Redeemed by Blood
“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as sih’er and gold, from your vain conversation 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, who by Him do believe in God that raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.” ;E belong to a redeemed race (i Tim. ii. 6). The majority of men do not know this. Others, knowing it, do not allow their knowledge to influence their life or conduct, but sell their birthright for a mess of pottage. Happy are they who not only hold the fact of redemption as an intellectual acquisition, but permit it to become the moulding principle of their entire life. To such the words of the Apostle come with marvellous directness and force “Ye knew that ye were redeemed.”
Probably the most momentous truth about us is — that we have been redeemed. It is much to have been created — called into being by the distinct fiat of the Creator’s will. It is tnuch to be eftdowed with life in a world so full of marvellous possibilities as ours. is much to Jiave a soul, which can call up the past, or interrogate the present, or anticipate and prepare for the future. But it is more that lue have been redeemed. Redeemed, as Israel from the bondage and tyranny of Egypt; or as a slave, by his “goel” — his kinsman-redeemer — from captivity to some rich creditor; or as the captive of some hideous vice emancipated from its thrall. Redeemed! Bought! Ransomed! Not that heaven is bought for us, but we bought
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for heaven. This will perhaps distinguish us for evermore among all other created intelligences.
I. The Cost of our Redemption has been Immense.
(i) Negatively. — “Not with corruptible things, as silver and gold.” A moneyed man, who has been accustomed to look on his wealth as the key to every treasure-chest, is sometimes startled to find how little it can really do. It touches the rim and circumference of life; but it fails utterly in questions that affect the heart of human existence. Money cannot compensate for broken vows; or unsay cruel words which eat into the soul like acid; or bring back colour to the pallid cheek of the darling, cold and still in death; or atone for the lack of love. “If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.” Money can only purchase things which are as corruptible as itself; but when it enters or seeks to enter into the sphere of souls, the eternal and incorruptible, its way is barred; its currency will not pass; its claims to be heard are nonsuited.
You cannot dissect an argument with a knife, or measure love by the yard measure, or weigh souls by avoirdupois. And it is equally impossible to ransom them from sin by “corruptible things, as silver and gold.” There is nothing in common between the gold and silver, which, however long they endure, must perish in the end, and the soul, which is of ethereal temper, impervious to destruction and decay, and destined to survive the crash of matter and the wreck of worlds.
God could have given suns of gold, and stars of silver, constellations glowing with precious metals; but none of these would have been sufficient to free one soul from the curse or penalty of sin, or to change it into a loyal and loving subject of his reign. Though the scales of the universe groaned on the one side with the heaped treasures of heaven, the jewels of its walls, the gold of its pavements — yet one soul placed on the other would outweigh them all. Matter accounts for nothing in the weighing-chamber’ of eternity. And therefore the Creator must give not things but life — not his gifts, but Himself — ere He could redeem.
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(2) Positively. ^^’■ViWi with the precious blood of Christ.” The blood is the life of all flesh. Life is man’s supreme possession, and God’s supreme gift. To give up anything less than life is to fall short of the completest self-sacrifice for another. But when a man has given that, he has given all he can. And, in addition, when blood is mentioned with the laying down of life, there is the further thought of suddenness, of intense suffering, of violence; yea, more, no one familiar with Leviticus, and with that whole system in which the Apostle Peter was educated from boyhood, could ever encounter such a reference as this without being instantly reminded of that sacrificial system, in which lambs were offered up day by day for the sins of the people.
When the Apostle speaks of being redeemed by the blood of Christ, “as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,” he not only refers to the agony, and violence, and circumstances of his death, but gives renewed utterance to that first conception about the Lord which had fallen upon his ear from the lips of the great forerunner, whose disciple he had been in the earliest days of his religious history (John i. 35-42). And there can be no doubt that he desires clearly to connect the sufferer of Calvary with the lambs daily offered in the morning and evening Temple worship; with those slain at the great annual feast of Passover; and with others, whose blood was constantly flowing to make an atonement for sin and sins.
In considering the number of lambs sacrificed in the Jewish temple, we must always remember that a large proportion of their flesh was eaten, whether by the priests or the offerers; and that ever)’ method was adopted to keep the sacred structure pure, and sweet, and clean. And when we once admit that it is the office of the lower orders of creation to subserve the necessary interests of man, there is not much difference between their dying to set forth in type great spiritual truths, which are the life of the soul, or to provide suitable nutriment for the sustenance of the body. But, let me repeat, in the Jewish sacrifices these two objects were most freqtiently combined.
It is most important to give due weight to the suggestion of this passage, which is corroborated by many similar ones throughout the Bible, that the death of Christ was no after-thought consequent on man’s fall, but was determined before the foundation of the world. Before the mountains were brought forth, or the stars were rolled on their wondrous paths, or the first ray of light shot through the gloom, in the thought and purpose of God, our Lord was already the Lamb slain. “He was foreordained (designated or set apart) from before the foundation of the world” (ver. 20; Rev. xiii. 8).
