Galatians 3:13 — Harry Ironside

Christ Redeems from the Curse of the Law

We might receive the promise of the Spirit by faith. Notice the statement here, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. What was that curse? Well, God gave his holy law to show man how he ought to live in this world, and he said, the man that doeth these things shall live in them.

I often have people come to me and say, I don't see why I need a Savior. Surely it's enough if I try to keep the law of God, if I obey his commandments. That ought to be all that anyone would expect of me.

Well, to be perfectly frank, that's a good deal. Have you ever seen anyone, have you ever known anyone who did keep God's law, who did obey all his commandments? You see, that's just the trouble with us.

He said, if you do keep my law, then you'll have life. But on the other hand, he said, cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. And therefore, every one of us comes under that curse, because not one can be found anywhere who has continued in all things that are written in the book of the law.

We've not all sinned in the same way, but the Apostle James says if a man should keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he's guilty of all. You take a man who has lived a respectable, upright life all his days, until perhaps he is forty or fifty years of age.

And then that man becomes guilty of a forgery, and he gets away with a large sum of money because of it. All the years of good living that went before count for nothing now. The man is a criminal in the eyes of the law.

He has broken the law, and therefore he's subject to its penalty. And so, though one may have lived respectably in the main, still, if he's broken the law of God in some one particular or more, why, he's guilty of all.

That is, he's a lawbreaker. And that puts him under the curse. Now, for that man to say, I don't need a Savior, I can save myself by doing good and keeping the law and trying to live up to the Sermon on the Mount, that's all nonsense.

The man has already failed. He's already broken the law. He has already come under the curse. And that's why he needs a Savior. And the Lord Jesus Christ took all this into account. And so he came from heaven.

Christ’s Sinless Life and Substitutionary Death

He who was one with the Father from all eternity, became man for our redemption, lived his holy, beautiful life here on earth. He did not break the law of anything. He could say, I do always those things that please the Father.

No penalty of a broken law hung over him. And yet he went to the cross. He was lifted up. He was hanged on a tree. He was made a curse for us. He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

And so that's what the Scripture means when it says, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. As it's written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. We were under the curse. He became a curse for us.

He went down into the grave, and now he has risen again in triumph, and he's able to save to the uttermost those who come unto God by him. Have you trusted him? Have you ever acknowledged the fact that you're a sinner?

Have you ever come to God confessing your guilt? This, you know, is really repentance, and God commanded all men everywhere to repent and to come to the knowledge of the truth. When I take my place before God as a self-confessed sinner, when I cease trying to hide or to cover my guilt, when I acknowledge that I'm just what God says I am, lost and undone, that's repentance.

And now as a repentant sinner, I put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for me, who shed his precious blood that I might be cleansed from all my sin. And the moment I do that, the moment I thus receive him, the blessing of Abraham comes to me.

Do you remember what the blessing of Abraham was? God said to Abraham, In thee and in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed. The Lord Jesus Christ is the seed of Abraham after the flesh, and he's the one through whom all blessing comes.

What blessing is it that I receive when I trust in him? Well, I receive the blessing of salvation, and that includes regeneration, a new heart, a new life, a new birth, and also forgiveness of sins and justification from all things.

So I'm blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ when I trust this blessed Savior. You know, even if I could be justified by works of my own, I wouldn't want it now because I found such a wonderful Savior in Jesus.

I would rather owe everything for eternity to him and be able to give him alone the glory for saving my soul than enter heaven and give myself the credit for it, because it means so much more to think that God's own blessed Son taught enough of me to come all the way from the glory that he had with the Father before ever the world was, and to lay down his precious life, a ransom for my guilty soul.

This little hymn I love to sing, O Jesus, O Jesus, how vast thy love to me! I bathe in its full ocean to all eternity, and wending on to glory this all my song shall be. I was a guilty sinner, but Jesus died for me.

O Calvary, O Calvary, the thorn, crown, and the spear, tis there thy love, Lord Jesus, in flowing wounds appear. O depth of grace and mercy to those dear wounds I flee. I was a guilty sinner, but Jesus died for me.

I'm coming, I'm coming, Lord Jesus, to thy throne. A few more fleeting hours and I shall be at home. And when I reach those pearly gates, then I'll put in this plea, admit a ransomed sinner, for Jesus died for me.

