WWUTT 587 What is a Ransom?

Yesterday, we talked about Christ as our mediator, the one mediator between God and men.

Today, we are going to talk about Him as our ransom, what is a ransom, and why you need one when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

Thank you, Becky. We come back to the same paragraph we were studying last week and yesterday, 1

Timothy chapter 2, verses 1 through 7. As Paul says to his servant Timothy, First of all, then,

I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man

Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am telling the truth, I am not lying, a teacher of the

Gentiles in faith and truth. There are some wonderful vocab words in this particular paragraph, and we started with several of those in verse 1, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings, and what they have to do with prayer.

We even define the word all, that these be made for all people, kings and all who are in high positions.

Sometimes that word all means every single individual person. Other times it just means a large group of people, so it's used hyperbolically.

And the context is how we know the proper application of that word all. That's important to remember with the verse that we're going to be looking at today as well.

Yesterday we came back to verse 5 to understand what it means that Christ is our mediator.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man

Christ Jesus, who is our representative before the Father, interceding for us on our behalf.

Jesus Christ, the God -man, is our access to God. He is how we come before the

Father. John 14 .6, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but through me. So he is our mediator.

And we need a mediator because we have sinned against God.

We are not worthy to be in his holy, glorious presence. And in fact, by doing so, it would destroy us if we were to enter into the holy presence of God.

We had to be forgiven our sins. We had to have our sins atoned for.

And that was done through Christ, who now stands before God as our representative. And it is through Christ that we not only have access to God now, we can pray to God and know that our prayers are being heard by God, but we will live forever with God through Jesus Christ, our

Lord. And so today we want to understand Christ as our ransom.

So verse 6, Christ gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

The message of the gospel is that Christ is our ransom. But what does that mean? Does the word ransom mean?

And why do you need a ransom? Well, first of all, the word itself ransom means to pay the price that is owed for someone or something.

So let's say that you committed a crime. You're a sinful wretch. So we're going to put you in this scenario.

And the crime was serious enough that you were thrown in jail and the bond was set at $150 ,000.

That's a crazy amount of money. How could you pay that? Your family can't even afford to pay your bail or your bond.

But somebody steps up and pays it for you and gets you out of jail. They have paid your ransom.

Or you might be a slave or somebody who is kidnapped and you are possessed by somebody else and you have to be bought in order to free you from the slavery that you are in.

Well, if somebody buys you, buys your freedom, they have paid your ransom.

Now, this is a little bit different than redeem. Both of the words are used fairly interchangeably throughout the scriptures, but they do have different definitions to ransom is simply to pay what is owed for a person and set them free.

But to redeem a person is to actually purchase them. Do you understand the difference there?

So if someone pays your ransom, you're set free. But if somebody redeems you, then they buy you back or they possess you.

You're not in another person's possession anymore. You're in the possession of the person who has redeemed you.

And the Bible says that we are both. We have been ransomed and we've also been redeemed.

Christ has paid our ransom, but he's also redeemed us to himself. So we are not in slavery to our sin.

We are now slaves of righteousness. But we belong to somebody. This is the analogy that Paul uses in Romans.

And he mentions to the Romans that he uses this terminology because of their of their weak limitations, because they are people of the flesh, because it's difficult for us to wrap our minds around deep spiritual concepts sometimes.

So he uses the analogy of slavery. You were once enslaved to your sinful passions, but now you are a slave to righteousness.

You do righteous things in the name of Christ because you belong to Christ. If you were still walking in sinfulness, well, you haven't actually been redeemed.

You haven't actually been set free from the bondage of sin because you're still enslaved to the sinful passions. So those who walk in righteousness display by their lives and by their actions that they have indeed been redeemed by Christ.

So you could use either word. They would both apply since the Bible says we have been ransomed and we have been redeemed.

We were once enslaved to our sinful passions. That is who we are by nature to sin and rebel against God.

And we were following the passions of the flesh, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, as is described in Ephesians chapter two, verses one through three.

That was who we were when we were walking in sinfulness. But since we have been redeemed by Christ or our ransom has been paid, we're no longer enslaved to that sinfulness, but rather we would walk in the righteousness of Christ.

We would obey his commandments. We were once enslaved to sin and that's all we could do was sin.

