A Ransomed Redemption

[0:00] Thomas Watson was a great Puritan, a pastor, writer.

[0:20] ! He wrote a book called The Body of Divinity. I have it at home, an antique copy.

[0:30] And in that book, Watson said that redemption was the greatest work ever undertaken and completed by the triune God.

[0:46] And he went on to say this, great was the work of creation, but greater the work of redemption.

[0:57] It cost more to redeem us than to make us. In the one, there was but the speaking of a word, in the other, the shedding of blood.

[1:13] The creation was but the work of God's fingers. The creation is the work of His arm. And the only thing I could picture from that last sentence was the Lord on the cross.

[1:32] So this evening, we continue our work of examining the book of 1 Peter. We're about to get out of the first chapter, maybe in a couple of weeks.

[1:45] Our topic this evening is redemption. I'm going to back up to verse 17, which we covered last week, and then go forward from there.

[2:02] Here's the passage we will cover tonight, starting in verse 17, chapter 1 of 1 Peter. And if you call on Him as Father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

[2:52] He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory so that your faith and hope are in God.

[3:19] This is a passage about redemption or being redeemed. There are things taught in the Bible that are essentials, and there are things that are taught that are not essentials.

[3:40] Redemption is an essential when it comes to the salvation of a soul. In fact, to be redeemed is another way of saying to be saved.

[3:57] Every person on earth throughout history has been under the curse of sin. That started in the garden. Likewise, every person that is saved had to be purchased by Christ through the payment of a ransom.

[4:17] Now, redeemed is a key word for us to understand. In the Greek language, it means to purchase, release by paying a ransom.

[4:29] It also means to deliver a person by paying a price. This is gained in the Old Testament record, especially the book of Exodus.

[4:47] Listen to these words. I'm actually in Exodus chapter 12, beginning in verse 1. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, This month shall be for you the beginning of months.

[5:11] It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household.

[5:28] And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons, according to what each can eat.

[5:42] You shall make your count for the lamb. The lamb shall be without blemish, a male, a year old.

[5:54] You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

[6:14] And then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. You know what a lintel is?

[6:25] Those are doorposts. Up there is the lintel. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire, with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

[6:41] They shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts.

[6:58] And you shall let none of it remain until the morning. Anything that remains until the morning, you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it, with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand.

[7:17] You shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. For I, that gives you a clue who's talking, that's the Lord Jesus, pre-incarnate Christ.

[7:31] For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments.

[7:47] I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.

[8:02] That's why we call it the Passover. And no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

[8:14] The cost to spare a firstborn child of Israel was the life of an innocent lamb.

[8:29] That is why the lamb always symbolized the death of an innocent substitute. The death of the innocent substitute became the symbol for the price of redemption.

[8:48] Israel was commanded to celebrate Passover to remind the nation of the Lord's deliverance of the people of Israel from their Egyptian bondage.

[9:06] But in a larger sense, this sacrifice pointed the people to the true lamb provided by God.

[9:21] And one day, this true lamb would rise up and point the people to the perfect and final substitutionary sacrifice to redeem sinners with His perfect blood.

[9:36] And we know that happened at Calvary. So in our lesson tonight, we're going to look at the theology of redemption and answer four questions that are crucial to our understanding of God's redemptive purpose.

[10:00] The first question is that we'll look at, what did God redeem believers from? Number two, what did God redeem believers with? Three, by whom did God redeem believers?

[10:15] And then four, for what did God redeem believers? The first thing we'll look at is, what did God redeem believers from?

[10:25] 1 Peter 1.18, the second part of that verse, we were redeemed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.

[10:40] Now the Scriptures are clear. All people, in every culture, and in every age, are in bondage to sin.

[10:57] The only thing in the universe that will break that bondage is the redemption found in Christ. Paul made that very clear in his letter to the Romans.

[11:14] In Romans 6, verse 6, and then I'll finish up with verses 17-18, it says this, we know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

[11:39] But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you are committed and having been set free from sin have become slaves of righteousness.

