ESV: Daily Reading Bible

Monday, February 22, 2010

The Ransom

Psalm 49:8 Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, 8 for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice,9 that he should live on forever and never see the pit. ... 15 But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me.

Matthew 20:28 ...the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
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I know it baffles reason, but it shouldn't, that there is something called cause and effect in all things. If the Enlightenment claimed to teach anything, it was that there was cause and effect and that by observing effects we might "know" certain things about their causes. And yet post-Enlightenment thinking has somehow separated this fact from its spiritual antecedent [because, supposedly, spiritual things are not within the realm of science and therefore are obsolete] But spiritual things have cause and effect as well. The cause of death, in the macro and microcosmic sense, is sin. It should be obvious to any observer that there is sin in the world and that something needs to be set right. How to do it? Can we identify a cause? Can we deduce from the cause a workable solution? Various ideologies have sought to draw conclusions about the human condition and its panaceas, but the Bible teaches that there is a high price be paid to make things right in the world. It cannot be paid by us. What has been done is too big for any of us to undo. Only Christ is sufficient to undo this cosmic conundrum. He can set the scales right again. This doesn't seem fair to post-modern sensibilities, and perhaps it never seemed fair to any one who thought themselves capable of omniscience. But grace seldom seems fair to the forgiven, so we will just have to deal with it in humility.

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