Nothing that we did was pleasing the sight of God as we talked about yesterday. But it is now that we have been ransomed and set free from our bondage to sin, that we are free to worship

God in a proper way, lifting up praises that are acceptable to the

Lord because Christ has paid our ransom. Now, this concept of ransom or even the word redemption, this is

Old Testament language, because remember, the people of Israel were enslaved to Egypt and it was

God who redeemed them. One of the first occasions of this word redeem comes up in Exodus chapter six.

So this was after Moses and Aaron made their first appearance before Pharaoh and said, let my people go.

Well, Pharaoh responded by actually making the work harder on the

Israelites. They would have to labor even harder than they were before because it was demanded of Pharaoh that he would let the people go.

And so then the foreman of the Israelites, they came to Moses and said, why are you doing this? Why are you afflicting the people of Israel all the more?

And then Moses said to God, why have you allowed this thing to happen to the people of Israel? And then

God responded through Moses and Aaron in Exodus chapter six and said, say therefore to the people of Israel, I am the

Lord and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will deliver you from slavery to them.

And I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

So the redemption of the people of Israel was by the very hand of God.

He bought them out of slavery and then he possessed them as a people to himself. So this is

Old Testament language when we use these words like ransom and redeemed. And then when applied to what

Christ did for us on the cross, his blood bought us from our slavery that was in sinfulness or ransomed us, set us free from the slavery that we were in.

Now, one of the first occasions of that word ransom in the Bible shows up in Exodus chapter 30.

And I find it interesting the usage of this word. This is the command that is being given to the people of Israel to take a census.

And God said, when you take a census of the people of Israel, when all the people are counted, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the

Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them.

So this is as though to say when every life is being counted. Remember that that life belongs to me.

God saying that life is mine. I ransomed you out of Israel. So they have to pay a ransom so that a plague would not come upon them.

Well, why would that be the case if they don't pay the ransom that a plague would come upon the people of Israel? Well, it's because they would begin to get very arrogant in their numbers.

Look at how great our numbers are. We are unstoppable. We're we're invincible.

We are greater than any other nation or people around us. And then they would no longer have dependency upon God, but they would feel fully dependent in themselves.

So the ransom was to remind them that they belong to God, that they are not strong in and of themselves.

It is God who gives them their strength. And we actually see under David, a plague come upon the people when

David numbered them in the census. But the ransom wasn't paid. And David actually did this in hubris when he counted the number of people because he wanted to see how big his armies were.

He wasn't necessarily set out to do battle with somebody. He just wanted to see, hey, if I got a strong army and I wanted to wage war against somebody, do

I have enough people here? Well, that was outside what God had told David to do. And so a plague came upon the people until David sought the forgiveness of God.

And it was because they disobeyed this command in Exodus 30. That was why that plague came upon the people.

So, again, that ransom there was to be reminded that they belong to somebody. They belong to God.

No longer belonging to the Egyptians, but they've been set free and are

God's people now. So that's one of the first occasions we see that word ransom come up. There's a place where it appears in the law in chapter 21, but there in Exodus 30 is kind of that first place where the word is used to show possession of the lives that belong to God.

And then Peter uses this word in 1 Peter. When we were going through this letter that Peter wrote to the

Christians in Asia Minor, we talked about how Peter uses a lot of Old Testament slavery language to show how we now belong to God, uses a lot of Exodus language.

I think that was the word that I use there. So when we are called to be holy, this is 1 Peter 1, starting in verse 13, he says, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children.

Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance who we were when we were enslaved to our sins.

But as he who called you is holy. That's again, Exodus language, God calling his people out of Egypt.

He has called us out of slavery to our sin as he who called you is holy.

So you also must be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy.

And if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourself with fear throughout the time of your exile, also

Exodus language or Old Testament language, because we do not belong to this world.

We're exiles in this world. And now here's verse 18, knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal 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.

We've been ransomed by Christ and he and only he could pay our ransom.

See, your sin against God has incurred a debt, a debt that you cannot pay. The debt is so great.

You cannot pay it. And as we talked about yesterday, you are imperfect and unholy. So you were unworthy to even pay that debt.

But it is Christ who has paid that debt for us on our behalf. There are other places in the scriptures where ransom or redemption language is used, even though those words may not particularly appear.

But nonetheless, the concept of being redeemed or ransomed is very much evident.

I think one of the places where this comes up the most prominently is in Colossians chapter two, where it says that we were dead in our trespasses and the uncircumcision with the uncircumcision of our flesh.

And God made us alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. That's Colossians 2 14.

