Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Genesis 3:17-19 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': "Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return."
JESUS EXPERIENCES THE CURSE
Even to our present day the ground produces only when worked hard. The curse pronounced here was meant to remind mankind of their sins throughout all time. Even the sinless Jesus experienced the curse when He lived.
Was Jesus familiar with sorrow of toil? Isaiah prophesies about Jesus saying: "He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3).
Thorns and thistles brought pain and suffering for other men, but did Jesus know pain and suffering? Let's see, He was beaten by Roman soldiers, scourged with a whip, exhausted by the weight of the cross, pierced by the nails. Jesus didn't have thorns in his crop land to tear at his hands, but He instead had them pressed into His head.
What about sweat? In the Garden of Gethsemane we are told that while praying about the hardest trial of His life, Jesus' sweat "became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground" (Luke 22:44).
Jesus experienced death as well. But before His death, Jesus experienced something much worse: He was abandoned by God the Father. ("My God, My God, whyhave you forsaken Me?" Matthew 27:46) This truly was the pinnacle of suffering, much worse than any of the mental or physical anguish which Jesus suffered previously.
Jesus experienced the curse completely, and yet it was not to remind him of His sin, because He didn't HAVE any sin of His own to be reminded of. It was OUR sin that placed Him on the cross. Jesus didn't deserve sorrow, pain, sweat and death. But He took it anyway, because someone had to pay the bills. All sinners needed a Savior, so the Savior saved all sinners.
"Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13). "He is the payment for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). 