Then the Lord brought Israel up from the land of Egypt and redeemed them from the house of slavery. - Micah 6:4 (ESV/author’s translation)  

re·deem verb ri-ˈdēm

transitive verb

a : to buy back : repurchase

b : to get or win back

We live on a spiritual battlefield.  Satan attacks us day and night, seeking to enslave us in a prison of sin and deceit.  He whispers lies into our ears, telling us it is not a prison, it is a resort.  He tells us that we will be happy if we will just turn our backs on God and follow him instead.  

But there is good news for us.  The Lord has redeemed us from the house of slavery.  In a great foreshadowing of His atoning work upon the cross, the Lord redeemed His chosen people Israel from the house of slavery in Egypt, freeing them from their bondage and decay.  We have run away from our God, following Satan’s path of death and destruction, and yet our Lord has sought after us, and has claimed us for His kingdom, and has redeemed us for our good and for His glory.  “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us - for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” - so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14).  Jesus Christ has brought us who believe up from the land of Egypt and redeemed us from the house of slavery.  We did nothing to merit this gracious gift, yet our God loves us, as the Father loves His prodigal son, not waiting for us to come to Him, but running to meet us where we are.   

Our blessed Lord and Savior has redeemed us through His atonement on the cross, and Christ’s sacrifice was once for all.  “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).  But God’s work of redemption continues.  He continues to work in our lives to redeem us from the lingering effects of sin in this world.  Truly, we who have been saved confess with Job that “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth” (Job 19:25).  Our redeemer lives, and His “Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27).  And He will one day stand upon the earth so that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10-11).  I am so grateful that we are not left to redeem ourselves.  It has become clear to me that we cannot.  Salvation, which is redemption from sin, is entirely by His power and His grace, out His love for us.

Thank you Lord Jesus, that our Redeemer lives.  

“And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the Lord.  (Isaiah 59:20)

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.  And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”  And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Abraham became the father of Isaac.  The sons of Isaac were Esau and Israel.”  - Genesis 12:1-3 ESV; Genesis 15:5-6 ESV; 1 Chronicles 1:34 NASB As I read about God’s promises to Abraham, I cannot help but see this as a foreshadowing of God’s adoption of us as His sons and daughters.  Abraham had not done anything that merited God’s favor, yet God chose Abraham, and invited Him into His family, promising Abraham the blessings that only the Father could bestow on His son.  Abraham was adopted by God.  I am writing this from a guesthouse in the hills of Addis Ababa.  In three hours, I will stand before a judge in the Ethiopian courts, who will decide whether or not I may legally adopt the little girl that I believe God has chosen for our family.  I have only known her for three days now, and already my heart is bursting with love for her.  If, by God’s grace, I am allowed to soon call her my daughter, she will no longer be a fatherless orphan.  She will be my daughter, who I love.  She will have every legal right as my own child, and more importantly, she will be loved more dearly than she can probably ever imagine.  While I am willing to sacrifice my time and my money and my comfort to adopt this little girl, Jesus Christ was willing to give up His life on a cross, that we may be not only reconciled to God, but that we may be adopted as His sons and daughters.  I know that the love I have for this little girl is only a dim reflection of the magnificent and awesome love that God has for us.  Our relationship with God is not just one of Creator and created, or of even Judge and justified, but it is one of Father and child.  We get to live in light of the fact that we who believe, have been adopted into God’s family, and we are truly and forevermore, loved by Him.

I love how God’s word in the New Testament gives new color and life to the words and stories of the Old Testament.  As I read about these promises made to Abraham, God directs me to the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians, “So we do not lose heart.  Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.  For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).  Truly, Abraham’s outer self was wasting away.  He was old and he was childless.  His wife was barren.  Yet that light momentary affliction was preparing for him an eternal weight of glory, and Abraham trusted God’s promise of this glory.  Abraham was not a perfect man.  He was sinful, just as I am.  Yet he trusted God, looking to what was unseen, and God counted him righteous because of his faith alone. What was this unseen thing that Abraham looked to?  Again, we find an answer in the New Testament.  Jesus told the Jews who were attacking Him, “Your father, Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.  He saw it and was glad” (John 8:56).  Abraham was looking toward the salvation that would come through Jesus Christ!

