Redeemed by God
Colossians · Andrew Molloy · Nov 3, 2019
Colossians (2019), No. 36
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261916455704

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

This is kind of the kickoff, huh? Because last week was the introduction. Overview, and this is the first word that we're studying, the first topic in Schaeffer's The Riches of God's Grace that we're studying this morning in redemption. And I have listed on the left here all the many doctrines comprising salvation. and there's at least 12 of them and I might, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and sometimes there's 15 depending on what you put in there but there's just a whole menu of things right that happened in salvation and you can see that list there there's regeneration, redemption, justification, forgiveness, reconciliation, assurance baptism, union in baptism, propitiation, judgment, adoption, sanctification, election, foreknowledge, predestination. And they're all those big 25-cent words, right? But really critical stuff. So I've cross-referenced these. So there's our subject for today, redemption. We're going to look at that. But all these are ones that are in Schaeffer's 33, the list of 33, riches of God's grace.

Regeneration, justification, forgiveness. So, it's always good to, even though this is review, it's, you know, these terms, it's good to go back and revisit these. So what does a redeem mean? In the Old Testament, And I'm going back to the Old Testament because redemption is important back then. Really important. It comes from Hebrew. This is, and I think I'm doing the verb and not the noun for redeem. So this is to redeem. It's Ga'al. And the noun is something like Galiluwa or something. But not too important. But that's what it looks like in the Hebrew. So it's the verb to redeem, act as kinsman, redeemer, to avenge or revenge, to ransom, to do the part of a kinsman. Redeemed from slavery, that makes sense, right? That's easy. Redeem land. That's an important one in the Old Testament. There's a whole chapter on that. Leviticus is a lot about redeeming land.

Or, the last point of Gaol, or the last definition is to redeem a deceased brother's estate. by marrying his widow and begetting an heir for him and buying up his land that he left his estate. And a lot of these carry over to the New Testament in all sorts of ways, so we'll see that. But it's important to understand it in the Old Testament usage.

This is just a brief survey that I just kind of quickly looked through, did a word search. So I'm calling this slide, Things That Are Worth Redeeming. Sounds like that game show. What is it? Alex Trebek or something. Things Worth Redeeming. Jeopardy, yes, thank you. So things worth redeeming. All the things that are redeemed in the Old Testament and New Testament. So in Leviticus, as I say, there's probably at least 25 instances of where they're talking about the redemption of land.

In Ruth, Elimelech's land and his widow were redeemed, right? And we all know that story. They were down in Moab, and Elimelech died, left a widow Ruth, and then Ruth went up with his mother back to Bethlehem, right? But Elimelech's land was, he was dead, so it was unclaimed.

So, let's see, Ruth was gleaning in the fields, met Boaz, and Boaz eventually redeemed Elimelech's land and got Ruth too so and that's just what we in the definition of Gaal redeeming a deceased brother's estate by marrying his widow and be getting an heir for him buying up his land so that's what happened and then I think Boaz was wasn't it Jesse's grandfather and then David came from Jesse So this parcel of land is where David was a shepherd. So it's very important, and that's an example of redeeming in the book of Ruth.

I said, this is a stretch, but I said, who was redeemed in Job? The book of Job, Job, right? Job. I know that my Redeemer liveth, right? Deuteronomy, Israel was redeemed out of the bondage in Egypt. In Psalms, Israel is redeemed. David's soul is talked about being redeemed. And Israel from the hand of her enemies. In Isaiah, Zion is redeemed. Abraham is redeemed. Jacob is redeemed. Jerusalem is redeemed. or brought up out of slavery, or bought back, or ransomed, you know, things like that.

So in the New Testament, in Romans, in Romans 8.21, creation is redeemed.

In Romans 8.23, our body is redeemed. And again, we won't look at these verses, it's just a quick survey.

Galatians 4.5 the Jews under the law are redeemed from out under the law and that makes sense because Paul is talking about the Jews and the law and grace so he's saying that the Jews are redeemed from under the law by Christ in Ephesians and Colossians believers in Christ are redeemed In Luke, Israel is redeemed.

