Redemption is the act of being bought back. At creation, mankind was perfect and in a perfect relationship with God. In Genesis 1:26-27, God created us in His image, perfect as He is perfect, and gave man dominion over everything He had created. It was a perfect world, with a perfect couple, worshiping a perfect God. However, it didn’t stay that way. We don’t know the exact timeline, but before Adam and Eve had children, Satan entered the scene and tempted them, and they sinned. This sin broke the fellowship that they had with God and now this perfect relationship was gone. God cannot be in the presence of sin because He is holy, yet because of His love for us, He made a way to redeem us back as His own.
Genesis 1:26-27 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
Without redemption, we can never be in fellowship with God again. Roman 3:10 teaches us that “there is none righteous, no, not one.” Romans 3:23 declares that we are all sinners and we have fallen short of the glory of God. Nothing we can do on our own can gain us entrance to Heaven to spend eternity with God.
God’s love extended grace, God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense, to us. In Romans 3:24, we are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” In Romans 3:25, 4:7, and 4:8 God imputes the righteousness of Jesus to those who place their faith in Him. “God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”
For something to be redeemed, bought back, the ransom must be paid. A gift that cost nothing has no value. God valued us equal to the life of His only Son. The price to buy us back was the precious blood of Jesus. To think that a perfect, holy God loved me that much, should bring a Hallelujah to my soul. No one has ever loved me or you that much.
God could have made other choices. He could have let us perish in hell without any hope forever. He could have wiped us off the face of the earth and started over. He could have made us like robots with no choice but to obey Him, but He didn’t. He loved us and wanted fellowship with us, and when we messed us, He paid the only price that would satisfy His holiness. It was a price no one else could pay because no one else was perfect.
Ephesians 1:7 “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;”
We have been bought with a price and with that purchase God owns us. We were not only delivered from our sinful past but also from the consequences of our past. Therefore, we are no longer to live as we choose but live to glorify God. He owns us; we are not our own as Paul states in I Corinthians 6:19-20, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
I am so thankful for my redemption by God through Jesus! Because of what he has given me I will, with praise and honor, serve Him, my Master, my Lord, and my Savior! How could I not love and obey the one who paid so much to bring me back to Himself? I will be forever grateful for what He has done for me.
