I’d like to start this morning by trying to paint a picture. Despite being common, I hope it will never be true of you, even though I’m painting you into the foreground. Your car has quit. You have no savings. You can’t afford to buy another vehicle. Sadly, because of previous problems, your credit score is terrible, and your credit cards are maxed out. Your bank won’t talk to you, and the repair shop will not extend you any credit. What are you to do? Well, there is that very expensive diamond and ruby ring which your grandmother left to you when she died. It has value. You love it because of its relationship to your family. It has been appraised at $10,000. You even have a written statement of its value from a reputable jeweler. But your financial circumstances seem to be pushing you toward the local pawn shop.
Like you, I have never used the services of a pawn shop. So at this point, my painting may be more abstract than accurate. Let’s say that neither of us know what to expect.
Hoping no one you know is watching, you enter the nearest pawn shop with that ring in your pocket. The scruffy-looking man behind the counter carefully looks at it and calls his manager. They huddle for a couple minutes, and then the manager offers you $3,000 for your $10,000 ring, telling you that they are being very generous. $3,000 is about what it would take to buy the used car you have been looking at, so you accept their offer. At that point, they tell you that the interest on their loan is 25% per month. They might also tell you that they will hold the ring in your name for six months, and if it is not reclaimed by that time, they will put it in their showcase and try to sell it. You are terrified, but you agree. Eight weeks later, after a financial windfall, like robbing a liquor store or winning a small lottery, you redeem your ring, paying the pawn shop a thousand dollars more what than they initially loaned you.
In my picture, I used the word “redeem” – you “redeemed” your ring – you bought it back from the loan shark. “Redemption” is a relatively common word. It is one which the Bible uses to talk about our spiritual salvation. Other Biblical words are “regeneration,” “conversion” “propitiation” and the word that was highlighted last week – “reconciliation.” Each of these terms speak of different aspects of God’s gift of salvation from the judgment of our sins. “Redemption” is something we all desperately need, because there are things about our souls which parallel that diamond ring sitting in the vault at the pawn shop.
If you have not been “REDEEMED” then you will not enjoy the full effects of “RECONCILIATION” with God.
We need restoration and reconciliation with God – because we are all, without exception, sinners in His sight. We are rebels against His rule; we have become aliens without the privileges of citizenship in His kingdom. We need – you need – to be brought back to the Lord and into friendly fellowship with Him. But there can be no true “reconciliation” without at the same time being “redeemed.”
In our text from Revelation 5 we are given a glimpse into Heaven during a day which is yet future. The people of God, looking at the Lamb of God who had taken away their sins, begin to sing a new song. “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and has REDEEMED us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people and nation.” The Lamb of God, whom we know from other scriptures, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He was slain, that is, He was executed by the Romans, dying on a cross just as it was prophesied. But with the blood He shed at Calvary, He redeemed those singing people, out from among multitudes of others from around the world – Americans, Indians, Africans, Chinese and even a few Canadians.
As I say, Revelation 5 describes a future day. But the Apostle Peter, in his first epistle, addressed living, breathing people in his own day, saying, “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were… REDEEMED… with the precious blood of Christ…” (I Peter 1:22). Just as clearly as the people already in heaven, Peter’s readers knew that they had been “redeemed.” And they knew exactly how. It was through the precious blood of Christ. They knew this, because the Bible told them, and they believed what they were told. They trusted the gospel which was preached to them, and they put their faith in Christ, the Lamb of God. The question for us is this: do you know that you have been redeemed? Are you sure of your redemption?
Maybe we need to review the terminology. “Redemption” speaks of “liberation” or more specifically, “to release after the payment of a ransom.” Keep that definition in mind as I read a few New Testament scriptures. The first of these refer to the redemption of Israel, to which I will return in a moment. Moses had said, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and REDEEMED his people.” The two Christians on the Emmaus Road said of Christ, “But we trusted that it had been he which should have REDEEMED Israel…” “We hoped that Jesus would have been the Messiah – here to LIBERATE Israel, from the Romans in the same way that Moses redeemed our fathers from Egypt.” On higher level – a spiritual level – we read: “Christ hath REDEEMED us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” Christ Jesus came “to REDEEM them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” He “gave himself for us, that he might REDEEM us from all iniquity.”
