Do you know that when you make Jesus Christ lord in your life and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you are saved, born again into the family of God? Many Christians would readily answer yes to this question. Now, do they know that they have specific rights as sons and daughters of God? Perhaps fewer would answer yes to this question. But it’s true!
As a child of God, you receive righteousness—your God-given ability to stand in your heavenly Father’s presence without any consciousness of sin, guilt, or condemnation. You receive justification—it’s just as if you’d never sinned, because you are released from the penalty of sin. You receive sanctification—you are set apart by God for heaven, and the Devil himself can’t stop you from going. You also receive the ministry of reconciliation—you have the ability to bring men and women back to God.
We receive powerful sonship rights when we get born again of God’s spirit, and understanding these rights is essential to walking with the greatness of the power of God. So, why are these rights ours? It’s because we’ve been redeemed. Redemption is another sonship right that we receive when we are born again. Let’s take some time to think about our right of redemption. We will learn what redemption is, we will read an account of the children of Israel’s redemption, and we will look at practical things we can do to claim our redemption. We will see that redemption is a powerful right that we have, one we can claim right now and every moment of our lives.
First, let’s understand what redemption is. Redemption involves the purchase of one’s freedom or deliverance with the payment of a ransom. Out of His love and grace, God, by way of Jesus Christ, paid the ransom to buy us back from the Devil’s power. I Corinthians 6:20 tells us that we are “bought with a price.” Well, why was there a price that needed to be paid? Why did man need to be redeemed?
In Genesis, we learn that God formed, made, and created man, Adam, and He conferred upon Adam the power and authority to rule over all the earth.
Genesis 1:26:
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
However, by his own willful decision, Adam disobeyed what God had arranged. In sinning, Adam lost his authority, transferring the authority, the power, the dominion he had, over to the Devil. Genesis 3 shows us the consequences of that decision. And what a stark contrast it was to the dominion God had given Adam.
Genesis 3:17-19:
And unto Adam he [God] said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
After the power and dominion over the earth was transferred to the Devil, all of mankind legally belonged to him and needed to be redeemed from this state of captivity. There was a price to be paid in order to buy us back, and God loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the price to redeem us.
I Peter 1:18 and 19:
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
The price for our freedom was the “blood of Christ.” By freewill choice, Jesus Christ shed his own life’s blood—he gave his life—for you and for me.
Ephesians 1:7:
In whom we have redemption through his [Jesus Christ’s] blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.
In this Age of Grace in which we live, we have been bought back from the Devil’s power by the blood of Jesus Christ. We have been redeemed; we have eternal redemption.
Hebrews 9:12:
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
Romans 15:4 declares that “…whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” The Old Testament provides great examples for our learning. Learning from those examples builds our understanding and appreciation for what we have received in this Age of Grace….
This is an excerpt from the May/June 2016 issue of The Way Magazine.
Copyright© 2016 by The Way International. All rights reserved.
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