Concept, Context, Cost of our Redemption

Introduction: The Call to Fear and the Conditioning Realities

0:06 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, June 21st, 1998, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:18 Now let us turn again in our Bibles to 1 Peter, chapter 1, 1 Peter, chapter 1, and I would urge you to follow as I read verses 17 through 21. 1 Peter 1, beginning the reading at verse 17. And if or since you call on Him as Father, who, without respect of persons, judges according to each man's work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear, knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of old. The Lamb, without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ, who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of the times for your sake, who through Him are believers in God that raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope might be in God.

1:40 Well, let us again. Ask God for the help of His Spirit as we come to another very rich and in many ways very compact portion of the Word of God that God will help me to teach and preach that Word with clarity and unction and that God would give to each of you the anointed ear to hear and to receive that Word. Let us pray. Our Father, we have indeed been sobered as Your Word has brought us again.

2:17 To that day when we must be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, and we would seek both to preach and to hear Your Word as those who are on their way to that awesome day. Come then by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit that we may taste the powers of the age to come as we open up Your Word to the world. Together, may Your Spirit so attend the preaching that it may indeed be preaching with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven and so attend the hearing that the Word may be received with meekness, with faith, and with obedience. Come then by Your Holy Spirit and meet our needy and our waiting hearts. We plead through Christ our Lord. Amen.

3:24 Now in the familiar 21st chapter of John's Gospel, we're given that very moving account of how the Lord Jesus recommissioned His servant, the Apostle Peter. The very Peter who a short time before with oaths and with maledictions had sworn that he did not even know Jesus. That same Peter is now being drawn out, by the Lord Jesus, to make fresh affirmations of his love and of his loyalty in the presence of Christ. And in that setting, the Lord Jesus commands Peter both to feed and to shepherd his sheep and his lambs. Furthermore, in that same portion of the Word, we are informed that Peter would go on fulfilling that renewed commission until he became an old man. And after becoming an old man and fulfilling that commission, he would die the death of a martyr. Well, here in this portion of the Word of God that we call First Peter, Peter the old man is still carrying out that commission.

4:41 He is feeding and shepherding both the lambs and the sheep of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as he writes to these distressed saints, in Asia Minor, described in his opening greeting as elect sojourners of the dispersion, he begins, as you have been reminded again and again, not by laying upon them any duty, any responsibility, but by taking them up with him in this amazing eulogy, this speaking well of God and of his great and glorious salvation in the Lord Jesus. Then, beginning in verse 3, he calls them to the kind of life they are to live in the light of their privileges by the grace of God. And in this first cycle of pastoral exhortations, Peter concentrates primarily upon the kind of life they are to live with God himself as their reference point. And in verse 13, he indicates that it is to be a life of steadfast hope. Verses 14 to 16, it is to be a life marked by the pursuit of universal holiness.

6:01 And in verses 17 to 21, it is to be a life marked by appropriate fear. Now, as we saw last Lord's Day, this fear which Peter enjoins upon the people of God and which is to mark their entire sojourn upon earth is conditioned by two sets of realities. On the one hand, it is conditioned by the fact that God is both their accessible Father and their impartial Judge. If you call on Him as Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each man's work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear. So the first set of realities that is to condition this fear that is commanded, this fear that is to mark their entire earthly pilgrimage, is the reality that they know God as accessible Father and as impartial Judge. But then the second set of realities clusters around that which Peter describes in verses 18 to 21, the heart of which is the reality of their relationship to Christ as their Redeemer.

7:27 And so this fear is pressured on the one hand by the knowledge that God is their Father and their Judge, and on the other hand by the knowledge that Christ is their Redeemer. Pass the time of your sojourning in fear knowing that you were redeemed. Now we opened up last Lord's Day verse 17, seeking to understand what this acknowledgement of God as Father and Judge does in the conditioning of this appropriate fear that is to mark our earthly sojourn. And all I will do by way of review before moving on to verses 18 and 19 this morning, is to read several sentences from the Lutheran commentator Lenski, and this is all that you will get by way of review. Lenski writes, Fear is the opposite of false security, not of joyful faith. There is no contradiction between joyful faith, steadfast hope, and the fear enjoined upon God's people. And we do not reject the fear of vigilance and caution which is afraid of insulting God and falling into the danger of forsaking Him,

8:53 but we do reject the fear that is rooted in doubt. When men demand a God whom they need not fear, they demand an idol who does not exist. When men demand a God whom they do not have any need to fear, they demand an idol that does not exist. To decry the holy fear of God as an unethical or sub-Christian motive is to pervert it.

9:26 To be sure, those who are not obedient children of this Father and Holy Judge cannot have the right conception of this motive of fear. What awaits them is the terror of the Lord whom they defy. The truer the child of God, the more this child will dread to offend even to ignore God and His just judgment. A prevalent opinion thinks that only the Old Testament preaches fear, the New Testament nothing but love.

The Concept of Redemption: Release by Payment of a Price

9:59 Jesus and the entire New Testament bid us to fear God. Well now we come to this second set of realities by which this appropriate fear is to be conditioned and it is according to verse 18, the knowledge that we are a redeemed people. And in opening up these two verses this morning, think with me first of all of the concept of redemption. When Peter writes and says, knowing that you were redeemed, what did Peter have in his mind?

10:42 When these believers there in Asia Minor would first hear from one of their elders that they had a letter from the Apostle Peter and on a given Lord's day would stand up and read, what concept would register on the minds of these elect sojourners in these five provinces of Asia Minor when they heard the words, knowing that you were redeemed? What would register in their minds? What was registering in Peter's mind when he wrote? Well if we were to do an extensive topical study of the biblical doctrine of redemption, we would have to flush out many aspects of that doctrine that I do not in any way propose to handle with you this morning. We would soon discover that redemption is a broad biblical concept with many different nuances. We would discover that we are redeemed from such things as the curse of the law, Galatians 3.13.

11:51 We are delivered from the power of sin, Titus 2.14. We are delivered from the tyranny of the devil, Colossians 2 and Hebrews 2. But in our text, believers are set before us as those who have been redeemed and the usage of the word comes to us in a much more limited way.

12:16 Now when we come to such words as redemption, propitiation, reconciliation, sacrifice, these are the words by which the Holy Spirit is conveying to us the richness and the fullness of salvation in Jesus Christ. Each one of those words contains a category of God's gracious provision, none of which are luxuries, none of which are useless frills. Every facet of our salvation answers to some specific need arising from our sinfulness. And there are certain needs arising from our sinfulness to which God's provision of a sacrifice is the answer. Others to which God's provision of a propitiation is the answer. Others to which the provision of reconciliation is the answer. And some to which redemption is the answer.

13:24 And I fear that many of us treat these words not with the disdain with which we would treat our dirty clothes, but you're not at all concerned about how your dirty clothes are arranged in the hamper where you put them. Dirty undershirt, dirty socks, dirty shirt, dirty trousers, all go in the hamper. And then after they're washed and dried and folded, then they are put neatly in the various places where they belong in your dress or drawers. And no one of you I trust has his undershirt and his socks and his hankies and his pajamas all jumbled up like they are in the dirty clothes hamper.

14:06 And I fear that many of God's people say, oh, redemption, reconciliation, sacrifice, propitiation, throw them all in the hamper called salvation. There may be some differences, but no, the hamper is salvation. And in salvation you can speak of being redeemed, you can speak of being reconciled, you can say Christ is a sacrifice, and they have no distinct understanding of the particular aspects of their glorious salvation realities. Not mere notions, but realities answering to the problems of human sin and wonderfully accepting them.

14:44 And that is expressed in these differing words. So in these few moments as we focus upon the biblical concept of redemption, let me try to convey it in its distilled essence to you. When Peter picked up his pen and wrote, knowing that you were redeemed, and when these first century readers would have received that letter and heard it read for the first time or after a period of time received a copy of the letter and read it for themselves, given the terminology used by Peter in the context, they would have thought of redemption in terms of this very fundamental category of reality. To redeem was to secure release by the payment of a price. Remember, there were slaves in this church. Slavery was rife in the Roman Empire in the first century.

15:45 And these believers would have known, and perhaps some of them even were in the category of redeemed or ransomed slaves. Peoples whose freedom from slavery was purchased by the payment of a price which was called a ransom. They may have had relatives who had been taken captive in some form of warfare and who were released from their captors when someone redeemed them. That is, released them from their captivity by the payment of a ransom.