Kind of the Christmas story, right? Is why that's brought up. And Titus, believers from every lawless deed are redeemed. So those are things in the Bible. A quick little survey of things redeemed. Oh yeah, yeah, Revelation. And the 144,000. are redeemed from the earth. And I think I missed a big one on here. I can't remember what it is now. But maybe I'll remember it. So, yeah, in Revelation, the 144,000, the millennial remnant of Israel, are redeemed.

So the word for redemption in the Greek, in the New Testament, is apolitrosis. Apolitrosis. from apo, which means from, out of. So you're separating one thing from another and giving it something else, basically. It talks about fellowship too. But lutron is the price for redeeming. The ransom paid for slaves or captives. captives for the ransom of life, or to liberate the many from the misery and penalty of their sins, a releasing affected by the payment of ransom, deliverance, liberation procured by the payment of ransom. So you get the idea of that payment of ransom. Simply to buy back is how we really describe it easily, right? to buy something back.

But I think a good modern-day example is, I've been, Gene's been gone, and I've been watching a lot of Netflix shows, and there's always, in every one, there's always someone kidnapped, and they're in a black SUV, like a mother and a child, so the good guys have to get the mother and child back because they've got the one of the bad guys so they always meet on a bridge and out of one car comes the mother and child with the bad guys and here they are mother child now give us our guy right so the and they're parked like this so they do a prisoner swap for the mother and child for the guy that they want right um and you've seen that right and every every true crime TV show there is. That always happens.

That's what they're doing, right? Isn't it payment? The price, it's redeeming those captives, basically, for each other. They're doing a swap. The value that they're giving is one life for another. The bad guy for the mother and the child. And then, oftentimes, it all someone gets nervous and then they start shooting each other.

But that's what I thought of and that's a pretty good modern-day usage of this word for redeem, apoptrosis. Or the bottles, we used to have those in the 70s, you know you drink a Coke glass bottle and said yeah deposit so you can redeem it for five cents or in certain states you got ten cents oh and that's yeah that's plastic oh and you get to yes so there you go I think I said to my dad hey we should move to a state that gives ten cents I mean, why...

You imported from the other states. Right, and we would be paid to drink soda. But Colorado didn't have these... Colorado wasn't in that redemption program back then. So you'd get nothing for it, but I just, when I was a kid, I was fascinated that you could drink a Coke.

And it was always glass, too. It wasn't aluminum. Somehow they wanted to get glass back, and I don't know why, because glass is not like plastic, it doesn't litter. I throw away glass because I figure it gets crushed, turns back into sand. In a million years it's going to be just sand again. And it will melt to sand. But yeah, I can see aluminum and I can see plastic being redeemed, but I can't see glass being redeemed.

So anyway, that's... But simply to buy back redemption. Okay, so... Oh, I shouldn't have given you the answer there. But what is the thing of value in redemption? And the clue is all highlighted there in these verses. And so it's not a mother and child getting... getting ransom back from the bad guys. In the New Testament, it's the blood of Christ, right?

Through His blood, Colossians 1.14, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. And I have a little note that through His blood, it isn't in the New American Standard. It leaves that, if someone has a New American Standard, maybe Look that up. I don't think through his blood is in the New American Standard. It's in the King James.

It's kind of strange, but through his blood in Colossians 1.14.

In Hebrews 9.12, we're going to look at a lot. Yeah, it's not there. Okay. Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us. The interlinear King James leaves it out too. Oh they do, yeah. So they must have left it out because in a previous verse it's up there and they must... Yeah, they must... since they know that that preposition is the... Yeah, it's all on that subject they leave it out.

1 Peter 1.18-19 Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

Ephesians 1.7 In whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our sins our trespasses according to the riches of his grace and that's a that's a very well-known verse and it's redemption through his blood and that's the key the key point there so through his blood since that is such a in the New Testament redemption usually occurs with this preposition, through his blood. Through is dia, and it means by means of. And I like this second point of the definition. It's a preposition denoting the channel of an act. So the channel that redemption takes, the channel it goes through is through his blood.

