The Ransom View of the Atonement
This is the third sermon in my series on the last week of Jesus life. Three weeks ago, we examined Jesus’ act of “trashing the temple”, the next week, we watched as Mary prepared him for burial while he was still alive; last week we observed what the Last Supper must have looked like. And this week…we will try to to come to grips with the Price Jesus is paying.
1. 1. Atonement: To Cover.
a. Have you ever tried to cover up your mistakes?
1. I recall changing my report card once…a “D” in Science in 7th grade to a “B”. My sin found me out. I got a whupping by my science teacher with a paddle that seemed as big as a baseball bat with holes drilled through it so it would move faster through the air before it made contact with its intended target.
2. Why is a lie so quick to produce another lie? It is because we have a tendency, an inborn desire not to have our lies and sins exposed. Some of it has to do with shame, but most of it is because we just don’t want anyone to know we are flawed.
3. You and I must realize that every human being has sinned. That includes you and me.
4. None of us like to admit our sins, our faults, our failings and our open and sometimes hidden rebellion against God’s rule in our lives. But the fact remains…every one of us has sinned. We do things we should not.
5. And then we cover up what we do!
1. And that concealment, the covering…is another word for “atone.” The biblical word for “atone” means to cover or to cover over.
2. We try to “atone” for our actions!
3. Even criminals will try to cover up their crimes…and the more horrendous, often times the more effort will be made to cover them up, to conceal the crime from being discovered.
b. There is a story early in the bible that speaks about a couple of people who did something they weren’t supposed to do, realized it, and then tried to cover it up. And they worked really hard to cover it up, but God saw right through their actions. Their story is the story of Adam and Eve.
1. They were in the garden of Eden and were told not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.
2. But they believed the serpent’s lies and false promises, and after consuming it, they…
1. Genesis 3:7 “They the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
3. The word for “coverings” literally means “girdle” or loin cloth;
4. In a sense, Adam and Eve tried to construct their own atonement or covering for their nakedness – sin does that, it leaves us feeling exposed, vulnerable and helpless.
1. They recognized that they were now “uncovered” because of sin, so they sought to cover themselves.
2. They ATONED for themselves with their own works, their own efforts, notably, through the word “sewing”. (taphar). They tried to cover up their shame and their sin by themselves.
1. The idea that we are not to try to atone for our own sin is further underlined by the instructions to the Israelites for building altars in both the wilderness as well as when they entered the promised land.
2. They were told to build them out of undressed stone. No tool was to be used to build the altar or to shape the stones. It was not to be a “work of human hands.”
3. The truth of the spiritual matter is that we cannot make a sufficient covering for our actions any more than Adam and Eve were able to make sufficient clothing to cover their own nakedness from God and from their conscience.
1. But fortunately, the bible doesn’t stop the story there.
2. It tells us in Genesis 3:21 that “God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”
3. God provided them the atonement or clothing that would cover them properly.
1. Heb. Labash: to be clothed, fully clothed
2. Literally, “God clothed them with garments of animal skins.”
3. God had to take the skins from animals, which meant that these animals had to give up their hides. This tells us that animals had to DIE so that appropriate coverings (atonement could be made for Adam and his wife.
4. We have here in Genesis, the first act of redemption in the Bible – the act of one’s life being given for another’s sin.
5. In this case, the animals were innocent and Adam and Eve were not.
6. Yet the animal’s life was forfeited so that Adam and Eve could be atoned for. So their sin could be covered.
4. The idea of atonement continues throughout the scripture, all the way through the building of the Ark of the Covenant and the Temple, in which blood would be placed on the “Atonement Cover” of the Ark of the Covenant on the day of Atonement so that when God looked down on His people He would see the sacrificial blood covering their sins.
2. Now lets fast forward to Jesus.
a. In Matthew 20:28, during Jesus last days on earth, we hear this statement from Jesus
1. the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."
