".........being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus"
Romans 3v23-24.
Paul has already presented an amazing contrast, side by side; a sinful world falling short of God's glory, a believing world justified by free grace: now he places before us yet another contrast, God's salvation is free to us, but it was very costly to God and His Son Jesus Christ. In this the Spirit of God now focuses on the work of redemption. We are justified freely by God's grace but it was through the redemption that was in Christ Jesus. The Greek word used is apolutroseos which means "deliverance achieved by means of a purchase price paid." This word was commonly used for buying back, by payment of a ransom price, the following; a) for freeing prisoners of war b) for buying the freedom of slaves; c) for the recovery of lost land or possessions.
A word picture is given in Isaiah 53 v 7 the chapter describing the death of Christ. The R.V. translates as follows "the price was exacted and He becomes answerable" what was the price? Answer... every sin of every human being who would ever live. THAT, nothing less, was the price exacted. Who demanded the price? The answer is given in Isaiah 53 v 6 "The Lord caused to meet upon Him the iniquity of us all." R.V, Other scriptures bring this before us clearly
Matthew 20 v 28 "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many."
1st Timothy 2 v 5-6 "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony in its own times."
1st Peter 1 v 18 "For as much as ye know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold from your vain manner of life, by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."
1st Corinthians 6 v 20 "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price."
1st Corinthians 7 v 23 "You are bought with a price, become not the servants of men."
Galatians 3 v 13 "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us."
Everywhere in the Greek N.T. this word redemption, when used metaphorically refers to a deliverance from the retributive act of God against human sin. It also carries the idea of ownership, we now are the sole possession of the Redeemer. This is the only way of salvation, the only way we can be right with God. The gospel, the good news is that:
"God sets to right man's relationship with Himself, by an act of sheer generosity, which depended on a payment no one but He Himself could make."
We should take time to ponder the truth of that! Redeemed, bought back from slavery to sin, from slavery to a world under the curse of God, from slavery to unseen demon spirits dragging us down to eternal damnation. The price was enormous, the results are true freedom from all that makes this world a place of misery.
The word used for "freely" - "justified freely by His grace" is used elsewhere in the N.T to mean without cause. In John 15 v 25 Jesus said to His disciples "they hated Me without a cause." The point of all this is that God did all this without a cause. This was not deserved by us, there was no merit in us that He should pay this price. There was no compulsion for God to do this, save the compulsion of the deep love of His eternal heart. Only He could do this, and He did it at some considerable cost. We should be grateful.
Tomorrow d.v. a meeting place with God.
No comments:
Post a Comment