THE COST OF REDEMPTION (sixth superlative: Inestimable ransom). 1st Peter 1:18-19 The law was there every day, demanding perfection. Wherever you turned, it came from every direction. It condemned each action not done in true faith – charging the supreme penalty and showing no grace. The mind was not immune to its demanding claim. Words were examined, especially when speaking God’s name. The things one’s hands approached waited to be judged. The places feet took one as they trudged forward were scrutinized. There was no place to escape the demands of the law. It condemned everything one did and saw at every turn.
As a schoolmaster, it was skilled at pointing out one’s wrongs, but the demands it imposed didn’t encourage any song, for perfection in every case was what the law required. There was no relief from guilt for a sinner in anything he tried. Is there no deliverance from the law’s high demands? Is there no way one can be free if he does the best he can? Am I doomed because of sin and the law I often break? Is there not some antidote, something I can take? Yes, there is. Someone has come near to make your case His own. Redemption from the wages of sin has come through God’s dear Son.
Redemption involves paying a price to buy freedom. A slave could be freed when a price was paid to satisfy the claim of the one who held him or her in bondage. The spiritual meaning of redemption came from that background in the Roman world, where wealthy citizens, for their own reasons, could buy a slave and set them free. We were slaves to sin and unable to escape it, and the law kept us in its bondage, but God has paid the ransom price. “The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.”
God has redeemed us through Christ’s suffering, blood, and death. The Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. That is the cost of redemption. Salvation is more than a rescue; it is a redeeming act of God. Payment has been made for our liberty. Christ’s precious blood has enduring, unlimited value. We have been redeemed from aimless conduct (tradition), from a futile and worthless life (vain, empty), at infinite cost (precious blood), by the Lamb who is morally without blemish and in every way. The focus of redemption was our deliverance and salvation; we were the object of His attention. Our Lord Jesus assumed full responsibility for our sin by paying the price sin demands: “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Therefore, we live as strangers in reverential fear of the Lord, with grateful hearts that love Him because He first loved us and gave Himself for us.
How much is it worth, the blood that we need? How quickly we stop its flow when, for some reason, we bleed! How essential to life and basic survival blood is. I can’t live very long without the life it gives. But my blood loss means death no matter what I do. It doesn’t give life to my spirit and my soul. For sin has passed on to me; it is part of my nature. And I am doomed by sin’s penalty for the eternal future. Unless there is someone who doesn’t have the same problems, someone without sin who is able and willing to solve them.
Praise God, there is Someone who was willing to give His precious blood on the cross so that sinners might live. He is sinless and always perfectly holy in His being – He knows every sin and every need with omniscient sight. He was willing to live here so that proofs could be seen. He was God in the flesh, totally sinless, His blood perfectly clean. Watched for years by men as a Lamb to be slain – His words and actions scrutinized again and again. One said it well, even though he didn’t call on Him, “This Man is innocent; I find in Him no fault at all.”
The precious blood of Christ meets the highest redemptive price. Those who accept His payment for them are exceeding wise. For this precious blood is the only way one is redeemed. His blood paid the full price; it cleanses from all sin.
The result of redemption is that the Redeemer is glorified, and we are free to follow Him. Through Him, we believe in God and have confidence in Him. God raised Him from the dead. We fear God, knowing that the cost of redemption was His blood; the focus of redemption is His people, and the result of it is His glory. No longer does a child of God live an empty life because we are redeemed, not by corruptible things but "By the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish or defect."
When our minds are focused on Christ and the precious blood He shed to redeem us, we can recognize the futility of life without Him. Silver and gold are "corruptible," and the whole world is in bondage to what is corruptible. Being redeemed by "the precious blood of Christ" frees us from that bondage. For freedom to be a practical reality in our daily lives, we need to pay attention to what we look at; think about the consequences of sin rather than the pleasures of sin; commit ourselves to reverence for God from the beginning to the end; and make a point of communicating with Christ in a specific way during the day. By practicing these things, we can maintain our focus on what will honor and glorify Him.