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The criminal who had committed a sin worthy of death, and was put to death under the law, was viewed as dying under the ban or curse of God. When the crime was very execrable, and the criminal might be regarded as perishing under God's most awful curse, the fact was intimated by exposing the body on a tree. Compare the old custom of hanging a notorious criminal in chains. The placing of the body on a tree was not that which made the person accursed, but was an external sign or token of his being an accursed one. It was, therefore, a singular and striking feature in God's providential arrangements, not only that the death of Christ should be brought about as a result of judgment passed on him by the constituted authorities of his nation, pronouncing him guilty of the worst of all crimes under the theocracy, that of blasphemy, but that in the manner of his death even this external token of ignominy should not be wanting. In this act, the placing of Jesus on the cross, the sin and madness of the world were overruled, as in several other instances (Matthew 27:25, 29, 42; Mark 15:27, 28; John 11:50), to give unwitting expression to the highest truth. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Galatians 3:13). The crucifixion of Jesus signifies to us:

1. The world's judgment upon Christ. It put him to death as one accursed of God. It treated him as the worst of malefactors, and interpreted his death upon the cross as a sure token of God having forsaken him (Matthew 27:43). To many it may have appeared as if the inference were just. The Sanhedrim had convicted him of blasphemy, and their verdict seemed confirmed by the failure of Christ to deliver himself out of their hands. A true Christ would not thus have succumbed before his enemies. The cross was the refutation of his claims, and the proof of his being an impostor, justly doomed to die. "We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4). The world was wrong, for Jesus was never dearer to his Father than in that hour when he hung upon the tree; but, in a sense unknown to itself, it gave utterance to a truth.

2. Christ's submission to a cursed death for the world. The subjection of the sinless Christ to the death of the cross is a fact which requires explanation. If the world put him to death as one accursed, it is none the less true that he voluntarily submitted to this suffering and ignominy, and that the Father permitted him so to be "made a curse." A yet more mysterious feature in the death of Christ is that, in the direst hour of his agony, the Father seemed to side with the world, by withdrawing from him the light and comfort of his presence (Matthew 27:46). Christ was dealt with by Heaven, not less than by men, as One under a curse; if not a sinner, he was treated as if he were one. The apostolic writings lay stress on this as a fact of essential importance in the work of Christ for man's salvation (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13). Subjection to the curse of the Law in the name of the world of sinners with whose lot he had identified himself, was not all that was necessary for their redemption from that curse, but it was involved in what was necessary. Any theory of atonement which leaves out the recognition of Christ "made sin" for us by voluntary endurance of sin's doom, must, on scriptural grounds, be pronounced at least incomplete. - J.O.

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KJV: And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree:

WEB: If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and you hang him on a tree;