Redemption: For What Are the Redeemed Delivered?

In the previous posts in this series, redemption was defined as deliverance by the payment of a price, and then the question of what it is that sinners are delivered from by Christ’s redemption was also examined.  The redeemed have been set free from bondage to sin, Satan, and a legal sentence of death, and that deliverance puts them into a different state than their previous one.  In this post, let’s look at the scriptural descriptions of the new state of redeemed people.

The redeemed are free.

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery.(Galatians 5:1 NET)

Those who are redeemed are not redeemed in order for them to be put in bondage to yet another form of slavery, but in order for them to be truly free. Accordingly, Paul warns them to be careful to guard that freedom. In this context, the slavery the Galatians are warned about is bondage to the law, but it’s a general principle we can apply to any set of rules or regulations to which a redeemed person might obligate themselves.

The righteousness of a redeemed person is not to be defined by obedience to certain rules or laws, but rather through Spirit worked faith working through love. This means that while it’s not a law based righteousness, it’s not a licentious freedom, either.  After all, licentiousness is really the expression of bondage to sin, something that’s been left behind as a result of redemption.  It is, rather, a freedom that works itself out as Spirit wrought obedience. 

 

It’s true freedom, but it’s also freedom that produces a different sort obedience, and a freedom that is, in one sense, quite demanding.  That’s why we find the state of the redeemed person expressed in another way, too.

 

The redeemed are Christ’s slaves. 

Romans 6:22 tells us that the redeemed have been “freed from sin and enslaved to God”.  They are freed “for freedom,” and yet they are freed to be “enslaved to God.”  It is intriguingly paradoxical, especially as expressed in 1 Corinthians:

For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave is the Lord’s freedman. In the same way, the one who was called as a free person is Christ’s slave. You were bought with a price. Do not become slaves of men. (1 Corinthinans 6:22-23 NET)

The redeemed are freed people and yet Christ’s slaves.  They are bought with a price, and so they should remain free; they are bought with a price, and so they belong to God and should serve him:

Or do you not know that … you are not your own? For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6: 19, 20 NET)

That the redeemed are bought with a price sets them free from slavish obligation to the law, but at the same time obligates them to shun immoral behaviour and glorify God  instead. 

 

Putting them together

It’s the nature of the complete reversal of direction for the redeemed that allows it to be described in these paradoxical terms. 

Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God – which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind … .

It’s an obedience that is based in the merciful work of God in redemption, and a servitude that is the right response to what has been accomplished for us and in us.  In that sense it’s a reversal from one kind of servitude to a contrasting kind of servitude—slavery to sin as opposed to slavery to God.  But it’s also being transformed by a renewed mind, which gives the freedom to be a new sort of person with a new way of life, free from the tyranny of of the old way of life, which was, in contrast, being conformed to the world—the bondage of the old sort of person to the old way of life.

 

Yep, the redeemed are  delivered for freedom and, at the same time, delivered for service to Christ.

Another Recipe Roundup?

Posting the pickled egg instructions reminded me how much fun it was to do the Christmas recipe roundup last year.  I’d like to do another one before the end of April, but I need a category for the recipes, and that’s where you come in.  What sort of recipes would you like to see in this roundup?  What would you find helpful or interesting or fun?  For which category of recipes would you be most likely to participate?

Update on Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 5:53PM by rebecca

Suggestions so far:

• Snacks, healthy snacks
• Casseroles
• Salads
• Quick fixes for supper
• Soups

I’ll take suggestions for a couple of days before deciding, so get your vote in!

Can they who have never heard the gospel,

and so know not Jesus Christ, nor believe in him, be saved by their living according to the light of nature?

They who, having never heard the gospel,[1] know not Jesus Christ,[2] and believe not in him, cannot be saved,[3] be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature,[4] or the laws of that religion which they profess;[5] neither is there salvation in any other, but in Christ alone,[6] who is the Savior only of his body the church.[7]

1. Rom. 10:14
   

   How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?  And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

2. II Thess. 1:8-9

   … 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…

   Eph. 2:12

   remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

3. John 8:24

   I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.

   Mark 16:16

   Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

4. I Cor. 1:20-24

   Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God

5. John 4:22

   You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

   Rom. 9:31-32

   … but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone … .

   Phil 3:4-9

   … though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith … .
   

6. Acts 4:12

   And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

7. Eph. 5:23

   For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

Question 60, Westminster Larger Catechism