What does the Bible mean when it says that Jesus redeemed us?

Series: Growing Together in God's Grace

February 24, 2013

Dear friends in Christ.

I’d like to begin this morning by telling you a story that you might recognize, because this is a story that I have used on a number of occasions.  I know I used it in a sermon when I was in South Dakota.  I know that I’ve used it in confirmation classes, but I cannot remember if I’ve ever used in a sermon since I’ve been here.  So, if you’ve heard it before, hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as you did the first time you heard it.  It is a story about a little boy named Tom who carried his new boat to the edge of the river.  “He carefully placed it in the water and slowly let out the string. How smoothly the boat sailed! Tom sat in the warm sunshine, admiring the little boat that he had built. Suddenly a strong current caught the boat. Tom tried to pull it back to shore, but the string broke. The little boat raced downstream.  Tom ran along the sandy shore as fast as he could. But his little boat soon slipped out of sight. All afternoon he searched for the boat. Finally, when it was too dark to look any longer, Tom sadly went home.  A few days later, on the way home from school, Tom spotted a boat just like his in a store window. When he got closer, he could see -- sure enough -- it was his! Tom hurried to the store manager: "Sir, that's my boat in your window! I made it!" "Sorry, son, but someone else brought it in this morning. If you want it, you'll have to buy it for one dollar." Tom ran home and counted all his money. Exactly one dollar! When he reached the store, he rushed to the counter. "Here's the money for my boat." As he left the store, Tom hugged his boat and said, "Now you're twice mine. First, I made you and now I bought you.”[1]

 Well, in the same way that Tom made his boat and then later redeemed his boat when he bought it back from the store clerk, so also Jesus, our Savior redeemed us from our lives of slavery to sin and death.  For the truth is, that is what we were before we came to faith in Jesus as our Savior.  Just as Jesus tells us himself when he says, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:34–36, NIV84) and as Paul tells us, “Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—" (Romans 5:12, NIV84).  Though the Lord had made us, just as Tom had made his boat, we were lost to the Lord when we fell into sin.  For when we fell in to sin, we became slaves of sin, worthy only of death, and subservient only to our master, the devil.  Only about 150 years ago, this was the norm for so many people of color in our nation.  They were slaves who were subservient to their masters.  If they disobeyed their masters, they could be beaten.  If there master was in a bad mood, they could be beaten.  If there master was cruel, vindictive, or simply wanted to show off, they could be beaten.  In so many cases the live of a slave was a miserable existence.  This is why Christ came to redeem us.  He came to redeem us, to buy us back, and set us free from our slavery to sin, death, and satan.

In the publication, Our Daily Bread, Paul Lee Tan illustrated the meaning of redemption with this story, “When A.J. Gordon was pastor of a church in Boston, he met a young boy in front of the sanctuary carrying a rusty cage in which several birds fluttered nervously. Gordon inquired, "Son, where did you get those birds?" The boy replied, "I trapped them out in the field." "What are you going to do with them?" "I'm going to play with them, and then I guess I'll just feed them to an old cat we have at home." When Gordon offered to buy them, the lad exclaimed, "Mister, you don't want them, they're just little old wild birds and can't sing very well." Gordon replied, "I'll give you $2 for the cage and the birds." "Okay, it's a deal, but you're making a bad bargain." The exchange was made and the boy went away whistling, happy with his shiny coins. Gordon walked around to the back of the church property, opened the door of the small wire coop, and let the struggling creatures soar into the blue.”[2]   Before Christ redeemed us, we were like those struggling creatures.  We couldn’t free ourselves from our slavery to sin, so Christ set us free from our sins by shedding his precious blood in our place.