16:25 And though, as I've already indicated, the concept of redemption throughout the Scriptures is much broader than that limited definition, when we think of redemption at its very heart, especially when we think of redemption as a saving mercy from God in Christ, we should always think in this category, redemption is my release from bondage by the payment of a price. As surely as the concept of sacrifice answers to the guilt of our sin, propitiation answers to the wrath deservingness of our sin, as reconciliation answers to the alienation caused by our sin, redemption focuses on liberation from the bondage effected by our sin. I can perhaps do no better than read this brief statement of Professor Murray when dealing with the term redemption. In his classic work, Redemption Accomplished in Applied Rights, the idea of redemption must not be reduced

17:51 to the general notion of deliverance. The language of redemption is the language of purchase and more especially of ransom. And ransom is the securing of a release by the payment of a price. The evidence that establishes this concept of redemption is very copious.

18:11 And no doubt need remain that the redemption secured by Christ is to be interpreted in such terms. And then he references Matthew 20, 28. The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. In the giving of His life, He is not only a propitiatory sacrifice, turning away the wrath of God.

18:43 He is not only the one through whom we are being reconciled to God, but He is giving His life a ransom price to release us from our bondage to sin. Ransom presupposes some kind of bondage or captivity, and redemption therefore implies that from which the ransom secures us. Just as sacrifice is directed to the need created by our guilt, propitiation to the need that arises from the wrath of God, and reconciliation to the need arising from our alienation from God, so redemption is directed to the bondage to which our sin has consigned us. This bondage, of course, is multiform. Consequently, redemption as purchase or ransom receives a wide variety of reference and application. Redemption applies to every respect in which we are bound, and it releases us unto a liberty which is nothing less than the liberty of the glory of the children of God.

The Context of Redemption: From a Vain, Inherited Lifestyle

20:01 Now that's the heart of the Biblical concept of redemption. If you get nothing else as you sit here this morning, I trust when you go out that I'll be able to ask any child, any adult, what's the heart of the Biblical concept of redemption as used by Peter? It's release from bondage by the payment of a price. So as Peter summons these believers to a life of appropriate fear, he underscores that the second major reality that will produce and condition that fear is the constant remembrance that they are a redeemed people, knowing that you were redeemed, knowing, holding in the faculty of your understanding, the constant remembrance that you are a people released from bondage by the payment of a price. So much then for the concept of redemption. Now secondly, note from the text the context of our redemption. Our text says, knowing that you were redeemed, and drop out the next clause, not with corruptible things with silver and gold.

21:22 Knowing that you were redeemed from your vain manner of life. You were redeemed from, literally, out of, your vain manner of life. You see the concept of release and deliverance? He says your vain manner of life was the context in which God's redemptive grace came to you, and when it did, it liberated you.

21:54 It released you. It took you out of the sphere in which it found you. It found you in a vain manner of life. And redemption has delivered you out of it.

22:09 Now as I already mentioned earlier, a comprehensive study of the doctrine of redemption would make clear that we are also in a context where the curse of a broken law is upon us. Where the tyranny of the devil is over us. And the power of sin enslaves us. And there are passages which say in redeeming us, have been delivered out of those realities as well.

22:38 But I'm not here bringing a topical message on redemption. I'm trying to expound 1 Peter. And how it is that knowing something of this redemption in this specific context in which Peter describes it, is to feed into and condition and shape this holy fear that is to mark us through all of our pilgrimage. Now it's an interesting thing.

23:03 Here in our English Bibles, most translations, it takes 8 to 9 words to even begin to give something approximating a translation of three basic Greek words that Peter uses. When he is describing the context of these first century believers, the spiritual context in which the grace of God came to them, and out of which they were redeemed by that grace. He first of all says that they were redeemed from their entire former lifestyle. Knowing that you were redeemed from your vain manner of life.

23:43 That's one of Peter's favorite family of words again. It's that anastrophe again. He used it up in verse 15. Be holy in all manner of living.

23:56 We saw last week, he uses it in the verbal form. If you call on Him as Father, who without respect of persons judges each man's work, pass your sojourning, conduct the entirety of your life in fear. Peter says in describing the context in which redemption came to these people, that it was their entire former lifestyle out of which they were redeemed. And he says that lifestyle from which you've been redeemed has two fundamental descriptive aspects to it. Look at this.

24:36 First of all, as to the nature of that lifestyle, he says it was vain or futile. And I love the English pronunciation better. Futile. Just sounds more futile than futile. Futile.

24:50 That's the nature of it. And then he says as to the origin of it, it's a futile lifestyle handed down from your fathers. All of those words trying to render one compound Greek word. So let's think for a moment.

25:07 And we've got to think, dear people. I don't know how to expound without thinking. I don't know how to teach you without demanding you think. And remember, this was not written to theologians. It was written to common, ordinary believers, whom Peter assumed would welcome anything that would keep them stable as they made their way on their earthly pilgrimage to that blessed inheritance reserved in heaven for them. So gird up the loins of your mind and think with me. Because this is a description of what we were in when the grace of God came to us. The lifestyle from which they've been redeemed. Look at the two-fold description. The nature of that lifestyle, he describes it as futile. He could have used the word empty, but that would not have been as accurate. For their lives were very full.

25:59 If you read over in chapter 4, you'll see that their lives were fuller. That you should no longer live the rest of your time in the flesh to the lust of men, but to the will of God. For the time past may suffice to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles to have walked in lasciviousness, lusts, wine-dippings, revelings, carousings, and abominable idolatries wherein they think it strange that you run not with them in the same excessive riot speaking evil of you. They were very, very active.

26:33 They had an active life. But Peter says that lifestyle from which they were redeemed was futile. This word means useless, having no goal, no purpose, leading to no good end. Like ants chasing one another around the rim of a jar, going nowhere and accomplishing nothing, but wearing out their little ant legs.

26:59 Peter says your entire life style as to its nature was futile. It was useless. It had no noble goal, no substantive purpose. It led to no good end.

27:17 Perhaps some of you have heard that in the concentration camps during the Second World War there were many things done to try to break the spirit of those who were held captive. And I've read how that in one situation they would have people on one end of a enclosed area surrounded with barbed wire and guards. The people would have to pile rocks into a wheelbarrow and wheel that rock-filled wheelbarrow all the way across to the outer perimeters of that enclosed yard and dump their rocks. Then come back to another rock pile and fill their wheelbarrow and go back again.

27:56 And when they had transported all the rocks from one side of the yard to another, then they had to reverse the process. And start filling the wheelbarrow, rock by rock, pile by pile, for no specific constructive end. They were not building anything. They were not destroying anything.

28:18 They were engaged in this arduous activity that if Peter were describing it, he would call it futile. No end. No terminus. No goal. No purpose leading to no good end. Utterly futile. Perhaps the illustration that is stuck so in my own mind, and it may be because of the peculiar chemistry of my brain, Dr. Van Til used the illustration of trying to imagine a bottomless, shoreless ocean of water.

28:58 And in that bottomless, shoreless ocean of water is a man made of water. We can think of that a lot better now with computer imaging. Can you picture a man? He's made of water.

29:10 A creature that has the outlines and contours of a man but he's made of water. And this man made of water in this bottomless, shoreless ocean of water is desperately trying to climb out on a ladder made of water. Can you picture it? His watery foot comes up on the first rung and the moment he puts pressure, water flows into water and he makes no progress. He seeks to bring up his other watery foot and water flows into water. That's futility. A man in a shoreless, bottomless ocean of water, made of water, trying to climb out on a ladder of water. Harassed, sunken-eyed, psychologically battered prisoners of war, pushing their wheelbarrow across the yard and dumping their rocks, only to fill the wheelbarrow and push it back and dump the rocks Peter says, the lifestyle from which you were redeemed, as to its nature, it was futile. And as

30:24 to its origin, look at the text. He said it is the lifestyle that was handed down from your fathers. Now once in a while, we preachers get charged with using big words. Peter would be charged with using one here.

30:42 Fifteen letters. It's a compound word. And it takes four or five English words to translate it. It's found only here in the New Testament.

30:53 And as you look at the different elements in the word, it means exactly what our English translations say. It is a futile lifestyle and where did they get it from? It was handed down from their fathers. Now whether these were Gentiles or Jews, in their pre-Christian days, he says that the origin of their lifestyle, characterized by futility, was to be found in this.

31:22 Generations of cumulative human opinions, standards, goals, and perspectives. Were you to tap one of these elect sojourners of the dispersion sitting in one of the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, and you were to ask them, why did you live the way you lived before the gospel came to you in power as Peter describes it in verse 12 of this chapter. Before you were begotten again by that living word, as he will describe their experience in the latter part of the chapter. Before you became newborn babes in Christ, why did you live the way you lived?

