Deuteronomy 21:22-23 -

Upon the tree!

These words form part of the criminal code of the Hebrews, and though as such they may be regarded as practically obsolete, yet they contain principles which will never wax old, and are, moreover, so frequently alluded to in the New Testament, that they furnish us with a starting-point of no mean interest for a devout Christian meditation. The case supposed in the text is not that of a man being put to death by crucifixion, but of his having suffered capital punishment, and of his body being afterwards hung upon a stake and put to an open shame by the exposure, as having been one of the vilest of criminals. Such an exposure after death was to be, so to speak, the expression of the execration of the people. It would be their public brand upon detestable guilt. And, when thus the public detestation and horror of wickedness had been expressed, that accursed thing was to be taken down that night and buried out of sight forever, as a sign that the curse had spent itself. This vox populi was vox Dei . "He that is hanged is accursed of God."

Now, it may be asked, "Why take up the time of a congregation by recalling an obsolete enactment like this?" Our reply is, Let us now turn to Acts 5:30 . Peter knew how the Jews would regard these words—"whom ye slew and hanged on a tree ." They would understand their significance to be, "You put him to an open shame, as though he, the best of men, were one of the vilest malefactors." Shall we call this the "irony of history?" How was it that God let the treatment of the basest of criminals be accorded to the holiest of our race? We often speak of it as a "mystery of Providence" when some great trouble befalls a good man. But of all such mysteries there is none so great as this. As a bare piece of history unexplained, there is no fact which in all its surroundings is so inexplicable as this, that Jesus Christ of Nazareth should have died amid such deep disgrace and shame. "Hanged on a tree!" Let us go further on. Read 1 Peter 2:24 . Note the emphasis, "who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree ." Here is an explanation of the strange fact. He was pressed down with others' woes, and burdened with the guilt of others' sins. And why? What was the effect of all? Read again. In Galatians 3:13 , Galatians 3:14 , the apostle, quoting these words of Moses, shows us that in the fact of the ignominious death of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the tree, we are to see at once

I. Under a moral government, a righteous governor will, yea, must append blessing to good, and affix a curse to evil. If anyone asks Why? we do not know that any one can answer further than to say that suffering is the desert of ill, and gladness the appropriate consequence of well-doing. No other theory would be workable in any well-ordered family, or nation, or city. In the family, paternal punishment expresses the father's sense of wrong done in the State, punishment marks the nation's sense of wrong done. And these are but echoes of that Divine disapproval of sin to which the conscience of man with certainty points. And it is well known and understood that the disapproval and condemnation of wrong on the part of any government is never to be confounded with, but is very far removed from, personal vindictiveness. No government, indeed, would command the confidence of the people under which crime could be carried on with impunity. Without branding crime against a State, no government could long exist. That brand is "the curse of the law."

II. There is a law above all human laws. The latter are partial and defective, and may become obsolete. The everlasting law of righteousness is co-eternal with the Great Supreme. He judges the world in righteousness. Every child of man is answerable to his tribunal. Every deed, word, and thought are scanned by his all-seeing eye, and are estimated rightly by his unerring judgment. And he, the Great Judge, brings against each and all the charge of being law-breakers (see Romans 1:1-32 ; Romans 2:1-29 .). The Jew is so because he has broken a written Law; the Gentile, because he has broken an unwritten one. All the world is guilty before God. Under such circumstances, what is a righteous Being to do to secure the stability of his throne? To connive at sin? To pass it by, and take no notice of it? To let the sinner have the same grace as if he had never sinned? No; there must be a declaration, a demonstration, of his righteousness, as Paul calls it. And the demonstration of righteousness certainly involves the condemnation of sin.

III. If we are sinners, as we are, the Divine condemnation of sin places us under a curse. We must be careful to understand that in the Divine curse there is nothing vindictive, excessive, defective, or ineffective; there is nothing in it out of harmony with the everlasting love of righteousness which is the bulwark and safeguard of the Divine government of souls. As many as are of the works of the Law are—continue to be—under the curse. As long as a man's life is unright, by God's law he abides under condemnation.

IV. Guilty men are under the curse; a Guiltless One comes under it. So Galatians 3:13 , "being made a curse for us," rather, "having become a curse." (Let the student note here, as in John 1:1-51 ; the careful use of, and the distinction between, the words for" being" and "becoming.") The Son of God, the Law-maker, comes and dwells with the lawbreakers, and becomes as one of them. Joyfully taking their place, he bears their burdens and accepts their liabilities as if they were his own! He is pressed down as with a great weight. His sweat is as it were great drops of blood. He goes to the tree . The deepest indignity the Law knows is his. He is numbered with the transgressors. He is put to "an open shame." He dies as the worst of male. factors died—on the tree! The One who stands pre-eminent among men for the purity of his life stands out also conspicuously among men for the humiliation which attends on his death! He hangs on a tree, as if accursed of God!

V. Our Lord Jesus Christ then represented our race, and for them had become a curse. A stupendous transaction was then and there effected, to which we know of no parallel in heaven or on earth (cf. Matthew 20:28 ; 1 Peter 2:24 ; 2 Corinthians 5:21 ; John 1:29 ).

Note :

1. He was of such dignity that he could represent the race.

2. His act was entirely spontaneous; he willed to do it.

3. It was the Father's appointment that he should do it.

4. Foreseeing the result of his work, he rejoiced to do it ( Isaiah 53:11 (Hebrew); Hebrews 12:1 , Hebrews 12:2 ).

Amid the external humiliation, the thought of saving men thereby, bore him on and bore him through.

VI. By bearing the curse on himself upon the tree he bore it off from us. He has redeemed us therefrom. He has bought us up out of it. He who deserved it not, was pressed down by it, that we who deserved it might be lifted up out of it. Sin having been, in him, condemned—once, completely, righteously, eternally—the righteousness of the Lawgiver was demonstrated. Then was his love free to act towards us apart from Law, on the principle of grace.

VII. The curse being thus rolled away, the way is prepared for the coming in of the blessing. However fully and freely infinite love now heaps blessing on blessing on the vilest sinner, not from one quarter of the universe can the murmur rise up that God thinks lightly of sin, when, in order to lift its weight off the guilty sinner, the Infinite Son of God has taken the whole load upon himself, and atoned for sin by his own sacrifice!

VIII. The blessing comes to men when they repent and believe. So argues Paul in both his Epistles to the Romans and Galatians. See especially Romans 4:16 , and the wonderful parallel between the first and the second Adam in Romans 5:1-21 .

IN CONCLUSION .

1. Let us adore and magnify the grace and righteousness of God in the atoning work of Christ on the tree. The manifold perfections of the Divine nature shine forth here in combined luster. Thousands have objected to the doctrine of' the atonement. No one ever objected to it who did not first misapprehend it.

2. Let us cultivate deep, serious, and earnest thinkings as to the evil of sin, thus branded with the curse of God. Only low moral conceptions can consist with the denial of the necessity for an atonement.

3. Let us see that we rely entirely and penitently on the work of the Son of God on our behalf.

4. Let us defend the manifold glories of the cross against all deniers and opponents.

5. Let us, before whom this Divine act of self-surrender stands as the warrant of our hope, have it ever before us also as the model and standard of our life. And, in studying ever more and more fully the meaning of Christ's self-surrender to God for us, shall we find the inspiration of our self-surrender to God for others!

HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR