Redemption: from Lost and Condemned to Purchased and Won

Redemption: From Lost and Condemned to Purchased and Won

Many of you know that I was away visiting family these last few weeks. It was truly wonderful. Thank you for giving me that opportunity. We got to see just about everyone on both sides of the family, including an uncle I hadn’t seen in ages. We talked about religion, politics, money – you know, all the things you’re not supposed to talk about in polite conversation – but in the course of our conversation he told me about his interesting investment strategy – he bought a horse.

Now this wasn’t just any horse; it was a racehorse. Normally, I wouldn’t think of racehorses as a good investment – not every horse is a winner; some of them get injured and can never race again. And do you know what happens to racehorses that can’t race anymore? They go to auction, and sadly it’s estimated that about 10,000 former racehorses are sold at auction to be slaughtered every year.  One tumble at the track, a string of losses at the races and a racehorse can go to a glue source pretty quickly.

But, thankfully there are people who love horses, whether they can still win the Kentucky Derby or not. There are whole organizations dedicated to rescuing these former racehorses from the slaughterhouses. They go to these auctions and put money down on creatures that had been condemned. Animals that had been deemed worthless are redeemed, i.e. bought back, given a second chance, ransomed, rescued from almost certain death and allowed to go to a green pasture and live in peace.

That’s what it means to redeem something. It means to buy it back, to give it a second chance, to ransom, to rescue it. That’s what we mean when we talk about Jesus’ work of redemption. Only Jesus doesn’t buy washed up, decommissioned racehorses. He redeems us, lost and condemned creatures that we are.

That’s what confess in the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed: He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.

We were lost and condemned creatures, not because we had a tumble and fall that kept us from performing at our best (although, who of us hasn’t tumbled or fallen or failed to be as good as we could be?). No, it’s worse than that. We’re rotten to core.

It’s kind of like an apple I tried to eat earlier this week. It looked great! There were no bruises, no cuts. It was firm and colourful. All the other apples from the same bag were ripe and juicy. But I took one bite and everything more than a centimeter below the surface was brown and mushy. I could taste it immediately, and, as soon as I could, I spit it out of my mouth.

That’s the way we often are. We can look like good people, feel like good people, surround ourselves with good people. But when we dig deeper, we find something rotten. Paul talks about it in his letter to the Romans:

I know that good itself does not live in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing… For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?[1]

Does that ever happen to you? You love your wife. You want to have a great relationship with her. But she did the one thing that you just cannot stand. You know it shouldn’t bother you as much as it does. You know she doesn’t it intentionally. You know that if you say what you feel like saying, you’ll regret it, but you say it anyway, because you just can’t help it. You fight it, but the words you know will hurt come tumbling out of your mouth before you can stop them. That’s the same kind of struggle that Paul went through.

You hate to gossip. You hate going back to the bottle or to porn, but all of a sudden you’re in a situation and you can’t help yourself. Your friends are dishing on the boy you knew in high school, and you’ve got some dirt you know would raise some eyebrows. Before you know it, you’re blabbing – airing out his dirty laundry and glorying in his misfortune.

You’re depressed. You’re alone. You’re bored. So, without even thinking about it you reach into the cabinet or you pull out your smartphone, and before you know it, you’ve done it again.

The sad fact is that you don’t have to bury children in an unmarked grave to be a sinner. You just have to lose the battle with your own sinful nature to become what Paul calls “a prisoner of the law of sin,” “a wretched person,” someone whose guilt has condemned them before God and condemned you to eternal life in hell.

That’s what sin is. That’s what our spiritual condition was. We were what Paul says. We were as good as “dead in [our] transgressions and sins.”[2] We were lost and condemned creatures, like washed up, decommissioned racehorses doomed to slaughter.

But Christ has redeemed you! He has purchased and won you from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil. Jesus bought you back. Jesus intervened. He did not let you be lost forever. He purchased you “not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.”

No amount of money could ever undo the wrongs that we have committed. When you say something hurtful to your spouse, your child, your friend, you can’t just write them a cheque and make it go away. When you fall prey to the secret desires of your heart and sin against no one but God above, nothing you own or could offer would ever make your guilt disappear.