32:05 They would have answered because that's the way I thought you were supposed to live. And where did you get those notions? Well that's the way my father lived. And that's the way his father lived. And he tells me that that's the way his father lived. You mean you were living by no other authority and standard than those things passed on by your fathers? Oh yes. There's a great sense of security in living out family traditions. There's a great sense of stability in living by the accepted patterns of behavior and the norms that have formed as it were the stuff of society around us. But Peter describes such a lifestyle. Which has no other origin than the traditions, the cumulative human opinion standards, goals and perspectives as a futile lifestyle. Which is nothing less than the worst kind of spiritual bondage out of which God in redeeming grace delivers us by the payment of a price. So in summary

33:13 we say Peter describes the context of their redemption. As a futile lifestyle handed down from their fathers and in a real sense and some of the commentators pick up this strand. It could be a veiled illusion that takes us all the way back to our first father Adam. For ultimately we all trace our lineage back to Adam and to Eve.

33:39 And in doing this Peter is affirming something that was nothing short of radical in his day and it's radical in our day. He was affirming that God's redeeming work breaks the tyranny of the godless traditions of families, societies and of nations. Even when those traditions are encrusted by the sanctity of generations of commitment. Do you hear me? Do you hear what Peter is saying?

34:16 And in a society and we are told from secular writers that in that society in that day there was a tremendous sense of respect for the traditions and for the patterns of the fathers not only within Judaism. And you know how they were in terms of protecting the traditions of their fathers so much so that they would preserve those traditions at the expense of the word of God and Jesus had to rebuke them again and again for this. But even in secular society and for Peter to say this new humanity in Christ you have been redeemed out of a bondage a bondage that marked your whole lifestyle which as to its nature was futile. It led nowhere. It had no noble end. It brought no ultimate accomplishment and it was as to its origin that which was described as the antiquity of tradition nothing more.

The Cost of Redemption: Not Corruptible Things, But Precious Blood

35:20 Well having considered briefly the biblical concept of redemption. Secondly the context of their redemption. Now notice what is the heart of the text. The cost of our redemption.

35:35 The cost of our redemption. If redemption is securing release by the payment of a price then surely the question is raised what was the price paid for our redemption. If redemption is securing release from bondage by the payment of a price that is called a ransom what was the ransom? Well Peter answers very clearly and as any good teacher will do he answers first of all negatively in order to isolate his answer and then he answers positively. Notice first of all negatively what the cost of our redemption was not. And in the original the negative is placed forward for emphasis. If we were giving a more literal rendering of the text we would translate it this way. Past the time of your sojourning in fear knowing that not with perishable things silver or gold were you redeemed the negative even comes before the main verb. Knowing

36:48 you were redeemed Peter says knowing that not with perishable things silver or gold were you redeemed. So in the negative he describes that by which we are not redeemed as corruptible. That refers to anything and everything connected with this world and this life as it now is. Remember concerning our inheritance the first thing Peter said about it in verse four we are begotten to a living hope to an inheritance incorruptible.

37:26 That's our word with a little negation at the front of it called the alpha privative. That's the same word. Our inheritance is incorruptible. Why? It's a heavenly inheritance.

37:38 It is not a part of this earth and of this parenthesis that we call time. And he says the cost of our redemption is not anything corruptible even the most enduring of the things that are in this sphere of the corruptible namely precious metals such as silver nor yet gold. Imagine what this would have brought to the minds of some of these readers. No doubt they had seen or known of friends and relatives who had been redeemed out of slavery out of some form of military or political captivity.

38:21 Someone had been willing to take silver coin gold coin and place it on the negotiating table and someone was willing to sign a release secured by silver and by gold. But Peter says you were redeemed you were ransomed not with perishable things such as silver and gold. Psalm 49 6-9 is the inspired commentary on the reality that no sinner can ever be redeemed from his bondage by any amount of human wealth of any kind. Psalm 49 6 they that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches none of them can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for him for the redemption of their life is costly and it fails forever that he should still live always that he should not see corruption who can come up with a ransom price that will secure everlasting life and the Psalmist says none can do it. Is Peter echoing the very sentiment of this Psalm when he says with respect to the

39:48 cost of our redemption negatively not with perishable things silver or gold but positively. This is a very strong adversity but here is the cost the heart of the positive statement is found in the words but with the blood of Christ all the rest are modifiers it is with blood of Christ blood of Christ it is not the perishable silver or gold but it is the blood of Christ that is the life of Christ poured out in a violent sacrificial death and there again is a basic biblical concept I want you to grasp when the scripture speaks of the blood of Christ being the ground of our salvation what is the Bible conveying to us what it is conveying is this the life of the flesh is in the blood the pouring out of his life is the shedding of his blood but not the shedding of his blood in any way but in a violent sacrificial death that is why Jesus said

41:14 I came to give my life a ransom for many the life of the flesh is in the blood and when the redemption price is said to be the blood of Christ it means nothing less than his violent sacrificial death on behalf of sinners and notice the two things that Peter highlights about this cost of our redemption as to its worth he calls it precious blood and as to the specific character of the one whose blood it is as of a lamb without blemish and without spot as to its worth he calls it precious blood if you were to look up the use of this word precious in the New Testament you would find that most frequently it is used to refer to what we call precious stones precious gems it is used in 1 Corinthians 3.12 that familiar passage if any man build on this foundation wood hay stubble will suffer loss if any man builds upon it gold silver here is our word precious stone five times in the book of the revelation this word is used with regard to what we would call exquisite gemstones and here Peter says it is

42:43 precious blood that blood that is the cost of our redemption is precious blood and what is it that makes it precious well surely it is the dignity of the person who shed it he who shed it was not near man or nearly sinless mere man but he who shed it was the God man it is the blood of Jesus it is the blood of Christ it is the blood of Emmanuel God with us it is precious blood because of the dignity of his person and because of the majesty of his position he sheds that blood as the Christ as the anointed Messiah God's final prophet priest and king from time to time on the Lord's day morning in order to have my own heart fixed afresh upon the very nerve centers of our faith I will take one of the gospel records and read the account of the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus and as I did that this morning and tried to bring before my mind's eye afresh

44:10 the gruesomeness the double R rated account of our Lord's treatment at the hands of sinners the crown of thorns the reed in his hand stripped and clothed in mock royal majesty buffeted malign false witnesses rising up on the left hand and on the right the horrible scourging that left his back one massive bleeding mess of torn flesh the horror of crucifixion the dehydration all of the agonies of that cross who would have ever thought this is incarnate deity this is the most glorious king who was ever crowned the most insightful prophet who ever spoke the glorious the true high priest but Peter says knowing that you were redeemed with precious blood of Christ Messiah Jesus as to its worth it is precious blood but then as to the

The Character of the Redeemer: The Spotless Lamb of God

45:34 specific character of the one whose blood it is notice what Peter tells us as of a lamb without blemish and without spot now I confess that until I did a serious study of the passage I thought what this passage was saying is that Jesus died in likeness to the blemishless spotless paschal lamb now that certainly is a wonderful truth but that's not what Peter is saying he doesn't say knowing you were redeemed with precious blood like that of a lamb no the language and the construction means as being a lamb without blemish and without spot in other words Peter is affirming that rather than Christ shedding his blood in likeness to the old paschal lamb he is saying that Christ sheds his blood as the true and substantial lamb who is morally without blemish and without spot he is affirming that Christ is the true lamb and all other sacrificial lambs were but shepherds and as I said Lord how can I make that plain

47:01 to the children to your people the only illustration that registered was that of my hand and I was hoping I could get a shadow on the wall I can't get a big one you get shadows on the floor you can't see the shadows on the floor there's one on the wall there's the shadow now what is substantive and what has reality is that shadow that I may try to reach out and grab does that have flesh and bones and sinews and blood vessels and tendons no it's a shadow the substance is this hand it has the bones it has the muscles it has the sinews it has the blood vessels it has the skins and the nervous system it is the substantial hand any shadows are just that they are merely shadows of this reality they may give you some idea because this reality is determining the shape and the contours of the outline of the shadow on the wall now that's what you have in all of the old testament sacrificial systems in the mind of God Christ is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world he has substantive reality as the true lamb from all eternity he alone is the sinews and the bone and the muscle and the tissue

48:31 of true sacrifice that will satisfy God and God takes that substantial reality and with the light of revelation through prophet and through type and shadow God puts these shadows in the old testament that are not pointing forward to Christ but are derived from Christ they are the shadows he is the substance of reality in the mind of God there was only one lamb in his sacrificial system when he came John pointed to him and said what behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world he was always the lamb the only substantive true lamb and when God said as he did in exodus 12 in preparation for the passover you are to go out and find a lamb four days before passover day it should be such and such a lamb no blemish no spot God was not accumulating all of this to have some kind of a picture that would tell us of Christ no what God was doing God is setting forth Christ and saying here are the things that in some little way are pointers toward him because they draw their contours from him and now Peter says you who have lived

50:00 at this side of the cross you were redeemed and the cost of your redemption was not perishable things silver or gold but it was the blood of Christ precious blood blood that he shed in his unique identity as the one true lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and I wonder again for Peter as a kosher Jew what it must have meant for him when he wrote as a lamb without spot or I'm sorry without blemish and without spot the word without blemish is used again and again in the old testament ritual and in the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures it's found again and again there in exodus and in Deuteronomy but the word without spot is not found anywhere with reference to any lamb that was but a shadow of Christ it's points to his true essential moral purity and think what this must have meant for Peter he was a fisherman most likely he learned the fishing trade from his father there in Galilee that being so he wouldn't have had his own flock of lamb and like any good Jew in preparation for Passover somebody had to go to market and find a lamb

51:29 without blemish I wonder how many times Peter had gone with his dad as he's training him in good Jewish style to be a good leader in his Jewish home remember Peter could say I've never eaten anything unclean he knew how to separate kosher from non-kosher food his father reared him well in Jewish traditions how many times had Peter looked through someone's little group of lambs in the bazaar or in the market place and went over its entire structure looking for any abnormalities any sign that bones had been broken any spots upon the flesh until he found a lamb that he could say dad this looks like a lamb without blemish and the father's trained eye might after closer inspection say ah but son look at this you fail to know the next time I'll look for that how many times had Peter this is only conjecture but it's not baseless conjecture how many times had the concept of a lamb without blemish been impressed upon the mind and the soul of this little Jewish boy from there in upper Palestine now that he has seen the lamb of God and that was the context of his first introduction to Jesus in John 1 verse 29 and verse 36 John points to him as the lamb and as Peter begins to understand slowly

52:57 at first remember how slowly the Lord says I'm going to go to Jerusalem and there I'm going to die and Peter says no no Lord whatever you do you don't accomplish your work by dying yet be behind me Satan now Peter's eyes have been opened and he understands that every time he went out as a little boy with his daddy to find a lamb without blemish that was just the shadow on the wall and now the substance and he had come to see in the Lord Jesus that true lamb he who shed his blood that Peter calls precious he did so in the character of the lamb without blemish and without spot God's true God's only lamb that bears away the sin of the world it's interesting when you turn to the book of the revelation where we are given more pictures of the eternal state and what we will do and be in that eternal state more than two dozen times our Lord is described in the book of the revelation as the lamb it's the lamb in the midst of the throne it's the throne of God and of the lamb they sing the song of Moses and of

Application: The Connection Between Redemption and Holy Fear

54:25 the lamb now do you see why Peter says pass the time of your sojourning in fear knowing that you were redeemed with precious blood as of a lamb without blemish and without spot well I've sought to bring into focus the basic concept of redemption it's release from bondage by the payment of a price we've looked at the context of redemption it is being redeemed out of a total lifestyle marked as to its nature by futility its origin inherited tradition then we've looked at the cost of that redemption negatively not silver or gold positively precious blood blood of God's true spotless blemishless lamb now then what does all of this say to us in the moments that remain let me underscore first of all by way of application remember the intimate connection between this rich instruction on the doctrine of redemption and the summons to a life of appropriate fear Peter is not sitting there in most likely in

55:52 Rome saying well there are a number of basic doctrines that I need to introduce to these relatively young believers way out there in what is now Turkey and I think I'll say something about redemption no that isn't the way it works he has just exhorted them to a life of steadfast hope a life in the pursuit of universal holiness and now to a life of appropriate fear and he says that fear is conditioned not only by the reality of an accessible father who is an impartial judge but by the fact that you know that you are not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers but with precious blood even the blood of him who is God's true lamb now what's the connection the best thing I can do to help answer that question is to quote the old Bishop of London as I've done and will continue to do God willing throughout this course of expositions Bishop Layton who writes if you would increase in holiness and be strong against the temptations to sin this is the only art of it view much and seek to know how much you can know of the death of Jesus Christ consider often

57:19 at how high a rate we were redeemed from sin and provide this answer for all the enticements to sin and the world and God help us to lay hold of this in all my reading and preparation this was one of the most profound statements I found in human authors listen to what Bishop Layton says learn to say this in your own struggles with sin in the world this is what you say whenever sin makes a proposal the world bears its thigh and seeks to seduce you into spiritual adultery this is what you're to say except you sin or the world except you can offer my soul something beyond that price that was given for it on the cross I cannot listen to you unless you can offer me something beyond the price that was given for me at the cross I cannot listen to you far be it from me will a Christian say who considers this redemption that I should prefer a base lust or anything in this world or all of this world to him who gave himself to death for me and paid my ransom with his blood his matchless love has freed me from the miserable captivity of sin and has forever fastened me to the sweet yoke of his obedience let him alone dwell and rule

58:48 within me and let him never go forth from my heart who for my sake refused to come down from the cross dear people that's the connection pass the time of your sojourning in fear fear of the sin that would grieve so gracious a father sin that would provoke so righteous a judge sin that would be a denial of my appreciation that I've been bought at so dear a price precious blood blood of him who was God's true Lamb not only immolated upon the cross in a shameful death but inundated with the billows of divine wrath to do what not to leave me in my vain manner of life no longer with fear of death and judgment no but to liberate me out of it into the liberty of a pilgrim who walks with a steadfast hope and with a heart committed to universal obedience and in that tender fear that fears nothing more than offending so gracious a God and so wonderful a Savior one author has said a Christian cannot conform to the world's ways unless he forgets who he is

Application: The Frightening Reality of the Unredeemed and the Estimate of Christ's Blood

60:17 and how he became what he is a Christian cannot conform to the world's ways its ways are described as futile determined by mere human traditions molded and shaped by the God of this world and by the lust of the flesh and of the mind Ephesians 2 a Christian cannot conform to this world unless he forgets who he is and how he became what he is who am I I am a redeemed slave how did I become such because precious blood was shed for me by incarnate deity the Lamb of God who bore away the sin of the world remember the intimate connection between the doctrine of redemption and the summons to a life of appropriate fear more quickly consider the frightening description of the lifestyle of the unredeemed it's a vain futile lifestyle again one has expressed it this way it is a lamentable thing to be deluded a whole lifetime with a false dream wouldn't it be tragic if those people in that concentration camp thought that with every wheelbarrow

61:46 full of stones they were constructing a beautiful skyscraper and in their mind every time they push the wheelbarrow and stomp it they saw in their demented mind this beautiful structure rising just before their death when they thought they had this beautiful structure they returned to sanity and saw nothing but a pile of broken rock my friend that's your life if you are out of Christ whatever castles you are building in your dreams of fulfillment and enrichment and meaning they are delusions of a demented mind it's a frightening thing to be living a futile life and it's from such that Christ redeems us and I close by stating perhaps no question is more quickly calculated to lay bare the true state of our souls and this question based on our text what is your estimate of the blood of Christ what is your estimate of the blood of Christ do you regard it as flesh and blood not

63:13 theoretical but so precious that you gladly identify yourself in the language of 1 Corinthians 6 what do you not know you have been bought with a price glorify God therefore in your body which is his what do I think of the blood of Christ do I regard it as precious blood blood shed to redeem me to release me from slavery to a futile life handed down from the forefathers do I place a word upon the blood of Christ that causes me to say here Lord I give myself away is all that I think for do you have the attitude of those described in Hebrews 10 who count the blood of the covenant an unholy they trample it under treat it as a matter to be discussed my friend what is your regard for the blood of Christ and Peter wrote to that community of elect sojourners in Asia calling them to a life of appropriate fear he said that fear will be sustained as you know that you were redeemed not with corruptible things

64:41 as silver and gold but with precious blood the blood of him who shed it as God's true and final lamb morally spotless ethically pure spotless blemishly may God grant that we will feel the constraint of that glorious redemption and be captured afresh by the love of the redeemer let's pray our father we do thank you we do praise you our hearts cannot contain the things that we've sought to speak about will you not by the Holy Spirit enlarge the narrow chambers of our hearts that we may sink in with fresh wonder what it means to be redeemed by precious blood we pray for those our father who are living in the moral and spiritual madness of thinking that their vain and futile life is a rich life will you not bring them to moral and spiritual sanity and may they seeing that they are in the city of destruction flee with the cry life life

66:10 eternal life oh God reveal the glory of the redeemer and his redemption and deliver them by grace and power seal now your word to our hearts and continue with us throughout this your day that in all of our interaction one with another we may be those of whom we heard in the previous hour who fearing you speak often one to another the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight oh Lord our strength and our redeemer Amen