In the Old Testament, God said that when an animal (such as a sheep or bull) was sacrificed, it was the blood of the animal that paid for the people’s sins.  (see Leviticus 17:10-14)  The life of the animal was in its blood.  When the blood was drained from the animal, its life was God.  This was the price that had to be paid for the people to have forgiveness, and this was the price that Jesus paid to ransom us, or redeem us from our slavery to sin.  This is the very truth of which Paul assures us in his letter to the Romans:  “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 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— 26 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." (Romans 3:21–26, NIV84)

In an online Bible Study Robert Davis paints a very vivid picture of the price that Jesus paid to redeem us!  Using the name Yahweh to refer to God the Father, and the name Adonai to refer to Jesus, Robert Davis says, “Yahweh The Father laid His hand on the head of the Son Adonai and crushed Him with the full force of His wrath to pay for the sin debt for all mankind....Adonai was slaughtered across His back with a cat of nine tails...beaten and whipped....spikes nailed through His hands and feet so Adonai couldn't get off the altar [of the cross]....and when His job was complete...all sin had been paid for...He cries out it is finished and slumped over on the alter....and they speared Adonai to drain the blood…onto the altar for man and for God....and on the third day Adonai rose from the dead...Hallelujah!!!!! [3]

There was no price other than the blood of Jesus that could set us free from our sins, as the Sons of Korah tell us in Psalm 49: “No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him— 8 the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough—" (Psalm 49:7–8, NIV84) and as Peter tells us, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21 Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God." (1 Peter 1:18–21, NIV84)

Not all the money in the world could ever be enough to pay for the sin of even just one person!  But Jesus’ blood did what all the world’s money could never do.  It paid the ransom to free us from our slavery to sin, death, and the devil.  It was able to pay the ransom because it was God who made his Son, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that we might be the righteousness of God.  It was God, the Father, who laid on his Son the iniquity of us all, allowing him to be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities so that by his wounds we might have peace.  In short, God the Father made his Son the Scapegoat who bore our sins in our place. (see Leviticus 16:20-22) You see, each year, on the Day of Atonement, a live goat would be brought to the temple so that the High Priest might place his hands on its head and confess all the sins of the People of Israel.  In this way the High Priest would place the sins of the people on the scapegoat.  Then the goat would be led out into the desert to be left to die, thus picturing the sins of the people going away with the goat.  Though the goat hadn’t sinned, he died because all the sins of the people had been placed on him.  So it was with Jesus.  Even though he hadn’t sinned, he died because all the sins of the world had been placed upon his innocent head.

He died in our place to free us from our sins, and he rose again from the dead to assure us that we have been redeemed.  Though he was the one who made us, he was also the one to redeem us by his death and resurrection from the dead.  Now, through faith in him, we know the forgiveness that is ours.  Out of thanks for the one who made us and redeemed us, we now seek to live our lives to serve him.  Through faith in the one who loved us so much that he gave his life in our place, we now look forward to the day when he will take us to be with him forever in his heavenly kingdom.  As John say, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1, NIV84)

Give thanks to the Lord your God that he has redeemed us through the precious blood of his Son, Jesus Christ, Our Savior.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

GraceEvangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN

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[1] Copied from: http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/r/redemption.htm accessed on February 23, 2013, Originally published by Good News Publishers, Westchester, IL.

[2] Copied from: http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/r/redemption.htm accessed on February 23, 2013, Originally published in Our Daily Bread.

[3] Copied from: https://faithlife.com/notes/16055  accessed February 23, 2013.

Jesus is our High Priest (Hebrews 9:24-28)

November 6, 2011 

 

Dear friends in Christ.

Believe it or not, the Letter to the Hebrews is one of the few books of the Bible to which we do not know the author.  Though there are many people who believe that it must have been the Apostle Paul who wrote it, there is more than enough evidence to support the idea that it was written by Apollos or even Barnabus.  But whoever wrote this letter was one who had both the solid conviction of salvation through Jesus Christ alone, and knowledge of how Jesus completely fulfilled all foreshadowing of the Jewish religion.  In fact, as the author writes in our lesson this morning, he shows us in no uncertain terms how Jesus is, in fact, our High Priest. 

