REDEMPTION = FORGIVENESS OF SINS- BY PASTOR GREG ELKAN

Salvation – what God did for us in Christ – is a unique phenomenon that has no human equivalent. As the Isaiah proclaimed (and Paul echoed) _“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love him.”_ (Is  64:4; 1Cor 2:9 GW). So, in order to express the inexpressible, and explain the inexplicable, the inspired authors used analogies that human beings can easily relate to.

Using the analogy of a family, they called salvation “adoption”; when talking from a government perspective, they call it “kingdom”;  from a legal perspective, ‘justification”; from a medical perspective, “healing”; and from a commercial perspective, it is called “redemption”, etc.

All these are just different ways of describing the same thing, because each analogy in itself has its limits and is insufficient to communicate the truth of what happened at the Cross. 

Take “redemption” for example. To “redeem” means “to buy out”  and the term was used specifically in reference to the purchase of a slave’s freedom. Nevertheless, God did not _pay_ anybody to liberate us. His blood was not given to the Devil in exchange for our souls, neither was Jesus tortured by demons in Hell the   His transaction with the Devil to liberate us wasn’t commercial, it was military. 

So, what then does it mean to be “redeemed”? Paul answers that question – _twice_ – in his epistles. In Eph 1:7 he explains that in Christ we _“have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;”_ and he repeats the same almost verbatim in Col 1:14.

The forgiveness of sins is part and parcel of the salvation process. The redeemed Believer is not _also_ forgiven, it is the forgiveness that made them redeemed.

AMEN...

PASTOR GREG ELKAN

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.