Chapter IV
How Christ was made a curse for us. That it was the curse of the moral law, and the u hole substance of what it threatened. Arguments to prove that Christ suffered it.
We have seen how Christ was made sin ; let us now see how he was made a curse. The other was but by imputation, but this by infliction. He was made sin, who knew not what it was to sin ; but in being made a curse he knew it to his cost ; it entered into his soul and bowels. To ex plain this a little ; 1. This curse was not merely the curse of the judicial law, or of a male factor hanging upon a tree ; for the curse which he was to redeem us from was the curse of the moral law, not of the judicial. It was not the curse of such a malefactor s death before men, but before God ; for from that curse
CHAP. IV.] OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR
we were to be redeemed, and therefore that curse was he made. And Gal. iii. 10, 13, we have it expressly thus : The law says, Cursed is every one, &c. It is true that this hanging on a tree (on which judicial punishment a curse was pronounced) was made the figure of Christ s being cursed with the curse of the moral law ; but that was the curse which Christ was made, and therefore, Deut. xxi. 22, God aforehand typically accursing that death (as aiming at his Son), says of him that hangs on a tree, that he is accursed before him. So that his Son, whom this aimed at, was not only cursed before men, in that he was put to such an accursed death, but was also cursed before God with the curse of the moral law, whereof the apostle brings this as the sign and proof, that that death which in the judi cial law only was accursed, was executed upon him.
2. The curse of the moral law, spoken of ver. 10, is opposed to blessing; and as the blessings of God are the matter of his promises, so curses are the matter of his threatenings. Blessings are conveyed by promises, curses by threatenings. The threatenings of the law are the cannons, and the curses in them are the bullets. And as whom God blesseth, he blesseth with all blessings ; so whom he curseth, he curseth with all cursings. As there is a fulness of blessings in the gospel (as Rom. xv. 29), so the moral law is full of all curses, which notwithstanding Christ underwent.
3. The curse contains in it the avenging wrath of God, and is more than a bare punishment from God. As God s favour is the life of all blessings, so God s avenging wrath gives weight to all curses. The saints are punished in anger, but not cursed in their chastisements, because they are inflicted on them out of love. But here we must warily distinguish between loving the person punished, and punishing that beloved person out of love. God, though he loved the person of Christ when he punished him, yet he punished him, not out of love, but wrath. When he punisheth the saints, he both punisheth persons beloved, and also out of love, which stirs up anger. But he punisheth Christ out of wrath, and therefore he was made a curse. His person was beloved, but he being made sin, to that end to bear the full punishment due to sin, God therefore out of wrath punisheth sin imputed to him. Not God s wrath, but an anger arising from love, is it that chastiseth us ; but it is not so with Christ, the wrath of God was poured forth on him. Which yet differs from his punishing of wicked men, whose persons he hates, and whom he punisheth out of wrath also. But though he loves Christ s person, yet he punisheth sin in him out of pure wrath, and lets justice fly upon him to have its full pennyworths out of him ; he lets wrath suck the blood of his soul, till it falls off, as the leech when it is filled, and breaks.
So that, put all these three considerations together, that Christ was made the curse of the law moral, not judicial only ; that the curse thereof contains in it all curses ; and that those curses are laid and set on with God s wrath ; and this will be the doctrine ; That the whole curse that our persons were subject unto from the law, Christ underwent to redeem us from it. For,
1. That curse which we were redeemed from he was made ; but we were redeemed from the whole curse ; therefore he was made, or underwent, the whole curse.
2. That curse which contains all curses in it Christ was to be made for us ; now such is the curse of the moral law. For as the least breach of the law is copulative, and he that offends in one is guilty of all, so are the curses of the law : he that is cursed with any one is cursed with them all. As there
190 OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. [BOOK V. is a fulness of blessings, so of curses. As therefore a blessed man is called vir beatitudinum, a man of blessednesses, Ps. i. 1, as being blessed with all
Being heir of all the promises ; so he that is cursed is blessings, Eph. i. 3, exposed to all curses ; and so was Christ, and therefore he is called vir dolorum,, a man of sorrows, as being the centre of them (Isa. liii. 3). And as all our sins met in him, so all our sorrows ; and from his birth all the great ordnance of God s curses were ready charged with wrath, and bent against him, and were all in their order discharged, and let off upon him. And therefore not his suffering, but his sufferings, are mentioned by Peter, 1 Pet. iv. 13. Being tempted (not in one, but) in all things wherein we were, sin only excepted, Heb. iv. 15. In universali Iwminum miseria immersus, says Bernard : TUV oXuv rag -ravrag xaragac Siadetrai, says Justin Martyr.* He wholly took upon him all the curses of all ; he was wholly and fully cursed.
Now to give some reasons of it ;
1. The first shall be, because he was become a debtor to the whole law by voluntary suretyship (as was said) for us, and therefore was circum cised, and so made under the law; and therefore that whole curse and punishment which the law required he was to undergo, ere the law would free him. And for this reason, when he was to suffer anything, as well as to do anything, you shall find him speaking in the language of a debtor, that could not now evade it. So John iii. 14, * The Son of man must be : thus likewise Mark sdii. 31, Luke xxiv. 26, and Mat. xxvi. 54, These things, says he, the Son of man ought to have suffered. He was now entered into bond, and it was his duty to pay even the utmost lifted up farthing. It is not the custom or manner of the law to abate anything ; and therefore he undergoes the whole curse, or we are not freed.
