Last week we looked at the story of Adam and Eve.
After God created humankind, Adam and Eve were initially in good relationship with God. But God warned them that if they ate the fruit of a certain tree they would die. It wasn’t that the fruit of this tree was poisonous. The issue was disobeying God. That, fundamentally, is what sin is.
But Adam and Eve went ahead and ate the fruit of the tree anyway. They disobeyed God, in other words. God then evicted them from the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were, at this stage, physically alive. But they were out of relationship with God. They were spiritually dead.
Their disobedience had resulted in God evicting them from his presence.
Or, to put it another way, their sin had resulted in their death.
So the story of Adam and Eve establishes a core principle: THE CONSEQUENCE OF SIN IS DEATH.
Sin had created a barrier between Adam and Eve and God. And sin, having entered the human race, remained there. It continued to be a barrier between humankind and God. For every one of us it would lead to death unless something could be done. But what could be done?
The apostle Paul wrote this:
‘In him [that is, in Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us’ [Ephesians 1:7].
If our sins could be forgiven then we'd have hope! If our sins could be forgiven then we could once again be in relationship with God.
When Paul says, ‘We have redemption THROUGH HIS BLOOD’ he’s referring to Jesus’ death on the cross.
This word REDEMPTION is a great one-word explanation for WHY JESUS DIED. Jesus died for our redemption.
What is redemption? Let’s imagine you’re struggling to pay some bills. You need some cash for a couple of weeks. You scratch your head. How can you get some money quickly? You have an iPhone. So you go down to Cash Generator in Boscombe Precinct. They take your iPhone and give you some money. Two weeks later you go back, pay the amount you got for your iPhone for and some, and you get your iPhone back. Cash Generator calls it ‘buy back’. That’s the idea of redemption. You buy something back.
Of course, Paul wasn’t talking about an iPhone. He was talking about redeeming people. But the principle is the same. The dictionary tells us that redemption is ‘The action of freeing a prisoner, captive, or slave by payment.’
Now that we know what redemption is, we can ask some questions.
+ Why do we need to be redeemed?
+ Who was the price paid to?
+ How much was paid?
+ Do we have to do anything?
WHY DO WE NEED TO BE REDEEMED?
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, the result was that God expelled them from his presence. The result of their sin was their death. That was the price they would have to pay. We also commit sin and we are in the same situation.
But if someone else was to pay that price, then we wouldn’t have to pay it. If someone else were to die then God would accept their death in place of ours. That is exactly what the Bible says that Jesus did on the cross.
Isaiah prophesied about Jesus: ‘All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. YET THE LORD LAID ON HIM THE SINS OF US ALL’ [Isaiah 53:6, NLT].
God removed the sin from us and placed it on Jesus. On the cross, Jesus called out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ [Psalm 22:1]. Jesus, bearing our sin, was now cut off from God. God accepted HIS death as settlement of OUR debt. The demand of the law was met; justice was done.
So, on the cross, Jesus paid the price to free us from our sin. Since the price has been paid, sin no longer has a hold over us.
WHO WAS THE PRICE PAID TO?
Let’s go back to our definition of redemption. It’s ‘the action of freeing a prisoner, captive, or slave BY PAYMENT’.
Scripture tells us that we were bought with a price [1 Corinthians 6:20]. But early Christians struggled with this. If Jesus made payment, who did he make it to?
A theologian in the early church called Origen asked that question. Origen thought that payment was made to Satan. But later theologians didn’t like the idea that God would do a deal with Satan. And they didn’t believe that Satan in any sense owned man. Man belongs to God alone. There was never a reason for God to pay Satan.
Most theologians today don’t agree with Origen. We can think of sin as a failure to give God what he is due. In that case, God is the one to whom restoration must be given. Christ didn’t die to satisfy SATAN’s demands. He died to satisfy THE JUSTICE OF GOD’S NATURE. God’s justice required payment for sin – and his love provided it.
HOW MUCH WAS PAID?
Only someone who had no debt of his own – someone who was without sin, in other words – could offer his life in place of another’s. Christ alone was without sin and that is why Christ’s blood, and no one else’s, could provide the ransom. But what a price!
DO WE HAVE TO DO ANYTHING?
The short answer is, yes, we do. Peter told a crowd in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost: ‘REPENT AND BE BAPTIZED every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins’ [Acts 2:38].
To make it a bit clearer let me tell you a little story I made up.
A man, Peter, goes into a shop with his two sons, Joe and Fred. Joe has been very difficult recently. Today, on a trip to the shops, things come to a head. Joe starts to push Fred around. Peter tells him several times to stop. Then Joe pushes Fred again and he falls into some kitchenware. Both Fred and the kitchenware land on the floor. The kitchenware is broken and Fred has a nasty cut on his head. The store manager arrives.
‘You’ll have to pay for the broken dishes’, he tells Peter.
Peter pays £102.47 and hauls Joe and Fred off to the car. On the way home there is silence. Peter is very angry. When they get home, he takes Joe to one side and gives him a massive telling-off. He tells him there will be a punishment. Among other things, Joe will not be coming on the trip to the circus with them at the weekend.
Later that evening, Fred knocks on his dad’s study.
‘Hi Fred’, Peter says.
Fred shows his dad a big glass jar containing a mixture of notes and coins.
‘I’ve counted up all the money I’ve saved’, he says. ‘I’ve got just over £100. Would you take that to pay for Joe’s debt?’
‘Wow’, Peter says. ‘That’s very big of you.’
‘There’s something else I’d like to ask’, Fred says.
‘Oh, yes?’
‘I’d like you not to be angry with Joe. I want him to come to the circus with us.’
Peter looks at his son and the glass jar with all the money.
‘OK’, he says. ‘But there’s something Joe needs to do.’
Five minutes later, there’s another knock on Peter’s door. It’s Joe.
‘Dad’, he says, ‘I’m really sorry…’
Peter looks at Joe and knows that he means it. He gives Joe a big hug.
‘Sorted’, he says.
That, basically, is the gospel. Like Joe in the story, we've messed up and we are in a bad relationship with God our father. But like Fred in the story, Jesus has intervened to fix it. He has paid our debt, and his action has turned away God’s anger. But we still have to do something. We have to repent. We have to say sorry – and mean it. We have to change our ways and respect what God tells us.
We started with the problem: humankind’s broken relationship with God. We’ve seen God’s solution. Christ, through his shed blood, has redeemed us from the penalty of sin. The price has been paid. The way is open for everyone to come back into relationship with God.
Christians talk about ‘the gospel.’ The word gospel means ‘good news.’ The good news is not that you have won the lottery! The good news is that there is a way to fix our broken relationship with God. Once that is fixed, then extraordinarily good things follow.
If that’s what we want, God will welcome us. But there has to be a conversation with God first. If we want to come back into relationship with God, we need to say sorry. And we need to turn to him.
If you are such a person and would like to find out how to do that, please do speak with me afterwards.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 4 p.m. service, 26 March 2023
