Redemption (verb: redeem/redeemed)
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Statement
of availability: Call number 326.92 S857p (Davis Library, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Redemption
is a practice common to many societies throughout history. It often refers to matters of land title and
ownership. It is also a part of what has
been, throughout history, one method of borrowing money and raising capital for
some particular purpose. An item of
value (often land) is given up in exchange for cash or in payment of a
debt. When the original owner of the
item of property is ready to reclaim it, he approaches the one to whom it was
surrendered for a price to ‘redeem’ his property. When the price is paid, the item is released
from its bondage and returned to its owner.
This process is sometimes called attestation.
In
the bible, Ruth 4:7 says this: “Now
this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning the redemption and the
exchange of land to confirm any matter: a man removed his sandal and gave it to
another; and this was the manner of attestation in Israel.”
In addition, in ancient Israel, the legislated practice
was that such an exchange could not be permanent when it came to land. In the “Year of Jubilee”, all land reverted to
its original owner, outstanding debts were cancelled and slaves released. A central reason for this practice is that,
without it, life can spiral into poverty and the inevitable injustices that
come with it. Leviticus 25 explains a
lot of the detail of this special part of old Hebrew society.
This is the root of the concept of redemption – whether
the price is paid or the obligation cancelled because of the ‘Jubilee’.
Inspired by this ancient practice when debts were
cancelled, slaves freed and land redistributed, many people around the world
have joined a campaign called the Jubilee Debt Campaign. The UK office has a website by the same name:
www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk. They are calling
for a new debt jubilee in response to today’s global economic crisis.
If you visit the website of Jubilee Australia, www.jubileeaustralia.org, you can read this: “We are driven
by our relationships of solidarity with civil society groups, networks and
peoples movements in the Global South who are at the front line in the struggle
against extreme poverty and environmental degradation, and who call for
economic justice, not just charity.”
These are
campaigns for redemption: cancellation of debt, freedom for slaves and the
redistribution of land based on some form of “native title” rather than on an
everlasting title bought with money.
And this is the idea that comes from the heart of God not
just in matters of human labour, monetary debt and land title, but in terms of
the spiritual health and well-being of the human race. Unfortunately, this aspect of redemption has
been relegated to the zone of ‘religion’ and is not taken seriously by most
people based on the (I believe false) assumption that God and Jesus and the
relationship we have with them are fiction and ‘fairy-tales’.
Perhaps one of the problems is revealed to us in Psalm
49. The Sons of Korah put to the harp this
piece of wisdom:
Hear
this, all peoples; give ear, all inhabitants of the world, both low and high,
rich and poor together. My mouth will
speak wisdom, and the meditation of my heart understanding. I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will
express my riddle on the harp.
Why should I fear in days of adversity, when the iniquity of my
foes surrounds me, even those who trust in their wealth and boast in the
abundance of their riches?
No man can by any means redeem a brother or
give to God a ransom for him—for the redemption of his soul is costly, and he
should cease trying forever—
That he should live on eternally, that he should not undergo
decay. For he sees wise men die; the
stupid and the senseless alike perish and leave their wealth to others.
Their inner thought is that their houses are forever;
their dwelling places to all generations; they have called their lands after
their own names. But man in his
pomp will not endure; he is like the beasts that perish. This is the way of those who are foolish, and
of those after them who approve their words.
As sheep they are appointed for Sheol; death shall be their
shepherd; and the upright shall rule over them in the morning, and their form
shall be for Sheol to consume, so that they have no habitation.
But God will redeem my soul from the power
of Sheol, for He will receive me.
Do not be afraid when a man becomes rich; when the glory of his
house is increased; for when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will
not descend after him.
Though while he lives he congratulates himself—and though men
praise you when you do well for yourself— he shall go to the generation of his
fathers; they will never see the light.
Man in his pomp,
yet without understanding, is like the beasts that perish.
How much of the story of the Old Testament and old Israel
in particular carries this refrain of injustice: why are the righteous punished
and the wicked, seemingly, rewarded for their wickedness? Have a second look at Job: this is the
apparent injustice that gnaws away at Job and drives his so-called comforters
to high-sounding homilies on the nature of God, His ways and His justice.
Man, according to the Sons of Korah, cannot afford the
price of redeeming a fellow-man, yet God can and will receive man and redeem
him. The redemption of man – by God – is central to human life and
justice. Man’s attempts at redemptive
justice are – and must always be seen as – secondary to that.
From one perspective, creation itself appears to be an act
of redemption. From chaos to order; from
uninhabitable to inhabitable.
Romans 8:19-22
The creation waits in
eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was
subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who
subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its
bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth
right up to the present time
But of course, the
premier act of redemption is God, in Christ, paying the price to ‘buy back’
(the literal meaning of ‘redeem’) his creation so badly sabotaged by Satan and
his followers.