Another way to say it, on account of His blood, by reason of Christ's blood, we are redeemed. And in the New Testament, that's how it's used. Through His blood is the main way it's described, but if you think about it in other places too, it's still you can still we're still being ransomed right from sin and the marketplace of sin and so that that old testament um definition um gaal that we looked at is still active in the new testament um so past present and future tenses of redemption just like salvation has You're saved in the past, you're saved in the present, you're saved in the future, right? So just like that, redemption has three tenses. And when were we redeemed? It was at the cross. Acts 20, 28, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock. among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood." So past tense.

And what's happening there is Paul is meeting with the Ephesians. He's going to leave Ephesians. Ephesus. He's not going to leave Ephesians. He's going to leave Ephesus. He's going to get on a boat. And he's going to go try and get back to Jerusalem.

So they all meet. with all the elders and pastor teachers and things, and he says, and this is the instruction he's giving them, be on guard for yourselves and for the flock. Revelation 5.9, you'll recognize that that's in the throne room of God at the end of the apocalypse, basically. and they sang a new song saying worthy are you to take the book and break its seals for you were slain and purchased for God with your blood men from every tribe tongue and people and nation so that's Christ who's the worthy lamb who purchased past tense on the cross men of every tribe tongue and nation 1st Corinthians 6.20, for you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.

Romans 3.23 and 24, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

You always hear Romans 3.23, don't you? For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

But the next verse is very, very, very important. But no one quotes that, hardly. Because they're always making a case for salvation. And so redemption is part of salvation, but maybe it's because it's a 25 cent word, people don't want to get into that right then. But that's Romans 3, 24.

So that's a past tense of redemption in the New Testament. The present tense is, and I have this, when it's used in the present tense in the New Testament, it's used in a way that Paul or Peter are exhorting believers to live a certain way. So it's on the ground of exhortation.

Live this way because you have been delivered from the power of sin. And we have 1 Peter 1, 18-20. Oh, and here I'll read from over here because my writing is a little on my notes, so I'll read from the slide. For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, from your vain conversation, manner of life.

And you see how he's in an exhortation section of the book? He's instructing them to live a certain way. Received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.

And then, yeah, these might even be the same verses that are used for the past tense of, yeah. But it's true, yeah, but they work for both, don't they? Because you were bought with a price. And why I have them in the present tense here on this slide is because of the context.

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7, 21 through 24, is he's he's exhorting them he's uh giving them kind of rules for living uh if you are called a slave and i'll just paraphrase this don't worry about it um for those who were a slave um are now free in Christ. You're the Lord's freedmen. If you were free, you're now Christ's slaves. You were bought with a price. And there's our redemption phrase there. You were bought with a price.

And so he's saying to the Corinthians, whether you were a slave or you weren't, it doesn't matter. Just live the way that the Lord is now calling you to be, right? in 1st Corinthians 6, 19-20 and I like that. What? Say what? Know you not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own. Sort of saying the same thing he's saying a chapter later in 1st Corinthians 7. But you are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."

So you can see this redemption, the phrase, especially, you were bought with a price through the blood, it's all over the New Testament. It's a big, it's a big set, a big subject. And I almost, and it's very closely, I didn't get into it because it's, it goes off probably You know, it's probably another lesson, but it dovetails really well into Romans 6, right? It's just, you're dead to sin, and you were bought with a price, and it's very closely related to Romans 6.

So you could go on and on about it. Redemption. So, future tense of redemption. And this is where I leave it up to you to answer. What are things that are redeemed in the future? Oh, don't look at your notes. Eyes on me. I wish I could point that little button on your notes. Yeah. Okay, everyone's shy. But our bodies are redeemed, right? And creation, all creation, are things redeemed in the future.

And I just, it's one section of scripture in Romans 8. And it makes sense. Why is it in Romans 8? Because in Romans 7, Paul is a slave to sin nature. He's under this condemnation of the sin nature and he's He's miserable about it. But in Romans 8, he's delivered from this in nature.

So Romans 8, 19 through 25, for the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. that the creation itself, one day, will also be set free from its slavery, and there's a redemption phrase there, set free from its slavery, to corruption, into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we have ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, eagerly awaiting our adoption as sons. Adoption is one of the Schaeffer 33 riches of Christ.