But Jesus had something else – something better – to offer. As Peter puts it:

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 ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.[3]

Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for your sins. The payment he made couldn’t be counted in dollars or grams or bitcoin. The price he paid was his own blood.

Isaiah writes about this in his prophecy:

He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.[4]

This is a prophecy about Jesus’ crucifixion 700 years before it happened, complete with references to the nails that would pierce Jesus’ hands and feet, the wounds that would stretch across his body from hateful Jewish fists and brutal Roman whips.

Isaiah goes on: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way – we are the ones who have been disobedient and foolish, but – the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.[5] Jesus was our substitute, i.e. the one who took our place and our punishment, who carried our guilt and shame to the cross so that we could be forgiven – so that you could be redeemed.

Jesus intervened to rescue us and to ransom us “not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.” The spotless Lamb of God paid for your sin with his life because he loves you, because he didn’t want you to be a lost and condemned creature, because he wanted to forgive you and redeem you.

And now you are redeemed. You have been purchased and won. You have been set free “from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil,” as we confess in the Second Article. And that’s not just a historic fact. That’s a life-changing reality today and every day.

Jesus has purchased and won you from all sins. That means that you are forgiven. God does not hold your sin against you anymore.

You know, we can sometimes hold grudges. We forgive but we don’t forget. We don’t let others forget the wrongs they’ve done to us.

But not God. Because Jesus died for you, your guilt is gone. As far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed your transgressions from you.[6]

Or, as Paul said just after telling us about his personal struggle with sin: There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.[7]

That means that we live in grace, not guilt. We live in freedom, not fear. We are liberated and motivated not to avoid possible punishment, but to live in the peace that comes from Jesus’ love. He paid the price for our sin; there’s no more burden on you to pay for it, because he’s purchased and won you from all sins.

Jesus has also purchased and won you from death. Death is the wages of sin. Death is what we all deserve for our disobedience to God. But we have been redeemed from death.

Now, that doesn’t mean that we will never die, but it does mean that death doesn’t have to be so scary. Death isn’t defeat. Death isn’t the end. Death, now, in Jesus, is just the beginning.

Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Jesus was killed on a cross, but not even death could keep him down. He won the victory over death and rose from the grave 3 days after he was buried. And now, 2,000 years later, you can celebrate at a Christian’s funeral, because on that day you can know that anyone who dies in faith, joins in the victory of Jesus, because he has purchased and won you from death.

And finally, we confess that Jesus has also purchased and won us from the power of the devil.

We read about Paul’s personal struggle with sin earlier (“The good I want to do I do not do. The evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.”). Even though we’ve been forgiven, set free, redeemed from sin, we still struggle with sin, but not in vain. When you resist the devil’s temptations, you are not fighting a losing battle. Sin is not a foregone conclusion. You can resist. You can fight back, because Jesus has purchased and won you from the power of the devil.

Paul talks about this in his letter to the Corinthians: God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.[8]

God is greater than the devil. If you’re afraid of the power and influence that Satan and his demons can exert on your soul, then marvel at the far greater power and influence that God exerts on you in Christ. Jesus defeated the devil when he died on the cross. And now, Jesus gives you the power to fight back too.

He gives you his Word to teach you what sin is and how to recognize temptation when it arises. He gives you his Spirit to live in you by faith and to give you the strength to tell the devil where he can go. God even manufactures escape routes in your life so that the devil cannot trap you or force you to sin.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself embroiled in a battle with temptation, feeling my willpower weaken, ready to give in and do that sinful thing… and then the phone rings. It’s my dad or a fellow Christian. I wasn’t expecting the call, but suddenly there’s a Christian who I know would cheer me on if they knew my struggle. And sometimes that’s all I need to break the spell. Suddenly I have the presence of mind and strength of will to walk away.

God promises to provide a way out of temptation when it arises. Look for those escape routes. Take them. Resist the devil and he will flee from you, because Jesus has redeemed you from the power of the devil.

You’re not a thoroughbred. You’re not a washed up racehorse doomed to become a glue source. Your situation was much worse. You were a lost and condemned creature, doomed to hell for your sin, until Jesus redeemed you. Rejoice in his rescue. Live in his grace. Resist temptation and look forward with the eyes of faith to life everlasting in Jesus’ name, the Lamb of God, your sacrifice for sin and your Redeemer. Amen.

