Testament the cross is called a tree (Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29).
During the time of Christ the Roman empire adopted this mode of execution, executing criminals by hanging them on the cross.
This is altogether so by God’s sovereignty; they didn’t execute criminals in that way before, but in the time of Christ the Roman governors used that mode of punishment.
When Christ was on the cross, God took all our sins and put them on Him as the Lamb of God (Isa. 53:6; John 1:29). We do not have to bear our sins anymore – our sins are put on the Lamb of God!
May the Lord speak to us concerning the matter of our sin; in today’s age sin is altogether belittled and ignored.
People may think they just said a white lie, and so they didn’t sin. Satan’s tactic these days it first to put aside God’s word; the Bible clearly says what sin is, and that whoever sins is under God’s judgement.
But when people put the word of God aside and write their own “moral laws”, they lose the feeling and consciousness of sin.
As we observe our society today, the matter of sin is made light of more and more. Under God’s government, however, we need to have a healthy fear of God, for the fear of God is our protection and is our wisdom.
People think that we don’t sin but we all live this way, and sin is so old-fashioned…this trend of the world today is terrible!
Especially the parents with little children and we all the same, we need to read the Bible to ourselves and instil a deep sense of sin in ourselves and in our children.
We need to realize that Christ is our sin offering; He died as the Lamb of God bearing all our sins away. He died once to bear our sins, and He suffered the judgement for us on the cross (Heb. 9:28; Isa. 53:5, 11).
His death is so effective that He didn’t have to repeat it – He died once, and it was effective in God’s eyes!
Christ died once, suffering God’s judgement on our behalf, and He was offered once to bear the sins of many. Christ once for all took all our sins away!
In the death of Christ we have died to sins so that we might live to righteousness (Rom. 6:8, 10-11, 18; 1 Pet. 2:24). Many are familiar with the aspect of Christ taking away our sins through His redemption and dealing with our sins, but there’s one more side to this.
The issue of Christ’s redemptive work is that we live to righteousness! Righteousness is a matter of God’s government; to live to righteousness is to live to God righteously.
Man was made in the image of God to express God and represent Him, and for man to live otherwise is not righteous; even for man to express himself is not righteous.
So Christ came to the cross, He bore our sins away, He dealt with our sins, and the result is that we may live to righteousness!
We need to be brought into the realm of God’s righteousness, God in His kingdom; we need to live to God righteously, living in a way up to the standard of God’s righteousness. This is the result of the Lord’s redemption.
He died not only to deliver us from sin but also for us to live righteously to God!
Thank You Lord Jesus for dying on the cross to bear up our sins in Your body. Thank You God for taking all our sins and putting them on Christ as the Lamb of God. Amen, Lord, we praise You for Your work on the cross. We confess our sins and we believe that You bore them in Your body on the tree. Thank You Lord for dying once to bear our sins; thank You for suffering the judgement for us on the cross. Hallelujah, we are now died to sins in the death of Christ so that we may live to righteousness!
Christ Redeemed us out of the Curse and even Became a Curse on our Behalf on the Cross
When Christ bore our sins, He also took our curse (John 1:29; Gal. 3:13).
This is indicated by the crown of thorns; since thorns are a sign of the curse, Christ’s wearing a crown of thorns indicates that He took our curse on the cross (John 19:2, 5).
Because was cursed in our place, the demand of the law was fulfilled, and He could redeem us out of the curse of the law (Gal. 3:10); now we are set free from the curse of the law!
Whereas the law condemns us and makes the curse official, Christ through His crucifixion has redeemed us out of the curse of the law; His death has fully met all of God’s righteous requirements.
This is good news to us, for we are no longer under sin and its curse; all the curse of the law has been borne by Jesus Christ, the righteous One!
The curse that came in through Adam’s fall has been dealt with by Christ’s redemption. Now we can sing and praise the Lord for His redemption, for we realize in our heart that our sins were put on Him, the curse was put on Him, and He took them all away!
Even more, not only did Christ redeem us out of the curse, but He even became a curse on our behalf; this indicates that He was absolutely abandoned by God (Mark 15:33-34).
We cannot ever image what it means for Christ to be abandoned by God; if we were abandoned by our parents, how would we feel?
But when Christ was on the cross, all the sins of the mankind was upon Him, the curse was put on Him, and He Himself became a curse to such a degree that God had to forsake Him.
Theologically this is hard to understand – how can this Beloved Son of God be forsaken and abandoned by God?
But this is how He carried out the work of redemption; He did it to such a degree that He didn’t just take away our sins and the curse, but He Himself became the curse.
