In the recent 2016 Fall Conference at the Reformation Bible College — Albert Mohler and R. C. Sproul joined Chris Larson for a questions and answers session.
Your Testimony Isn’t About You – A really helpful reminder.
Older, Restful, and Reforming – Jared Wilson looks back at Collin Hansen’s article that became a book that charted a movement.
Glasgow University archivists find John Knox’s Bible – Perhaps a question mark at the end of the title would be more appropriate. However, if this turns out to be true, it would be a very impressive discovery.
Young Man, Young Woman: Set An Example – This is the first in a new series by Tim Challies. He writes, “If you are sixteen or eighteen or in your twenties, if you are in high school or college or just moving into marriage and career, I want to speak to you.”
Latest Biblical Diet Plan Purees Scriptures Into Healthy Shakes – The Babylon Bee does it again….
Kids can build a LEGO drone with Flybrix kits – Drones are the hot commodity these days, so lookout for Lego toys to be flying by soon!
Theology Word of the Week: Redemption
Redemption is a concept found in the OT to express the action of a relative in setting free a member of his family or buying back his property (Lv. 25:25ff.) or in general that of purchasing something for a price. A ransom-price is paid to secure the release of what would otherwise be under forfeit (e.g. Ex. 21:30). Religiously God acts as redeemer by powerfully delivering his people from captivity (Ex. 6:6–7; Is. 48:20) or even from sin (Ps. 130:8). A ransom may also be paid to God in the form of a sacrifice or offering, to deliver people whose lives would otherwise be forfeit (Ex. 13:13). There is dispute whether, when the action of redeeming is ascribed to God, he is regarded as paying a price to set his people free; certainly cost and effort are applied, but the thought of a price being received by somebody from him is absent (Is. 43:3 is metaphorical; cf. 52:3). The term was also applied to the setting free of slaves in the Graeco-Roman world on the payment of a ransom to their owners; this could be done in various ways, one of which involved a religious ceremony in which the slave was the object of a fictitious purchase by a god so that he was free of earthly masters. The terminology used is somewhat different from that employed in the NT, and has led recent scholars to doubt whether the origin of the NT metaphor lies in this area; nevertheless, the manumission of slaves would surely have formed an excellent and relevant illustration of redemption.
In the NT the starting-point for the use of the concept is found in the sayings of Jesus, which state that no-one can give anything in exchange for his life (Mk. 8:37; cf. Ps. 49:7–9), but that the Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many (i.e. for all; Mk. 10:45 as paraphrased in 1 Tim. 2:6; cf. Tit. 2:14). Jesus thus does what God alone can do (Ps. 49:15) by giving his own life, and the use of the noun lytron makes it quite clear that he gives his life in exchange for those whose lives are forfeit and thus sets them free. The death of Jesus is thus conceived as the sacrifice (Acts 20:28; Rom. 3:24; 1 Pet. 1:18) through which we are set free from our sins and their consequences, in other words through which we receive forgiveness (Col. 1:14; Eph. 1:7). Redemption is by faith in Christ (Rom. 3:24f.), and there is no longer any need to keep the law, as the Jews supposed, to secure salvation (Gal. 3:13; 4:5). Believers, however, can also be said to have been purchased by God to become his people; he has paid the price for them (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23). Thus the term ‘redemption’ can be used in quite a broad sense to express the general concept of salvation and deliverance (e.g. Lk. 24:21).
- Sinclair B. Ferguson and J.I. Packer, New Dictionary of Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 560.
