THE COST OF REDEMPTION: THE LORD PROVIDES

I am always amazed by those who think God could have saved us some other way than through the finished work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection. There is the matter that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins" (Hebrews 9:22). And then of course, there is Paul's declaration regarding Jesus that He "...was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." (Romans 4:25).

To whom must fallen man be justified but before His Creator only? Therefore God, to show Himself just (in His nature and his abhorrence of sin) and the only one who can be the justifier of those who put their trust/faith in Him, He spared not His own Son (Romans 3:19-26).

A law is of no consequence if there is no penalty for the violation of it or as the Bible states it: "where there is no law there is no transgression" (Romans 4:15). Therefore, how does God maintain His holiness and justice while establishing a relationship with man who is a sinner? That is, one who has violated His law (Romans 3:23). The only answer can be through faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross. Since man's fall, the picture of the cost of redemption has always been portrayed as a price which no sinful human could pay.

Since man's fall, God has always been pictured as the one who provides for redemption. We see God's provision in Genesis 3:21, "And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them." This picture of God clothing man with the skins of animals clearly suggests that God did for man what man was incapable of doing for himself. In order to cover man, it required the death of an animal. It prefigured Christ - the seed of the woman - doing for us what we could not do for ourselves, namely, sacrificing Himself for our sins (Genesis 3:15)!

Furthermore, if we look at the language God used in Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22) we are hard pressed not to see the sacrifice of Jesus being prefigured. God tells Abraham in verse 3, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” How can we miss the "your son, your only son, whom you love" and not sense the heart of God in giving His Son Jesus? Then when God stays Abraham's raised hand with the knife, as it is about to slay Isaac on the altar, the language is clear again, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him...seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (vs. 12). Again, we get a sense of the the depth of a father's heart in offering his ONLY SON! Furthermore, that fact Abraham's hand is stayed reveals again that the cost of man's redemption cannot be paid by man himself but the Lord will provide (read carefully vv. 8, 13-14)! Thus, the ram being caught in the thicket for Isaac once again is a prefigurement of Christ as our offering/sacrifice. Thus, THE LORD WILL AND DID PROVIDE the only acceptable sacrifice necessary for our redemption and justification, namely, His Son.

The whole animal sacrificial system of the OT is God's provision for man. Yet the truth is that not even the blood of those animals could take away sins (Hebrews 10:4). Consequently we read further, "When he said above, 'You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings' (these are offered according to the law), then he added, 'Behold, I have come to do your will.' He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all...But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10:8-14). The Lord provided for us in Christ what we could not provide for ourselves, namely, the forgiveness of sins through which He establishes a relationship with us.

Praise The Lord He provides!