God as Redeemer

You have by Your power redeemed Your people Psalm 77:15

Redeemed – Boaz is a kinsman-redeemer, a go’el. But he is not the most important kinsman-redeemer. That role is played by Jesus. Jesus, our kinsman, born as one of us, is the ultimate kinsman-redeemer. He buys us back from bondage. Isaiah 52:3 tells us that God accomplishes this ransom “without money”. It is blood that pays the price of our redemption.

Centuries before Jesus was even born, David knew the truth of the kinsman-redeemer. David’s psalm proclaims that God will redeem us by His power. When Jesus faced the cross and the tomb, this psalm must have been near to His heart. He went to His death depending completely on the power of the Father to raise Him from the grave. He gave His life as our kinsman, and then He waited for the Father to provide the power of redemption. What an incredible proclamation of dependence and trust! Could you do that? Could you allow yourself to be killed, trusting completely that after you are dead God will intervene in human history and raise you to new life?

This is not an insignificant question. It has real, direct application to your life. You may not go to the cross. You are certainly not dying for the sins of the world. Your blood will not redeem humanity. But, you must still go to your death, trusting only that God will raise you to new life on the other side of the grave. But wait! I don’t mean that you will be buried in the ground. I’m not talking about your funeral. I’m talking about your baptism. When you enter that water, you are really saying to the Lord, “I am dying now. I am going into the grave under this water. And if you bring me back out of this symbol of death, I will no longer live as I once did. My old self is gone, left behind under the water. I will live only because You have redeemed me and raised me back to life. I will live by Your power, not mine. The “I” of my life is finished.”

God redeems from death. He does not offer an improvement plan. He offers a re-birth plan. If you never died, then you cannot be reborn. If the grave is not in your past, then you are not yet redeemed.

When did you die?