Circuit pastors' conference
Week of Third Sunday of Easter
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The Rev. Charles Henrickson
Redeemed: From What? With What? So What? (1 Peter
1:17-25)
First of all I want to say that, from what Ive seen
of it over the last couple of years, the English
Standard Version overall is a very good translation.
But as with any translation, you come across a place
here and there where you wish they would have
translated it a little different. Today is such a
case, in our Epistle from 1 Peter 1. In verse 18 the
ESV has, knowing that you were ransomed. All the
other major English translations--the New American
Standard Bible, the New International Version, the
King James Version, the New King James Version--all of
them translate it, you were redeemed. Now is there
anything wrong with the translation, ransomed? No,
that is a legitimate way to translate the Greek verb.
Ransomed and redeemed both carry the same base
meaning, as we shall hear. However, redeemed is
just as good a way to translate the Greek, and besides
which, redeemed has the advantage of being a more
useful term in our theological vocabulary.
Redemption language is all over the place in our
theology, in our hymnody, in our devotional
literature. So for the purposes of our sermon now,
Im going to be using the word redeemed instead of
ransomed. Today, then, a very simple message with a
very simple outline: Redeemed: From What? With What?
So What?
St. Peter says to his hearers, you were redeemed.
What does he mean by that? Well, to be redeemed--or
to be ransomed, for that matter--is to be set free
by means of a payment. The idea has to do with
someone being in a state of bondage who cannot free
himself. Someone else has to come along and pay the
price that sets the person free. That is what it
means to redeem someone. The word was used in the
ancient world in connection with a slave or a prisoner
of war--someone who could not free himself from his
captivity. But if somebody else paid the necessary
price, then the slave or prisoner would be set free.
So the idea of redemption includes two parts: a
setting free of someone who cannot free himself, and
this, by means of a payment.
My friends, this is what Christ has done for us. He
has redeemed us. We were in a state of bondage and
could not free ourselves. But Jesus came along and
paid the price that set us free. That is redemption.
As you know, redemption was the word Luther chose to
sum up the Second Article of the Creed, on the person
and work of Christ. Redemption was the title he put
over that article. In fact, it was this very passage
in 1 Peter that Luther had in mind when he wrote his
Explanation to the Second Article. Listen and you can
hear the echoes of 1 Peter: I believe that Jesus
Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from
eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary,
is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned
person, purchased and won me from all sins, from
death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold
or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with
His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His
own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in
everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness,
just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to
all eternity. This is most certainly true.
Luther got his ideas for this explanation from our
passage in 1 Peter: the language of redemption, even
the very phrase, not with gold or silver. And we
can see in Luthers explanation--and in Peters
epistle--this very simple outline: Redeemed: From
What? With What? So What?
First, Redeemed from what? St. Peter says you were
redeemed from the futile ways inherited from your
forefathers. That was the bondage you found yourself
in and could not free yourself from. Futile ways,
empty, meaningless, not going anywhere. Peter is
talking about the ways of the world. Peoples lives,
apart from God--which is where we would be, apart from
the gospel--their lives dont lead anywhere. Its
like were wandering around in the dark, bumping into
each other, not knowing where were going, falling
into ditches, running into dead ends. That is the
life of all people in this world without the right
knowledge of God. No matter how wild or how refined,
no matter how reckless or how respectable, no matter
how bad or seemingly good their conduct--all people by
nature are trapped in their futile ways.
We inherited these futile ways from our forefathers.
Our forefathers were off worshiping oak trees in
Germany or Sweden. They were raiding villages and
pillaging and plundering. Our futile ways may be more
refined. Now we worship little white balls instead of
oak trees, or maybe we seek after the little white
balls when we hit them behind the oak trees. In
either case, we love something more than we love the
true God. And maybe we dont go pillaging villages,
but we still love to skewer our opponents. These are
the futile ways we inherited from our forefathers.
Its called original sin. This sinful nature, these
futile ways, dont lead anywhere but to a dead end.
They end in death, eternal death, separated from God.
Thats where we were, the state we were in. Heading
down the wrong road and not knowing any better. But
thank God, that is what we have been redeemed from.
>From that way of death Christ has rescued us. Luther
puts it like this: Christ has redeemed me, a lost
and condemned person, purchased and won me from all
sins, from death, and from the power of the devil.
