The Gospel For Real Life
Ransomed! - Chapter Seven
The Bible teaches that Christ shed His blood and gave His life as a ransom to redeem us from the curse of the law. To understand what it means to be ransomed we must understand the word redeem. “Redeem is to buy back or secure the release of someone from slavery or from captivity by the payment of a ransom.” Thus ransom is the price paid to redeem someone from captivity. All who trust in Christ are set free from their condemnation and the curse of the law because Jesus paid the ransom (70).
We are under the curse of the law because we cannot possibly keep the law. We need to remember that the law is not to curse us but to lead us to Christ (Gal 3:24). Christ became a curse for us, as our substitute. “God established the curse for breaking the law and it is God who ordained the remedy for the curse. Jesus bore the curse in our place and paid our ransom price (74).”
We are ransomed to receive the blessings of redemption. “By redeeming us from the curse of the Law, Jesus opened the way for us to inherit the blessing of obedience to it, blessings that He earned for us by His own perfect obedience. These blessings will reach their ultimate fulfillment at the resurrection” (76-77). Not only are we no longer under the curse but we are also redeemed from the bondage of sin (78). Since we have been ransomed we should continually seek to put to death, by the spirit, the sins we are in bondage to.
Reconciliation – Chapter Eight
“Reconciliation by definition, assumes a previous state of alienation and hostility caused by the offensive actions of one or both parties (84).” In our case it is our sin that has separated us from God and has caused us to be God's enemies. It is through the death of Jesus Christ that God reconciles us to Himself (84-85).
The good news of reconciliation is that it is permanent and eternal. Because Christ accomplished our reconciliation we will always be accepted by God (87).
Right Standing With God – Chapter Nine
“The most important question we all face is: How can a sinful man or woman come into a right relationship with an infinitely holy and just God? The only way we can have a right relationship with Him is to be perfectly righteous – as He is righteous (92).” We know it is impossible for us to be perfectly righteous, so how do we attain a right relationship with God?
God requires perfect righteousness, He also provides it for us through Jesus Christ (93). The work of Christ that declares us righteous is called justification. We are declared righteous based on the real accomplished righteousness of Christ, imputed to us because of our union with Him (94).
This justification comes about by faith. We are united to Christ by faith and His work is applied to us by faith. Exercising faith involves renouncing any trust in our own good works and relying on the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ (97-98). “We come to Christ empty-handed claiming no merit of our own, but clinging by faith to His blood and righteousness, we are justified (98).” This right standing with God is based on the work of Jesus Christ today, tomorrow and throughout all eternity.
Paul's Great Exchange – Chapter Ten
Paul exchanged his social status and religious credentials for the righteousness that comes from God through faith in Jesus Christ. He sought to rid himself of His good works because He found something more valuable, that is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He exchanged his own righteousness for that of Jesus Christ.
What this means for us is that we should do the same. We need to throw our own good works overboard and look to Christ as a means of our salvation and our way of maintaining favor with God. We must remember that God's favor rests upon us not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of the infinite merit of Jesus Christ (112). Good works are not a means to ear God's favor. “The more a person counts as loss his own righteousness and lays hold by faith of the righteousness of Christ, the more he will be motivated to live and work for Christ (113).”
