Calvary Road Baptist Church

“MY REDEEMER”

Psalm 19.14

 

Turn in your Bible to Psalm 19.14. While you are turning to that passage, allow me to clarify a couple of things in your thinking.

Last Sunday morning my message from God’s Word was taken from Psalm 107.2, which reads, “Let the redeemed of the LORD say so.” In that message, I pointed out that redemption as a doctrine can be distinguished from salvation as a doctrine, although the two are not actually separate. When you consider the concept of salvation, picture in your mind someone who is drowning in the ocean, and who is completely unable to deliver himself from certain destruction. His rescue is effected when a savior delivers him from the danger of drowning. Redemption, on the other hand, focuses attention on the sinner as a slave to sin, shackled in a bondage from which he is bound without hope of delivering himself. Redemption occurs when a redeemer pays a redemption price and thereby delivers the redeemed from his slavery. Though they are two different aspects of the same event for the sinner, salvation presses the mind to consider one’s rescue from danger, while redemption presses the mind to focus on the payment of the price of redemption to purchase the sinner in bondage from the marketplace of sin.

Now that you should be at Psalm 19.14, please stand and read along with me: “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.” Though this text, just like Psalm 107.2, urges the redeemed person to speak of his blessings, as well as meditate in his heart on those blessings, my intent this morning is to preach about the Redeemer.

A redeemer must meet four qualifications, four qualifications are met by our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, to pay the price and set us at liberty who were once captives on the block in the marketplace of sin.

 

First, MY REDEEMER IS A NEAR KINSMAN

 

It is well established in the Law of Moses that a redeemer must be a near kinsman in order to qualify for the redeeming of someone enslaved or killed. This, of course, is a picture of the sinner being bound in the cruel chains of sin, and of being dead in trespasses and sins.[1] For a sinner to have any hope of redemption, his redemption must be effected by a kinsman, and no one who is not related is qualified.

The most well known example of this aspect of a kinsman’s qualification occurs in the life of the Moabite woman named Ruth, whose first husband died, leaving her destitute and without heir. It was her Jewish mother-in-law Naomi’s idea to seek out redemption for Ruth and her son’s inheritance from a close relative named Boaz. If you are familiar with the account from the Book of Ruth, you will remember that a nearer relative declined to redeem before Boaz took up the challenge.

Boaz could redeem only if he were a near kinsman to Ruth’s dead husband, and he was. In like manner, the Lord Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, could only redeem sinners in a spiritual sense if He was first a near kinsman. How was this to be accomplished? How could Jesus, the eternal Son of the living God, become any man’s kinsman?

By means of the virgin birth. Jesus Christ left heaven’s glory to be born of the virgin named Mary in the city of David, Bethlehem, being made a man that He might redeem men. He thereby fulfilled that great need that Job recognized and longed for, when he understood that in order for mortal man to be reconciled to Almighty God, one was needed who could mediate between the two, effectively placing His hand on the shoulder of God as God, and on the shoulder of man being a man. Listen as I read Job 9.32-35:

 

32     For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.

33     Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.

34     Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me:

35     Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.

 

Can there be any doubt that Jesus Christ was a man, that He was that man? Added to the fact that He was born, and He matured into adulthood, is the record of His hunger, of His thirst, of His fatigue, of His sleeping, of His sorrow, of His anger, of His zeal, and of His death. Yet, though He was a man, He “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4.15.

In anticipation of some heretics coming along after His resurrection from the dead and His ascension into glory who would deny His humanity, consider what the Apostle John wrote about Him in First John 1.1-3:

 

1      That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

2      (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)

3      That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

 

When He was beaten, He bruised. When He was lashed, He bled. When He was crucified, He died. When He died, He rose from the dead. That this happened to One who was born, who was heard, who was seen with eyes, who was closely scrutinized, and who was touched and grasped by men’s hands, shows beyond doubt that He was a man, and qualified to be the Redeemer of sinful men.

 

Next, MY REDEEMER IS ABLE TO REDEEM

 

Being a blood relative is not sufficient to be a redeemer under the Law of Moses. One had to have sufficient material resources to pay the redemption price. If a Jewish man sold himself into slavery to avoid starvation, his brother or cousin could only redeem him if he had the money to buy him out of slavery. Debts needed to be paid, and obligations had to be met.

Again, in the Book of Ruth, we see that Boaz was able to redeem Ruth because he enjoyed material prosperity, with large fields to harvest and many hired workers. Therefore, whatever it cost to satisfy the debt of obligation against Ruth’s dead husband, Boaz had the means to pay it off; otherwise, redemption would not have been possible.

