Dec. 3: Redemption - Rick Strunk
And they sang a new song, saying:“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
—Revelation 5:9
I don’t know what first comes to your mind when you hear the word “redemption”.
When I began to consider this word, I first thought about how the word redemption is used in the world of sports, and it’s used more than you might think. For example, the wide receiver who dropped a sure touchdown pass earlier in the game, and then later in the contest he grabs a pass for a score that enables his team to take the lead and ultimately hold on to win. It’s not unusual, and I used it myself way back in the days when I was a broadcaster doing football and basketball games on radio and television. I might have said, “Well, Johnson has redeemed himself for that big mistake earlier in the game by catching that touchdown pass!”
When the USA men’s basketball team was named for the 2008 Olympics in China, was a cloud over the program. The Americans had taken only a bronze in the 2004 summer Olympics and then finished a disastrous third in the 2007 FIBA world championship tournament. This new team was known as the “Redeem Team,” to regain the lost glory of USA basketball, with Kobe Bryant the captain and Mike Krzyzewski of Duke the head coach. An ESPN program, the “Road to Redemption,” followed their preparations and then Netflix later produced a documentary entitled “The Redeem Team”. And Team USA rolled to the gold medal in the ‘08 Olympics, thus earning basketball redemption.
And younger people won’t get this, but I remember Green Stamps growing up. It was a promotional thing, a premium gained from shopping at various places that enabled you to use the Green Stamps accrued from your purchases to get certain items, like small appliances or other household items. We would paste those stamps into little books, and I remember those special stores to turn in the Green Stamp books for items. They were known as Green Stamps Redemption Centers!
But redemption in Scripture is a much greater, more important concept than the Redeem Team or Green Stamps.
If you look at verse 9 now in Revelation 5, the Greek word there rendered “purchased” in the NIV is agorazo, which can mean buy, purchase, or redeemed.
The Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary says redemption is “to pay a price in order to secure the release of something or someone. It connotes the idea of paying what is required in order to liberate from oppression, enslavement, or another type of binding obligation. The redemptive procedure may be legal, commercial, or religious.” For instance, it could have been a price to redeem someone out of slavery. And that redemptive process is at the heart of the Bible, a price being paid that those being redeemed couldn’t possibly pay.
In terms of the redemption story in history, we know the children of Israel were redeemed in Egypt by the blood of the Passover Lamb in the Exodus narrative. But what does it mean to US to be redeemed, or purchased, by the blood of the Lamb? Do we understand the magnitude of the gift, or the cost thereof? Something that we could not possibly do for ourselves? The price was paid by Christ, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas but which should always be considered in the shadow of the cross.
The new song sung here in heaven about Christ is inspired by his redemptive work, the shedding of his blood. The target group for redemption here has also has grown exponentially from the Exodus example, now described as “every tribe and nation and people and language.”
Redemption is a term we don’t use as regularly as perhaps we once did, but it’s obvious that it means much more than an athlete doing something good to try to “make up” for another mistake earlier in the game. And not even the Redeem Team is as good a story as this is, or even being able to go to a Green Stamps Redemption Center!
This is redemption on the grandest scale, to pay a price in order to secure the release of something or someone. And unlike the athletic example, we can’t do it ourselves It is regaining what was forfeited or lost through payment of a price or clearing of a debt, a price Christ paid for liberating us from the oppression of sin and death. The redemption Jesus purchased represents the greatest gift that can be known. Believers no longer bear the eternal weight of their own sin. But many people do not understand their need for redemption, and failure to comprehend the eternal consequences of sin before God represents a disastrous error.
Paul said it like this in Ephesians 1:7–“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
The whole Bible is essentially a song of redemption. What kind of song should we be singing?
PRAYER: Even during this season of Advent, let us consider what the Christ child came to do— to purchase for us something we cannot do for ourselves, and that is redemption through his blood. That truly is the greatest gift of all, and we rejoice in that, in the mighty name of Jesus. AMEN.
—Rick Strunk