Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree:
Read Chapter 3
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Since no one could obey the law, all were convicted by the curse of the law, so that it was right to punish them. But Christ, born as a man and offered for us by his Father, redeemed us from the devil. He was offered for those who were liable to the curse of the law. Jesus was made a curse in the way that under the law a victim offered for sin is said to be sin…. Thus he did not say “cursed for us” but “made a curse. “ –.
Christ was made a curse for us. Christ, though blessed in Himself, was made a curse, so far as He took on Him the person of sinners, to expiate the curse due because of their sins. Just as if a man make himself responsible for another"s debt, he becomes and is called a debtor, so Christ was made a curse for us. The term, however, cannot be properly applied to Him, for though a debt may be transferred, sin cannot. It is only applied to Him improperly, in the sense that He took upon Him the punishment of sin. In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Christ is said to have been made sin for us, i.e, a victim for sin, according to the Jewish rite by which, through the imposition of hands, the whole body of sin was transferred to the victim. So here He is called a curse, because God transferred to Him the curses due to the whole human race, so that He bore for us the shameful Cross, to show the hideousness of sin as well as to give an example of every virtue. He hung on the Cross, says S. Augustine, "in ord...
The holy apostle, revealing again how the appearance in the flesh and the cross fulfilled the plan for the loosing of the curse and how this was written beforehand in the law and prophesied as coming, then fulfilled in the Savior, has clearly proved that the law is not alien to the Savior. Panarion, Second Refutation of Marcion.
It is not that the Lord was changed into these things—for how could that be?—but because he underwent them, “taking up our transgressions and bearing our sicknesses.”
And again: "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree."
In reality, the people were subject to another curse, which says, Cursed is every one that continues not in the things that are written in the book of the Law. Deuteronomy 27:26 To this curse, I say, people were subject, for no man had continued in, or was a keeper of, the whole Law; but Christ exchanged this curse for the other, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree. As then both he who hanged on a tree, and he who transgresses the Law, is cursed, and as it was necessary for him who is about to relieve from a curse himself to be free from it, but to receive another instead of it, therefore Christ took upon Him such another, and thereby relieved us from the curse. It was like an innocent man's undertaking to die for another sentenced to death, and so rescuing him from punishment. For Christ took upon Him not the curse of transgression, but the other curse, in order to remove that of others. For, He had done no violence neither was any deceit in His mouth. Isaiah 53:9; 1 Peter 2:22 A...
For the people were liable to punishment since they had not fulfilled the whole law. Christ satisfied a different curse: the one that says “Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.” Both the one who is hanged and the one who transgresses the law are accursed. Christ, who was going to lift that curse, could not properly be made liable to it yet had to receive a curse. He received the curse instead of being liable to it and through this lifted the curse. Just as, when someone is condemned to death, another innocent person who chooses to die for him releases him from that punishment, so Christ also did…. Just as by dying he snatched from death those who were going to die, so also when he suffered the curse he released them from the curse.
Then I replied, "Just as God commanded the sign to be made by the brazen serpent, and yet He is blameless; even so, though a curse lies in the law against persons who are crucified, yet no curse lies on the Christ of God, by whom all that have committed things worthy of a curse are saved.
Every one who shall have hung on a tree.".
I suppose, you endeavour to introduce a diversity of opinion, simply because you deny that the suffering of the cross was predicted of the Christ of the Creator, and because you contend, moreover, that it is not to be believed that the Creator would expose His Son to that kind of death on which He had Himself pronounced a curse. "Cursed "says He, "is every one who hangeth on a tree.".
You cannot establish a diversity of authors because there happens to be one of things; for the diversity is itself proposed by one and the same author. Why, however, "Christ was made a curse for us".
But yet it by no means follows, because the Creator said of old, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree".
Nay, but you do blaspheme; because you allege not only that the Father died, but that He died the death of the cross. For "cursed are they which are hanged on a tree".
nor indeed did the apostle utter blasphemy when he said the same thing as we.
The Lord Him...
