The Second Article of THE APOSTLES’ CREED
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.What does this mean?
I believe that Jesus Christ,
true God, begotten of the Father from eternity,
and also true man, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord.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.All this he did that I should be his own, and live under him in his kingdom,
and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness,
just as he has risen from death and lives and rules eternally.This is most certainly true.
You are bought by jesus’ blood
Are you familiar with the game show The Price Is Right? If you haven’t seen it recently, here’s the gist: contestants try to guess the retail value of different items, from groceries to a new car. Whoever comes closest to the actual price—without going over—wins and gets to take the item home. I have recently learned that our TV package comes with a 24-hour The Price Is Right channel (for better or for worse), and it inspired me to try playing it this Sunday.
We’ll start out low and get pricier as we go. (Answers found at the bottom of the page.)
What’s the price of…
A medium Double Double coffee from Tim Horton’s?
$ _ . _ _ [a]
A 1050 piece LEGO Star Wars R2-D2™ set from LEGO.com?
$ _ _ _ . _ _ [b]
A VIP ticket to Canada’s World Cup match in Los Angeles against South Africa?
$ _ , _ _ _ [c]
One gram of antimatter?
$ _ _ , _ _ _ , _ _ _ , _ _ _ , _ _ _ [d]
Now, something a little different. What about the price of…
Your happiness?
Your love?
Your freedom?
You?
Some things are hard to put a price on. Some things just can’t be bought. Happiness, love, freedom—certainly not people. At least, not in countries like ours, where citizens are born with rights and liberties that can’t be taken away‚ let alone bought or sold. The very suggestion that we might be items for sale is not only detestable, it’s unimaginable. Privileged as we are, we have next to no concept of what it is to be owned, to be enslaved and bound to someone else’s will.
So it might be difficult for us to visualize what we confess in the explanation to the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed: we were purchased. We belonged to someone else. And in fact, we still belong to someone else.
If that sounds somewhat offensive to our egalitarian ears, it’s nothing new. People didn’t like hearing it from Jesus, either. Here’s a scene from John 8: To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”[1]
On the surface, Jesus’ words seemed like good news! But what does Jesus imply by offering to set them free? That they weren’t free already! That’s what the Jews took issue with. They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”[2]
Now, if you know anything at all about Bible history, you can do a quick fact check: Had the Jews ever been slaves? Absolutely they had! 400 years under Pharaoh’s thumb in Egypt; a generation of exile in Babylon; and their current status in the Roman Empire, while not exactly enslavement, could hardly be considered “independent” or “sovereign.”
But Jesus had much more than political oppression in mind. They had no idea of the shackles fastened around their souls. Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.”[3]
You can imagine why the Jews didn’t like hearing that. Especially this week, when hundreds of millions across the continent will be celebrating their country’s foundational values of equality and freedom. We don’t like to be told what to do, and we really don’t like to be told we don’t have a choice. But Jesus states pretty definitively that we are not as independent as we would like to think.
The apostle Paul doesn’t leave any more wiggle room than Jesus did: Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey?[4] Or as the apostle Peter put it: People are slaves to whatever has mastered them.[5]
Your Canada Day outfit probably won’t have any chains among the patriotic paraphernalia. But sometimes there may as well be. We are all too comfortable handing the reins over to things that want to master us. Maybe it’s the bottle that disguises itself as a way to celebrate, but ends up dragging you by the collar to do and say things you never wanted to, hurting people you never thought you could. Maybe it’s the social media site that poses as a way to exercise free speech, but before you know it has you bearing arms against neighbours whom you’ve never met, yet whose words have been judged unworthy of your forgiveness. Maybe you serve a bank account that has an insatiable appetite, or the downtime that recklessly shoves responsibilities to the side, or the smartphone that fixes you up with a custom-made comfort concoction that sucks you in before your conscience even has time to react.
We have more experience with slavery than we think. Sometimes we can almost forget the chains are there—until they yank us back into the old routines we thought we’d left behind. Paul experienced that same struggle with sin, and here’s how he described it: I know that good itself does not dwell 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. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.[6]
It’s a vicious cycle, and no amount of discipline or determination can break us out of it completely. In fact, slavery to sin is the most natural thing we know. It’s the legal status passed on by our ancestors, the only birthright anyone can claim with no registration required. It goes all the way back to when Adam and Eve traded their true freedom for fetters and secured their spots as the devil’s first human cellmates.
Those are the chains we were born into. And if you dare to dream that you can rise above it or earn your way out, think again. These chains come with a hefty price tag—one you don’t have to guess because Scripture spells it out for us: The wages of sin is death.[7] Every one of us was born a lost and condemned creature, held captive by sin and doomed to obey it until we faced the eternal punishment we deserve. There’s no escape, no secret tunnel, no one who isn’t in prison with us already and so no one to come to our aid.
