Day 3: You have been redeemed!

God has done an incredible work of grace in your life. He has turned you from darkness to light, and from the dominion of Satan to God in order to receive redemption.

Once you have seen your true condition, without God and without hope and light, you can see from Scripture (Ephesians 2:1-3 and Acts 26:18), and from your own experience, that darkness has power. The power of Satan is real. It's not an imagination, it's not a theological fantasy, but Satan is a real being with real power who really dominates those who are alienated from God. In order to enter God's kingdom, you have first of all to be delivered from the power of Satan. This deliverance has been made possible only through the death of Jesus on our behalf.

Let’s consider more precisely the meaning of the word "redemption." It comes from a verb, "to redeem." To redeem means to buy back or to ransom. An example would be if a son of a wealthy man were taken by kidnappers and they held him for ransom and the wealthy man was willing to pay the ransom asked by the kidnappers, and thus his son was restored to him. We could say that the wealthy man, by paying the price, had redeemed his son from the kidnappers.

Now what Jesus has done is to pay the price to redeem us from the kingdom of Satan. In Romans 7:14, Paul says this:

“We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, [other translations say I am carnal] sold as a slave to sin.”

Literally the Greek there says, "sold under sin." This is a figure taken from the Roman world. When a person was sold in the slave market in the Roman world, he was said to be sold under the spear because he was placed on a stand, against a post, and out of the post above his head there stuck forth a spear fastened to the post. And so the evidence that he was being sold as a slave was that he was being sold under this outstretched spear. What Paul is saying is that we, through our sin, were exposed as slaves in Satan's slave market. And the spear stretched out over our heads that indicated that we were for sale was the sin that we had committed.

This was your condition before Jesus Christ redeemed you. Don’t forget how much you have got to thank for. Praise God, Jesus has delivered you from the power of Satan. You have been redeemed!