That's the ground on which I'm going to heaven. Let me give my personal testimony. Fifty-three years ago, I came to the Lord Jesus Christ as a sinner. I knew I'd broken God's law many times. I knew that I was under condemnation.

I knew that that law was to me a ministry of death, a curse. But I found that Christ had given Himself a ransom for my soul. I trusted Him. And oh, the joy and the blessing that came to my heart when I realized that because of what Christ had done, God had delivered me from the curse of the law.

And that blessing of Abraham, free unmerited grace, was mine through faith in the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, I've spent the years since trying as well as I knew how to point other people to Christ.

It's been such a joy down through the years to see oh so many turn to Him and give the same testimony when they came to Him, when they trusted Him. He was more to them than they ever thought He would be.

And now I just press this upon you. If you don't know Him, if you've never yet trusted Him, turn to Him today. Receive Him now as your own Savior. And you'll know the joy of the blessing of Abraham. In the twenty-ninth verse, you'll find these words, The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

John the Baptist’s Baptism of Repentance

It's often seen to me that there's been a great deal of misunderstanding as to the ministry of John the Baptist, the great forerunner of our Lord Jesus Christ. You'll remember how appreciatively Jesus spoke of him.

He said, Of all those born of women, there's never been a greater than John the Baptist. What was there about this man that was so great? Well, of course, the outstanding thing was this, that he proclaimed the coming of Messiah, lived to see Him for himself, baptized Him, saw Him start out on His wonderful mission, and died for His name's sake.

Some people have an idea, you know, that the great business of John the Baptist was baptizing people, and that somewhere or another, by his baptism, their souls were saved. We read in the scripture, Then cometh John in the wilderness of Judea preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

And people get an idea that John was preaching baptism for the remission of sins. That wasn't what he was preaching at all. He was preaching, proclaiming a baptism of repentance with a view to the remission of sins.

That is, John's baptism was the expression of repentance. John was telling people that all were sinners and all deserved to die. He said, The axe is laid to the root of the tree. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.

And so he called upon the people to come down to the waters of Jordan and there be baptized, confessing their sins. Now that's repentance. They came confessing their sins. They came justifying God, acknowledging that what he said about them was true.

And their baptism was simply the outward expression of their penitence. But now that was a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. The sins weren't remitted through the baptism, but in what way were the sins remitted?

The Lamb of God Takes Away Sin

Why, he tells us here in this 29th verse of John 1, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. Baptism doesn't take away sin, but the Lamb of God does. And how does the Lamb of God take away sin?

Why, he came into the world, the only begotten Son of the Father, and himself absolutely sinless, went to Calvary's cross, and there upon the cross he bore our sins. The Word of God says he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. And now because our sins were laid upon him, because he paid the penalty due to those sins, he takes away the sin of the world.

That is, if we turn to him, if we trust him, if we believe in him, we have the right to say, Thank God my sins are gone. Gone in what way? Because I was baptized? No, that wouldn't put away my sins. Because I joined some church?

No, that wouldn't put away my sins. Because I turned over a new leaf? No, that wouldn't put away my sins. Because I tried to be charitable and kind to the poor and the needy? No, it's a very good thing to do all that, but that wouldn't put away my sins.

What then? Because I put my trust in the Savior, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. The Savior knew all that I was guilty of, that is, of course he died long before I came into the world, but he knew all I'd ever be guilty of.

And he took all my sins and bore them there in his own body in the tree, endured the judgment that those sins deserved, so that now God can be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. And this is the gospel that John the Baptist preached.

Some people think that John didn't know the gospel, but here it is. You couldn't get a clearer gospel than this. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. That's the very pith and marrow of the gospel.

The Lord Jesus Christ is God's Lamb, God's sacrificial Lamb, who gave himself for us. You remember when Abraham and Isaac were going up Mount Moriah, and Isaac turned to his father and said, Father, here's the wood and here's the fire, but where's the Lamb for a burnt offering?

And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a Lamb for a burnt offering. Well, John the Baptist says, This is the Lamb. This is the one that God has provided. This is the Savior for sinners. This is the one who can offer himself without spotting to God on our behalf.

And this is the one whom he calls upon us to receive. We read in the same first chapter of John's gospel, in verse 11, He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name.

