Christ
Our Redeemer
The most significant word that describes the death of Christ
for sinful man is redemption. It means, “buying again,” or “buying
back.” In the Bible it is used especially of purchasing a slave with a view of
setting him free. It signifies a release procured by the payment of a ransom price.
The Roman slave could purchase his own freedom if he could come up
with enough money. The owner could also sell his slave to someone else who would pay the
price and set him free.
The word “ransom” signifies the price paid for a slave who
is then set free by the one who bought him.
Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
The apostle Peter wrote, “knowing that you were not redeemed
with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from
your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the
blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18-19). Hebrews 9:12 tells us it is, “not
through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy
place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” In each of these verses the
idea is to “set free by paying a price.”
The redemption price is the blood of Jesus which makes it possible
for a righteous God to justify a believing sinner on the basis of satisfied justice.
It is significant in the Bible that we belong to God, but we fell
into bondage through willful rebellion; and as a result of sin we must be purchased out of
that bondage. Our bondage is the penalty and power of sin. We were alienated from God and
in bondage to sin; therefore God in His grace redeemed us from that bondage. We have been
“justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus”
(Rom. 3:24).
Jesus Christ redeemed us by the sacrifice of Himself at Calvary on
our behalf. The death of Christ breaks the power of sin and cancels our debt because He
paid it in full. He sets us free by the payment of the ransom price. Christ bought us in
the slave market of sin by His own blood (Gal. 3:13; 4:5). We are His own unique
possession and we will never be put up for sale in any slave market again.
The Bible does not say to whom the ransom was paid. The important
thing to note is the extreme price that was paid to set the sinner free. We were delivered
through the death of Christ on the cross (Heb. 9:12).
God demands that this vicarious offering be made,
therefore the ransom is obviously paid to God, not Satan.
When Jesus shouted, “It is finished,” He declared that our
redemption was paid in full.
God accomplished through the death of Christ
precisely what our salvation required.
We deserved to die
for sin (Rom. 6:23); Christ died for us (5:6, 8). We were under the just wrath of God by reason of our
transgressions, however Christ bore that wrath in our place.
The apostle Paul stresses the truth that we were alienated from God,
but Christ
reconciled us to God.
Redemption places the emphasis on the truth that we were sold under sin,
and Christ Jesus bought our freedom by paying
sin’s price in full.
A significant definition of this word is the reality that the
believer is set free from sin and is free to live a life pleasing to God in the power of
the Holy Spirit. This becomes the highest motivation for Christian living. “For you
have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:20).
Our redemption will come to its consummation at the Second Coming of
Christ (1 Cor. 15:49). At that moment our redemption will be completed (Luke. 21:28; 2
Thess. 2:8). We enjoy the “newness of life” now, and we will experience the
deliverance of the believer from the presence and power of sin, and this body from the
bondage to corruption at the Coming of Jesus (Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 1:14; 4:30).
Abraham’s son Isaac asked, “Where is the Lamb?” (Gen.
22:7) and John the Baptist answered it by pointing to Jesus and declaring, “Behold
the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, 36). Today, in
heaven, the redeemed of the Lamb and the angels sing, “Worthy is the Lamb” (Rev.
5:11-14).
Have you placed your trust in Jesus Christ as your redeemer who
ransomed you?
Selah!
Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006
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