Those are scriptures which use the verb – “to redeem.” Here are some others which use the noun – “redemption.” Christians are sinners who have been “justified freely by (God’s) grace through the REDEMPTION that is in Christ Jesus.” “But of (God) are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and REDEMPTION.” “And for this cause he (Christ) is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the REDEMPTION of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” In (Christ Jesus) we have REDEMPTION through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”
All of these verses are from the New Testament, but the Old Testament has more. And obviously, with so many statements, “redemption” must be an important Biblical subject. Have you come to see it? Do you understand it? Have you been redeemed? This is important. This is extremely important, because you are that diamond ring, and you are being held in pawn by the law of God which has condemned you as a fallen sinner.
Our father, Adam, was the first person to enslave himself to sin, when he responded to the temptation of Satan. He put himself under the judgment of God by breaking the Lord’s first commandment. Through his sin, he committed himself to the pawn shop of the law. He became a slave to the owner. And like it or not, the children of slaves are themselves born right there in that dismal shop. That is not my religious philosophy; that is not simply a part of my personal theology. That is what the Bible declares. “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners” (Romans 5:19). That one man was Adam, and his sin is clearly seen in Genesis 3. Those “many” who were made sinners were actually “all” of Adam’s descendants. David nailed it when he said, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” He wasn’t talking about some immorality that his mother committed during her lifetime. He was expressing the Biblical doctrine that all our parents are sinners – prisoners to the pawn-master – and all their children come into the world just like themselves. And now, death has reigned over mankind for more than 6,000 years, because Adam made us all sinners. But – there is redemption available.
The second book of the Bible – the Book of Exodus is, as the name implies, the account of Israel’s departure from Egypt – their exodus. One of the great themes of that book is the “redemption” which made that exodus possible. And the story of Israel’s deliverance bears details very similar to our own salvation from sin.
The nation of Israel was enslaved in that Egypt. Pawned. The people had no personal freedom. They couldn’t worship the Lord the way they should have. They didn’t worship at all. They didn’t necessarily have chains on their legs, but they couldn’t leave Egypt. They were outside the land of Promise. They were not in the Lord’s jewelry box. Their lives were not their own. They had been pawned.
But then the gracious God stepped in, providing a way of escape. It was called the “Passover.” A lamb – or goat – was sacrificed, and its blood was painted on the door posts of the believer’s homes. In that sacrifice, and in the application of the sacrificial blood, God’s judgment upon the sinners of Israel was deferred. The price of redemption was paid. So the death angel passed over those homes where the blood was properly applied; lives were spared. Then the next day, those Israelites who were redeemed by the blood, exited Egypt.
There are two Old Testament Hebrew words which are translated “redeem.” I am told that they have slightly different meanings, but they are clearly related. One means “to buy back,” to redeem through the payment of a ransom. In the case of Israel, that ransom payment was the blood of the Passover lamb. The other word means “to loose,” and, in the case of Israel, it corresponds to the exodus. There was a day when the owner of the pawn shop received the payment the law demanded, and later in the day the ring was returned to its proper jewel box – ransom and exodus.
In the New Testament, there is only one word translated “to redeem,” and it combines both ideas. In the gospel message, redemption involves the release of the captive upon the receipt of payment. My friend, Jesus Christ came into this world to die, giving his life “a RANSOM for many” – Matthew 20:28. He “gave himself for our sins, that he might DELIVER us…” – Galatians 1:4. In Christ “we have REDEMPTION through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” – Ephesians 1:7.