And it's not that the debt was just canceled like it was expunged, but it was ransomed.

And that's what's said there by it being nailed to the cross. Jesus, by his spilled blood, ransomed us from our sins.

And now we belong to Christ. Also, again, in Titus 2 verse 14, that Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

That's the concept of being ransomed there as well. In Revelation chapter five, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, is the one who is worthy to open the scroll.

And those saints who were around the throne glorifying God, they sang a new song,

Revelation 5 9, saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed a people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

And you have made them a kingdom of priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.

There's that concept of ransom again. So we owed a debt against God, a debt.

And what we owed for that was death. That's what we earned. Okay, because that's what is meant when

Paul said in Romans 6 23, the wages of sin is death. What you have earned for your sin is death.

The debt that you owed against God you couldn't pay. That's what he was going to pay you. He was going to he was going to destroy your life.

But it is Christ who has redeemed your life from the debt that you owed to God.

He ransomed you by paying the debt with his blood. And now you've been purchased.

As Paul said to the Corinthians, you have been bought with a price. So do not become bond servants of men.

We belong to Christ or most emphatically in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 19.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God?

That's that's all those who are Christians who are believers. You are not your own, Paul says, for you were bought with a price.

You were ransomed. So glorify God in your body.

We belong to Christ Jesus. He ransomed us from sin, paid our debts that we owed

God. And now we belong to him. We belong to Christ. Remember the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray the

Lord's Prayer in Matthew chapter six. Part of that prayer is forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Jesus gave this parable in Luke 7 41. A certain money lender had two debtors.

One owed 500 denarii and the other 50 when they could not pay. He canceled the debt of both.

Now, which of them will love him more? And Simon answered the one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt.

And Jesus said to him, you have judged rightly then turning toward the woman who had just anointed

Jesus feet. And Jesus said, Do you see this woman? I entered your house.

You had you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.

You gave me no kiss. But from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she is anointed my feet with ointment.

Therefore, I tell you her sins, which are many are forgiven for she loved much.

But he who is forgiven little loves little. And he said to her, Your sins are forgiven.

Then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, Who is this who even forgives sins?

And he said to the woman, Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. So we owed a debt to God here in this particular parable.

Jesus even equates money debts with spiritual debts. We owed a debt to God because of our sinfulness.

We couldn't pay it. And it is Christ who has paid it by his blood. And it is Christ who is

God who can forgive sins just as he forgave this woman's sins. And this is the testimony that was given at the proper time.

The forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, who by his blood bought our lives and atoned for our sins.

He ransomed us from our sins. So now before God, we stand before him as set free from the bonds of sin and slavery.

Christ gave himself as a ransom for all. So coming back again to 1 Timothy 2, 6, he gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

Now, this is once again one of those places where the word all does not mean every single person, for Christ did not pay the ransom for everyone's sins.

If he paid the ransom for every single person's sins, then there would be no reason for them to even follow

Christ. But all here, once again in context, is all kinds of people, even kings and all who are in high positions.

Remember 1 Timothy 2, 2. So from every tribe, tongue, and nation on earth, as is depicted in the book of Revelation, are the people of God, those who have been ransomed from bondage to sin and death.

And we've been set free in Christ because their debt has been paid. Christ gave himself as a ransom for all, not every single person, because not every single person has been ransomed, only those who are in Christ Jesus.

And this is the testimony that is given at the proper time. The good news of the forgiveness of sins, which is given to us in Christ, who set us free from sin and death.

One of my favorite Christmas carols around the holiday season is O Come O Come Emmanuel.

It was first written in Latin as Vini Vini Emmanuel in the early 1700s.

It would be 150 years before it was translated into English and given the tune that we know it by today.

So the most popular version, which we still sing, was first published in 1861.

And that opening verse, you probably have memorized, O come O come Emmanuel, the name of God, which means

God with us, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the

Son of God appear. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee,

O Israel. And the Israel that we're talking about there is not just a collection of Jews in a particular location in the

Middle East. It is the very Church of God, as described in Galatians 6 .16. And we have this said to us in Romans 9 .6,

that not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. But it is those who are in Christ Jesus, who is true

Israel, that are the people of God. And so it was Christ who came that we remember around this holiday season.

We remember that Christ came to Bethlehem 2 ,000 years ago to set his captives free.

We mourned in lonely exile until the Son of God appeared. Rejoice, rejoice, amen.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt

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