JESUS TOOK OUR CURSE

“Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.” Deut27:26

In Deuteronomy 27 God pronounces a curse on everyone who does not fully and completely obey His law. In effect He pronounces a curse on all of us because none of us are able to keep His law perfectly the way He demanded.

In Deuteronomy 28 we have a clear description of the curse and what exactly will happen to whoever disobeys the law. And this is all of us.

As a result we were all under this curse until Jesus took it in Himself on our behalf.

 “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them… 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” Gal3:10, 13

Whatever is described in Deuteronomy 28 is what Jesus became on the Cross for us and on our behalf. So that we would be delivered from it all, and yes we have been delivered from it all.

“And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee” Deut28:14-15

God required that His law be obeyed fully. He warned Israel not to veer to the left or to the right but to do ALL His commandments. He pronounced curses on whoever fails to obey this instruction. And of course that is me and you. Nobody has ever kept the entire law perfectly. Apart from Jesus.

On the Cross Jesus became all these curses on our behalf. He took all these curses upon Himself and set us free from them. What are these curses?

1. THE CURSES OF POVERTY, HUNGER AND LACK

“Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me….

You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land.” Deut28:16-20, 38-42 NKJV

The first category of curses we see is the curse of poverty and lack. That the people will be cursed in their businesses and in their agriculture. In our context that our jobs and businesses will not profit and neither will our other projects. God promised to send cursing, vexation and rebuke upon all transgressors. To confuse and frustrate whatever we do.

Here we see God Himself frustrating the fruitfulness of people and preventing them from prospering and multiplying. We see God cursing people’s sources of income.

The good news is that God is not doing this to any of us. Jesus took the curse and we have the blessing. We are blessed in Christ. Instead we have all the promises of God. all the blessings He promised to His people and to the Old Testament saints He has given to us. They are ours;

2 Corinthians 1

18 But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. 19 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. 20 For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.

We are blessed. We have every blessing that God has in heaven

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" Ephesians1:3

All the good stuff that God promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is ours. All the blessings He promised to Israel are ours in Christ.

“That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Gal3:14

This is the same reason we shouldn’t accept poverty. Because there was an exchange. Jesus already took our poverty so that we would become rich. Now we should only accept success and wealth.

“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.” 2Cor8:9

Although Jesus was rich, He had to suffer poverty as a part of the curse of the law. The poverty He suffered was the poverty we should suffer because of our disobedience and sinfulness.

And yet because He carried it there has been an exchange whereby God has made us rich as Jesus was.

2. THE CURSES OF PLAGUES, SICKNESS & DISEASE

“The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess…Then the LORD will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance.” Deut28:21, 59

God promises to make the plague come upon us and destroy us from the earth for walking away from Him and His will. Thankfully now we can have confidence that He will not do this to us because He put this plague on Jesus. Jesus carried in His body all the plagues that God would ever pour on the earth in judgment. Jesus took them all in His body on the Cross.

“The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.” Deut28:22

1. The consumption

The Hebrew word for consumption means emaciation, wasting away. This was a common sickness where somebody wasted away due to recurring pulmonary tuberculosis. This happened slowly by slowly until eventually they died.  In fact the dictionary defines consumption as involving the lungs with progressive wasting of the body.

We can see therefore that this is referring to tuberculosis mainly but also to asthma, pneumonia, lung cancer and all other respiratory diseases. This was a curse that Jesus bore. Jesus suffered tuberculosis and asthma and pneumonia and lung cancer on the Cross. All these respiratory diseases, He suffered them on our behalf. We don’t have to bear them anymore, Jesus took them on the Cross on our behalf.

2. Fevers

The word fever here means to burn. Fever is a general term, used for all diseases characterized by high temperature of body.  In fact in the same verse He uses the words inflammation (burning fever) and extreme burning. These included ague, malaria, typhoid, scarlet fever, measles and so many others.