That is what you have been redeemed from. Redemption
is a setting free from a state of bondage. Those
futile ways were the bondage, the death-trap
slavery, from which we have been set free.
So first, Redeemed from what? Second, Redeemed
with what? What was the price that was paid to set
us free? Remember, a redemption requires a payment.
That is the means for setting the prisoner free. It
doesnt just happen automatically. There is a cost
involved. So what was the price that was paid to set
us free? And who paid it?
Well, as I say, we were slaves held in bondage, unable
to free ourselves. There is nothing we have or can
offer that would be enough to meet the payment price.
All our works, heaped up to the sky, would not be
enough to break one shackle of the chains that bind
us. It is vain imagining to think we have something
that would satisfy Gods justice. Nothing we have or
own or can do can pay even one cent toward our ransom
price.
Therefore St. Peter says you were redeemed not with
perishable things such as silver or gold. Luther
echoes him, not with gold or silver. All the money
in the world, stacked up to the heavens, could not buy
off God. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Donald
Trump, combined, could pool their resources, and it
would be all for naught.
No, something far more precious was needed to set
sinners free. Only one price could do the job. It
took the sacrificial death of the sinless Son of God
to pay the price to set us free. But with the
precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without
blemish or spot. Not with gold or silver, but with
his holy, precious blood and with his innocent
suffering and death.
Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, from before
the beginning. But God had it in mind that his Son
would be the one to set the world free from the
bondage of sin we would fall into. God would send his
Son into the world, in the flesh, as a man, to keep
Gods holy law for us, in our stead, and to die as the
sacrifice for our sins. He, Christ, was foreknown
before the foundation of the world but was made
manifest in the last times for the sake of you who
through him are believers in God. As Jesus said when
he came, The Son of Man came not to be served, but to
serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Jesus is, in Peters words, a lamb without blemish or
spot. No sins of his own for which to die.
Spotless, faultless. Yet Jesus is a lamb. A
sacrificial animal. The lambs of the Old Testament
were offered up as a sneak preview of the one and only
Lamb to come. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who
takes away the sin of the world. His blood was shed,
on the cross, to make payment for our sins. His holy,
precious blood. The same blood he offers you in his
Sacrament, This is my blood of the new testament,
which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.
The precious blood of the Lamb, Christ. That is what
you have been redeemed with.
Redeemed: From What? With What? Now the third
question, So What? So what difference does this
make in the way we live? Peter puts it this way,
conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of
your exile. Luther says it like this, that I may be
his own and live under him in his kingdom and serve
him. This is the new life of Christs redeemed
people. Our lives, our conduct, will be different now
that we have been redeemed. No longer those futile
ways. Now we have direction, purpose, meaning for our
lives. We belong to God. We are his people.
No longer do we belong to the world and its ways. No,
we are exiles, strangers in this world, through which
we are passing as pilgrims. We live and belong to
God. We are his holy people, set apart for him. Our
lives are an act of worship. We serve him in
reverent, holy fear. We take our lives seriously--as
serious as they are joyful, both at the same time. We
dont take as a light thing this life we have in
Christ. We take seriously Gods warnings against sin
and unbelief. We dont fool around with Gods mercy
and grace, as though it were a cheap thing. No,
Christ has paid the ultimate price for our redemption.
That is very precious indeed.
So what? So we live in that holy fear. And because
of Christ, we also live in faith and hope. You who
through him are believers in God, who raised him from
the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and
hope are in God. We live in faith, trusting in the
God who loved us so much he gave his Son for us. We
live in hope, the hope of the resurrection, Easter
hope. For God has raised Christ from the dead, giving
us the sure and solid hope of our own resurrection.
We have the hope of heaven, where we will serve him
in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and
blessedness, just as he is risen from the dead, lives
and reigns to all eternity. And we live in love, a
sincere brotherly love, loving one another earnestly
from a pure heart.
Today we have heard: You were redeemed, ransomed.
Set free by means of a price. Redeemed, from what?
>From the futile ways that are really the way of death.
Redeemed, with what? Not with gold or silver, but
with the precious blood of Christ. Redeemed, so what?
So now we live as Gods people, in holy fear, in
faith and hope, and in sincere brotherly love. All
this, my fellow redeemed in Christ--this is most
certainly true.
Charles Henrickson
4749 Melissa Jo Ln
St. Louis, MO 63128
(314) 845-8811 (home)
(314) 779-8108 (cell)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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