Objection: Galatians 3:13’s “Curse” Speaks of Spiritual Death, Not Sickness or Poverty

Someone once objected that I should read Galatians 3:13 in context to see that it really talks about spiritual death, not temporal troubles.  So I read it in context and learned exactly the opposite.

Galatians 3:10 says that as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse.  What curse?  “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.”  Paul quotes Deuteronomy 27:26, the last verse in Chapter 27.  This is the verse right before Deuteronomy 28, which expounds on the blessings for obedience and the curses for failure to do everything in the Law!  Thus, the “curse” referred to in Galatians 3:10, in context, must refer to the “curse” of Deuteronomy 28:15-68, which lists many ailments and covers “every sickness and every plague that is not written in the book of this law” (Deuteronomy 28:61), which definitely covers anything that may be wrong with you right now.

It is scarcely conceivable that Paul could be talking about one curse in verse 10 and be talking about another curse in verse 13.  If you don’t think he’s talking about the same curse when he says that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, you are the one who is not reading Galatians 3:13 in context!

While it is definite that Christ redeemed us from poverty, sickness and spiritual death, as stated by the title of a classic faith book, it is NOT true that the curse of the Law was poverty, sickness and spiritual death.  The curse of the Law included poverty and included sickness, but there is no reference at all to spiritual death in it, nor could there be, because that Law was written to people who were already spiritually dead!  No one could be “made alive” spiritually until Christ rose from the dead.  In fact, all those rules and regulations in the Law were given BECAUSE people were spiritually dead.  They needed a spiritual law to follow because they themselves were unspiritual.  They couldn’t have the Holy Spirit living in them to guide them, and they couldn’t be made new creations in righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24).  The Law was their schoolmaster until the time when Christ came to introduce something far better (Galatians 3:24).

So it is ironic that the objector has this backwards. The curse referred to in Galatians 3:13 had plenty to say about poverty and sickness (read it – that will dispel any doubts about what is in there), but spiritual death is actually what is absent from the curse!