What fulfills the Old Testament typology of paying the redemption price for sinners is the shed blood of my Lord Jesus Christ. Two passages are sufficient at this point: Acts 20.28: “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.” Notice that last phrase, “which he hath purchased with his own blood.” My friend, that is redemption! And the price of redemption is the blood of Christ! First Peter 1.18-19 is even more explicit:

 

18     Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

19     But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

 

Thus, the redemption of sinners is accomplished with the precious blood of Christ shed on Calvary’s cross!

Is He able? I ask you, is He able? Listen to the songs we sing. Listen to the praises we bring. Redeemed from the marketplace of sin. My friend, that is who we are. You will find no sinless men or women in our midst. You will find no hypocrites here, who deny their sinfulness (indeed, only a lost man who suggests he needs no Redeemer is a true hypocrite). Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. We dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. The Lord Jesus Christ is qualified to be my Redeemer, because He is my near kinsman, and because He is able. His blood cleanses from all sin, First John 1.7.

 

Third, MY REDEEMER IS WILLING TO REDEEM

 

Resorting again to the story of Ruth and Boaz, you will remember that Boaz informed Ruth that there was a nearer kinsman than he who must be given the first opportunity to redeem her and her dead husband’s inheritance.[2] However, when Boaz approached the nearer kinsman with the information needed to make a decision, that other man was unwilling to perform the duty of a kinsman-redeemer.[3] Have you ever thought about the willingness of Boaz to redeem Ruth? For all the positive things that are said about her, what is of overriding importance is that she was a Moabite. Thus, it was a great act of mercy on Boaz’ part to consent to redeem Ruth.

In like manner, we see the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. All men are sinners, sold under sin.[4] Therefore, what was required for our redemption was not only the willingness of God to send His Son, John 3.16, but the willingness of His beloved Son to endure the cross and despise the shame on our behalf and for our benefit, Hebrews 12.2.

Turn with me to Hebrews 10.4, where we find indication of our Lord’s willingness to redeem us:

 

4      For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

5      Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

6      In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

7      Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.

8      Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;

9      Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

10     By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

 

Look at verses 7 and 9, where you see it twice mentioned that Jesus said to His heavenly Father, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.” This shows His willingness to redeem. This shows that Jesus Christ was a volunteer. Hallelujah!

 

Finally, MY REDEEMER DOES NOT HIMSELF NEED REDEMPTION

 

No kinsman-redeemer could redeem another while he himself was in need of redemption. No enslaved Jewish man could have redeemed Ruth and her first husband’s inheritance, just as no sinner can possibly think about redeeming another sinner, though many sinners do think such thoughts.

I do not know how many times in my 30+ years of ministry I have been urged by sinners to reach their loved ones with the Gospel. Have you ever noticed, over the course of your Christian life, how many lost people have urged you to pray for other lost people, how many unsaved people have pleaded with you to pray for and to witness to their unsaved loved ones.

Excuse me, but urging Christians to reach lost loved ones before coming to Christ yourself is an astonishing piece of self-deception, since it is unlikely that a lost boy will come to Christ while his daddy refuses Jesus, and a lost sister is not likely to come to Christ while her brother rejects the gospel. If you want to see a loved one saved, your most effective approach will be to come to Christ yourself! Taking that principle to another level, consider how a redeemer can salvage a near kinsman who suffers from the same calamity himself. Listen to what Job said: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.”[5] Therefore, you see, the only way my Redeemer can redeem sinners is if He, Himself, is without sin.

Now you know why the virgin birth of Jesus Christ is so important. The writer to the Hebrews describes the Lord Jesus Christ as “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.”[6] As well, he observes that Jesus “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”[7] Just as no drowning man can save another from drowning, in like manner no one needing redemption himself is in any position to redeem another. We can rejoice, then, that our Redeemer does not Himself need to be redeemed.

 

So, what can we say about the Redeemer, Jesus Christ? He is a near kinsman, being made in the likeness of man. He is able to redeem. He is willing to redeem. And He has no need of redemption Himself, being the sinless Son of God.

Can you say, “My Redeemer”? He is qualified to redeem you, though He will not redeem anyone who is unwilling, who wants to remain enslaved to sin.

Aren’t you tired of sinning? Doesn’t your heart grow weary under the burdensome guilt of sin? Don’t you want to be set free from selfishness, from wickedness, from defilement, and from sin? Don’t you want to be redeemed, to be set at liberty?

There is only one way, because there is only one redeemer, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Come to Him and He will save you. Come to Him and He will redeem you.



[1] Ephesians 2.1

[2] Ruth 3.12

[3] Ruth 4.6

[4] Romans 7.14

[5] Job 14.4

[6] Hebrews 7.26

[7] Hebrews 4.15



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Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church