Redemption.
A word that has been on my mind since the beginning of summer. Of all the common biblical terms, it is what fascinates and mystifies me the most.
The concept is around us in culture too. Shawshank Redemption is a favorite movie of mine. Redeeming Love, though fluffy and smarmy at times, tells the story of a man who takes in a prostitute as his wife, releasing her from a life of pain and seeks to help repair her heart. Muse's Exogenesis part 3 pleads for a new beginning.
What can be redeemed? People, relationships, the past, aspects of your life. All these things become tainted from sin. Galatians 3 says we are cursed by nature. We are impure, twisted, hurtful, and unrighteous. Most of all, we are separated from God. We are not who he created us to be.
But no man can redeem the life of another (Pslams 49). We may try to change the sin in others, and more often try to change ourselves. But no matter how hard you try, it can't be done. Redemption only comes through Jesus's blood (1 Peter 1:18). The slate of your life's sin is erased with this ultimate sacrifice of atonement completed 2,000 years ago. And its power is never going to fade away.
Upon redemption one is..
Purified. Restored. Holy. Released from blame, distress, captivity. Reconciled. Won back. Reclaimed. Made new. Free.
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting mens sins against them."
2 Corinthians 5:17
Can you think of more glorious feeling than that? Bah! I love it.
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