Mystery of Incarnation
Read Mark 10:45; Galatians 3:13; Ephesians 1:7; and 1 Peter 1:18, 19. From these texts, how do you understand the concept of “redemption?”
Redemption is deliverance from debt or slavery through the payment of a ransom, and it’s an image used in the New Testament to interpret Christ’s death. In this thinking, the whole world became a prisoner of sin, and the law was the gatekeeper (Gal. 3:22, 23). As slaves of sin, humans were heading to eternal death (Rom. 6:6, 23). The debt could be paid only by relinquishing their own life. Then Christ came and paid the price for our redemption, making life available for all who believe in Him. Such persons “used to be slaves to sin,” but have now “been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness” (Rom. 6:17, 18, NIV).
Christ also redeemed us from the “curse of the law” (Gal. 3:13, NIV). The curse of the law was the claim it made against the life of those who violated it (vs. 10). The law itself could not save us from its sentence of death, because it could not give us back life (vs. 21); it simply provided the legal basis for the death of the culprit. God’s solution was revealed when He “sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Gal. 4:4, 5, NIV).
Christ also “gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good” (Titus 2:14, NIV). Redemption, therefore, includes the process of sanctification, the purification of our lives. This presupposes that on the cross Christ paid our debt and granted us forgiveness of sin (Eph. 1:7) and gave us the gift of justification (Rom. 3:24). In other words, free from the condemnation of our sin through the gift Christ bought for us (the forgiveness of our sins), we were justified by faith in Christ.
God could not ignore sin by pretending that it never existed. He satisfied His own moral demands by paying the ransom Himself. He bought back the right of existence for the human race and the whole planet. Whether humans acknowledge it or not, we all belong to God.
| Read 1 Corinthians 6:20. What impact should our redemption through the blood of Christ have on our daily life? What is the value of a gift if the one who is offered it never accepts it? |
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