[11:59] I have on many occasions, and I say again tonight, as redeemed saints of God, we are still trapped in unredeemed flesh.

[12:16] And it likes to raise its ugly head. This fact is captured in the inspired words of the Apostle Paul, also in Romans 7, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

[12:46] For I do not understand my own actions. Now this is Paul. This is a guy we'd say is the greatest Christian that ever lived. And I believe wholeheartedly that this is redeemed Paul.

[13:03] This is a saved man. I'm sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want to do.

[13:16] but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good.

[13:29] So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.

[13:44] For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want to do is what I keep doing.

[14:09] Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it. It is sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

[14:26] For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

[14:46] Now listen to this cry. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me? from this body of death.

[15:02] Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

[15:22] I tried to come up with a word to describe all that. I looked up several including angst and I just finally said it just speaks for itself. But we know this, the battle is joined in the arena of unredeemed flesh.

[15:42] Though we have been redeemed and joined to Christ, we still find ourselves in a war. Peter even talks about our former lusts which are a driving force in the life of believers.

[16:03] The New Testament uses the term imagination which sheds light on the problem with lust. If we go all the way back to the book of Genesis, we are exposed to the problem of unbridled imagination.

[16:25] In Genesis 6-5 Moses said this, The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

[16:48] I looked that passage up in the Old American Standard Version. I like that. And it said this, And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

[17:11] The flesh controls the imagination of the unredeemed. The flesh can have a tremendous impact on the redeemed.

[17:26] Dr. MacArthur captures this in a very significant sentence in his commentary on 1 Peter. He says this, when the flesh feeds a sinful thought into the imagination, the imagination concocts a sinful fantasy scenario.

[17:50] That scenario excites lust. Lust moves the emotions. emotions. The emotions activate the will.

[18:05] And the will initiates sinful conduct. That's profound. That's absolutely profound.

[18:17] So what did God redeem believers with? 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 18 and 19 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

[18:59] But there's a great summary of this thought found in the Psalms specifically Psalm 49 verses 7 and 8 Truly no man can ransom another or give to God the price for his life for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice.

[19:29] Well Peter makes it clear that we are not ransomed even with precious metals. He says gold and silver won't suffice.

[19:44] Having established what believers are not ransomed with Peter next turns his attention to the means by which God redeemed them.

[19:56] And he summarizes this in three words. We were redeemed with precious blood.

[20:07] Those three words. Blood is used in the language and the literature of the Bible as a symbol for sacrificial death.

[20:20] blood that Peter is speaking of is special. It was the very blood of a lamb that was unblemished and spotless.

[20:36] We studied this in the book of Hebrews. No sacrificial animal could ever remove sin.

[20:50] Couldn't happen. Listen to these words out of Hebrews chapter 10 verse 1 to 10. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities it can never by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year make perfect those who draw near.

[21:19] Otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshipers having once been cleansed would no longer have any consciousness of sins.

[21:30] but in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

[21:43] Consequently when Christ came into the world he said sacrifices and offerings you've not desired but a body have you prepared for me in burnt offering and in sin offering you have taken no pleasure then I said behold I have come to do your will O God as it is written of me in the scroll of the book when he had said above you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings these were offered according to the law then he added behold I have come to do your will he does away with the first in order to establish the second and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all and that all there is all the redeemed the ultimate sacrifice was that of the Son of God on Calvary and when we look at the cross we see the deadly effects of sin and the fact that the only way we can be saved is through the substitutionary atonement of Christ

[23:15] Jesus only then can we say for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God contained in that one verse of scripture that's 1 Corinthians 5 verse 521 is the doctrine of imputation our guilt was imputed or assigned to Christ now we need to be clear Jesus was never a sinner he was not guilty of any sin he had no capacity to sin he was the spotless lamb but our guilt was imputed and you could say transferred to him he was treated as if he had committed every sin that was ever committed by anyone who would ever believe we were treated as if we were the spotless lamb without sin this role reversal now the blood of Christ is most precious because he was the only perfect person who ever lived hadn't been anybody else in that regard everything about him was perfect he is the perfect mediator he's the perfect high priest and that too is captured by the book of

