CHAPTER XI - Redemption or ransom - Atonement or expiation - Propitiation
You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Peter 1:18-19).
Commentary and explanation. In these Steps we have seen the word redemption many times. In Step 2 we talked about redemption or ransom, and in Step 13, letter "e", we gave their meaning saying that redemption means simply deliverance upon payment of ransom.
Today this word does not have the same clarity and strength that it had two thousand years ago, when it was used in the New Testament. There were many slaves at that time and people traded them as if they were things. A slave could obtain his freedom by one of two ways: either his owner or master would set him free, or somebody would pay the price for his ransom or freedom. This act of freedom was called redemption, or, with other word, ransom.
Something similar happens in modern times in kidnappings. When a person is kidnapped, the kidnapper usually asks for a ransom, most often some amount of money, in order to free the kidnapped person. Once the ransom is paid, the kidnapped person is freed.
This helps us to understand what the New Testament wants to tell us, when it says that we were redeemed or ransomed by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ paid the ransom for our freedom and, through his blood and death, we were redeemed or ransomed; that is, His blood was the price for our redemption or ransoming. Let us see, then:
a) We needed to be redeemed because we were slaves.
b) Jesus Christ redeemed us with His blood and death.
a) We needed to be redeemed because we were slaves. The reason why man needed redemption was, because he was a slave.
John says: Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin (John 8:34); in this sense, we all are slaves, because we all have sinned.
Paul also affirms this: Do you know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin... you have been set free from sin (Romans 6:16-18).
The reason then for man to need redemption was, that he was a slave; the slavery of sin comes together with the slavery of Satan and death. The whole Bible, and in particular the New Testament, talks very often of this triple slavery. The sinner is a slave of sin, of death and of the Devil.
That we were slaves of the Devil, is stated by John when he says, talking about the Devil's sway over the world, that: We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one (1 John 5:19). Paul says, regarding the domain of death over us: Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned (Romans 5:12).
b) Jesus Christ redeemed us with His blood and death. Jesus Christ ransomed us from that triple slavery with His death.
The text from the letter of Peter that we used at the beginning of this Step, is very clear. It affirms that we were redeemed; it refers to the slavery of sin, which is called your aimless conduct; and it speaks about the price which was paid, not silver or gold, but the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18, 19).
You were bought at a price, Paul says (1 Corinthians 7:23), a clear reference to the death of Christ, as price or ransom for our redemption. And in Ephesians, he says: We have redemption through His blood (1:7); and writing to Timothy, he says too: Who gave Himself a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:6).
The Lord said the same, when He announced that His death would be an act of ransom: The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28).
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He (Christ) might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people (Hebrews 2:17).
God set forth (Christ) to be 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 (Romans 3:25).
Commentary and explanation. When we talked about redemption in Step 54, we were talking about something that happened to every one of us when we believed: we were redeemed, made free from the slavery of sin and Devil.
Now, when we talk about atonement, we are saying that our guilt is atoned; and, because of this atonement, God becomes propitious. It doesn't say that we are atoned, but that our sins are atoned; and it does not say that we become propitious, but God does.
The Atonement. The Old Testament speaks in many places of the atonement, and God commanded through Moses to offer sacrifices of atonement to "cover over" the sins. The word atonement means, literally, to cover, to cover over. It was used in connection with the sacrifices, because in these, the sins of the one who did the offering were covered over or passed over before God, with the death of the victim. We read in the quotation for this Step, that God in His forbearance, had passed over the sins that were previously committed (Romans 3:25). When there is atonement, God passes over the sins.
The atonement, in the Old Testament, was a way to repair or make amends to God for sin. The victim was sacrificed as a substitute for the sinner; the victim paid with its own death, the penalty that sin deserved, which was death. Through the sacrifices of atonement, God and the sinner were reconciled, in light of the sacrifice of Christ.
However, those old sacrifices didn't have the power to take away sin; so they must be offered continually year after year... For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins, the letter to Hebrews says (10:1, 4); and continues: Therefore, when He (Jesus) came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said: Behold, I have come —In the volume of the book it is written of Me— To do your will, O God" (Hebrews 10:5-7). By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:10).
We, Christians, have perfect atonement in Christ; the offended Majesty of God is completely compensated with this reparation or amends. It is the Son of God who pays with His death, the penalty for sin. Besides, our sins are not just hidden or covered over by this atonement, but they are erased, forgiven: With His own blood... obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12); and, By one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified (Hebrews 10:14).
Propitiation. The same sacrifice of atonement is also propitiation. Talking in human terms, it is as if there had been an attitude change regarding the sinner, from God's side: God's wrath for sin is eased, and instead of it, there is forgiveness and mercy; God "becomes" benign and propitious to the sinner.
In three places in the New Testament it is said that Christ is propitiation: Romans 3:25, which we quoted at the beginning of the Step; and 1 John 2:22 and 4:14. Propitiation is a kind of reference to the Old Testament, where the priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat (propitiatorium) on the east side (Leviticus 16:14). The propitiatorium was a square piece of gold of about 30 inches (70 cm approximately) for each side, placed over the ark of the covenant. When the blood was sprinkled over the mercy seat, God "became" propitious, at ease; there was no punishment for sin any more.
It is said in the New Testament that Jesus Christ is to be a propitiation by His blood, through faith; or, literally, that He is the propitiatorium. In clear and simple words, the message is this : the death of Christ (redemption) is a propitiatory sacrifice which eases God's anger. There is not wrath or punishment; God is propitious.
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In Him (Jesus Christ) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:7).
Commentary and explanation. Another teaching which is very clear in the New Testament regarding the forgiveness of sins, is that Christ's sacrifice had the power and effectiveness to pay for all the sins of mankind, in all ages, from Adam up to the last man of creation.
The text of this Step teaches that the blood of Christ has a redemptive power. We already saw, in Step 54, that to redeem means to pay a ransom for freedom; and that the consequences of sin were slavery of sin and Devil. Christ came to redeem us, that is, to pay the ransom for our freedom.
We have redemption, we read in the text, which means that we are not slaves any more, and that sin and Satan do not overpower us. Through His blood, we have the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.
The blood of Christ plays an important role in redemption and forgiveness. In the Old Testament the atonement took effect when the blood was sprinkled over the propitiatorium, as we said in Step 55.
In the New Testament we need also the blood of Christ, because without shedding of blood there is no remission, Hebrews 9:22 says. The atoning blood of the New Testament is the blood of Christ, for if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead work to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:13, 14).
Jesus said at the Last Supper: For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins (Matthew 26:28); and in Step 54 we explained that the blood of Christ was the price of the ransom for us: you were redeemed... with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18, 19).
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