As we continue to read the Old Testament, we will see that this chosen people, the nation of Israel, did not walk with the Lord, but continued to turn their back on Him, to run away from Him, to dishonor Him.  But God is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression” (Numbers 14:18).  God is so good and so kind.  So He sends His Son, Jesus Christ to come into human flesh, to live the perfectly obedient life that the people of Israel turned from.  And then He exchanged the blessing that He deserved, for the curse that we deserved, and gave to us this glorious blessing, declaring us righteous before the Holy and Most High God, as well as adopted by our most perfect heavenly Father.

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The Lord God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Genesis 3:15 God has declared the great battle that is about to unfold.  We live in a state of spiritual warfare.  Satan, the “father of lies” (John 8:44), has, as his ultimate desire to destroy us, and to destroy our relationship with God.  We know that what God foretold is true.  Despite our “evolution” we still live in a world surrounded by sin, sickness and death, chaos, violence, and decay.  We live in a world surrounded by opposition to God and His kingdom.  We only have to get out of bed in the morning to know that our “adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).  We know that we are under attack.

But if what God has told us is true, then He is trustworthy, and what does He tell us next?  We are told that the woman’s offspring will crush satan.  We are told about what Jesus Christ will do.  We are told that Jesus will destroy Satan and will reign victorious!  Praise be to God!  God foretold to us that Jesus would come and battle Satan, that He would be “bruised”, but that He would be victorious.

Jesus Christ has triumphed over Satan when He laid down His life on the cross, that “through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:14-15).  Praise be to our great King, who has made us “more than conquerers through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).  Satan still exists, but he now has no authority over us.  We belong to Jesus Christ, who will one day cast Satan into the lake of fire and sulfur (Revelation 20:10).  We belong to the Victor.

We get to live in light of these glorious promises from God.  We get to live with confidence that satan and death have no victory over us.  We get to be a people celebrating the great defeat of Satan by our great Savior Jesus Christ, who has fought for us.  We get to worship Him, whose “eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength” (Revelation 1:14-16).  This is the God we worship.  How great is our God!  “Our God will fight for us” (Nehemiah 4:20).

Lord Jesus, you are mighty, you are strong, you are our King, and you have fought for us.  All glory be to Your holy name.

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.  This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.  He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” - Colossians 2:13-15.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” - Romans 8:20;Genesis 6:5

Until September of 2009, I would say I led a fairly charmed and care-free life.  Both my parents were alive and healthy, my family was healthy, I had a good job, and was now living in Bellingham (obviously the greatest place in the world to live).  I was also part of a church that I loved.  I felt like I had a good handle on things, and I had little reason to hope in Christ’s return.  My eyes would soon be opened to the futility of my own attempts to control my circumstances.

This week I have been meditating on the relationship between the fall of man, and hope in Christ.  That word “hope” is a beautiful word to me, and it is a word that defines us who are followers of Jesus Christ.  Yes, we are a people at peace with God, who have been justified by what Christ has done for us on the cross (Romans 8:1), but we are also a people who live with hope in what Christ will do when He returns.   We are a people in waiting.  What would our relationship with God look like without the fall of man?  We would not have been subjected to futility, therefore there would have been very little reason to “hope” in the future promises of God.  “Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:24-25).  Before this, Paul speaks of how we, God’s elect, “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved” (Romans 8:23- 24).  We long for the day when Jesus Christ will return and fulfill His promises.  We long for the day when He will “wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

We are subjected to futility.  We are constantly battling sin, our bodies are decaying, we toil for bread that spoils, we build houses that are always breaking down.  But what does the beginning of Romans 5 tell us?  “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:2-5).  Do you see how that series begins and ends?  It begins with suffering, and it ends with hope!  Suffering leads us to hope, and our hope is in the glory of God!  God’s design for the history of redemption is perfect.

In September of 2009, we brought our then 4 year old daughter to the emergency room complaining of abdominal pain.  I thought at worst, she might have an appendicitis and need to have surgery to have her appendix removed.  As an anesthesiologist, I have been involved in probably more than 500 appendectomies, and I felt assured that this was a simple operation and that she would be fine.  When the radiologist looked at her ultrasound he told me that she had a large tumor in her belly.  It was cancer.  It was the darkest moment of my life to date.  I was subjected to futility.  Over the days and weeks and months that followed, I needed hope, and it was in the promises of God that I found it.  Before this, I loved Jesus, and would say I worshipped Him as my Lord and Savior, but I had never really longed for His return.  That week I prayed over and over again, “Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).  I knew that my hope needed to be in something higher than my daughter’s recovery.  I needed hope that God would one day wipe away every tear I was shedding, and that my daughter and my son and my wife and I would worship Him in the new Jerusalem, in the dwelling place of God (Revelation 21:2-3).  I needed hope that He would one day destroy cancer, so that no father would ever again have to feel this pain, a mere echo of the pain that God felt as He let His perfect Son be crucified and die for the sins of many.