2. The key word here that we hear is “ransom” that should point to something deeper.
b. Ransomed: What does that mean?
1. It means to pay a price to purchase back something that has been taken away or taken prisoner.
2. Some of you may remember stories of how Americans are taken prisoner in Columbia and held for ransom by the rebels who use this as a source of fund-raising for their cause?
1. The stories are tragic in Columbia, where whole families are taken until they empty their savings accounts in exchange for their freedom.
2. They must pay these exorbitant ransoms in exchange not just for their freedom, but in exchange for their lives.
3. Their entire life savings, all they have to live on is given up to get a child or a relative back from the rebels.
c. What is your life worth? What would you pay to set your family free from certain death? What would you pay to be let go from a death sentence at the hands of a kidnapper or terrorist?
1. If you pay the right amount, I guess you could say that the price is right!
2. However, who can afford to pay the price of sin?
1. Just to grasp a little bit of the debt that sin incurs, we ought to examine a passage from Matthew 18:24
2. "a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 "When he had begun to settle {them,} one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25 "But since he did not have {the means} to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. “
1. Ten Thousand Talents – was 10,000 days wages. An impossible debt to pay. Jesus in this passage is comparing Divine forgiveness to human forgiveness, the debt we owe God vs. the debt others owe us in comparison.
2. The bottom line is, our debt to God for our sin is impossible for us to pay. It is too large. The bible says that the “wages of sin is death.” By wages, we can understand that it is the due reward, the result. There is no exception. All are under a death sentence.
3. And God enters into our dilemma in the person of Jesus and offers to pay our ransom. To pay our price! To pay our debt! He alone offers the right price! .
4. The cross is proof of God’s love only when it is at the same time seen as proof of his justice!
1. It is not proof of his love if there is not proof of his justice, of what we truly deserve.
2. If we do not deserve death, then Jesus did not need to die!
3. Jesus words in the garden were very telling: If this cup could pass away, (ie. if there is any other way to accomplish the redemption of the world, to pay this ransom)…but if not, let your will, not mine be done.
5. That is why Isaiah could say, "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5).
3. So what price did the Jesus pay to redeem us? What was the right price?
1. the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Mt. 20:28)
2. The Greek words “antilytron hyper pollon” means “a ransom in place of and for the sake of many’
3. If he meant “example” he would have said so, but he said ransom. He meant what he said.
1. And a ransom tells us about the absolute helplessness of the captive to the demands of the captor; and the paying of a ransom that is “all one could afford.”
4. When Jesus says He is giving His life as our ransom, we need to understand what that means.
1. What cost is that?
2. He begins by leaving heaven and entering into our condition: “entering into slavery in order to redeem a slave”
3. Jesus was not required to come.
4. He had not sinned himself, so was under no obligation to take our place or even to die, much less suffer at the hands of the men he had created.
5. Jesus did not come into this world merely to be an example, or merely to reveal the Godhead to the sons of men.
1. Spurgeon says,
2. “He came to make a substitutionary sacrifice. He came to give his soul as a ransom. And Jesus did more than merely die, he endured an anguish such as no ordinary mortal could ever have borne. He came from heaven to suffer all this, to give himself up, that he might be, instead of us, the victim of a vengeance we deserved; that his griefs might avert our ruin, that his pain would rescue us from destruction. He drank the cup of condemnation dry; not a dreg was left; and, in so doing, he poured out his soul unto death”
6. And there is no receiving forgiveness for sin without receiving this gift. There is no cheap forgiveness. It cost God dearly!
7. He gave his life, dying under the law’s curse to redeem us from the law. (Gal 3:13)
8. The costliness is underscored by Peter’s statement that “you were redeemed not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Pet 1:18-19).
5. The price was his blood…his very life for our life.
1. Leviticus 17:11, "For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.
2. When God sees the blood, he knows that his wrath has been poured out, death has occurred, and his justice has been satisfied.
