Redemption
By John R. Gavazzoni

It is a very fundamental subject in scripture, this matter of redemption: the necessity of a ransom-payment for release from captivity. The captor must be paid to set the captive free. In our Lord's announcement---as recorded in chapter four of the Gospel of Luke---of what was to be the nature of His ministry, there was that underlying element that He was to preach deliverance to the captives and set at liberty those who are bruised that summarized what His ministry would accomplish.

Man, left to himself, suffering from the consequence of death passed down to all men from Adam's disobedience, suffers from, and is held prisoner to, death's decaying effect of spirit, soul and body. The hymnist described it poetically,

It is an imprisonment of the darkness and ignorance of the heart. The following line of that hymn declared what set the prisoner free:

It is enlightenment that brings release; enlightenment that displaces the darkness of ignorance. From the first epistle of John we learn that what is normative of the delivered life, is that, "we know and believe the love God has for us," thus it is the lack of such knowledge and faith-confidence that is what holds us imprisoned in darkness. The darkness of our ignorance of God's love goes beyond just deficiency, but of a darkness and ignorance that distorts the view of God and all that is involved in opening the human heart to that love.

But, why the necessity of a ransom-payment? After "why," comes the question, who is demanding payment, and what is it that would satisfy that demand? Is God demanding payment to release the captive? Many presume that to be the case.

That presumption lies at the heart of what many mean when they declare, "Jesus paid the price." If, indeed, it is God requiring a ransom price to be paid, then it would logically follow that God would be the imprisoner from whom the captive must be freed.

It should only require a moment's pause of consideration to realize, that doesn't make any sense at all. God, in Christ, is our Rescuer from imprisonment, not our imprisoner (except, that after our deliverance, we are held captive by the bonds of love).

Is it a matter of God paying off the devil, Satan? Has our ownership by God been transferred over to the devil by right of his success in drawing us away from Him? There are some who actually believe that there exists some kind of principle that requires of God to cede over ownership of us over to the devil because our disobedience requires such a transfer.

Away with all such religiously-perverse nonsense. The issue is clear: it is we, ourselves, in the darkness and ignorance of our hearts, who dare to require a recompense of payment from God for what we, in the depth of our (whether consciously or unconsciously) ignorance, we believe God has unjustly mistreated us by the afflictions of life traceable ultimately to His so sovereignty. In the grips our enmity, hostility and resentment of the carnal mind, the collective cry of mankind without the saving (true) knowledge of Christ, is, "crucify Him; crucify Him."

What a twisted version religion has foisted upon us of God's relationship with man. God is pictured as the angry party rather than man. God's not mad at us; we're mad at God. It is we who demand blood. Underneath our pretense--even, and especially, a pretense aimed at ourselves--we have found God guilty, and nothing less than the shedding of His blood will satisfy our need for vengeance.

Allow me to dramatize this syndrome: God faces our infamous claim, and, as it were, says to us,
"What are you demanding, my blood, to be that taken tortuously?
"Yes, yes," is man's answer;
"You must be made to suffer to death to pay for the suffering you obviously determined to subject us to."
To that, God replies redemptively,"OK, here I hand myself over to you to take out your vengeance upon me."

It is then, at that very moment of relational crises, with God and man meeting in Christ, that God reconciles angry man to Himself by "not reckoning their sin against them." He drinks the cup of man's anger against Him; drinks it all, and says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

There, in Christ, the vengeful heart of the sinner is broken, and enmity is transformed into loving allegiance.
The lost have come home. Love has won over hate.