GRACE FOR TODAY Radio Message #423 - 424
FIVE OLD TESTAMENT
PICTURES OF REDEMPTION
Pastor
Don Fortner
Grace Baptist Church of Danville
2734 Old Stanford Road
Danville,
Kentucky 40422-9438
The Lord Jesus Christ bought his people from
among the fallen sons of Adam, out of the hands of God’s offended justice, and
delivered us from our sins by the shedding of his precious blood. This is
redemption! Redemption is not something attempted, but something accomplished.
It is not offered, but proclaimed. Everywhere in the Old Testament, our
redemption by Christ was pictured and portrayed as that which he would
effectually accomplish for God’s elect, securing their everlasting salvation.
Here are five pictures of redemption given in the Old Testament. Study them carefully,
asking God the Holy Spirit to be your Teacher.
1. THE REDEMPTION OF ISRAEL OUT OF EGYPT (Psa. 106:6-12). was a very
special and remarkable type of our redemption by Christ out of a far worse
state of bondage than that of Egypt. As the human race was brought into bondage
by an act of sin, Israel was brought into Egyptian bondage by an act of sin, by
the selling of Joseph. Israel was redeemed by the hand of Moses, a man God
raised up to be their Deliverer (Acts 7:35), just as we were redeemed by the
man Christ Jesus. The price of redemption was the blood of the paschal lamb
(Ex. 12:13), even as “Christ our
Passover” was sacrificed for us. The power of their redemption
(deliverance) was the omnipotent hand of God (Ex. 14:13-14; 15:1-2, 16), a
picture of regeneration and conversion, the application of redemption, by God’s
irresistible grace. NOTE: (1.) This was a blood redemption. (2.) This was a
particular redemption. (3.) This was an effectual redemption.
2. THE ATONEMENT MONEY PAID BY ISRAEL (Ex. 30:11-16) - The
numbering of the children of Israel and the atonement money they paid, so that
no plague come upon them, was typical of our ransom by Christ. None but
Israelites were ransomed. A specific, numbered people were ransomed. The ransom
price was the same for all. Those who were ransomed were preserved from any
plague (Prov. 12:21; Psa. 91:10).
3. THE KINSMAN REDEEMER (Lev. 25:47-49) - The buying again of an Israelite
who, by reason of great poverty, had sold himself to another, by one of his
near kinsman, is another good, beautiful picture of our redemption by Christ.
We have sold ourselves into bondage. We cannot redeem ourselves. No friend is
able, or has the right, to redeem us. But there is a near Kinsman who is both
able and willing to redeem - the Lord Jesus Christ (Heb. 7:25). He is a man. As such, he is our near kinsman. The man
Christ Jesus is also God the eternal Son. Being both God and man in one great
and glorious Person, he is able to pay our debt. In order to do so, he
willingly laid down his life to ransom us! The Lord Jesus is beautifully
typified as our Kinsmen Redeemer in the story of Boaz and Ruth in the Book of
Ruth.
4. THE DELIVERANCE OF A DEBTOR FROM PRISON (Isa. 49:8-10; 61:1-3) was
another picture of redemption by Christ. In ancient times a man in debt was
liable to be arrested and cast into prison. There he would have to remain in
bondage until his debt was paid, either by himself or another. Our sins are
debts. They are debts which we can never pay. We are all, therefore, shut up in
debtor’s prison by nature. But Christ paid our debt and set us free! John
Gill wrote, “Christ, as he
has engaged to pay the debts of his people, has paid them, cleared the whole
score, and blotted out the hand writing that was against them; in consequence
of which is proclaimed, in the gospel, liberty to the captives, and the opening
of the prison to them that are bound; and in the effectual calling Christ says
‘to the prisoners, Go forth’, opening the prison doors for them; and to them
that sit in darkness, in the gloomy cells of the prison, ‘show yourselves;’ all
which is done in virtue of the redemption price paid by Christ for his people.”
Just as Paul assumed the debts of Onesimus (Phile. 1:18), so Christ assumed the
debts of God’s elect.
5. THE RANSOM OF A SLAVE (Job 33:24; Zech. 9:11) in the Old Testament
pictures the redemption and ransom of our souls by Christ. In the days of the
Old Testament, Godless men often took their slaves and threw them into deep
pits at night. They would take them out of their pits only to perform slavish
labor, or if a ransom price was paid. Christ has ransomed us and delivered us
from the pit of slavery and corruption. We are all slaves to sin and Satan by
nature. Our old master, the devil, kept us ever in the deep, dark pit of
darkness and night, until Christ came to deliver us. The Lord Jesus Christ
delivered us from the slavery of Satan and the pit of darkness, corruption, and
sin by the power of his omnipotent grace. The price he paid for the deliverance
of our souls was his own precious blood.
These five pictures of redemption, drawn for
us by the pen of inspiration, teach us these two specific truths about
redemption. May they be written upon our hearts by the finger of God. (1.) Sinners need a Redeemer! As we have
seen, sin as it is set forth in the Scriptures is a pit of bondage, slavery,
and condemnation from which no man can deliver himself (Psa. 130:1; 69:1-2;
Isa. 51:1). (2.) Redemption is
deliverance from sin by the blood of Christ. All God’s elect were delivered
from the penalty of sin at the cross. They are each delivered from the dominion
of sin in regeneration and effectual calling. We shall be delivered from the
being of sin in the death of these bodies. Finally, we shall be completely
delivered from all the evil consequences of sin in resurrection glory.
This redemption is the unaided, unassisted, effectual work of Christ
alone. - “Christ hath redeemed us!”
In every picture we are given in the Old Testament, as well as in every
explanation of the doctrine in the New Testament, redemption was made for a
specific people, and is an effectual work which always results in deliverance
experienced. That is the doctrine of redemption taught in the Bible. The notion
of a universal redemption, a redemption made even for those who suffer the
wrath of God in hell, a redemption which redeems no one, accomplishes nothing,
and secures nothing is as foreign to the Word of God as it is blasphemous. AMEN.