He Bought Us Back

He Bought Us Back

I am the LORD. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment.

Exodus 6:6

“The Redeemer will come to Jerusalem to buy back those in Israel who have turned from their sins,” says the LORD.

Isaiah 59:20

Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live.

Galatians 1:4

Have you ever spent time in an arcade, earning tickets or coupons out of the games and machines as you play them? When you’re done, you usually take the tickets up to the counter and use them to purchase a prize to take home. This is redemption. You redeem that toy from the arcade with your tickets and bring it home with you.

A redeemer is someone who pays to buy something that needs to be delivered or rescued. Throughout the Bible, God is described as the Redeemer of Israel because he delivered the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. In this same way, Jesus is our Redeemer. He paid the price so that we could be delivered from slavery to sin and brought home to live with him. What form of payment did Jesus use to buy us? His own blood. Peter writes, “You know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

When God created the human race in the Garden of Eden, we were his. But then Adam and Eve sinned and we became hostages or slaves to sin. So God sent someone to redeem us, someone who was willing to pay the ultimate price to buy us back. Now, because we’ve been redeemed, we can live with him in his home forever.

DISCUSSION STARTERS

How do you “redeem” a coupon at a grocery store?

How would someone who was once a slave feel and act toward the person who paid for his or her release?

Who did Christ redeem with the payment of his blood? Why did he make this payment?