Now, in order to understand just how Jesus is our High Priest, we have to look back into the Old Testament so that we might see what the duties of the High Priest were.  In those days the High Priest was the one who acted as a representative between the people of Israel and the Lord God, as he was the one who presided over the worship lives of the people.  Though there were quite a number of priests who took care of the temple courts and offered the daily sacrifices, it was the High Priest who took care of the inner sanctuary and offered the sacrifices required for the great Day of Atonement.  On that special day, the High Priest made atonement for the sins of the people as he carried the blood of the sacrifice into the most holy place and sprinkled it on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant.  On that special day, all sins from the previous year were purged away by an offering that foreshadowed the sacrifice that would be made by our Savior.  For on that day the High Priest was to take a bull and two goats for the sin offering.  He would take the bull, sacrifice it on the altar for his own sins.  Then he would cast lots for the goats, and sacrifice the one that had been chosen by lot.  He would then take the blood of the sacrifice and carry it into the most holy place where he would sprinkle it on he Ark to atone for the sins of the Israelites.  After this had been done, he would come back out, place his hands on the remaining goat, confess all the sins of the people over the goat, and when this was completed, someone would lead that goat out into the wilderness where it would be left to die, symbolizing the departure of Israel's sin and their right relationship with the Lord.

In such a vivid way the Lord foreshadowed exactly what Jesus would do for his people as our High Priest.  For the writer to the Hebrews tells us: "For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people;" (Hebrews 9:24-28)

In the same way that the High Priest sacrificed the Sin offering for the sins of the people, so also Jesus, our High Priest, sacrificed himself for our sins. In the same way that the High Priest would offer the blood of animals sacrificed on the altar for the sins of the Israelites, Jesus, our High Priest offered his blood which he poured out for us on the altar of the cross.  And, as we discovered in Bible Class this past Wednesday, it is very possible that in the same way that the High Priest sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on the Ark of the Covenant, so also Jesus sprinkled his own blood on the Ark of the Covenant in payment of our sins.  Though I cannot prove what I just said, as we learned in Bible Study on Wednesday, it is possible that the Ark of the Covenant was hidden in a cave that was directly under where Jesus was crucified.  It is possible that the blood that Jesus shed and that poured out from him when the soldiers pierced his side flowed down through the crack that opened when the earth quaked at Jesus’ death and dripped down on to the ark below.  Though I cannot prove that things happened this way other than to the testimony of a man named Ron Wyatt, whose discoveries we looked at in Bible Study, considering how God the Father orchestrated the perfect time in history for his Son to be born, die and rise again so that Jesus could completely fulfilled all of God’s law, it becomes completely plausible that the Lord could have made certain that our High Priest’s blood fell on the Mercy Seat of the Ark for our atonement.

Though I realize that this is conjecture and there is nothing in Scripture that clearly says this is the way it happened, we can take comfort in the fact that Scripture does tell us that through his offering, Jesus, our High Priest, made us perfect in the eyes of the Lord our God. Through his atonement, Jesus, our High Priest brought to an end the daily sacrifice.  For even though the Lord had commanded the slaughter of animals for the forgiveness of sins, by the simple fact that those offerings had to be repeated show us that the blood of animals could never take away sins once and for all.  But when Jesus, our High Priest appeared, he sacrificed himself once for all!  When Jesus cried out, "It is finished!" we knew that our salvation was complete!  We knew then that through Jesus' sacrifice our sins have been forgiven and our guilt has been washed away! 

This is the beautiful truth that the writer to the Hebrews is proclaiming in our text today.  For when he wrote these words the Christian Church was feeling the pressure of persecution and the hardships of suffering for the name of Jesus.  Because of this, there were many Jewish Christians who were simply lapsing back into Judaism rather than remaining true to the Christian faith.  Though there was undoubtedly some comfort and assurance that the Jews found in all the rituals and sacrifices that they had grown up with, those who lapsed back into Judaism were giving up so much more than they ever realized.  For those Christians who gave up Christianity for the safety of Judaism were actually giving up and letting go of their eternal Salvation.  This, in fact is what the writer to the Hebrews tells them as he writes: "For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself."  (Hebrews 9:24-27).