The ransom necessary to save the first born sons of Israel was the sacrifice of God’s beloved Lamb. And to whom was the sacrifice made? It was not presented to Pharaoh. It was not made to Satan. It was not to Israel’s Egyptian taskmasters. It was not to any human or earthly power. It was paid to satisfy the law which God had established. Our enslavement is to sin, and the ransom is necessary BECAUSE of sin. Our sins have offended the holy God; we and our sins have broken His eternal law. So the redemption providing our exodus is paid to Jehovah in order to satisfy the demands that His law has against us. As Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ hath REDEEMED us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us…”
I hope you can see the principles involved here. I hope you can understand the logic – the spiritual logic. But I don’t want to leave you there. I want to magnify and sanctify your thoughts about that redemption. Even though the principles of sinfulness and redemption make sense, this is not a mere mental exercise. It takes an operation of the Holy Spirit of God, applying the blood of the Son of God, to redeem the soul imprisoned under the rules of divine judgment. So to that end, I’d like to try to lift our thoughts to a slightly higher level.
I would like to magnify the price of our redemption from sin and its judgment.
To do that let me ask: What is the value of your soul? I think that the vast majority of people in this world, consider their soul to be worthless, unimportant. To most people, the important things in life are to enjoy the moment – to have fun, to feel the adrenalin. To spend their money on whatever it takes to scratch their current itch. They say, “Forget about tomorrow; we’ll deal with those problems when they come, pawning something else if necessary.” Paul described this sort of thing when he reminded the Christians in Ephesus: “And you hath he quickened (made alive), who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” Why do we… why have all of us early in our lives, lived with so little concern for our souls? Isn’t it because we simply didn’t understand its value?
Like that diamond and ruby ring or the gold which makes the band, your soul has intrinsic value – it is built in. Part of that value is the fact that it is eternal. Your soul will never die. That gives it extraordinary worth. Diamonds are worth more than paper, because they can’t be thrown into a fire and destroyed. As I have heard: “Diamonds are Forever.” When it comes to your soul, whether in Heaven or in the torment of the Lake of Fire, will go on and on for ever.
As an illustration, let’s say that your soul is worth 10,000 units. It may be covered in sin. It may be filthy in the sight of the Lord. But its value is still 10,000 units. God may not like to look at your soul, because it has become so wretched and miserable in His holy eyes. Because of the sin-debt, with which you were born, and which you are continuing to rack up, you have been locked into the vault of the pawn shop of God’s judgment. And your debt is increasing. As the Apostle says in Romans 2 – “despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds:” The interest against your debt is accruing – rising constantly. It will take far more than 10,000 to redeem you, but that is all you are worth.
It will take the sacrificial blood of God’s own Son, the Lamb of God. If you had 10,000 credits to your account, it would not be sufficient to redeem your soul. The shop keeper considers your value to be less than 10% of your appraisal. Now, even if your family could gather 100,000 credits, it would not be enough to redeem you. There is only one payment acceptable to the law of God – the death and blood of Christ Jesus. Only “in (Christ Jesus can) we have REDEMPTION through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”
If there is someone listening to the sound of my voice who would like to be reconciled to God, and I pray that there are many, you must be redeemed – you have to be redeemed. If you would like, as they say, to “go to Heaven when you die…” there is nothing you can do to make that possible. There is nothing you can do to redeem yourself, and there are no priests or family members who can do it for you. But here is the glorious message of the gospel: Christ is willing to pay the ransom necessary to save you. The value of the Son of God is astronomical. He is beyond measurable value. He gave His life on Calvary to make an atonement for your soul – to redeem many.
And here is the most fabulous fact: all you need to do is humbly receive the payment which Christ has made. It is almost ludicrously simple: believe the promise of God, trusting that Christ died to pay your sin-debt. If you will do that, God has promised to accept Christ’s payment and to settle your debt – for ever. The Lord is ready with all that is necessary to redeem the soul that turns to Him in repentance and faith. The message of the gospel is this: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
I beg you to acknowledge your sin-debt before God and trust the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to pay it in full.