What was the
price? Well, God Himself established
that: “the wages of sin is death”, the bible says, meaning, in modern language,
that sin demands death. And we know from
Hebrews 2 that the Devil holds the power of death. But as we also noted earlier, Jesus drank the
cup of death on behalf of all mankind.
He drank the cup; He paid the price; he finished what was necessary on
God’s part to set the human race free from the power of death.
[It is for another
post to correct a popular myth on the subject of sin. For the moment let me
simply say that the popular misconception is that sin is acts of misbehaviour;
being naughty; doing wrong. They are
sins (plural) which come from the sin ‘tree’.
In the same way as lesions are a symptom of some underlying disease,
acts of sin are a symptom of the underlying disease of sin innate in man. Our emphasis and focus should be much more on
the disease, than the symptoms.]
But to whom was the
price paid? In a way, Satan. Clearly – if the temptation stories in the
gospels are to be believed – this whole affair is a grand drama that brings to
a climax the act of rebellion by Satan and his followers that permanently
stained mankind with the sin disease.
With echoes of the deal done between God and Satan over the life and
worship of Job, Satan issued a series of challenges to Jesus: ‘worship me and I
will give you the kingdom of man’. But
Jesus had other ideas.
It’s like Jesus
accepted the challenge to re-take the kingdom of man, but His way and on His
terms, and those terms did not include bowing down before his arch-enemy to
satisfy his hunger. Jesus’ response to
the temptations laid down the gauntlet and thereafter it was ‘game on’. Satan had the power of death and was
confident that the death of Jesus would end it all. In one way, it did end it all – but for
Satan, not for Jesus and us humans! Jesus
agreed to pay the price; Satan thought it was a done deal and that he had
finally neutralised the attempts to re-take God’s possession.
But he
miscalculated badly. He did not
understand what Jesus said as recorded by John: “I lay down my life so that I
may take it again. No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my
own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take
it up again. This commandment I received from my Father.” (John 10:17-18
What Satan saw as
Jesus’ final act of desperation and capitulation, was, in fact his defiant act
of redemption for humankind and a cyanide pill for Satan. The price was paid; the duel was fought and
the fate of both humankind and Satan was sealed – IN HIS BLOOD.
This
is redemption. This is our redemption. And, like salvation, it is a
work of God ever in His purview – always present to Him, but worked out for us
in the past, the present, and the future.
What He asks of us is that we honour respect and trust the huge yet
simple truth that Paul expressed like this:
Ephesians 1:7
In Him
we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of His grace.
[To deal with the trespasses (the sins), Jesus wiped them from the record AND opened the door to a state of being disease-free. This is the brilliance and the superiority of
the new covenant established in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of
Jesus. In the old covenant, the best people
could hope for was for the sins to be ‘carried away’ (overlooked by God) in the
animals sacrificed for this purpose, a special ceremony performed by the High
Priest once a year. In the new covenant,
Jesus’ one sacrifice, offered once, for all mankind, for all time, gives us our
entrée into God’s good graces and destroys the sin virus.]
Romans 3:21-26
But now
a righteousness from God, apart from
law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This
righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came
by Christ Jesus. God
presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did
this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the
sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at
the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have
faith in Jesus.
Let’s close this
section by taking a few minutes to consider some of the treasures in what Paul
said to the Romans in this section.
Consider the highlighted words and phrases above.
Our redemption came by Jesus Christ (in particular his
death and resurrection) – because he, and only he, was able to pay the
price. Remember the old Hebrew teaching:
“No man can by any means redeem a brother or give to God a ransom for him—for
the redemption of his soul is costly, and he should cease trying forever” (Psalm 49)
Remember Paul’s
words to the Corinthians in chapter 15: “the sting of death is sin and the power
of sin is the law.” Satan was and is
master and commander in the realm of law, sin and death. Sin’s fatal blow is death, and it gets its
power from law. What Jesus did, as Paul
powerfully notes, was “apart from law”.
Satan has no power or authority in the realm where Jesus was
operating. In fact this is precisely
where Jesus does have power: the realm of the grace of God.
We humans can
choose law and code and religion – all the pillars of the old covenant. But, since Jesus, that will get us precisely
nowhere! It is a dead end now. A new highway has been built – which Satan
and his dark followers cannot travel. It
is the grace of God; it is Spirit, not law; it is love, not code. It is the new covenant. And, as Paul reminds us, it is available to
“those who have faith in Jesus” as against having faith in oneself, or a
fellow-human, or an institution, or a religion.
And then note that
this quote from Paul introduces the two other key concepts I will be discussing
here: righteousness and justification.
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Cheers,
Kevin.
Kevin.
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