The Lord Jesus was judged by God for the accomplishment of redemption, and God counted Him as our suffering Substitute for sin (Isa. 53:10).
Our sin and sins and all negative things were dealt with on the cross, and God forsook Christ because of our sin (Mark 15:33-34).
God forsook Christ on the cross because He took the place of sinners, bearing all our sins and being made sin for us (1 Pet. 3:18; 2:24; Isa. 53:6; 2 Cor. 5:21).
The Lord Jesus was there on the cross for six hours, from 9am to 3pm. In the first three hours, up to noon time, He was mocked by men; He was persecuted by men and suffered under man’s unrighteous treatment.
While He was there, in spite of all the mocking and persecution by men, He endured, and the Father was still for Him.
But at noontime until 3pm, God forsook Him; in these three hours, Christ became the unique sinner in the whole universe in God’s eyes, bearing upon Him all the sins of the world.
God in His righteous government had to forsake this One economically, for Christ became a curse for us. This is something very mysterious, profound, and wonderful; Him who did not know sin God made sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21).
This One, the Son of God who had nothing to do with sin and did not know sin, He was made sin on our behalf, He became a curse, and He was judged by God on our behalf.
In the sight of God, Christ became a great sinner, and God judged Him as our Substitute for our sins (John 3:14; Rom. 8:3).
We may not be able to understand this with our limited mind, but we need to see this in the spiritual realm; there is such a One who bore our sins, taking upon Him our curse, and even becoming a curse on our behalf to the point that He suffered and was forsaken and abandoned by God.
Christ was our Substitute and was even sin in the sight of God; therefore, God judged Him and even forsook Him. Because Christ bore our sins and was made sin for us, God, in judging Him as our Substitute, forsook Him economically (see Mark 15:33-34).
The Lord Jesus was born of the begetting Spirit as the divine essence, who never left Him essentially (Luke 1:35). His very essence was the Spirit.
When the Lord Jesus, the God-man, died on the cross under God’s judgement, He had God within Him essentially as His divine being; nevertheless, He was forsaken by the righteous and judging God economically (Matt. 1:18, 20; 27:46).
When He cried, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? He realized that the Father, who was always with Him both essentially as the Spirit and economically as power for His ministry, He has left Him economically during the last three hours of His life.
God could never leave Him essentially, for the Spirit was in Him and will forever be in Him; but economically, during those last three hours, the Father left Him because He was the sinner, the unique sin offering, the curse, bearing the sins of all mankind.
Because the Lord Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit and was born of God and with God, He had the Holy Spirit as the intrinsic essence of His divine being; thus, it was not possible for God to forsake Him essentially (Matt. 1:18, 20).
Christ was forsaken by God economically when the Spirit, who had descended upon Him as the economical power for the carrying out of His ministry (3:16), left Him; however, the essence of God remained in His being, and He therefore died on the cross as the God-man (1 John 1:7).
What a wonderful God-man! This One on the cross is the wonderful God-man Jesus Christ. He is both God and man.
How can we put God on the cross? Yet in the words of the hymn by Charles Wesley, The immortal dies. He was there dying as a God-man; as Man He was the sinner, bearing our sins, and God had forsaken Him because He became a curse for us.
But He was also God in His essence, in His being, and so His redemption became eternally efficacious!
Dear Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to be the perfect God-man who knew no sin yet became sin on our behalf, even becoming a curse for us on the cross. Thank You Lord for bearing our sin, our sins, and our curse, and thank You for becoming a curse for us. Thank You for becoming the Substitute for our sins and for taking away the curse of the law. We cannot comprehend this with our mind, but we exercise our spirit and we believe into You, we accept Your wonderful redemption, and we praise You for dying for us on the cross! Hallelujah, we are now redeemed!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 176-177 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Deuteronomy, week 8, Christ — the One Cursed and Hanged on a Tree.
- Hymns on this topic:
– By Christ redeemed, in Christ restored, / We keep the memory adored, / And show the death of our dear Lord / Until He come… / The drops of His dread agony, / His life-blood shed for us, we see; / The wine shall tell the mystery / Until He come. (Hymns #232)
– Redeemed—how I love to proclaim it! / Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; / Redeemed through His infinite mercy, / His child, and forever, I am. / Redeemed, redeemed, / Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; / Redeemed, redeemed, / His child, and forever, I am. (Hymns #301)
– ’Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies! / Who can explore His strange design? / In vain the firstborn seraph tries / To sound the depths of love Divine! / ’Tis mercy all! let earth adore, / Let angel minds inquire no more. (Hymns #296)
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