Proverbs and the Danger of Procrastinating Salvation

There's a book in the Old Testament that abounds in all kinds of wise sayings that would be well if many of us read more frequently than we do. I refer to the book of Proverbs, that book that contains so many maxims emphasizing for us the path of life as we go through this world.

I've selected my text at this time from the 27th chapter of Proverbs, verse 1. Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. You know, I believe the great majority of people in this great land of ours where the gospel is so widely known, the great majority of people are somewhat acquainted with the gospel.

And of the great throng who turn away from it and are lost, the most of them will be lost, not because they didn't know, not because they'd never heard of Jesus, not because they did not understand that faith in him saves lost sinners.

But the great majority in a land like this who are lost will be lost because they procrastinate it. We say sometimes procrastination is the thief of time. And the Spanish of a proverb which translated into English would be, the road of by and by leads to the house of never.

All around we meet people who say, yes, I know, I know I ought to be a Christian, I know Christ died for sinners, and I know that he'll save if we come to him, and I intend to come someday, but not now.

And so they're saying tomorrow, tomorrow, and putting it off, and putting it off, hoping that God will be merciful and eventually, when they're ready, that he too will be ready to receive them. He has said in his word here, Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.

Just think of what may happen if you put it off till tomorrow. Of course, the first thing that occurs to every one of us is this, you might die tomorrow. You might not be living when tomorrow came. Tomorrow's sun may never rise to bless thy long-deluded sight.

This is the time. Oh, then be wise, thou wouldst be saved. Why not tonight? Just think, you're perhaps strong and healthy today, or at least you've got a clear mind and you're able to understand. Tomorrow may find you cold and lifeless and beyond all possibility of mercy.

What must be the thought of the man who goes out suddenly into eternity, unsaved, and who cries from the depths of his broken heart, Oh, what a fool I've been. Jesus died and I knew all about it. Jesus died and died for me, and he wanted to save me, but I didn't come.

I meant to come, but I kept putting it off, and now it's too late. And then there's something else to consider. It's not only true that you might die before tomorrow, but you might live. You say, well, that's all right.

If I live, everything's all right. Yes, but listen, to live on without Christ, to live on every day adding to the sins that you've already committed, to live on every day doing the things that in days to come you would give worlds if you could only undo.

What folly this is. There never was a man or a woman yet who became a Christian in mature life, but as they look back over the past, would have given anything if they could only have undone the sins that they had already committed.

Not only sins that hurt their own souls, but sins that often involved someone else, people that in some way or another had been led astray by their evil example. Every day that you reject the Lord Jesus Christ, every day that you spurn his grace, you're adding to the things that you never, to all eternity, will be able to undo.

So why not come to Christ now, boast not thyself of tomorrow, that thou knowest not what a day may bring forth? And then another thing I think we ought to remember, the Lord Jesus, when he went away, told of his coming back again.

Again and again in the Gospels he tells of his return. He went away to the Father's right hand to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. And he says of that day and hour knoweth no man, not even the angels in heaven.

When he himself was man here on earth, he chose not to know. He left that in the Father's power. Well, now his promise hasn't yet been fulfilled. He hasn't yet returned. But he may return, and he might return before tomorrow.

He might come back before another sunrise, and if he came back and you were still in your sins, then you'd be shut away in the outer darkness. It would be too late then to come to him, too late to repent, too late to plead his grace, too late to trust his mercy, too late to be washed in his blood.

And then there's another thing, and oh, don't forget it. The Holy Spirit is now pleading with you. He's here in the world, and he's pleading with man. It's he who convinces of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

But you know, you can resist his pleading. You can turn away from him so often that finally the day may come when you'll cease to plead. And when God will say he's joined to his idols, let him alone, and you'll be left, and you may live on, you might live on for days or weeks or months or years, never again to be troubled about your soul, never again to care, never again to be concerned or interested, never again to realize anything about your true condition until you wake up in eternity lost forever.

Oh, then how bitterly you would rue the fact that you had procrastinated, that you had turned away from God, that you had not obeyed his word, that you hadn't heeded his word that says, Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.

The Lord’s Supper as a Memorial of Christ’s Death

He says now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. Don't say tomorrow when God says today, but turn to him in repentance, confess your sin, trust the Savior, and begin now the new life. I want to talk to people today who are in the habit of taking the communion.

