On Curses and Condemnation: The Narrative Resolution of the Deuteronomic Plotline

A couple of months ago, in the comments to my series on Paul's gospel, I made a point about how to think about Paul's language concerning how we, in relation to the Law, come under curse and condemnation. I'd like to spotlight that point in this post.

A lot of us, especially progressive Christians, struggle with the language of curse, condemnation, and God's judgment/wrath in discussing salvation. All those negative words stack up and bring into view a retributive God. Resisting that vision, we ignore all this language in Scripture. In psychology there's something called "motivating forgetting." Seen among trauma victims, motivated forgetting involves blocking out and suppressing unwanted memories. A lot of progressive Christians display a type of motivated forgetting when it comes to the Bible, actively suppressing from consciousness that the Bible actually does speak of God's wrath, and that Jesus saved us from the curse with its associated condemnation. 

So, how are we think about all this?

The key is to pay attention to the story Paul is telling in his letters. When Paul describes the curse of the law he's calling attention to the covenant Israel made with God at Mount Sinai. In making that covenant with God, Israel agreed to suffer the consequences of disobedience. Here are those curses from Deuteronomy 28:

However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out....

It only gets worse from there if you want to read the rest of that chapter. 

As you know, Israel and Judah do fall into disobedience and the curses are enacted, culminating in the curse of exile:

Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. (Deut. 28.64-66)

We see all this play out 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles. And while the exiles return home in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, I believe N.T. Wright is correct that, when the New Testament opens, there remained the pervasive sense in Second Temple Judaism, in light of Roman occupation, that the exile still continued. 

In short, the Deuteronomic Curses remained in effect and unresolved. Israel's story was stuck.

Now, it is true that both Jesus and Paul shifted the conversation about the exile away from immanent political concerns, the Roman occupation specifically. Both Jesus and Paul spiritualize the Kingdom of God and envision emancipation as more eschatological than political. Not that Jesus and Paul evacuate the gospel of social and political import. This is simply the observation that, for both Jesus and Paul, the Roman occupation wasn't the pressing spiritual predicament. 

Still, from a narrative standpoint, the story of Israel, given her exilic predicament, needed to be resolved and carried forward. The Deuteronomic plotline demanded a resolution. And according to Paul, Jesus brings the Deuteronomic story to its climax and fulfillment. Jesus, as Israel's representative, assumes upon himself the Deuteronomic Curse. More, where Israel had failed, Jesus fulfills the righteous requirements of the Law thereby bringing into the story of Israel the Deuteronomic Blessings:

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:

You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.

You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out... (Deut. 28.1-6)

Again, both Jesus and Paul shift these blessings into a spiritual and eschatological register. And yet, the point to be observed here is that, by bringing the Deuteronomic story to its conclusion, blessings now enter the story of Israel. We call these blessings "salvation."

In short, when we read the Bible we tend to read it narcissistically, believing that my particular sins bring me under my particular curse and that God is particularly sending me to hell. Me, me, me! Everything is about me! But this self-obsessed reading misunderstands Paul. Paul is telling a story. More specifically, he's trying to finish a story, to get a story unstuck. Paul's concerns about wrath, curse, judgment, and condemnation aren't about you. His concerns are covenantal and narrative. His concerns are about the story of Israel being stuck in the mud. Given this, read Paul narratively rather than narcissistically. 

To be sure, our particular story is caught up in the Greater Story, but the point of Paul declaring "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" is that he's talking about a Story where condemnation and curse have been removed and replaced with blessings. In the end, it's the Story that is rescued. And we, for our particular part, get to join that Story and enjoy its benefits.