3. In a very real way, the blood of Jesus becomes our atonement, our covering, our new clothing, covering over and forgiving our sin and restoring us to God.
6. In his book "Written in Blood," Robert Coleman tells the story of a little boy whose sister needed a blood transfusion. The doctor had explained that she had the same disease the boy had recovered from two years earlier. Her only chance for recovery was a transfusion from someone who had previously conquered the disease. Since the two children had the same rare blood type, the boy was the ideal donor.
1. The doctor asked the little boy “Would you give your blood to your sister Mary?”
2. Johnny hesitated. His lower lip started to tremble. Then he smiled, “Sure, for my sister.”
3. Soon the two children were wheeled into the hospital room--Mary, pale and thin; Johnny, robust and healthy. Neither spoke, but when their eyes met, Johnny grinned.
4. As the nurse inserted the needle into his arm, Johnny’s smile faded. He watched the blood flow through the tube. With the ordeal almost over, his voice, slightly shaky, broke the silence. “Doctor, when do I die?”
5. Only then did the doctor realize why Johnny had hesitated, why his lip had trembled when he’d agreed to donate his blood. He’d thought giving his blood to his sister meant giving up his life. In that brief moment, he’d made his great decision.
7. But that is the basis of what Jesus has done for us. He took our place, paid the price and the debt we could not, he ransomed us with all he had, paying every last penny through the very last drop of his own blood to purchase our redemption, to buy us back from our life if rebellion and self-will. To pay the debt we owe.
d. How can we cover up our sins?
1. God himself has provided a cover up
2. The way to be safe is to get under this cover, and that everyone who gets under this cover will be saved and safe.
1. Yes, we know that sin must be punished, but it has been punished in a substitute The only covering for our sins is the God-provided covering, the blood covering of God’s Son.
2. We must throw away all lies—the lies of our own philosophies—and all other human cover-ups, so that we may come under God’s great cover, the cover of the cross.
3. Only when God sees us through his crucified Son will we be blessed. .
3. CONCLUSION
A young boy made a beautiful toy sail boat and took it to a lake to sail, but a gust of wind blew the boat out into the lake. And the boat was lost.
Several weeks later, the boy saw his sailboat in the window of a toy store. When he asked for his boat, the store owner said, "I own the boat now. If you want it, you will have to buy it back."
The boy sold all he had to buy back his boat. After paying the store owner, the boy took his boat to his heart and said, “Little boat, you are twice mine. I made you, and now I bought you."
Like that little boat, we are twice the Lord’s ---He made us, and Christ bought us back by paying the price for our sin with His own blood.
Wouldn’t you like to be able to say with King David, "Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered."
You see, the price is right.
Before you lay two options, two doors and you get to choose which you wish to have.
You can choose Door #1, and select the great riches of God’s kingdom, and eternal life, paid for by His only begotten Son with His own life….
or you can choose Door #2, and select the temporary pleasures of this world, a self run life, a hell bound life, a life filled with your own ways and one where you know you can never pay what you owe. If you choose door #2, you reject the cost, the price that is right! The price you could not pay but was paid for you! Why would you do that? What pride so foolish could fool you so?
Which would you choose? Jesus said, “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Choose a door today! Jesus stands at door Number one where He says he’ll cast out none Who come to him in faith”
You can make that choice today. Step out of your seat and walk forward and allow me to pray with you during our time of response. Leave your old life behind and become a new creation today.
We find it again in 1 Timothy 2:6 where Paul tells us that Christ “Gave himself as a ransom for all”
1. Again in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price”
2. Titus we read, “Christ gave himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to Himself a people for his own possession.”
3. 1 Peter 1:18-20 “You were redeemed not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from the fathers, but with precious blood, as a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ.”
4. And Ephesians, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.”
5. Finally, in Revelation 5:9, “You were slain and did purchase unto God with your blood, men of every tribe, and tongue and people and nation.”
6. Hebrews 9:22: “And according to the Law, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