All over this land and all other Christian lands, from time to time, those who profess to know and love our Lord Jesus Christ come together in various places and under various circumstances to obey the command of the Lord Jesus, this do in remembrance of me.

But you know, I'm afraid there are a great many people who sit at the communion table, who partake of the bread and drink of the cup, who have never yet entered into the reality of it all, who have never yet known for themselves what it really means.

And so I want to read a few verses from the 11th chapter of 1 Corinthians, verses most of you know well, and then say a few words on them. 1 Corinthians 11, 23 to 25, I have received of the Lord Jesus that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, cooked bread, and when he had given thanks, he breaketh and said, Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me.

After the same manner also he took the cup when he had stopped saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do ye as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, until he come.

This was the instruction given to the apostle Paul by the risen Lord. You see, Paul hadn't been at the Lord's supper when it was first instituted. He was at that time still an unbeliever. And so the Lord Jesus gave him a special revelation concerning it.

And you'll notice this, that it made it very, very clear that the bread, which symbolizes the body of the Lord Jesus, and the cup, which speaks of his precious blood, shed on Calvary's cross, in each instance set forth Christ as dying for us.

And we are to partake of it in remembrance of him. Now, just imagine one who doesn't know Christ, who's never trusted him, and yet carrying out this service, just as a mere matter of form. Can't you see the incongruity of it?

You know, to go to the Lord's table and partake of the bread and the cup, and yet to reject the Savior thus presented, it seems to me must be an awfully serious thing. I can't imagine anything that would add to one's judgment and to one's bitter regrets by and by than this very thing.

Think of looking back from eternity and remembering how on earth you used to sit at the communion table and partake with others of those elements, and yet you never trusted the Savior who was thus remembered for yourself.

You see, the Lord's Supper was never intended to be a means of salvation. It was never intended to work the miracle of grace in your soul, but it was to be a memorial feast. It was to be a remembrance of the Savior.

Well, you should know him first in order that you may remember him. You should be able to look back and say, I see him there in that cross dying for me, and I've trusted him as my Savior, and having trusted him, I love him, and I want to keep him in mind.

Then you go with a good heart and a good conscience to the table of the Lord. But to think of partaking of the communion as though in some mystic way it was going to help to put away your sins, as though it might in some way help to make you a Christian, is to miss the real meaning of it altogether.

You know, there's only one thing that can make anybody a Christian, and that's the personal acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ. As many as received him, oh, how I love to dwell on those words, as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God.

There's no other way, no other way by which you can become a child of God, no other way by which you can become a Christian, no other way by which you can be born again than receiving him. The Apostle Peter says, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

The Lord's Supper is the perpetual memorial of the death of Christ. Whenever celebrated, it's a reminder of the fact that Christ died for sinners, that he gave his life on our behalf. But if men participate in this and yet reject him, it only adds to their condemnation.

Instead of being a means of grace, instead of being a blessing to them as the Lord intended it to be, it becomes the very opposite. It may even become a curse. It may be even the occasion of bitter, bitter memories in a lost eternity, to think, I used to sit at the table of the Lord, I used to take of the bread and of the cup, and yet I never took the Savior for myself.

Revelation’s Blessing and the Return of Christ

Oh, how foolish to allow oneself to be so familiar with the outward facts of Christianity and yet refuse the Savior. Trust him now for yourself. The book of the Revelations, the last book of the Bible, contains a great deal of very important instruction for us today, because undoubtedly we are living in the closing days of the present wonderful dispensation of the grace of God.

And this book, we are told, was given to show unto Christ's servants things which must shortly come to pass. A special blessing is pronounced upon all who give heed to what is recorded here. We'll read in the third verse of chapter one, Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein, for the time is at hand.

And again when we turn to the last chapter of the book, we hear the Lord saying, Behold, I come quickly, blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book. Now God wouldn't have pronounced a double blessing in that way upon those who read or hear and keep what's written in the book of the Revelations if it were of as little importance as some people imagine it to be.

A great many Christians pay little or no attention to it at all. And yet, in a wonderful way, this book moves the hearts of those who read it reverently and in dependence upon the Holy Spirit because it's the book of the unveiling of Jesus Christ, setting forth the glories that are to be manifested when he returns to set up his kingdom here on the earth.