These fevers were characterized by severe shivering, a burning sensation, profuse sweating, intense body pain, headaches, back aches, joint pains and diarrhea. All these are conditions that Jesus suffered on the Cross. He experienced intense burning, severe shivers, body pains, back pains and pain all over His body and diarrhea.  Imagine what Jesus looked like on the Cross. A mixture of blood and saliva and sweat and stool and other body excrements. And how do you think He smelt? But He did it all for us.

He carried all these fevers in His body so that we would be healed from them all. Now God will not afflict us with any of these fevers because He afflicted Jesus with all of them. God only puts healing on us, not sickness.

3. Skin diseases

“The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed…The LORD shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.” Deut28:27,35

The word botch means a boil, an ulcer or a swelling on the skin. Emerods are tumors and hemorrhoids. Scab is any skin disease in which there are patches of hard crusts on the surface. These include eczema, herpes, psoriasis, leprosy, mange and many others. Imagine that Jesus suffered all of this on the little skin that He had left on His body after the scourging. No wonder He didn’t look human. Imagine having leprosy on a bloody skin full of wounds and flesh! I know this is gross, but you must understand that the Cross was gross. Now that God laid all of these skin diseases on Jesus, He will not lay them on us. We are free from skin diseases because of Jesus.

4. Madness, blindness and astonishment of heart

“The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart: And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.” Deut28:28-29

Madness can be defined as a derangement proceeding either from weakness and misdirection of intellect or from ungovernable violence of passion. Jesus bore this also for us on the Cross. God struck Him with madness, blindness and astonishment, consternation, intense fear, panic attacks and all these other mental and psychological diseases. He bore all of them and healed us of all of them. We are free from every mental disease. Jesus took every one of them in Himself on the Cross and set us free from them.

5. Every disease that exists

“then the LORD will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues great and prolonged plagues  and serious and prolonged sicknesses. Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto thee. Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed.”Deut28:59-61

Knowing that He could not name all diseases at that time and also knowing that some of the diseases like HIVAIDS and several cancers did not even exist, God summarized by saying that “every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed.”

Therefore every disease including all of those that are not written in the bible were placed upon Jesus. Jesus had elephantiasis, polio, all cancers, HIV AIDS, stomach ulcers, diabetes, hypertension and every other disease including those that afflict women only. (Meanwhile I have no idea how He carried those!!!) But I know that He did. The effect all these sicknesses and diseases had on Jesus was to disfigure and afflict His body so severely that He didn’t even look like a person. He was unrecognizable as Isaiah 52 teaches. His body was carrying all of the diseases of the world. God had placed all of them on Him; He had become the curse on our behalf.

“…Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” Mat8:17.

Jesus carried all of our sicknesses and infirmities because they were the results of our sin. They were the curse we deserved.

The only way Jesus could set us free from the results of sin was to suffer those results in our place. Therefore after God placed our sin on Jesus, He smote Jesus with the curse.

This produced healing for us. There was an exchange. He took our sicknesses and infirmities and we took His healing and wholeness.

“...and with His stripes we are healed.”

The word stripes here is not referring to the beating that the Roman soldiers subjected Jesus to. The word for ‘stripes’ here and in the New Testament, is actually the word ‘bruised.’ It also means to break or to kill. 

In other words “by His bruising (killing, breaking) we are healed.”

God bruised (broke, killed) Jesus with my sickness and with my infirmity. The result is I no longer need to fear God bruising me with sickness because Jesus already took it for me. Instead I should expect to be healed and to be made well because this is what was true of Jesus.

3. THE LACK OF GOD’S PRESENCE AND HELP IN TIMES OF NEED AND TROUBLE

“And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed. The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. And thy carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away.” Deut28:23-26

This was a major curse God pronounced and that Jesus bore into Himself. And yet today there are several Christians submitting themselves to this curse. This is why we have concepts like asking God to come and be with us, or going into the presence of God or travailing in prayer and rending the heavens that God may come down. We usually quote Old Testament scriptures while praying this. In total ignorance and rejection of what the Cross has accomplished for us. We are submitting to this not knowing that Jesus has taken it away.