And I think we, is it covered? Maybe? Yeah, maybe, maybe not. Adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. And there's how our body is redeemed. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope for he who hopes for who hopes for what he already sees but if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance we eagerly await for it and so what are we uh what is the redemption of the body the rapture the rapture yeah okay because what what happens though We get a new body, yeah. You get rid of the... And you guys can all, I can see it, you all can use a new body. Present company included. Potentially included.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, knees and medical, yeah. Yeah, there's cancer, there's sickness, there's just age. Yeah, yeah. These bodies are corruptible and they'll be redeemed with a new body one day. Right at the moment of the rapture, right? Yeah, that's when it happens. Instantaneously. You'll be fitted for heaven. So that's what he's talking about. Our bodies are going to be redeemed. But our old bodies, let's see. they'll be worthless, right? So it's not like we won't get, well, maybe we'll get 10 cents for those. And just like, just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have to move to the right state. Yeah, right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You got to make sure you're raptured from the right state. But somehow he's going to take this body and just retrofit it for, for eternity.

So that's a future tense of redemption and one more verse here in this future tense Ephesians 4 30 through 32 do not greed the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption that's again the day of the rapture let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all your malice.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you. And there Paul is, he's in chapter four, so he's laid out all the riches in Christ, all the doctrinal, what's true about you as believers positionally. He's laid all that out and now he's in the exhortation section, which he usually does in a book, right? In Ephesians. And he's telling them to put away anger wrath and malice, because of the fact that you were redeemed.

You were sealed by the Holy Spirit for that day. And so on the basis of that, you should live a certain way, right? So it's exhortation, but it's based on that future tense of redemption. The source of redemption, what do you think? This is an open-ended comment, but I think that we could say that the source of redemption happened in eternity past with Hebrews 13.20 and the eternal covenant. Now the Now the God of peace who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, who is Christ, through the blood, there's our redemption phrase there, through the blood of the eternal covenant even, Jesus our Lord. So what is the eternal covenant? Probably a review, but in eternity past, God and Jesus Christ Maybe sat down.

I always think of they sat down on the table and They worked out a covenant between the two of them Christ said I will die for the sins of the world And God said if you die for the sins of the world, I'll raise you up from the dead and what is the The thing of value in that covenant, it needs a thing of value, or a...

What's the word I'm looking for? A thing of value, or consideration paid. It needs some consideration. The consideration is the blood. And that came with Christ's death. And that's the eternal covenant. It's a covenant between two. What's the Greek word? Diaseke, I think. I think the Greek word is between two for covenant.

The completeness of redemption. We go back to Hebrews 9 and verse 12 and this is interesting because you can see how he's going back to the Old Testament and he says, and whoever wrote Hebrews he says and not through the blood of goats and calves but through his own blood he entered the holy place once for all having obtained eternal redemption for the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God. Cleanse your conscience from the deeds, from the dead works, to serve the living God."

And what he's talking about there, of course, is all the Levitical animal sacrifices that happened. And I have these Down below here I have what each of these animals, what their purpose was for in the sacrifice. So a goat was a male goat. He was a male goat was sacrificed for the purpose of, he was a general sacrifice for the people of Israel.

And then the calf was sacrificed for the high priest in his household. and then the ashes of a heifer and it was a red heifer who was burned to I guess to a crisp outside the camp and then they took the heifer's ashes and they ground it into water mixed it with water so this ash water could be sprinkled on people who came into contact with a corpse or skeletal remains or when they were cleaning up a battle scene, so they were dealing with the dead in battle, and all that defilement, I guess they couldn't come back into the camp after having touched a dead body. So this ash water, if sprinkled on them, would kind of make them clean again.

But you can see the whole... You probably see this on your notes here, but it covers all the bases, right? The goat, the calf, the heifer. It's the whole package. So Christ's death and his blood did all this work of the goat, the calf, the heifer, but on an eternal kind of basis and on a I'm nipped in. Yeah, you're right. I should put one of those, maybe the, I think I forgot one of those, a bowl, I should have put the bowl at shortstop. There, but I had forgotten. But yeah, Christ's blood is eternal and infinite, right?

It's infinite, whereas this stuff goats and calves and bulls are just temporal. These sacrifices were just going on all the time. They were constantly dealing with slaying animals over and over and over and over again. It was such a burden. And that wasn't the final solution for the sin problem. And I think they would sometimes wait for the big bowls, right? They wouldn't do that all the time. But it was the smaller stuff that they would sacrifice on a daily basis.

