WORDS OF LIFE
The Bible is a book with one theme: Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The story of the biblical record, from Genesis to Revelation, is man’s salvation from sin through the death of Jesus Christ. If you would understand the Scriptures, you must know they are about Christ and his accomplishments on our behalf from beginning to end. The entirety of the biblical narrative reveals the problem of sin and the solution to sin.
The Bible uses many different words to describe what Christ has done for us. These are words of life. Redemption, for example, is a wonderful Bible word referring to deliverance gained by the payment of a price—specifically the payment of a price by a redeemer that brings about the deliverance of the benefactor from some form of bondage.
In Christian usage, it describes the price paid by Jesus Christ at Calvary to secure the deliverance of his people from the bondage of sin. All sinners are enslaved to sin (John 8:34), and Jesus’ blood paid the ransom to deliver us (Matt. 20:28). Redemption describes the work of God on our behalf: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Eph. 1:7; see also Gal. 3:13; 4:5).
The Bible word propitiation is not one that we use very often in everyday conversation. The word means “to appease.” The concept, then, as relating to the atoning death of Jesus on the cross, means that he died to pay the price for sin. John the apostle wrote that “God is light and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
God’s holiness was offended because of our sin, and such brought about his wrath. Christ “appeased” the Father in some sense by suffering the wrath of God himself in our place (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus paid the penalty that our sins demanded, and thereby Christ freed us from death. We should recognize that these are realities beyond our comprehension, and we should not think of God’s wrath in the way we think of our own reactionary anger.
The word adoption describes the unique aspect of our relationship with God wherein we are brought by grace into his family. Like Moses who was adopted into the family of Pharoah (Exo. 2:10; Acts 7:21), and Mephibosheth who was allowed to eat at the table of David (2 Sam. 9:6-13), we have been “predestined to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will” (Eph. 1:5). We were spiritual orphans before God’s grace was manifest toward us through spiritual “adoption.” When we are saved by faith, we are adopted into God’s family.
Salvation is given freely by God to all of those who have true faith in his Son. In the good news of Jesus Christ, “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’” (Rom. 1:17). The “righteousness of God” that Paul speaks of is the way God makes sinners righteous.
This righteousness which the gospel reveals comes “through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference” (Rom. 3:22). How was this way of faith—this “righteousness” which comes from God—demonstrated? By Jesus Christ, “whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed” (Rom. 3:25). God’s righteousness is revealed through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross where his blood was shed which takes away our sins (1 Pet. 1:18-19; Rev. 1:5; Heb 9:14; Eph. 1:7). His blood signed our “adoption” papers into the family of God.
Why did God send his Son to die, so that those who put their faith in him will live? “To demonstrate at the present time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). In the death of Jesus Christ, God remains just—because he did not “sweep our sin under the rug.” He dealt with it, paying the price himself that had to be paid. And at the same time, he is able to justify sinners. God dealt with sin to save the sinner. He is just and the justifier.
Dewayne Dunaway