We no longer need to ask for His presence. We are in His presence always as long as we are in Jesus. He lives in us and we live in Him. We can walk away from His presence but He promised that He will never leave us or forsake us. This is His promise to us. This curse has been eliminated. We are the house of God, the temple of the living God, God lives in us. Thank God for Jesus. Jesus experienced this curse on our behalf. This is what He said;

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning? O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; And in the night season, and am not silent… Be not far from Me, For trouble is near; For there is none to help.” Psa22:1-11

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Mat27:46

Jesus was rejected of God at the Cross so that we would not be rejected. He became my sin and carried my rejection and abandonment. Because of His rejection, we always have a guarantee of acceptance from God. God will never reject us because He rejected Jesus for us.

God will never forsake us. He will never leave us. He will never abandon us. He is always with us. We are always in His presence. Sitted at the right hand of the Father in heavenly places.

Colossians 3

1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

God is always causing us to triumph in Christ and everywhere we go He is sensed and experienced because we are God carriers.

“Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.” 2Cor2:14

4. THE CURSE OF WEAKNESS, BONDAGE AND SLAVERY

“You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand. A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. The LORD shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee….” Deut28:30-37, 43-68 NKJV

This is the curse of injustice and bondage arising out of weakness and slavery. That those stronger than you would come and take away what belongs to you, and enslave you. That you will work hard and long and yet somebody else will come and take from you and you will not be able to do anything about it.

That your pleasure will be stolen from you and you shall watch helplessly. That your freedom will be stolen from you and you shall watch helplessly. Christians who are demonized are suffering this curse every day. Demons have stolen their freedom, their reward and their pleasure.

Christians are in bondage to a defeated satan and his demons because they don’t know that at the Cross Jesus destroyed this curse. He broke this bondage. He stripped satan. Now He proclaims freedom. This is what Paul tells the Colossians when talking about the Cross of Christ;

“having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” Col2:14-15

And the Philippians

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Phil2:5-11

John says the same in his first letter

“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” 1Jn4:4

The Christian has victory through the Cross of Christ. No devil can take from us by force, satan has been wasted, he is nothing.

5. THE CURSE OF FEAR, HELPLESSNESS AND HOPELESSNESS

 “And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see. “And the LORD will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.” Deut28:65-68

As He is concluding the curse of the Law God says some final things to Israel. He promises them that He would give them a trembling heart, failing eyes and anguish of soul. That they will have no assurance of life and they will have fear that terrifies the heart. And then He brings it all to a close by saying the following words

“And the LORD will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you…”

You know what Egypt here represents for us? Not only our old life of sin but hell. The home of sin. And that this time there would be no hope of return. The worst part about hell is not the pain, or the fire or the torment. None of those. The worst part about hell is the fact that there is no hope of leaving.

Once you go, that’s it, you will never ever return. It is forever. That is scary, isn’t it? Can you imagine that?

This is how Jesus felt on that Cross, this is what He had dreaded and feared, to be separated from the Father forever. To have no hope of coming back. And yet because of me and you, Jesus carried this most profound of all anguish, He accepted to be separated from the father forever and to go to hell so that me and you would never have to.

Jesus bore all of this on the Cross on our behalf so that we never have to bear it. We have been freed from all of this because of what Jesus did at the Cross.

When Jesus became sin, God judged sin in Him to deliver us from that judgment. This is more than deliverance from a future hell. This is deliverance from the curse or the penalty of our sins in this present life. We have been delivered from the curse right now.

Jesus bore the curse of the law in His own body for us. We don’t have to bear it. We are free from the curse of the law. God has already dealt with all our sins past, present and future. They have been taken away. We are right now at this very moment free from the penalty of our sin. Jesus took it all.

While on that cross, God poured His wrath on Jesus in the form of the curse of the law. All the punishment that we deserve for our sin was suffered by the Lord Jesus.