And so the sacrifices of the Jewish ritual were in fact “the copies of things in the heavens.” When Moses went up into the Mount, it is probable that he was permitted to behold the Divine purpose and plan of man’s redemption; which, as it passed before his thought, took shape in that symbolism of priest, and sacrifice, and rite, which was God’s method of tuition to the chosen people, affording a rudimentary and material outline of eternal realities.
We must not think that Calvary was moulded on Leviticus, but that Leviticus was moulded on Calvary, as it stood out from all eternity before the mind of God. Yet it is unmistakeable that Leviticus furnishes the true key to the understanding of the death of the cross. In those earlier books the Holy Spirit supplies us with the nomenclature and terms which He was afterwards going to employ. And just as it would be absurd to try to understand the deductions of Euclid, without first studying his definitions, so it is in vain to attempt the solution of the marvels of the cross, without entering into the force and meaning of the rites and sacrifices of the ancient Hebrew system.
Now, if there is one thing more clear than another in the Levitical sacrifices, it is the substitution of the innocent for the guilty; and it is under this aspect that we must consider the death of our Redeemer. It is in this sense that He gave Himself for us. And this is the reason why the Apostle lays such emphasis on the preciousncss of the sacrifice. Anything less than the costliest blood would not have availed; because it must not be simply the blood of an individual sufferer, but of One who could suffer for a race of sinners.
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The blood of Christ was precious, because of the dignity of his nature, and because of his perfect character. “Without blemish” — that is, without personal sin. “Without spot” — that is, not defiled by contact with sinners (ver. 19). Lamblike in meekness, gentleness, purity, and uncomplaining suffering. And thus it was adequate for the work of cleansing away the terrible aggregate of sin. Oh, precious blood! Oh, sacred heart of Jesus, from which it flowed, holy, loving, tender, broken with grief! Oh, snowy whiteness of robes washed in that fountain, and purer than the snow!
II. The Object of our Redemption. — “From your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers.” Do we sufficiently realize the position into which the shedding of the blood of Jesus has brought us who believe? It is our ransom price, the purchase-money of our entire being to be Christ’s. The Apostles lived in the days of a merciless form of slavery; but they never hesitated to borrow from it the imagery by which to set forth our relationship to our Saviour. “Not your own, but bought with a price.” “Denying the Lord who bought them” (i Cor. vi. 19, 20; vii. 23; 2 Pet. ii, i).
The purchaser of any slave regarded him as his chattel, his goods. He could, if he chose, fling him to feed his lampreys, and none might remonstrate or punish. He looked on all his belongings, and earnings, and talents, as so much emolument for himself His word and will were absolute law. Such are the rights which our glorious Master has over us. He has redeemed us from the curse and penalty of sin to be a people for possession — His very own.
Who then of us can live as we have been wont, following after vanity, treading in the footsteps of our forefathers, content to do as others before us? New claims have come in. Our Redeemer is Lord. As He has set us free from the curse and penalty of sin, so now He demands of us to come out and be separate for Himself; leaving the husks for bread; the bubble for the substance; the vain conversation received by tradition, for purity, holiness, and devotion to Himself.
What a marvellous exchange there is for us in Jesus Christ!
Our “vain manner of life” (r.v.) exchanged for “holiness in all manner of living” (ver. 15, R.v.); our imitation of our “fathers” for the upward following of Him who was raised from the dead to glory; our reliance on “tradition” for vital contact with Christ Himself.
Have you assumed this attitude? If not, without delay confess with tears that you have robbed your rightful Master; recognize his claims; give up yourself entirely to his service; and let the time past more than “suffice” you to have followed the tradition of the fathers, with their vanities and sins. The blood of Jesus, like that of Asahel shed on the pathway of the warriors, shall make us halt in our career, and turn us to a better mind.
HI. The Characteristic of the Redeemed. — “Who by Him do believe in God.” Our faith and hope, which at the beginning of our Christian life are mainly occupied with Christ, so that we find ourselves most often addressing Him in prayer, pass through Him, who is God, to the Eternal God. The Son reveals the Father as He promised (John xiv. 7-9). The Father is known and loved through the Son. God becomes All in all; and the soul is satisfied to repose its entire weight on Him who has raised and glorified our Blessed Lord.
It becomes us to ponder well this important passage, attesting as it does a momentous truth. Let us not forget that the true and ultimate object of our faith must be the God of the Resurrection; the Father of our Lord; Jehovah, in whom the elders believed. And let it be also borne in mind that one primary object of the wondrous revelation of the Father in the person and work of Jesus has been to make it a little more easy for our trembling and sin-stricken souls to believe in Him. “He raised Him up and gave Him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God.”