Have you tried going to a pawnshop? Have you tried giving something you own to a person and promised to take it back someday? How does it feel when something so important and something so close to you is in the hands of other people? Won’t you try to redeem it? Or what if you can’t? What would you feel?
In some cases, Christ’s teaching and salvation can really become so personalized and we can really easily relate. Just like the example of pawning an item to a pawnshop or to a friend. It doesn’t mean that you pawned it, you liked what you did. It is just like us but the difference is, God did not pawn us but we pawned ourselves even if we are not ours to pawn. We pawned or sold ourselves to sin even if God clearly told us not to.
For our verse today, we can see the message of Jesus Christ through Paul telling us that sin is not our master anymore because we are not under law anymore but under grace. Even if we pawned or sold ourselves to sin, God is so faithful to redeem us. Just like our example when something we own is at the possession of someone else, we feel bad and sad. So God, as the maker and creator of all things felt the same way.
He felt betrayed and angry because of what we did, so this is the reason why there is law, it is to point us to our sins. However, praise God! For He redeemed us from all unrighteousness and put us under grace instead. Redeeming is such a heavy word. You cannot redeem something without any payment. So, God has paid the payment too. Imagine, we are the ones who sold ourselves to sin, it was our own volition but it was God who suffered for it and who redeemed us for it. Our actions, His sacrifice.
The reason why it is Jesus who suffered is because we can never do anything to save ourselves. We are again under law and the law will definitely judge us according to its standards and that standards were impossible to achieve. God knows all about this so He moved the heavens and the earth to save us and to redeem us from everything. Instead that we are under the law, He put us under His grace. If law points out our sins, grace points out the righteousness and holiness of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, to anyone who received Him and believed in His name, we are saved. We are no longer under law but under His grace. Yet we then ask, “If we can receive unlimited forgiveness, are we licensed to sin over and over again?” of course not! Even if we are under grace, it is not our license to sin because as we continue to sin, we are crucifying Jesus over and over again.
True repentance and faith in Jesus Christ will reap a great change in our lives. A manifestation from darkness to light will be evident. The Holy Spirit is working in us and He will give us a new spirit that only seeks to glorify God. Though we are sinful by nature, there will be the necessary want and need to obey God. This is why a battle within us is very real because the new nature God has put in us through our faith in Jesus Christ is battling against our sinful nature who will always try to resurface.
By all means, we are not subject to death anymore but we are subject to eternal life under God’s grace. We are already redeemed and the price to redeem us was so great that it took the death of Jesus Christ to defeat the bondage of sin and death. Good thing is that Jesus did not only die for us but He also died unto sin. Meaning, He did not die to save us and forgive us every time because we sin a lot only, but He died unto sin that means that He put a stop to the dominion of sin in our lives. So, as people who are already in Christ, our sinful nature has been put to death with Christ also. He has made us new and He has made us new desires— to glorify and obey God. Indeed, it is only through the death and resurrection of Christ that we can be redeemed.
Therefore, let us always remember that the death, the resurrection, the forgiveness and that we are under grace is never a license for us to sin. Instead, it is our greatest desire to glorify God more with our lives and offer our lives as living sacrifices for Him. May we put in our heads that our redemption was not cheap but it took Christ’s blood to be shed so we can be redeemed. Let us remember that we are not under law but under grace already because of the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
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