Curse and Blessing
Comments on Galatians with an ear to Luther’s commentary
Scripture Text: Galatians 3:12 and Deuteronomy 6:24–25
Series: Comments on Galatians
The promise of righteousness through keeping the commandments is a curse. The law curses and condemns sinners, and sinners we all are, so the attempt to keep the law — though we certainly should try — is futile. The law insists that the only way to gain life is by law-keeping, the very thing we are unable to do (Acts 15:10; Romans 7:15). If there is only the law that brings life, then we are cursed. We cannot keep it and so, we are doomed. The one who does the law shall live by it. But as no one is able to fulfill the law, all shall die (Romans 6:23). However, God has provided another way.
Because “no one who relies on the law is justified before God...the righteous will live by faith” (Galatians 3:11). God has given us the Son who has fulfilled the law for us. He, man and God in the incarnation, has perfectly kept the law and died for us, nailing our sin to the cross (Colossians 2:14). Though we do sin every day, those sins are nailed to cross, quite apart from our spiritual being, if we have faith in the one who has fulfilled the law for us. We are righteous before God only because we have faith in the one who is “our righteousness, holiness, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).
So, at once, we have before us curse and blessing. We live with this tension every day. This is where remembering that the law is a curse is actually a blessing in disguise. Each day, the devout are reminded that he law accuses and condemns them. When I read the words, “if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness” (Deuteronomy 6:25), I know without doubt that I am unable. Under the law, “I am all unrighteousness” (“Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” Charles Wesley).
Yet, this horrifying reminder is a prompt as well, to recall the promise that the righteous do not live by the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. The law is not meant to merely obligate and accuse and condemn me but to send me running back into the arms of grace.
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Rev. Dr. Mark E. Ryman has served as Pastor for St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Salisbury, NC, since 2021. Previously, Pastor Ryman served congregations in North Carolina and Ohio, as well as a call to specialized ministry with Sola Publishing.
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