RESTORATION AND REDEMPTION

I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth. — Job. 19:25

It was a very troubled man who uttered those words. Insulted by his friends, rejected by his family, ignored by his servants, and, worst of all, tortured in mind and body, Job takes his place in history as the most pitiable of all men. “I am repulsive to my wife, loathsome to the sons of my own mother. Even young children despise me; when I rise they talk against me,” is but a tithing of his cry of despair. When we are tempted to feel that the world has given us a raw deal, a reading of Job 19 would be in order. Even to those who would comfort him he says, “How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words?” Poor Job, it is as if his agony filters down through the centuries and we can hear him moan “My heart faints within me!”

It is in this impossible predicament that Job sounds this note of hope, I know that my Redeemer lives. When we understand what he had in mind, we go far in understanding the biblical meaning of redemption. And along with it we learn something important about the meaning of restoration. The ideas are mutually inclusive, for it was restoration that Job anticipated from his Redeemer. One thing is sure in Job’s case: the Redeemer had not forsaken him as had all the others, and he could do for Job what no one else could, including himself.

The restoration mind fully accepts its own incapacity for righteousness. It is neither by our works or our goodness that God’s grace enters our lives. If religion means “to bind back to God,” then religion means restoration, man restored to God. But this is God’s act in our lives, not our own. We are to respond to his goodness, yes, but the power is his, not ours. This is redemption, God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves, in bringing us back to himself.

What Job hoped for in saying “I know that my Redeemer lives,” Jesus made possible in giving himself as a ransom. He said of himself: “The Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:45). This implies three things in reference to the import of redemption, the Lord’s sacrifice in our behalf.

1. It is voluntary.

In 2 Cor. 8:9 Paul speaks of the grace of Christ: “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” It is grace because he did it voluntarily, because of his love for us. His grace makes us rich, and when poverty is turned into wealth, that is redemption.

2. It is costly.

Paul says that Jesus “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age” (Gal. 1:14). This is the same as saying that he redeemed us, and it shows the cost, God giving his own Son, the Son giving his own life. This gift is referred to in Eph. 5:2 as “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Col. 1:14 says of Jesus: “ln whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

3. It is substitutionary.

“To give his life as a ransom for many” is the stated purpose of the Christ upon entering human history. That means that he died in our place, that he was innocent and yet died as a sinner that we might have life. They are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:24-25). Though the New Covenant scriptures never speak of Jesus as Redeemer, these verses certainly show that this is what he is, and so we can say as did Job, I know that my Redeemer lives. Gal. 3:13 says that Jesus “redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, while 2 Cor. 5:21 teaches that God “for our sake made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God:” This makes it clear that, while we should have died because of our sin, he became our substitute and died for us. This is redemption, which makes possible our restoration to God. Peter says it majestically: “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pet. 18-19).

Redemption means freedom, which is its meaning in the Old Covenant scriptures, such as being freed from slavery, indebtedness, or some impending disaster. This is the meaning in Job. His redeemer would restore his health and fortune, returning him to his former state of glory, thus freeing him from his misery. Thus the word ransom describes Christ’s work in our behalf. He becomes our ransom, paying the price himself, so that we might become free. He freed us from our sins by his blood, and in so doing made us a kingdom of priests (Rev. 1:5-6). Ransom. Redemption. Restoration. The pattern is apparent. From the misery of our sin we are restored to a kingly priesthood. We were God’s, but we went astray. He bought us back and made us a part of his royal family.

It is this that gives the dynamic to Christian service, for to know that “we are bought with a price” is an assurance that we are indeed God’s and precious in his sight. We love him and serve him because he cared so dearly as to buy us with ever so precious a gift. This is the dynamic Paul sees in 1 Cor. 6:20: “You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” In Acts 20:28 the church is to be treated with tender loving care because it was purchased by Christ’s own blood, and in 1 Cor. 7:23 we are not to become slaves to men since we were bought with a price.

Redemption is a process not yet complete, for while we have been delivered from the bondage of sin, we have not yet been set free from the captivity of carnality, which will be our lot so long as we are in the flesh. As Paul puts it: “We ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Ro. 8:23). Our bodies have been purchased, for we were “bought with a price,” but they have not yet been redeemed. The apostle says we join all of creation in anticipating that redemption.

Paul understands this to be part of the Holy Spirit’s mission in our lives: to assure us, by his indwelling, that God will indeed do as he has promised and redeem our bodies, delivering them of all the flesh is heir to. Eph. 1:14 says as much: “You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” Eph. 4:30 also speaks of our being sealed by the Spirit “for the day of redemption:” The day of redemption is the day we “attain unto the resurrection of the dead” when our mortal bodies shall put on immortality.

Our bodies thus have a glorious destiny, for they are to be restored to God’s intention for them. Notice Paul: “We wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:21). God’s plan for us, therefore, is that we are not only to become more and more like the Christ in spirit, but that ultimately we are also to have a body like his.

This is the restoration that all of us should long for, and it is this that gives us the dynamic to be all that God wants of us. It is not by fear that we respond to his instructions to us, but by a love that is lost in the assurance that we are his, that we are bought with a precious price, and that eventually he will draw us unto himself, transformed into his likeness and gloriously clothed in the similitude of the Christ himself. — the Editor