[1] Romans 7:18,19,22-24

[2] Ephesians 2:1

[3] 1 Peter 1:18,19

[4] Isaiah 53:5

[5] Isaiah 53

[6] Psalm 103:12

[7] Romans 8:1

[8] 1 Corinthians 10:13

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The Fall Into Sin

The Fall Into Sin

One winter, when I was probably 8 or 9 years old, my brothers and I had a snow sculpting competition. We each had an hour to make whatever we wanted, and when we were done, we would pick a winner. After an hour, I stepped back with a smile on my face. I liked what I had made. To that point in my life, I don’t think I had ever been prouder of anything I had ever done.

My brothers, not so much. One of them made fun of it and threw a snowball at it knocking its head off. How do you think I felt at that moment?

I was devastated. I had just spent an hour in the cold crafting what I thought was a beautiful creation, only to have it broken moments after it was made. What would you do in that situation? Would you chase your brother down and tackle him into a snowbank? Would you destroy his sculpture? Would you just sit and cry some icy tears?

I didn’t do any of those things. I was mad at my brother; there’s no doubt. But in my anger, I couldn’t stand to look at the brokenness of what I had thought was so beautiful, so I broke the rest of it. I reduced it to a pile of snow and skulked off to the house and tried to forget all about it.

Last week, we read the Creation Account of Genesis 1. At the end of (almost)[1] every day we heard the same refrain: “And God saw that it was good.” At the end of the week, we read that “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”[2] God stepped back from his creation with a smile on his face, because it was perfect! It was exactly how he wanted it to be. There was nothing missing. There was nothing bad or hurtful or wrong. There was no death, no pain, no sadness. Everything functioned exactly how it was designed. It was perfect!

But then something changed.

There’s no break in the narrative from Genesis chapter 2 to Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 2 ends with the creation of Adam and Eve, i.e. the crown of God’s creation. Genesis chapter 3 is simply called “The Fall.” It starts like this:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”[3]

That’s a slippery snake, and not your ordinary reptile. This was Satan, the fallen angel, who was at war with God and – not unlike my brother – was trying to mess with God’s creation. So he comes with a temptation. He approaches the crown of God’s creation and he sows the seed of doubt in her mind.

In chapter 2 – before God created Eve – God told her husband,

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”[4]

God had planted a lush garden in Eden. It was full of fruit that was good for food, and Adam and Eve had carte blanch to eat from any tree, except for one. So, what’s the correct answer to the devil’s first question (“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”)?

It’s a flat-out, “No!” God was not holding out on Adam and Eve. He had given them so much! There was only one tree that was forbidden to them. They could eat from every other tree in the garden. Let’s see how Eve did in response:

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”[5]

So far, so good, right? Eve came to God’s defense. This is how she should have answered.

But the devil is crafty, and even though Eve said the right thing, she was on shaky ground and the devil could tell. So he pushed a little harder:

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”[6]

If the devil was trying to sow the seed of doubt with his first question, what was he trying to do with this second question?

He was trying to make it sound like God was being greedy, or that in his paranoia, God didn’t want Adam and Eve to reach their full potential, because then they’d be like God. The devil wanted Adam and Eve to question God’s intentions. And it worked!

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.[7]

Was the devil right? Were Adam and Eve’s eyes opened when they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

In a way he was. Their eyes were opened, but not to some secret wisdom that God was withholding; their eyes were opened to the knowledge of good and evil, i.e. to the shame and guilt of sin. They had done the one thing God had forbidden, and they could never go back. Once you lose your innocence, it’s gone forever. It only takes one spot for something that had been pure not to be pure anymore. This one act of disobedience had immediate and lasting consequences:

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”[8]

What did Adam and Eve do in their guilt and shame? They hid from God.

But he was determined to find them. He asked, “Where are you?” Did he not know the answer to that question? Of course he did!

So then, why do you think he asked it? To give Adam and Eve a chance to own up to what they had done.

I do this with my dog. “Blue… what did you do?” I know the answer. The tattered shards of the napkin I carelessly left out on the coffee table the night before are lying at my feet. I know what she did, but I want her to know what she did. I want to discipline her in a way that she can connect the consequences to the disobedience.

