Christ Our Redeemer

Redemption, from the Greek word, APOLITROSIS, we can define as the deliverance from the guilt and punishment of sin, by a payment or ransom delivered up for it. We have in the Scriptures the word used ten times in the New Testament. Eph.1:7," In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace,"Col.1:14,"in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins," and Rom.3:24,"Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." Christ is the glorious purchaser of our redemption.
The meaning of redeem has not changed since Biblical times, but it was used to describe someone who may have had a business, and sales dropped, and he could not pay his bills and thus had to declare bankruptcy. There was no chapter 13 to get some help in the situation, so he had to sell himself into slavery. And one day it would be possible to buy back or redeem that slave from his captivity. Jesus frees us from being a slave to sin and sets us free from our old nature.

The great English Puritan Thomas Watson says, "It is the meat and drink of the gospel in which all Christian's
comfort lies. Great was the work of creation, but greater the work of redemption: it cost more to redeem us than to make us, in the one, there was but the speaking of a word, in the other, the shedding of blood." From sin we have been redeemed. There is not a greater mercy known to mankind than to be redeemed from sin. Sin alone hurts the soul, affliction does not hurt it but often makes it better, like the furnace makes gold the purer, but sin damns, condemns, and dooms the soul. Heb.9:26,"Jesus has been manifested, revealed, to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." Christ is the glory, and faith in Christ is the comfort of the gospel.

Let us remember three things:

1) Jesus suffered that which answered the justice of God. Rom.3:25, "Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed." He satisfied all that the justice of God required.

 2) Jesus suffered that which answered the law of God. Gal.3:13," Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.'" By undergoing and suffering the curse of the law, He redeemed us from it.

3) Jesus suffered that which repaired the glory of God. John 17:4,"I glorified You on the earth having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do." He suffered every thing that was required to repair the glory of God. Better you and I should have perished, than God's glory be diminished. Jesus is indeed a wrath satisfying, curse absorbing, God glorifying Savior for us.

He is made sin, not by us, but by God's ordaining it to come about. He was ordained to be put into the state and condition of a sinner in our stead. To be a sacrifice for it, but not to be polluted with it. The great English Puritan John Owen states, "There was a covenant transacted between the Father and the Son that it should be performed by Him for us, accepted by the Father concerning us, and applied by the Spirit to us." There is a horrid nature to sin, that caused Christ to veil His glory, lose His blood, and give up His life that we may live. Thomas Watson says, "An unbeliever has a double condemnation, one from the law which he has transgressed, and the other from the gospel which he has despised." But for the believer because of Christ's redeeming work, there is no condemnation for him. In His redeeming work of mankind, He has set us free from the power of sin, hell, and damnation. And on that fateful Good Friday, the blessings of the New Covenant were secured by that which took place on that dark afternoon.

 

Elder Randy Slak
04/04/2022