And then, at the 11th hour, into this grim graveyard of souls comes the Lord Jesus. He is the God-man, the hero of humanity, the champion going to fight on our behalf. He is the climax to a tragedy that suddenly becomes a victory. Jesus wasn’t willing to let you remain lost and condemned, so he took on the task of redeeming you—buying you back from your sins, from death, from the devil’s power.
And it wasn’t cheap. We read this verse last week: No one can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them—the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough.[8]
God doesn’t accept any form of currency we have to offer. You can’t write a cheque to undo all the hurtful words you’ve said. You could sooner buy enough antimatter to fill a mansion than you could pay your way not only out of hell but into heaven.
But Jesus could offer something infinitely more valuable. Peter puts it this way: 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.[9]
Jesus didn’t settle for sending an eTransfer from heaven’s vaults. What was the ransom price that Jesus paid for our redemption? It was his own holy, precious blood. Generally speaking, what is it that makes something like gold or silver valuable? How rare it is, how hard it is to find. The rarer something is, the more valuable it is. Antimatter is worth tens of trillions per gram because there is less than a gram of it in the whole universe. But nothing is rarer, and thus more precious, than God’s own blood—something that shouldn’t even be possible. Yet Jesus willingly, almost wastefully, spilled it all on the cross for us, pouring himself out to extinguish the fires of hell that surrounded us.
Our redemption took more than a transaction. It took a complete transferral, an exchange that we could never have negotiated for ourselves because it’s so one-sided in our favour. As Paul explains it: God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.[10] On that cross, the spotless Lamb of God took on the depths of our depravity. Every sinful thought, word, or action that has ever shackled you with shame or guilt was lifted off of you and nailed onto Jesus to pay the price. And in its place, what does Paul say we get? The righteousness of God. Even better than a blank slate that we might go get dirty again; instead, it’s Jesus’ perfect record that gets fastened onto you, to permanently change your status from forsaken slave to forgiven saint.
You are redeemed. You have been bought back, purchased and won from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil. That’s more than just a historical fact, something to be commemorated by a barbecue and a day off of work. Our redemption shapes every day of our lives.
Jesus told the Jews the grim truth that everyone who sins is a slave to sin. But the Son of God came to give us a new master. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.[11] By paying your ransom price, Jesus set you free from slavery to sin. Your shameful chains are broken and your guilty stains are washed away. He promises: As far the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.[12] Or as Paul says, There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.[13] We get to live in the peace of that forgiveness every day, knowing that there is no price left to be paid.
Jesus also set you free from slavery to death. He paid for more than the free trial period of your existence—he paid for your eternity. We skipped the second half of this verse earlier: The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.[14] Even though we’ll still experience temporal death, what lies on the other side of it? Eternal life! The grave is nothing but a gateway to life that only takes a moment to pass through. We don’t have to fear dying or despair at a Christian’s passing because death has lost its painful grip on us forever, swallowed up in Christ’s victory.
Finally, Jesus set you free from slavery to the devil. The old evil foe wants nothing more than to entangle you in the tendrils of his temptations like he did to Adam and Eve. He knows that if he can just convince you that he still has you wrapped around his finger, you’ll wander back into his chains yourself. But Satan has no power over you—sin is the only hold he had on you, and Jesus took that away once and for all. When you hear the lies and accusations he hisses in your ear, claiming you have no choice but to give in and suffer the shame, look up and see that the serpent’s head still lies crushed beneath Christ’s feet. The power that put the devil down is the same power you have to run from temptation and safely into the arms of your loving Lord. That’s why he gives you his Word—to equip you to defend against temptation with the promises you are not a slave to sin anymore.
This is what it means to confess the truth that Jesus is your Redeemer.
You can’t put a price on happiness—but Jesus guarantees you endless joy in the riches of heaven.
You can’t put a price on love—but Jesus freely pours out his forgiving love for you every day.
You can’t put a price on freedom—but Jesus spared no expense to set you free from slavery to sin, death, and the devil and bring you into his tender care.
All so that you would be his own. All to be your Lord and your Redeemer.
So rest in the peace of knowing that the blood of God’s Son has given you what money could never buy.
This is most certainly true. Amen.
[a] $1.83
[b] $129.99 (not bad for a LEGO set!)
[c] $3,377
[d] $88.72 trillion (converted from USD), according to “the experts.”
[1] John 8:31,32
[2] John 8:33
[3] John 8:34
[4] Romans 6:16a
[5] 2 Peter 2:19b
[6] Romans 7:18,19,21
[7] Romans 6:23
[8] Psalm 49:7,8
[9] 1 Peter 1:18,19
[10] 2 Corinthians 5:21
[11] John 8:36
[12] Psalm 103:12
[13] Romans 8:1
[14] Romans 6:23