That’s what God wanted for Adam (it’s also what God wants for you when you do something wrong). Do you think Adam understood? I don’t think so:

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”[9]

Again, God asks a question to which he already knows the answer. But he asks anyway to give Adam an opportunity to own up to what he did. What should Adam say next? He should say, “Yes, I did. I messed up. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.” But he doesn’t:

The man said, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”[10]

Whom did Adam blame for his disobedience? Eve’s the first one to get thrown under the bus, but shortly after her goes God himself – “The woman you put here with me.” In other words, Adam is saying, “God it’s really your fault for leaving this temptress with me. You should have known better.”

That’s heavy stuff. If you were God and your little creation just blamed you for his sin, what would you do? Flick him off the face of the planet? Grind him back into dust with your heel? Utterly destroy him like I destroyed my snow sculpture? That might be what we would have done, but not God. He plays it out:

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.”[11]

Whom did Eve blame for her disobedience? She followed Adam’s lead and passed the buck. Yes, it’s true that the serpent set out to deceive her, but she had a personal responsibility not to be deceived. She even had all the tools to prevent herself from being hoodwinked. She answered right the first time. She remembered what God had said. But in the end, memory wasn’t enough when desire was stoked in her (and Adam’s) heart for something that God had said was off limits.

Again, if you were God in this moment, what would you do? Condemn them together, now that they both failed your test? Start over with a new man and a new woman who would actually listen? Give up on humankind altogether and hand the world over to the lions or the elks?

Again, God shows that he is not like us, and that’s a good thing. Before he says a word of rebuke to Adam or Eve, God speaks a word of gospel to, of all people, the serpent, Satan, the deceiver:

So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”[12]

I called this “a word of gospel.” This is good news, but good news for whom? Not the devil. This was bad news for the devil. But that’s what made it so good for Adam and Eve to overhear.

What’s so good for Adam and Eve about what God said to Satan? Their enemy, the one who had corrupted and deceived them, would be defeated. They weren’t going to be the ones whose heads were ground to dust under God’s heel. That distinction belonged to the devil.

And who would do the grinding? The offspring of the woman. This was God’s promise that Jesus would come – that God’s own Son would be born of a woman to defeat Satan.

In the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed, we’re going to explore the many ways that Jesus won that victory for us, but here in the First Article, it’s enough to know the character of God our Father, who, thankfully, is not like me. God did not look at the brokenness of his once beautiful creation and give up; he did not wipe it out and start over. He gave his heart, and his Son, to restore that creation, to forgive Adam and Eve, and to give them hope that they would not always be on the wrong side of war with heaven. But that their own descendant from their own bodies would one day come to be their Saviour.

God loved them and spared them. God loved them and promised salvation. And while there would still be immediate consequences for their actions, there would be hope for generations.

You know, you and I aren’t all that different than Adam and Eve. We question God’s commands, e.g. “Did God really say _______________?” We desire the things that God forbids. We avoid and evade God when he comes calling, and instead of hearts that are sorry for what we did wrong, we shift the blame and scratch and claw to try to justify our behaviour.

We don’t deserve God’s love anymore than Adam and Eve did, but this promise is for you and me too. The Son God sent is your Saviour and mine. Our God is not a vengeful God just waiting for you to slip up so he can strike you down. He patiently watches as you mess up again and again, and he reaches to lift you up again and again, to remind you of this promise and to give you the hope that your sins are forgiven too.

That’s why God gave you his Son, because he so loved this world that he couldn’t bear to watch you die for your sin. That’s why God gave you his Son; in the Lord’s great love for us, we are not consumed; his compassions never fail. That’s why God gave you his Son. And so, while we so often associate the Father with the work of Creation and Preservation. Salvation belongs to him too, because he sent his Son to save you.

To him be the glory forever. Amen.

[1] While there are 7 mentions of “it” being “good” over the span of the 7 days of Creation, there is no mention during day 2.

[2] Genesis 1:31

[3] Genesis 3:1

[4] Genesis 2:16,17

[5] Genesis 3:2,3

[6] Genesis 3:4,5

[7] Genesis 3:6,7

[8] Genesis 3:8,9

[9] Genesis 3:10,11

[10] Genesis 3:12

[11] Genesis 3:13

[12] Genesis 3:14,15

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