We need rescue because Scripture tells us, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That is the curse of the law, the necessary separation from God – His wrath – from which we desperately need saving. Christ’s redemption rescues us from the power of darkness and the wrath of God. In Christ’s redemption, we have the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness means absorbing a debt, and Christ has absorbed our debt (Colossians 2:14).
Redemption is also the reality that we are released to what our Creator intended for us from the beginning. “And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15). We are released from the power of darkness and the path of destruction; then, we are liberated to live for Him. He has not rescued us to live autonomous lives. That would only be another destructive slavery which is what got us in trouble in the first place. He rescues us to live according to our design – to realize our purpose – because we were made for Him and designed to enjoy Him.
We were created with the inherent purpose of serving Him with delight as our loving benevolent sovereign. We are liberated to restoration to that relationship for which we were designed thereby finding satisfaction in Him. C.S. Lewis well describes that to which we are liberated in this redemption:
[This is] that unfathomed bounty whereby God turns tools into servants and servants into sons, so that they may be at last reunited to Him in the perfect freedom of a love offered from the height of the utter individualities which He has liberated them to be.
God created us as individuals in His image and He created us with a lofty purpose. Now when we are dead in sin, we are held hostage by our rebellion in the domain of darkness on the path of destruction. The redemption of Christ rescues us from bondage and wrath and releases us to love and delight in Him and thereby find the purpose and satisfaction for which we were created. He did not just purchase us back; He released us to be reunited with Him in the perfect freedom of the love for which He created us. Augustine summed it up accurately in his confession, “You awakened us to delight in Your praise for You made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in You.”
Through redemption we are liberated to this loving relationship with God.
Copyright © 2024 Grace Bible Church, All rights reserved.