"Redeemed: From What? With What? So What?" (Sermon on 1 Peter 1:17-25)

First of all I want to say that, from what I’ve seen of it over the last couple of years, the English Standard Version overall is a very good translation. But as with any translation, you come across a place here and there where you wish they would have translated it a little different. Today is such a case, in our Epistle from 1 Peter 1. In verse 18 the ESV has, “knowing that you were ransomed.” All the other major English translations--the New American Standard Bible, the New International Version, the King James Version, the New King James Version--all of them translate it, “you were redeemed.” Now is there anything wrong with the translation, “ransomed”? No, that is a legitimate way to translate the Greek verb. “Ransomed” and “redeemed” both carry the same base meaning, as we shall hear. However, “redeemed” is just as good a way to translate the Greek, and besides which, “redeemed” has the advantage of being a more useful term in our theological vocabulary. “Redemption” language is all over the place in our theology, in our hymnody, in our devotional literature. So for the purposes of our sermon now, I’m going to be using the word “redeemed” instead of “ransomed.” Today, then, a very simple message with a very simple outline: “Redeemed: From What? With What? So What?”

St. Peter says to his hearers, “you were redeemed.” What does he mean by that? Well, to be “redeemed”--or to be “ransomed,” for that matter--is to be set free by means of a payment. The idea has to do with someone being in a state of bondage who cannot free himself. Someone else has to come along and pay the price that sets the person free. That is what it means to “redeem” someone. The word was used in the ancient world in connection with a slave or a prisoner of war--someone who could not free himself from his captivity. But if somebody else paid the necessary price, then the slave or prisoner would be set free. So the idea of redemption includes two parts: a setting free of someone who cannot free himself, and this, by means of a payment.

My friends, this is what Christ has done for us. He has redeemed us. We were in a state of bondage and could not free ourselves. But Jesus came along and paid the price that set us free. That is redemption.

As you know, “redemption” was the word Luther chose to sum up the Second Article of the Creed, on the person and work of Christ. “Redemption” was the title he put over that article. In fact, it was this very passage in 1 Peter that Luther had in mind when he wrote his Explanation to the Second Article. Listen and you can hear the echoes of 1 Peter: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.”

Luther got his ideas for this explanation from our passage in 1 Peter: the language of redemption, even the very phrase, “not with gold or silver.” And we can see in Luther’s explanation--and in Peter’s epistle--this very simple outline: “Redeemed: From What? With What? So What?”

First, “Redeemed from what?” St. Peter says you were redeemed “from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.” That was the bondage you found yourself in and could not free yourself from. “Futile ways,” empty, meaningless, not going anywhere. Peter is talking about the ways of the world. People’s lives, apart from God--which is where we would be, apart from the gospel--their lives don’t lead anywhere. It’s like we’re wandering around in the dark, bumping into each other, not knowing where we’re going, falling into ditches, running into dead ends. That is the life of all people in this world without the right knowledge of God. No matter how wild or how refined, no matter how reckless or how respectable, no matter how bad or seemingly good their conduct--all people by nature are trapped in their “futile ways.”

We inherited these futile ways from our forefathers. Our forefathers were off worshiping oak trees in Germany or Sweden. They were raiding villages and pillaging and plundering. Our futile ways may be more refined. Now we worship little white balls instead of oak trees, or maybe we seek after the little white balls when we hit them behind the oak trees. In either case, we love something more than we love the true God. And maybe we don’t go pillaging villages, but we still love to skewer our opponents. These are the futile ways we inherited from our forefathers. It’s called original sin. This sinful nature, these futile ways, don’t lead anywhere but to a dead end. They end in death, eternal death, separated from God.

That’s where we were, the state we were in. Heading down the wrong road and not knowing any better. But thank God, that is what we have been redeemed “from.” From that way of death Christ has rescued us. Luther puts it like this: Christ “has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil.” That is what you have been redeemed from. Redemption is a setting free from a state of bondage. Those “futile ways” were the bondage, the death-trap slavery, from which we have been set free.

So first, “Redeemed from what?” Second, “Redeemed with what?” What was the price that was paid to set us free? Remember, a redemption requires a payment. That is the means for setting the prisoner free. It doesn’t just happen automatically. There is a cost involved. So what was the price that was paid to set us free? And who paid it?

Well, as I say, we were slaves held in bondage, unable to free ourselves. There is nothing we have or can offer that would be enough to meet the payment price. All our works, heaped up to the sky, would not be enough to break one shackle of the chains that bind us. It is vain imagining to think we have something that would satisfy God’s justice. Nothing we have or own or can do can pay even one cent toward our ransom price.

Therefore St. Peter says you were redeemed “not with perishable things such as silver or gold.” Luther echoes him, “not with gold or silver.” All the money in the world, stacked up to the heavens, could not buy off God. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Donald Trump, combined, could pool their resources, and it would be all for naught.

No, something far more precious was needed to set sinners free. Only one price could do the job. It took the sacrificial death of the sinless Son of God to pay the price to set us free. “But with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” “Not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.”

Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, from before the beginning. But God had it in mind that his Son would be the one to set the world free from the bondage of sin we would fall into. God would send his Son into the world, in the flesh, as a man, to keep God’s holy law for us, in our stead, and to die as the sacrifice for our sins. He, Christ, “was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God.” As Jesus said when he came, “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus is, in Peter’s words, a “lamb without blemish or spot.” No sins of his own for which to die. Spotless, faultless. Yet Jesus is a lamb. A sacrificial animal. The lambs of the Old Testament were offered up as a sneak preview of the one and only Lamb to come. Jesus Christ is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” His blood was shed, on the cross, to make payment for our sins. His holy, precious blood. The same blood he offers you in his Sacrament, “This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” The precious blood of the Lamb, Christ. That is what you have been redeemed with.

“Redeemed: From What? With What?” Now the third question, “So What?” So what difference does this make in the way we live? Peter puts it this way, “conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.” Luther says it like this, “that I may be his own and live under him in his kingdom and serve him.” This is the new life of Christ’s redeemed people. Our lives, our conduct, will be different now that we have been redeemed. No longer those futile ways. Now we have direction, purpose, meaning for our lives. We belong to God. We are his people.

No longer do we belong to the world and its ways. No, we are exiles, strangers in this world, through which we are passing as pilgrims. We live and belong to God. We are his holy people, set apart for him. Our lives are an act of worship. We serve him in reverent, holy fear. We take our lives seriously--as serious as they are joyful, both at the same time. We don’t take as a light thing this life we have in Christ. We take seriously God’s warnings against sin and unbelief. We don’t fool around with God’s mercy and grace, as though it were a cheap thing. No, Christ has paid the ultimate price for our redemption. That is very precious indeed.

So what? So we live in that holy fear. And because of Christ, we also live in faith and hope. “You who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” We live in faith, trusting in the God who loved us so much he gave his Son for us. We live in hope, the hope of the resurrection, Easter hope. For God has raised Christ from the dead, giving us the sure and solid hope of our own resurrection. We have the hope of heaven, where we will serve him “in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.” And we live in love, “a sincere brotherly love,” loving one another earnestly from a pure heart.

Today we have heard: “You were redeemed,” “ransomed.” Set free by means of a price. Redeemed, from what? From the futile ways that are really the way of death. Redeemed, with what? Not with gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Christ. Redeemed, so what? So now we live as God’s people, in holy fear, in faith and hope, and in sincere brotherly love. All this, my fellow redeemed in Christ--this is most certainly true.

1 Peter 1:17-25 (ESV)

If you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for

“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord remains forever.”

And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

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