Many people find the Old Testament to be intimidating, strange, or even scary. And there's good reasons for those feelings. The Old Testament was written many thousands of years ago to an ancient culture whose daily life and social standards were drastically different from what we experience today.

Yet it's important to recognize how crucial the Old Testament is to the overall story of God's Word. After all, it makes up more than two-thirds of the biblical text!


Even more, the Old Testament lays a vital foundation for understanding God's plan to re-connect with humanity, and for understanding the major doctrines of the New Testament -- including redemption, salvation, eternal life, and more.

Easter is a great example of how the Old Testament dovetails with the life and teachings of Jesus. There are countless principles and prophecies in the Old Testament that point to Jesus' death and resurrection as the hope for all people.

Specifically, I'd like to show you three curses from the Old Testament Law that offer a poignant foreshadowing of Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf.

The Curse of the Rebellious Son

To get started, let's look at a passage of Scripture from the Book of Deuteronomy. Fair warning, this is not a fun collection of verses:

¹⁸ “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father or mother and doesn’t listen to them even after they discipline him, ¹⁹ his father and mother must take hold of him and bring him to the elders of his city, to the gate of his hometown. ²⁰ They will say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he doesn’t obey us. He’s a glutton and a drunkard.’ ²¹ Then all the men of his city will stone him to death. You must purge the evil from you, and all Israel will hear and be afraid.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21

See what I mean? This is one of those Old Testament passages that makes people stop and say, "What!?" It's very difficult for us to understand how a loving God could make such a demand of His people.

As you might expect, the context of this passage can help us understand things a little better. For one thing, showing obedience and respect to your parents was a major priority in the ancient world. In fact, it was such a big deal that God gave it a place in the 10 Commandments. In essence, choosing to continually and unashamedly disrespect your parents was connected with choosing to disrespect and disobey God:

Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Exodus 20:12

For another thing, the punishments mentioned throughout this portion of Deuteronomy are connected to egregious levels of sinfulness. This passage is not talking about a child calling his father a mean name. Rather, these verses are focused on a lifestyle of active disobedience and disrespect for the father and mother. We may not understand it today, but such a lifestyle was worthy of capital punishment in the ancient world.

But all of that's not as important for this discussion -- the curses of Easter. What we need to understand is that the curse of the rebellious son applies to us! We are all God's children according to His Word, yet we have all lived lifestyles of continual rebellion against Him. Like the son mentioned in Deuteronomy 21, we are stubborn and rebellious. We don't obey our Father. Therefore, we deserve to be destroyed according to God's law. As Paul wrote: "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).

At the same time, Jesus exists as God's perfect Son. He demonstrates no rebellion or corruption of any kind; He is perfect. And yet, amazingly, Jesus chose to die on our behalf. He accepted the curse of the rebellious on upon Himself so that we might experience eternal life.

That's the story of Easter, and that's the message of the gospel.

The Curse of Being Hanged on a Tree

Deuteronomy 21 is not a pleasant chapter in God's Word, and it doesn't end in a pleasant way:

²² “If anyone is found guilty of an offense deserving the death penalty and is executed, and you hang his body on a tree, ²³ you are not to leave his corpse on the tree overnight but are to bury him that day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.
Deuteronomy 21:22-23

Bible scholars aren't exactly sure why being hung on a tree placed a person "under God's curse," but the text makes it seem as if this were common knowledge in the ancient world. The main concern of these verses is that the body of a hanged person not be left on the tree overnight -- to do so would "defile the land." Likely, this has to do with the physical corruption and disintegration a corpse would experience if left to hang for a long time. It may also be connected to a desire to keep vultures and other unclean animals out of the camp.

Either way, you've already seen the connection between this passage and Jesus. He was hung on the cross -- a tree -- for us. He took the curse upon Himself so that we might live.

The apostle Paul said it well:

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written: Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed.
Galatians 3:13

The Curse of the Atonement

The Day of Atonement was one of the most important holy days for the Israelites in the Old Testament. Once a year, the high priest would lead the people in several ceremonies designed to purify God's people from their sins.

One of these rituals involved selecting two goats to be used as sacrifices. One of the goats was slaughtered, and its blood used to purify the most Holy place inside the temple -- remember, one of the principles in God's Word is that "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" for sin (Hebrews 9:22).

The second goat received a kind of curse that was connected with the peoples' sin:

²⁰ “When he has finished purifying the most holy place, the tent of meeting, and the altar, he is to present the live male goat. ²¹ Aaron will lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the Israelites’ wrongdoings and rebellious acts—all their sins. He is to put them on the goat’s head and send it away into the wilderness by the man appointed for the task. ²² The goat will carry on it all their wrongdoings into a desolate land, and he will release it there.
Leviticus 16:20-22

This was symbolic ritual, of course, but the imagery is powerful. By laying his hands on the goat and confessing the sins of the people, the High Priest transferred those sins onto the animal as a curse -- as a substitution for the people. The goat was then released into the wilderness. Symbolically, the peoples' sins were taken away and forgiven. This is called the doctrine of atonement.

(As a side note, this is also where we get the word "scapegoat" today.)

Do you see the connection to Jesus? On the day we know as Good Friday, Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross. He endured so much pain that He cried out "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:46). Yet it wasn't the physical pain that caused Jesus to suffer -- not entirely. The greater part of His misery came from the fact that every sin from every person who ever lived was poured onto Jesus in that moment.

What became torture for Jesus was the curse of our sin.

Like the scape goat from the Day of Atonement, Jesus received the sins of all people. He bore the punishment for those sins through His death, and in doing so He carried them far away -- which provided atonement for you, me, and everyone else.

This is why John the Baptist referred to Jesus as "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).