There's doves, and just going on and on forever. Oh, and then continually, right? And it points that out in scripture. Those were continual, but with Christ it was once for all. And it says that in that Hebrews passage. Once for all. Oh, a question I have is, In this passage, Hebrews 9, and Hebrews 9 is all about this redemption issue.

Let's see, was anything in the Old Testament, we go back to the Old Testament, when they're doing all this stuff, was the Israelites redeemed by the doing of these sacrifices? Goats? bowls, calves, heifers, were they redeemed? Yeah, yeah, I don't think there was redemption at that point.

I think there was atonement, right? They were atoned for their sins. They were brought They had a reconciliation, right? They were far off. It brought them back into fellowship. Fellowship was restored. But redemption, they weren't redeemed yet, I don't think. So I think redemption, the actual redemption waited to the cross. And they weren't even justified back then, were they? Because they were just kind of covered with sins. the justification happened with Christ, because the law couldn't justify a man, faith justifies.

So that's sort of a... Actually, let me read Hebrews 10.1.

Hebrews 10.1 says, speaking of the law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very Yeah. Yeah. And all of this section of Hebrews is on this subject, isn't it? It's a big...

I mean, he really outlays the redemption in Christ's blood, really in detail. Now I said that nothing, well, and it's open and I'm not stating this as this is how it is, but I just couldn't find that the sacrifices redeemed Israel with blood. Did blood redeem the Israelites from their sins. I say no, but there is one redemption in the Old Testament that happens with blood.

Can you think of that? There's one time that it pairs redemption with blood in the Old Testament, and that It was a sacrifice and then God said, I'll never let this happen again to the whole earth because you did this? Yeah, it could be. What I'm thinking though is the Israelites in Egypt, so how were they redeemed out of Egypt? By taking the blood and spreading it on their door, right?

So that's blood. clear-cut case, right, of blood and redemption kind of paired through there. But I'm not stating that. I'd have to study it more, but I think that I'm just making that observation. Don't hold me to it. He who spends all his time comparing the blood of bulls and goats with the more perfect that the writer comes back to that idea and just talks about some more of the eternal value of Christ's blood, how much more it is than the blood of Wilson. So this is just one of, again, the first, I mean, chapter 10 does more, it just goes on.

And once for all, right? Unlike some of our friends in Christendom, who, it's every Sunday, right, or every Saturday, that this blood kind of sacrifice happens at the, what do they call it? Mass, right? So once for all. So I don't know how that's missed. How do they miss once for all, you know? And just the complete, you read Hebrews and it's quite clear.

What are some of the things we are redeemed from? This is sort of like extra credit. I don't have a slide for it, but... We're redeemed from the penalty of sin. Yeah, the penalty of sin. What about the marketplace of sin? And death. What about death? I just made a quick list. This kind of goes back to the Old Testament too, but it mentions a lot Hades and Sheol, where Lazarus was.

The rich man was looking at Lazarus in paradise, but he was in Hades. we don't really have, I mean, we have heaven and hell now, but there's things I think that we were sold into at the fall, Adam and Eve, I think, death, Hades, Revelation 1.8, Christ said, I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.

I have the keys of death and Hades. and in Revelation 6.8 he says there's the ashen horse and the he who sat upon it had the name death and Hades was falling with him so it's there's a lot of stuff that were redeemed from that may I don't understand fully death Hades the marketplace of the domain of darkness in Colossians right we are transferred from one domain to another kingdom and that's from that's redemption we're brought out of that um bondage to sin um and oh we're redeemed from the union with the old man the sin nature right we're we're separated from the old and In the Old Testament definition of redemption, Ge'al, there's that separation. Separate us from our old man through the death of Christ.

So, yeah, it's a big ball of wax, isn't it? Redemption. So, questions, comments? All right. Alright, well, should we close in prayer? Does anyone want to close? Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for our time today, Lord. Thank you for the riches of your grace, Lord. Thank you that we can consider them and study them in detail, Lord. Thank you for Brother Andrew joining us and spending the time studying out these marvelous truths. We pray that we would remind ourselves of what it costs our safety in Christ.