2. God dealt with him in justice, and justice was that which he was to satisfy ; which could not be till he had borne the whole punishment due to sin. Rom. iii. 25, 26, Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God ; ver. 26, to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness ; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Compared with Rom. viii. 33, shall lay anything to the charge of God s elect ? It is God that justifieth. This justice is shewn in our redemption: for Christ redeemed us not vi, sed jiistitia, so in that Rom. iii. 25 ; and not potestative, out of his prero gative and greatness, bearing us out by mere favour, without satisfying justice; but rationabiliter, by a way of equity, salvis justitia regulis ; by paying avri Xvrgov, a correspondent ransom, even in proportion, a tooth for a tooth, as the law required, 1 Tim. ii. 6. He was not only to make inter
an advocate ; 1 John ii. 2, so also cession, but satisfaction. As he is called
a propitiation : he has paid for the favour which he now intercedes for. And as he is called an intercessor, so (Rev. v. 6) a Lamb slain ; and by bearing our whole punishment, he made his intercession more prevalent. Yea, I will lay down this for a conclusion, ere I go any further : that Christ was dispensed with in nothing. Justice abated him nothing of that punish ment which was due to us. It regarded not the greatness or dignity of his person, to spare him in the least. So that if there had been anything necessarily to have been undergone for satisfaction, which was not com patible with his person, he must not have undertook it. For justice (if God go that way) will have its full due, or nothing. And the reason is * Justin Martyr contra Tryphonem.
evident ; for if Christ had been abated in anything, he might have been abated in one thing as well as in another, and so in all. But he says it was necessary for him to suffer ; and the same necessity lay on him to suffer all that was due, as well as anything at all.
But you will say, Did not the dignity of his person avail to some abate ment, so as one drop of his blood might have served ? The answer is, that indeed the dignity of his person did add an infinite merit to ever}
Tthing he suffered ; but not so that any particular should be abated. Again, this his dignity conduced to the acceptation of his sufferings for many persons ; that what that one person did should be for many (as Paul says) ; but it struck off no part of the debt, or of the things to be paid. It caused that that one payment should stand for many ; but not that a farthing of that payment should be wanting. But ere we go over any of the particulars, we must answer an objection ; which is this, That there were many particular evils of punishments which were ingredients in many of our cups, which yet he never tasted of, as sickness and distempers of body ; for his body saw no corruption, neither before death nor after. And many like particular branches of the curse which befall men for sin he met not with.
Not a bone of him was broken. How then did he satisfy for the whole curse ?
Yea, hell itself, and the eternity of its punishments, the worm of conscience, despair, &c., he endured not ; how then underwent he the whole curse following upon sin ? I answer,
1. (In general) Know that the wrath of God is the whole curse ; it is the total sum of all curses, it is the curse in solido, in gross. And as a pay ment, consisting of many farthings, may be made in one piece of gold, so all particular curses may be undergone in bearing that one great curse, the original of curses, for otherwise the angels now in hell should not undergo the whole curse, seeing many miseries that befall men here they are not capable of. The wrath of God is either expressed mediately, in particular punishments, or immediately upon the soul. Now this immediate wrath eminently contains all mediate crosses in it. The cup of the Lord s wrath, which Christ drank up, is said to be full of mixture ; for all evils were strained into it. If therefore it can be proved that Christ underwent the whole wrath of God, it may be said that he underwent all curses, although he had endured none of the miseries of this life. Which (among other interpre tations I have elsewhere given) may perhaps be the intendment of those words, Mat. viii. 17, where the evangelist quotes out of Isaiah, that Christ bare our sicknesses ; and so by virtue of that his bearing them, he healed them. The meaning whereof is not, that he bare the sicknesses of the body, but that he, sustaining the wrath of God, which was more than the gout, stone, or whatever else, might be said virtually to bear them all, and by virtue of that heal them. And so in that place, Isa. liii. 10, the phrase translated bruising him is by some read, * He, or his soul, was made sick.
2. It is in Bis passive obedience as it is in his active, when it is said he fulfilled every iota of the law ; the meaning is not, that he performed every duty ; for he performed not the duty of a husband to a wife, or of a magis trate, &c., in this world ; but in fulfilling the law of love (which was the sum of the law), he fulfilled all. So in his passive obedience, by under going the wrath of God, he underwent the sum of the curse, the curse in solido.
3. It is in temporal curses as in temporal blessings. Many particular good things may be withheld, when yet God withholds no good thing
192 OF CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. [BOOK Y. from his children, in that he vouchsafes them his favour, which is better than all ; and so makes up all temporal promises an hundredfold. Thus is it in temporal curses ; it was not necessary that Christ should endure each particular, if he endured God s wrath ; he fulfilled the whole in under going that.