Galatians 3:13

If the Law shows every person to be under God’s curse, how can we escape God’s wrath? Paul reminded his readers that Christ paid the penalty for our sins and made justification possible for every person. He voluntarily took the wrath of God directed toward us upon Himself; He became the object and bearer of God’s curse (2 Corinthians 5:21).

"He neutralized the curse for them, so that they, on whom the curse rightfully falls because of their failure to keep the law, now become free from both its demands and its curse. . . .

"Verse 13 thus represents Christ’s death as a vicarious bearing of the curse of the law which delivers his people from the same curse. This is in simple terms Paul’s Christian interpretation of Christ’s death on the cross." [Note: Fung, pp. 149-50.]

"Christ has done all that is necessary and his death is the means of making sinners free." [Note: Morris, p. 106.]

The proof that Christ became a curse for us was the fact that His executioners hung Him on a tree. Under the Law this was the fate of criminals whom God had cursed. Note that God did not curse Christ because He hung on a tree, but Christ hung on a tree because God had cursed Him. Paul again quoted Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 21:23).

"The curse of the Law" is the curse pronounced on the law-breaker by the Law (Deuteronomy 27:26; cf. Galatians 3:10).

"By bringing these two texts [in Deuteronomy] together and interpreting the latter [Deuteronomy 21:23] in terms of the former [Deuteronomy 27:26], Paul understands Jesus’ death on the cross (to which a curse was attached according to Deuteronomy 21:23) as a bearing of the curse of God incurred (according to Deuteronomy 27:26) by all who fail to continue in obedience to the law." [Note: Fung, pp. 147-48.]