Thank you Lord Jesus, for the hope you have placed in our hearts.  Thank you for the suffering and the trials that you have used to point us to this hope.  Come, Lord Jesus.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” - Hebrews 11:1

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.  Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.  Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. – Romans 1:22-25; Genesis 3:7 “The human heart is a factory of idols …Everyone of us is, from his mother’s womb, expert at inventing idols” – John Calvin. 

 As a child, I thought that idolatry was worshipping carved images, or golden calfs.  It is so much more.  I now recognize the truth of what John Calvin said above.  Everyone of us is prone to idolatry, to focusing our affections, our time, our money, our service, and our pleasure on something other than God.  Even as an adopted son of God, I still tend to slip back into this deadly mindset, and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator.  I have to fight against it daily.

God’s first command to His chosen people could not have been more clear, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).  It was so important to Him that His second command was almost the same as the first!  Why is this so important to God?  We find out in the next verse, “for I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5).  When I first meditated on God’s jealousy, I confess that it was hard for me to swallow.  How could a perfect God be jealous?  Isn’t this pride?  And isn’t pride what God continually warns us against?  

What I have now discovered is that it is because God ALONE is worthy of the sum of our affections, our time, our money, our service, and indeed our worship that He HAS to be jealous for His glory.  Because He is the only one worthy of glory.  In fact, God’s jealousy for His glory also means that He loves us!  How could a loving father find joy in watching his children worship worthless idols?  It is only when we get to the point in our relationship with our heavenly Father, that we see Him as infinitely worthy of glory, that we will truly see the jealousy of God as a good thing, and indeed as part of His goodness and steadfast love for us.  It is only then that we will see the true destructive nature of idolatry.  It is only then that we will seek to be freed from idolatry so that we may be free to truly worship the only One worthy of our worship.  

How can we battle the sin of idolatry?  First we need to identify what the idols are, in our hearts and in the hearts of those we love.  We get help in this from scripture, from our church family, and from the Holy Spirit.  Then we need to preach the gospel to ourselves, and allow ourselves to be reminded of the true worth of Jesus Christ and what He has done for us.  At the same time we need to humble ourselves before our Creator and Savior, and to ask Him for forgiveness and for sanctification.  And we need to do all of this each and every day.  

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” – Revelation 4:11

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. – Genesis 2:16-17; Genesis 3:4-6  

As I read these words, and consider this moment in history, when sin entered in, and was allowed to stain God’s perfect creation, I ask myself questions such as, “Why would Adam and Eve do something so terrible, when they had it so good?”, or “What would my life have been like if they had not eaten the apple?”.  Or maybe I just get angry at them for so blatantly disobeying the God who had been so kind and gracious to them.  I look at the effects of sin that surround my life, and I want to blame Adam.  I mourn this day when “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).  I hate sin and I hate death.

However, I need to keep in mind two things as I ponder these verses.  One is about God, and one is about me. 

God was not surprised by Adam and Eve’s actions.  He is sovereign, He is supreme, He is omniscient.  He has a plan for this world, and His plan is good.  God does not make mistakes, and He did not make a mistake when He created Adam and Eve.  For indeed we confess that, “This God – his way is perfect” (Psalm 18:30).  God is the height of wisdom, as the psalmist exclaims, “O Lord, how manifold are your works!  In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Psalm 104:24). God works all things out for His glory.

The second thing I need to be reminded of as I read about Adam and Eve is that …. I would have done the same thing.  In fact, I DO the same thing every day.  God has told me not to be proud, and every day I am proud.  He has told be to not be greedy, and every day I am greedy.  God has told me to not covet false idols, and every day I drive down Iowa street on my way home from work and covet all those shiny new cars that will never be able to buy my salvation. I could go on indefinitely.  “Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).

G.C. Chesterton summarized my point much more succinctly and eloquently than I ever could in a newspaper article, which asked it’s readers “What’s wrong with the world today?”.  Chesterton replied, “The problem with the world is me.”

Thank you Lord Jesus that this is not the end of the story.

“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” -1 Corinthians 15:22