A Ransom Paid...

“We should live like that while we wait for our great hope and the coming of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. He gave himself for us so he might pay the price to free us from all evil and to make us pure people who belong only to him—people who are always wanting to do good deeds…”

-Titus 2 v 13-14

Those of you who are reading are alive…at least I hope you’re alive, otherwise I’m gonna be totally freaked out that zombies are even bothered to read my blog…Sorry, thought I’d open with a slight joke, and from the deafening silence I’m hearing, you all think I’m not funny… We’ll see…

But yes, we are all alive. We all go about our daily lives. I don’t know about you, but I think that everyone follows a routine. People who are spontaneous like to think they’re just that, spontaneous…but they to follow a routine. Do you wake up every morning? Yep. And do you go to sleep every evening? Yes sir. Then there you go, that’s a routine of sorts. You get up and go to sleep just like a lot of people.

We all have routines, whether we like to think it or not. And even more basic is the routine which cripples each and every one of us…

Sin…

Now is the time when I ask quite a large question…

What is Sin?

Webster’s dictionary defines sin as “an offense against religious or moral law.” And yes, this is a very good description of sin. But the Bible gives a clearer, and maybe even simpler definition;

“Everyone has sinned and fallen short of God's glorious standard…”

-Romans 3 v 23

To explain that, it is what separates us from God. Anything that we do in which we turn our backs on Him is a sin. I know this is only a brief look at what sin is, but there’s more to come.

Sin is a routine for us. We are naturally born into sin, and so it is our very nature to sin, seen as we inherited this curse from our first father Adam. However, unlike most routines, it is extremely hard to break away from the routine of sin. And Jesus sums up the next point quite nicely here;

“I tell you the truth, everyone who lives in sin is a slave to sin…”

-John 8 v 34

It’s a hard thing to swallow, but in essence, we are all slaves to sin. There are people who say, and I think a lot of us would agree at first, that we are free human beings, free to do whatever we want. However, if we are truly free, surely we than have the freedom to reject sin… Unfortunately, we are not free from sin.

In “Death By Love” Driscoll uses the Exodus story to describe the state we are in, and points out that our hearts can be harden, just as Pharaohs’ was. And we all know what happened to him, don’t we…?

Paul sums up how sin affects us in our daily lives and further agrees with us being a slave to sin;

“I do not understand the things I do. I do not do what I want to do, and I do the things I hate… But I see another law working in my body, which makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and it makes me its prisoner… So in my mind I am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin…”

-Romans 7 v 15, 23, 24

What Paul says here is what differentiates what is said in the book. In “Death By Love” Driscoll is writing to someone who does not hate his sin. What Paul is saying here is, despite the fact that he does sin, he hates what he does, and wishes to do what is right.

Much like “A Demon Conquered,” this post shares a very common theme, in that through Jesus’ death on the cross, we are redeemed. That is the second outcome of His death.

To be redeemed is to have a ransom paid for. As it says in Romans;

“The payment for sin is death. But God gives us the free gift of life forever in Christ Jesus our Lord…”

-Romans 6 v 23

Jesus paid our debt. I think out of all the outcomes of the Cross, this is probably the one that people most align with, that the fact that Jesus took the blame for something that I didn’t do. By doing this, He showed His perfect, unconditional love for us, going to the greatest length to rescue us from sin, so that we would no longer need to bow down to sin, nor take heed of any of its commands;

“We know that our old life died with Christ on the cross so that our sinful selves would have no power over us and we would not be slaves to sin. Anyone who has died is made free from sin's control…”

-Romans 6 v 6-7

It’s sometimes hard to imagine the scale of what happened on the Cross. I mean, even in terms of redemption, there is so much that we could never grasp. I think what baffles me most of all is that Jesus took, not just my sin, but the whole world’s sin, and then going beyond that, He took all sin and placed it on himself, all sin throughout time and space… Come to think of it, the thing that baffles me most is the fact that Jesus would want to take any of our sin in the first place. That is the extent of His love, it’s a love which transcends understanding, and that is something amazing.

Conviction, Confession, Repentance, Restitution, Reconciliation… This is what Driscoll says is needed to be done in order to be forgiven, to be redeemed. But to put it another way...






Let Him be the Nexus in Your Life.




Everything after that will be done through your relationship with God. Truly, a ransom has been paid…

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed…”

-Isaiah 53 v 5




Idea taken from "Death By Love; Letters From The Cross" by Mark Driscoll. Bible Translation NCV