[25:21] Hebrews backing up chapter 9 but when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come then through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands that is not of this creation he entered once for all into the holy places not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood thus securing an eternal redemption for if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of flesh how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God purify our consciences from dead works to serve the living

[26:33] God now because of all that he is therefore the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant it would be easy at this point to find myself on thin ice I've been there many times and let me say there this this will maybe put me on thin ice with some people there's no mystical properties in the blood of Christ okay now what do I mean by that the scourging of Jesus when the Roman soldiers whipped him and they were experts at that and the crucifixion of Jesus these were both very bloody affairs

[27:42] I think the passion of the Christ comes pretty close to portraying that I think without a doubt many Roman soldiers were splattered with the blood of Christ when they hit him with the whips and tore his flesh and cat of nine tails and and they were splattered with his blood but that did not save them they couldn't later argue well I was under the blood no when we speak of the blood of Christ it's a form of speaking of his redemptive death that's what the blood of Christ is about redemption and it sets us apart from every religion in the world and you can go down the list we won't do it tonight but you can go down the list all those guys are dead and flew the coop they're gone the work of redemption was accomplished in pouring his blood out in death we can live because he died in our place again that's substitution he took our place on the cross by whom did God redeem believers 1st Peter chapter 1 verses 20 and 21 he was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in

[30:01] God Christ was predestined to die on a cross and redeem mankind from before the foundation of the world and he knew in minute detail as God in human flesh all that was going to transpire from the foundation of the world when mankind fell in the garden the cross became essential to our reconciliation but the cross was not plan B we've got to come up with another angle here we've now no it wasn't plan B there are no plan B in God's economy this was not a backup plan made necessary by Adam and Eve choosing sin over obedience now clearly

[31:05] Christ was unique among men chosen by the father to die a substitutionary redemptive death in the place of everybody who would believe the incarnation also made him unique the passage tells us that he has appeared in these last times to appear means to make something manifest or to reveal something Paul captured this in Philippians chapter 2 very familiar to everyone in here starting in verse 5 have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross therefore

[32:32] God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father Peter also tells us that God raised Christ from the dead that is the most powerful proof that the sacrifice of Jesus for sin accomplished the redemptive work God had for him on the cross he raised him and that's an expression that God was satisfied with the sacrifice of Christ Peter also tells us that God gave him glory that happened when he ascended back into heaven and into glory he enjoyed for eternity past a glory and then he came to earth and then he returned and he's there now for eternity except when he'll be here with us as we read a few moments ago at the name of

[34:10] Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father that's glory for what did God redeem believers believers in 1st Peter chapter 1 last part of verse 20 and last part of verse 21 for the sake of you who through him are believers in God so that your faith and hope are in God the answer should jump out at us God redeemed us for the sake of all believers that's who was redeemed Christ died on behalf of the redeemed since redemption is through him there's no other way to

[35:10] God what is the future of those who do not believe well this is what the inspired scriptures say 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 verses 7 to 9 to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might because of what Christ Jesus accomplished on the cross all believers have faith and hope in

[36:18] God true believers what does that mean by faith all believers can presently enjoy the redemption of our souls and this is important because we find ourselves in the midst of struggles and anxieties we find ourselves in the midst of a world that's gone mad hope enables us to believe in future glory and that will be revealed in fullness to us in heavenly glory someday we will enjoy heavenly glory someday and I think all of us can say as we close this evening even so come quickly

[37:19] Lord Jesus let's pray father we thank you for your word inspired by the Holy Spirit perfect lord we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ who came who suffered who died who rose again and who's coming back we thank you Lord that we live in the day of the church may we be found faithful may all that we do and all that we say bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ we pray in his name amen Thank you.