Deuteronomy 21:22-23 Bible Study | Episode 926

April 28, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Deuteronomy 21:22-23  Bible Study | Episode #926

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are In Deuteronomy, chapter 21. Deuteronomy, chapter 21 and verse 22 and 23, the last two verses of 21. You know, Deuteronomy is a lot of law. It's a lot of law. Very few stories, but the verses that we're studying this morning are very important verses. They're very important verses for several reasons, but primarily they are a pretext, a pretext for an understanding of the season that we're in. And the season, excuse me, the season that we're in is. Well, it's resurrection season. It's the season of Passover. It's the time where we celebrate the resurrected Christ on the day he rose from the grave. But what got him there? And the important part of what got him there, because the Bible teaches us that Jesus was slain from the foundation of time, meaning that God had foreordained, which he has foreordained all things. He foreordained his Son taking the penalty of sin and death and taking it on his shoulders. In fact, he bore our sin and death to the cross and placing that sin and death on him and turning his back because he is cursed. And the curse of sin, the bondage of sin, was his. And as John says in his Epistle one, John, he died for the sin of the whole world. He died. He bore the sin of the whole world to the cross and died. And in this section of law, in this passage right here that we're studying this morning, in this section of law, being hung on a tree, being crucified is defined. It's defined such that it would make Jesus's work complete. God, you know, 1500 years, 1300 years, how many ever hundred years that they estimate, you know, some say as early as 1200 BC and some say this happened 14, 1500 BC ever how long before this, before Jesus's life, this was written, it was understood, it was culturally understood. And it is a law that is written in the universe. It says if a man has committed a sin deserving death, and he's put to death, and you hang him on a tree. So there's three pretexts here, okay? A man has committed a sin deserving death, and he is put to death. Meaning not only has he done that, but he's been adjudicated guilty and he's been put to death. And the method of death is that you hang him on a tree or you crucify him. Now remember, crucifixion took many, many forms. And when I say many many forms, it was different ways they did it. They used different types of crucifixion. You had the crucifixion just on a straight poultry where you would be hung with your hands above your head and your feet nailed to the cross below you. You had the capital T. I call it the capital T. Crucifixion, where there was a. Where there was a cross tie right on top of the upward pole, and you would be hung on that cross tie. Then you've got the cross that we think of when we make necklaces and earrings and things like that. That cross is lowercase T. And it is where they hang the pole up, and then they have a. A place to hook the cross tie to it. And then they nail you to the. To. To the cross tie, and then hoist you up and put you on the tree that way. And you go, well, what. How was Jesus crucified? Well, the truth is, we don't really know. We don't really know which one of those he he was, how he was crucified. But what we do know is that he was hung on a tree. And verse 23 tells us why he was hung on a tree. What was the purpose for him to be hung on a tree? His body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day. So God gave them an order that his body is not to remain on the tree. And by the way, that's what the Romans were doing when they were breaking the legs of the thieves to make sure that they died prior to. Prior to nightfall, prior to Passover, beginning at. At. At dusk. They were breaking the legs of the two thieves next to him to make sure that no one hung on a tree overnight. Now you go, well, why would the Romans follow Jewish law? Well, they were just respecting Jewish law. And that Jewish law comes from 1300 years before. Moses tells them, gives them this law, and he says, you shall surely bury them that day so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God has given you. What he's saying is a dead person hanging on a tree into the next day overnight defiles the land. Why? Because the sin continues. The sin hangs over the land, he says. He says, I don't want. I don't want them hanging on the tree, he says, which the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance, meaning death should not hang over God's blessing. And it doesn't. And so he says, for he who is hanged is accursed of God, meaning they're cursed. They have the curse of sin. And I said it last night during Bible study, and I think it's important to say it again, because curse means to be bound to. Okay? Oftentimes we think of the word curse. And when I say curse, people think in their own mind and in their own heart. They think of some magic spell that I'm gonna hex you. I'm gonna place a curse on you. That's not what curse means. Scripturally. Curse means, scripturally, to be bound, okay? And so if. If I'm cursed, I'm bound to the sin or to the death or to the penalty for which I am. I'm guilty of. And so a person who's cursed and they face the penalty of their sin as death, They're. They're cursed completely. They're. They're. Their curse carries them all the way to the grave. And so when we. When we look at this, he says the. Anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed. Now, that helps us because it's very important to get this. Jesus's work on the cross was not limited, it was limitless. And Jesus's payment for sin was complete and perfect. And his bearing the sin of the world, or the curse of sin that God placed upon him was total. Okay? God placed all the sin of all the world on Christ, Okay? And he bore that sin to the grave. He bore that sin to the tree as a curse and to the grave. And even though many around him recognized the unique nature of him, even saying that, as the Roman centurion says, at the foot of the cross, surely this was the Son of God. Even knowing that, even seeing that, even recognizing that he was curse, he was the curse of sin for humanity. Now, understanding that deep in. In who you are, allowing that to resonate in how you live, understanding that Jesus became sin, he who knew no sin Became sin. The sin of the whole world is a wonderful revelation. It is a life giving revelation. Because in carrying sin to the cross he paid the penalty for that sin. So that no one is separated from God because of their, because of their sin. They're separated from God because of their lack of relationship with Him. They're separated from God because they don't know Him. And that is wholly different than being separated from God because of your sin and death. God provided for that. That's the whole reason for making humanity, that's the whole reason for saying Jesus was slain from the foundation of time. That that reason, the reasoning behind that is so that you might be delivered, you might be set free and delivered. And set free in Greek terminology is the same thing. That you might be delivered from the sin and death and that you're delivered unto eternal life, which is the life God lives, which is a complete intimate relationship with Him. So total sin, total death, total bondage to total life, total hope, intimate relationship with God. That's how God works that, that is the ultimate plan. And God pronouncing anyone who hangs on the tree as cursed. Well, it in it of itself that that is God's pronouncement that Jesus's sacrifice on the cross was complete and perfect. And so as I read this, you know, eight, nine days away from celebrating a resurrected Christ. It's powerful because it allows me to think about and consider on a Thursday morning. Well, it allows me to consider and think about the totality of what Jesus did, the completeness of his work, and the wonder of him conquering not only sin on the cross, but death through the tomb. He conquered sin on the cross and death through the tomb. And so he is as you go.

Today I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.