The Curse Became His Crown

The Curse Became His Crown

In the Garden as God originally created it, there were no thorns. But that changed when Adam and Eve sinned. God said to Adam, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you” (Genesis 3:17-18).

From that day on, this instrument of pain intruded into the perfection of the original creation. Every pricked finger, every overgrown field, every ugly thornbush was meant to be a reminder of the frustrating pain of sin. But when Christ came, he transformed the thorn from a reminder of the Curse into a reminder that he has broken the Curse by taking it upon himself.

Pilate had Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip. The soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put a purple robe on him. ‘Hail! King of the Jews!’ they mocked, as they slapped him across the face. John 19:1-3

What better symbol than a crown of thorns to speak to what Jesus was about to accomplish on the cross? “When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing” (Galatians 3:13).

While a crown is usually a symbol of authority and honor, this crown was a tool of humiliation. However, in the sovereign plan of God, this crown of thorns became a symbol of what Jesus accomplished in his humiliation. He wore the thorns we earned by our rebellion when he broke the curse of sin.

Revelation describes a day when we will be in a new garden where “no longer will there be a curse upon anything” (Revelation 22:3). Jesus will be there, wearing a crown—in fact, many crowns—but no longer a crown of thorns. And because he wore the crown of our curse when he went to the Cross, we will be there too. We’ll lay our crowns before him, saying, “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power” (Revelation 4:11). The Curse and its thorns will be gone forever, and Jesus will give us the crown of life.

Jesus, I should be the one who feels the thorns pressing into my forehead. I should be the one who bears humiliation and scorn. It is my face that should be spit upon, my back that should be beaten. But you have taken it all for me—every sting of the Curse. Instead you give me the honor of being your child, your heir, and you welcome me into your home forever.