You see, it was with these words that the writer was telling the people that Jesus was their High Priest who had not only sacrificed himself for their sins, but that he was now sitting at the right hand of God interceding on their behalf.  As we know, after Jesus rose from the dead, he stayed around on the earth appearing to his disciples and many of the faithful believers during a period of forty days.  But after that time, Jesus returned to his Fathers throne in heaven where he now sits at the Father's right hand interceding for us.  But he does not do it as the High Priests of the Old Testament did.  For when they interceded for the people, they came before the throne of God only one time each year and then only with the blood of the sacrifice.  When they did so, they sprinkled that blood on the cover of the Ark of the Covenant where the two cherubim stood.  It was there, at the mercy seat of God, that the priest who carried the sins of the Israelites before the Lord interceded for the people with the blood of the sacrifice.  But, because that blood could not do away with sin once for all, the High Priest had to offer that same sacrifice annually and approach the throne of God to make intercession for the people of Israel.

Jesus, however, did not need to do this.  For when he had sacrificed himself, once for all, Jesus entered heaven once for all so that he might sit at the Father's right hand and make intercession for us.  Now, whenever God the Father looks down on the earth and sees our sins, Jesus does not need to offer his blood again and again to intercede for us.  He does not need to sacrifice himself again and again, as some churches believe, to cover our iniquity.  Rather, Jesus simply points to that single moment in time.  He turns to God our Father and says, "Yes, they are sinners.  They do deserve your wrath and punishment.  But remember the sacrifice you sent me to make.  Remember how I willingly gave my live and shed my blood for their sins.  Remember how I earned the forgiveness that they could not, and made them right in your sight."  It is then, that through Jesus intercession on our behalf, that God the Father turns away from his anger and sees our sins no more.  For through the intercession of Jesus, our High Priest, our God is continually reminded of Jesus' sacrifice made one time for all people, and we are credited with his righteousness and look forward to life forever with him in heaven.

Yes, this is what we as Christians are looking forward to even today.  Though there are times that our sinful natures get the better of us and make us fearful of death, death is something we never need to fear!  We never need to fear it because we have been made right through faith in Jesus Christ our High Priest.  He is the one who sacrificed himself on the cross in order to save us from our sins.  He is the one who sits at the Father's right hand and intercedes on our behalf, and he is the one for whom we are waiting.  For one day, not long from now, Jesus our High Priest will return proclaiming our salvation.  This, in fact, is what the writer to the Hebrews assures us of when he writes: "Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him." (Hebrews 9:27-28).

This is the day that we are waiting for!  For on that day when the last trumpet sounds, if we are still living on the earth, we will look up to heaven and see our Savior and High Priest returning in the clouds.  We will watch as the bodies of all who died before us are raised from the earth, their souls are reunited with their bodies, and all are gathered before Jesus Christ for Judgment.  For in the same way that the Old Testament High Priest was often called on to decide guilt or innocence in criminal trials, Jesus will decide the guilt or innocence of all who have ever lived on the earth.  For on that day, Jesus will separate the believers from the unbelievers as easily as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats.  Those who did not believe in Jesus will be sent away to eternal punishment, but he will gather those who believed in him to himself and take them to his heavenly kingdom where we will live with him forever.

But even if we don't live to see that day from the earth, we do not need to worry.  For when we finally do close our eyes in death, Jesus will send his angels to carry our souls to his side in his heavenly kingdom.  There will live with the Lord forever, returning to the earth only briefly on the Last Day to collect our bodies from the earth.  For on that day when they are raised from the ground Christ will transform them into the glories bodies that we will have in heaven from that time on and forever.  Though on that day we will be gathered before the Lord with all people we will have nothing to fear, because we will be among the believers on his right hand to whom our High Priest will say, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the beginning of the world."

This is the super sufficiency of Jesus Christ our High Priest.  Though all who served as High Priest in the Old Testament fulfilled the roles the Lord would have them play, they were only shadows of what was to come in Jesus Christ our Lord.  For Jesus is our High Priest.  He is the one who sacrificed himself for our sins.  He is the one who entered heaven as our intercessor, and he is the one who will return to give salvation to all who are waiting for him.

Amen.

Pastor David M. Shilling

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN