Salvation Seminar Week 3.
“You are not your own; you were bought
with a price” (1 Cor 6:19-20).
In today’s thinking, we might expect this
sort of language to be speaking of slavery, trafficking in human slavery. But
in St. Paul’s expression, he means quite the opposite.
When we sin, we have enslaved ourselves –
enslaved ourselves to sin, and to that temptation and the tempter which we
succumbed to. We enslave ourselves to evil. It’s soul death. St. Paul is
talking about buying us back from that slavery, that spiritual death.
The salvation offered to us in Jesus
Christ, as presented in the Scriptures, includes this aspect: “redemption.” To redeem something or someone
is an economic term. If I were a Hebrew living on my ancestral land in
Palestine, and came to be deeply in debt, I might sell that land to raise the
funds I needed. Or, if that were insufficient, I might sell myself into
slavery. In the Bible, the “redeemer” would be a brother or some kin relation
who would then buy back (“redeem”) the land or person. (Lev 25:25-49.) Note
that it is a family member who redeems, who pays the ransom price.
We also know from Scripture that in making
a covenant with someone, you are also reciprocally binding yourself to one
another as family. In Exodus 6:5, God says that he will redeem Israel because,
“I have remembered my covenant.” God is saying, I am family, I will redeem you,
I will ransom you back. We hear this over and over in Scripture.
In the OT, people understood that blood
represents, even contains, the life of a person or animal. So, for example,
when Moses ratifies the covenant between God and his people, the animal is
sacrificed, and then its blood is sprinkled upon the altar (representing God)
and upon the people. All the while Moses is saying, “Behold the blood of the
covenant which the Lord has made with you” (Ex 24:6-8). This sprinkling is
literally portraying that God and the people now share a “blood bond,” the shared
“life” of the family relationship.
But even with that gift of the covenant,
the people could not remain faithful. Shortly thereafter Moses returned from
the mountain to find the people engaging in idolatry, worshiping the golden
calf (Ex 32). Under the covenant that would mean the death of the people. But
Moses says, “I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your
sin” (Ex 32:30).
“Atonement” – asking the Lord to forgive
the people. To “ransom” by paying the penalty (cf., Nu 35:31-33). And thus we
see the OT sacrificial system develop, including the Day of Atonement. All the
sacrifices of the OT are offered in anticipation and foreshadowing of Christ’s
self-offering (Heb 8:5). Jesus pays the price of sin in full by making an
offering of himself by pouring out his blood. He calls this the “blood of the
covenant” (Mt 26:28), proclaiming it to be the “new covenant in my blood” (Lk22:20; cf., 1 Cor 11:25), fulfilling Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jer 31:31).
An offense by a mortal person against God
who is infinitely good and infinitely holy, could only be satisfied by an
infinite ransom if justice is to prevail. God is merciful, and God is just. We,
finite beings, could never atone for our sin against the Infinite. St. Paul
tells us that God did this by “emptying himself,” assuming human flesh,
humbling himself, and accepting human death (Phil 2:5-11). St. John says, God
“sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10).
Why did God do this? Love. Love is the
cost of salvation.
God’s love is revealed precisely here, on the crucifix.
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is located in California City, CA. Visit our website at ollcalcity.org.
Dibby Allan Green has a BA in Religious Studies (Westmont College, 1978) and MA in Theology (Augustine Institute, 2019), is a lay Catholic hermit, and a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.