The Spectrum of Redemption

Redemption is one of those words we repeat in the context of our faith, but do we know what it means? More importantly, do we know how it connects us across time, distance, and culture to the heart of our Redeemer - and to the others he is redeeming? 

Psalm 103:6-13; John 4:22, 19:7; Acts 6:33-42; 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, 5:1-8, 15:20-28

Click here to download a transcript of this podcast: The Spectrum of Redemption

 

Paul teaches that, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed,” and therefore we should celebrate the feast of Passover. Many followers of Messiah Yeshua now do exactly that. They have found that Passover isn’t merely a Jewish feast, but is actually a living remembrance and faithful demonstration of the redemptive story God initiated through Abraham and the nation of Israel long ago.

Surprisingly, Paul’s Passover comment appears in the context of a rebuke. He upbraids the Corinthian believers for tolerating, and even boasting about, a scandalous incident of sexual impropriety. This comes on the heels of his harsh criticism of the divisions within the Corinthian community of faith, with factions proclaiming their attachments to Paul, Apollos, Peter, or Messiah. We surmise that these factions acted arrogantly toward one another, each upholding their revered teacher as superior to the others. Being so divided, they were open to the grievous immorality Paul addressed. That’s the context of his Passover declaration:

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 ESV

What the apostle means is that Yeshua’s followers have missed the point, not only of the feast, but of their redemption. As he says,

Is Christ (Messiah) divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

1 Corinthians 1:13 ESV

This is the core of our Christian faith handed down through the ages. Our connection to the Creator comes through his initiative in connecting to us. We could not reach him on our own, but he fixed the problem by becoming human like us, paying the penalty for our transgression, and defeating death so that we could, though him, gain eternal life. We were not only saved from destruction, but redeemed to join with our Creator and serve him for eternity.

This is the beautiful hope we sing about in our hymns, spirituals, gospel songs, and worship sets. It’s what we’re supposed to remember at this time of year, when we observe Passover, eat unleavened bread, and celebrate our Messiah’s resurrection as the firstfruits of those who sleep in death.

The irony of our faith is that we received it from our Jewish brethren, but they do not share it. That is, they do not share the reverence for the Divine Messiah even though they celebrate the same redemption story at this same time of year. The sad irony is that we, though brethren in the faith, regard one another as strangers and outcasts.

John summarizes the Jewish position on this matter is his gospel. He records the Jewish leaders declaring, “We have a law, and)according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” (John 19:7) That is still the Jewish position, and it’s why traditional Christian evangelism has little impact on observant Jews. This wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to the upstart rabbi from Galilee, but a response to the Babylonian exile. The exile happened because of blatant idolatry practiced by both Houses of Israel. When the Jewish exiles returned, they determined to guard against that error – an insidious error in a world where Pharaohs, kings, and Caesars claimed to be gods. Messiah would come from God, but to the mainstream sects of Second Temple Judaism, it was inconceivable that Messiah would be God in the flesh.

That is the baggage our Jewish brethren carry. It may be that God chose to reveal Messiah to uncircumcised Gentiles because they did not have that baggage. The good news that God had come down from heaven to redeem the world found fertile soil in pagan hearts. We know from the Christian transformation of the ancient world, and from our own testimonies, that the message is true. If it were not, then it would have come to nothing long ago.

And yet, we have baggage of our own. When we listen to those wonderful songs of faith, we hear about going to heaven, crossing the Jordan, entering Beulah Land, walking golden streets in the New Jerusalem, and other expressions of our eternal hope. It is right to sing of such things, but what Yeshua said to the Samaritan woman applies still to us:

You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

John 4:22 ESV

We know the King, but we have little knowledge of his Kingdom. That’s why, through the ages, we have looked to Rome, Constantinople, Moscow, London, Salt Lake City, and other places as the temporal centers of our Christian faith. Jerusalem, if we think of it, is a spiritualized place in the age to come, not the physical capital of the very real nation of Israel in the land God promised to Abraham and his descendants.

That is our baggage, and the reason we desperately need the connection with our Jewish brethren. They have always known that God’s redemptive promises involve an actual people, a body of laws and instructions established by the Creator, and a geographical location. We know this is true because the Jewish people, as the visible remnant of Israel, have clung tenaciously to the Torah, have survived to be resurrected as a nation, and have returned to the land God gave their ancestors. If this were not of God, then they would have ceased to exist long ago.

This is the spectrum of redemption. At one end are the people to whom God has revealed his King, and at the other are the people to whom he has revealed his Kingdom. The revelations have matured separately for reasons only our God fully knows. We are blessed to live in the time when those revelations are becoming one. This is the moment of redemption for Israel and the nations which all creation has awaited since time immemorial. As always with the things of God, we can choose what to do with it. Let us choose wisely.

 

Cover photo by Vlad ION, March 27, 2022, Snegiri, Moscow Oblast, Russia, on Unsplash.

Music: "Song of Glory,” The Exodus Road Band, Heart of the Matter, 2016.