Bought Back

"Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." 1 Peter 1:18-19

"Redeemed" means "bought back" The redeemer pays a worthy price to reclaim something previously owned. Mankind was once God's by creation, but became lost through sin. The blood of Christ is the price of our purchase, or redemption. God offers Christ's blood to us as our substitutionary sacrifice and accepts it when we offer it back to Him. Our transaction with God is therefore not a gold-and-silver economy; it is a life-and-death economy. Christ gave His life's blood to buy us out of sin and death. His blood is a worthy price and provides an imperishable bond between God and man.

HUMAN WORTH???

The value of the human being can be inferred from the price paid to redeem the man. God the son, the Divine one through whom the worlds were created, became flesh and died for the sins of humanity. That He willingly shed His blood and died for us reveals not only the value fo the human personality, but also the importance of salvation. Through Christ, believers are forgiven, reckoned to be righteous, and by New Birth are renewed in the image of God. Fallen men and women can only produce the works of the flesh. Only by the Spirit, by the New Birth, can renew and recover that which was destroyed by the Fall.

"Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever" 1 Peter 1:23

We owe our new birth to the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit's activation of it's power. God's intent for our created being is only completely fulfilled when our spirits are alive toward Him. As sin produced spiritual death in people, so salvation in Jesus Christ provided spiritual life. The power of God's word - the Holy Scriptures - is in no way more manifest than this: it's power to bring spiritual life to all who open to its truth.

God's will to save us has been effectively expressed in His Word, which accomplishes that work.

"But as many as recieved Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name; who were born, not of blood,, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12-13