redeemed – Ministry of Grace Church

knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,

Truth to Learn

The price of our salvation was of great worth and is eternal.

Behind the Words

The word translated “redeemed” is a form of lutroō. This word means “to pay a ransom for another’s freedom.” It carries the idea of a person being held without the ability to escape and released only when a sufficient ransom price was paid.

“Aimless” is translated from mataios, meaning “to no purpose” or “fruitless.” It is a picture of someone wandering through this life without any purpose or destination in mind.

The phrase “received by tradition from your fathers” is translated from the Greek word patroparadotos. This is made up of pater, meaning “father” and a form of paradidōmi, meaning “to deliver.” It refers to something handed down by tradition from father to son. It is used here in reference to our aimless manner of living.

Meaning Explained

Before coming to faith in Christ, we were captured and in bondage to sin. The only payment that could set us free was life itself. But God, in His infinite mercy, offered the life of His only begotten Son in exchange for our life, as the acceptable ransom payment to set us free.

Peter here reminds us that the price of our salvation, the ransom for deliverance from the punishment of sin, has already been paid. But it was not paid with those things which we consider valuable like gold and silver. In fact, as we saw in verse seven, Peter refers to gold and silver as perishable things because they have no lasting value. But the blood of the sinless Lamb of God has eternal value.

He also tells us here that the life we were living before salvation, living under the bondage of sin, was characterized by wandering without purpose. But now that the ransom has been paid and applied to our account, we can choose to live for God (even though we don’t always do it). We now have a purpose in life!

Peter is telling us that we should do good works, works with lasting value, because we were redeemed with something of lasting value. He goes on further to say that the manner of life we had before we were saved was vain, that is, worthless or empty. We were delivered from a worthless life by something very precious, therefore we should be holy and make our new life worth something by putting works of value into the remainder of our life.

Application

Before salvation we were not free to live as we choose. We were slaves to sin and had no choice but to live for self. Now that we have been ransomed with the blood of Christ, we can choose to live for self or to live for God.

Who do you choose to live for?

In God's service, for His glory,

Romans 3:24

being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

Truth to Learn

Through faith in Jesus Christ we are declared to be righteous.

Behind the Words

“Being justified” is translated from dikaioō. This is based on dikaios, which as we saw in verse ten means “meeting God’s standard of always doing what is right.” The oō ending of a verb generally indicates “bringing out something about a person.” The verb is expressed here in the passive voice indicating action done to someone. So, this word means that someone is being declared righteous.

The word translated “freely” is dorean, an adverb based on the noun dorea, which refers to “a gift.” Hence, dorean means “gratuitously” or “as a free gift.”

“Grace” is translated from charis, which refers to “a favor done without expectation of anything in return.”

The word “redemption” is translated from apolutrōsis, which is a compound word made up of apo, meaning “from or away from” and a form of lutron, which means “a ransom that is paid for someone.” It denotes the rescuing of captives (sinners) from captivity (sin) through the payment of a ransom for them.

Meaning Explained

Paul now continues on his statement of justification by faith, declaring to us that even though we are all sinners and have come short of God’s glory, we can be declared righteous (justified). Since we are all sinners, we need to be redeemed. So what does this mean? The fact that Paul used apolutrōsis instead of simply lutron implies that not only was a ransom paid for us (the blood of Jesus Christ) but, having paid that ransom, He also took us away from the captor (sin).

Here’s a deeper explanation of what this verse says.

Because of the faith spoken of in verse 22, because we believed in the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, even though we are sinners, we are justified (declared righteous by God) freely (without payment on our part, simply as a gift) by God’s grace (a favor done without expectation of return; the absolutely free expression of the loving kindness of God) through the ransom that was paid for us by Jesus Christ (His blood), and we have been taken out of our captivity by sin.

Wow! Read that again!

In his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul said almost the same thing in a slightly different way:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Application

Paul has shown us that there is no way we could earn the righteousness that we need to stand before Almighty God. He has also shown us that we can obtain that righteousness for free simply by believing in the blood of Christ.

If that doesn’t drive us to our knees in praise and adoration, nothing will!

In God’s service, for His glory,

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Ministry of Grace Church

Tag: redeemed

1 Peter 1:18 – Incorruptible Ransom

Romans 3:24 – Free Righteousness