In the seventh verse of this first chapter, the apostle exclaims, Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him, even so, amen.

That last expression, all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him, might be translated, all tribes of the land shall mourn because of him. This links with what we're told in the book of Zechariah in the Old Testament that when at last the Lord's earthly people, Israel, shall behold their Messiah at his second coming, they shall look upon him whom they pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son and as one that's in bitterness for his firstborn.

It will be a gracious day for them. When brought to repentance, they will recognize in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah for whom they have waited so long. And this book tells us a great deal about the event connected with his coming again and also about the long period which is now extended to nearly two thousand years between his first and second coming.

The Divisions of Revelation and the Church’s History

The divisions of the book are very clearly indicated in verse 19 of chapter 1 where the seer was told, Write the things which thou hast seen and the things which are and the things which shall be hereafter or after these things.

Now when John wrote these words, the only thing that he had seen was the vision of chapter 1, the Son of Man in the midst of the candlesticks representing the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of his churches here on earth.

These were the things that John had seen, division 1. Then the things which are immediately follow in chapters 2 and 3 where under the similitude of seven letters addressed to seven actual churches in the Roman proconsular province of Asia in the last decade of the first century of the Christian era, the Spirit of God has given us in a very remarkable way an outline of seven periods of church history showing us the moral and spiritual principles that would prevail during those periods.

Look at it this way, we see that the letter Ephesus to Ephesus answers to the apostolic church and then the letter to Smyrna to the persecuted church from the close of the first century until about 313 A .D. when the last of the persecuting Roman emperors died.

That would be followed by the letter to Pergamon which sets forth the conditions prevailing during the days of Constantine and his successors when the church and the world were so intimately linked together.

And this in turn is followed by the great apostasy of the Middle Ages as set forth in the letter to the church in Thyatira. Then in chapter 3 the letter to the church in Sardis gives us an outline of the conditions prevalent in the great state churches of the Reformation many having a name to live but actually dead.

The whole mass of the population baptized and outwardly made members of the church and yet many of them never born again at all. The letter to Philadelphia on the other hand gives us what we may call the Counter-Reformation the great awakening movements of the last 200 years when in so many different lands God has been stirring people by his Spirit to bring them back to the word of God and to allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then this part of the book closes with a letter to the church of the Laodiceans and this letter clearly pictures the latitudinarian conditions prevalent in so many places today. When though people bear the name of Christian they're utterly indifferent to the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it's addressing this church that the Lord says behold I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me. Strictly speaking the picture here is the Lord standing at the closed door of the church.

Everything is going on inside as though all were well and yet the Lord the head of the church is outside knocking at the door. The church as a whole will never admit him but individuals will and may may and will and if they receive him then he says he will enter in and sup with them and they with him.

Heaven, Judgment, and the New Jerusalem

That is he will establish blessed and holy fellowship with those who heed his voice and admit him to their hearts. Now the third division of the book begins with chapter 4 verse 1. We'll read in our authorized version after this I look and behold a door was opened in heaven.

We may instead of after this we might read after these things and you remember that the third division was write the things which shall be after these things. So after this outline history of the church on earth John was wrapped as it were in spirit into heaven and during all the rest of the book he portrays for us events that will take place both in heaven and on earth following the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to take his church home to be forever with himself.

That church is pictured in this division as 24 elders that is the 24 heads of the priesthood representing the entire priestly family to which Old Testament saints in the church of this dispensation belong for all such will have their part with Christ in the heavenlies and will be priestly worshippers.

This division goes right on to the consummation the glorious return of the Lord Jesus to set up his kingdom the kingdom itself going on for a thousand wonderful years and then at the close the judgment of the great white throne when the wicked will be judged according to their works and this is followed by a glorious vision of the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem the eternal home of the saints.

Concerning this we read there shall not enter into it anything that defile it. Sin will never be allowed to come into that second paradise to ruin it as it came into the first paradise on earth to bring disorder and distress during all the centuries of this world's history.

So the book of the Revelation gives us a marvelous picture of the last things and surely no lover of the Lord Jesus Christ can afford to neglect it rather should each Christian read it carefully independent from the Holy Spirit of God seeking for the blessing that's pronounced upon all those who keep the sayings of the prophecy of this book.