Lent 2015, Day Thirty-Eight—Chrysostom (2)

Today’s citation is from Chrysostom’s homily on Galatians 3.

The people were liable to punishment since they had not fulfilled the whole Law.  Christ satisfied a different curse, the one that says, “Cursed is everyone that is hanged on a tree.”  Both the one who is hanged and the one who transgresses the Law are accursed.  Christ, who was going to lift that curse, could not properly be made liable to it, yet he had to receive a curse. He received the curse instead of being liable to it, and through this he lifted the curse.  Just as, when someone is condemned to death, another innocent person who chooses to die for him releases him from that punishment, so Christ also did.

Jerry Shepherd
Lent, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday
April 2, 2015