4. The fourth word εξαγοραζω (exagorazo) is the same as the second word except it has an ek in front of it. This word “denotes ‘to buy out’ (ex for ek), especially of purchasing a slave with a view to his freedom.”[1]The word ek means out of or exit. The word is used in the following passages: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Gal. 3:13). “To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Gal. 4:5).
This word does not just mean purchased at the market, but purchased out of the market. When a house is sold, it is placed on the market. If it does not sell in a given period, it is taken off the market for a while; it may be put back on the market later. The texts that use this word refer to God’s effectual work of redemption in which sinners are purchased out of the market forever. The two texts in Galatians mentioned above means that believers are forever out from under the law and its just curse. The law cannot condemn them. They have been purchased and forever put out of its reach.
Once, a Van Gogh painting had been put up for auction, and the highest bid was nine million dollars. The owner refused to sell since he had paid over eleven million for the painting. He waited a year and then put it back on the market. Sometimes a painting is either purchased by, or given to, the National Museum of Art. When this is done, that particular painting can never again be put up for auction and sold. It is the “peculiar possession” of the museum to be enjoyed by the entire populace. Believers have been purchased by God and placed in his museum of grace. They can never again be put on the auction block in the market place of sin. The church will reveal the power and beauty of his grace throughout all eternity. Paul says that believers are “his workmanship.” Just as an artist takes a piece of blank canvas and uses various colors of paint to produce a masterpiece or “work of art,” so God has taken pieces of useless junk that were ruined by sin and created spiritual works of art that will shine throughout eternity. Redeemed sinners are living testimonies to the power of his love and grace.
Sometimes we read a verse and never stop to really discover its meaning. For many years, I read Romans 8:18 without recognizing its actual point. Paul is not talking about the amazing glory that shall be revealed to us in eternity. That, of course, is true, but it is not his point in this text. Believers themselves are the glory of God! The text says “the glory that shall be revealed in us” not “to us.” Just as men and women walk through an art gallery and admire the amazing work of great artists, so the whole universe will admire the wisdom and power of God’s grace as it is displayed in his people. What a tremendous thought! We should be living epistles now, even as we shall be revealers of his glory in eternity.
A classic illustration of the truth of redemption is found in Hosea 3:1-3.
Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine. So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley. And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man; so will I also be for thee.
Hosea’s wife, Gomer, was unfaithful to him. It is quite possible that his two sons were not really his own sons but had been fathered by a different man. Gomer left Hosea and openly practiced prostitution. She was finally reduced to slavery and was on the auction block to be sold to the highest bidder. God told Hosea to buy back his own former betrothed wife. Hosea was to love her “as I have loved Israel.” She is a picture of Israel’s (and our) nakedness, sin, and unfaithfulness.
Gomer did not come back to Hosea as a slave, as she actually deserved, but as a wife who was dearly beloved. She did not come back to be hated and punished, but to be “loved as I have loved Israel.” That is grace.
There was once a preacher whose wife had become an alcoholic. She was a great embarrassment to him. One Sunday morning after his sermon, the preacher was shaking hands with the congregation at the door. A taxicab pulled up, and a drunken woman got out and lurched across the pavement. Just as she reached the place where the preacher was standing, she started to fall, and the preacher reached out and caught her in his arms. Everyone waited to see what he would do or say. While everyone was watching, he drew his wife to his chest and kissed her on her lips. She was his wife, and he loved her.
That is exactly what God has done many times with every one of us. We have played the harlot and given our affections to false gods. We have been drunk with the allurements of the world. How many times could God have justly divorced us and said, “I am sick of your sin and rebellion. I am tired of your halfhearted love. I am done with you forever!” Do not our hearts cry out, “Many times, many times”? But our God will never divorce his people that he choose in Christ and bought with the blood of his Son. He graciously brings us back to himself and opens the wellsprings of our heart; we weep in confession of our sin and with faith believe in the sure hope of his grace.
Bible translation is a very difficult job. This is especially so in a culture that has no written language and a very limited vocabulary. I once read about a missionary in Africa trying to translate the word redemption into a particular tribal language. No one could understand what he was trying to teach. He tried every way possible to explain the concept but got nowhere. Finally the oldest man in the tribe said, “You mean that Jesus died to take our necks out.” The missionary asked what the man meant. The old man remembered the days of slave trading when men were caught and shackled with a steel ring around their necks and then tied with a chain to other men likewise shackled. As these helpless captives were being marched to the ship to be taken to England and America to be sold as slaves, a village chief might see one of his people in the line. If he chose to do so, he could trade with the slave trader and give him some ivory for the slave’s release. The trader would then unlock the chain ring around the slave’s neck and set him free. He would “take his neck out of the ring.”
That is exactly what our Lord did for his people. He took their necks out of the chain of sin. The chains that held them were stronger than any steel and could not be broken by any human means. It took nothing less than the blood atonement of the Lamb of God to break those shackles. The Bible used by that particular tribe stills contains, “Jesus died to take our necks out,” and everyone knows what it means. I am sure no one could imagine the village chief paying the price for a slave and watching that slave nonetheless go on in his chains into slavery.
Notice the contrast between the biblical use of the word redeem and that of those who hold to universal atonement. The latter teach that Christ’s death merely made it possible for us to be redeemed, but our faith is the means whereby God is enabled to actually redeem us. In the final analysis, the implication is that we redeem ourselves by our faith.
The second of the four primary New Testament words used to show the vicarious nature of Christ’s suffering is substitute. Often Christ’s substitutionary death is mentioned as a deed on behalf of his people (cf. 1 Cor. 15:3; Rom. 5:8). The Greek word is υπερ (huper), which shows that Christ suffered on behalf of his people. He suffered in our place as our substitute. Something happened to him so that the same thing would not happen to us. That is the force of the statement for us. Christ died for his people. This is what is meant when we speak of Christ’s substitutionary death.
There was an occasion when my daughter came home from high school all excited. She exclaimed, “We won! We won! We suffered a broken leg and got beaten up very badly, but we won.” I looked at her and said, “I do not see a cast on your leg, and your skirt is not even wrinkled. What is this ‘we got beat up’ bit?” When she said, “We won!” she meant the high school football team had won the championship game. One player had indeed broken his leg, and most of the players were badly battered. However, my daughter said, “We won” instead of “they won.” She meant that the football team represented her school, and therefore they represented her. When they won, she won, and when they lost, she lost. They did what they did as representatives of the school. This illustrates how Christ represented his people. When he conquered sin and death, his people did also, since he conquered those things in their place. Just as Adam, acting as the representative of his race, plunged all that he represented—the whole human race—into sin and death, so the Lord Jesus Christ, acting as the representative of a new race—the chosen of God—raised his people out of death and sin into life and righteousness.
A football player sitting on the bench does not feel the shoving and tackling taking place on the field. When the ball is snapped, two large guards from the other team may smash into a tackle on his team, but he feels nothing at all. If, however, the coach sends him into the game as a “substitute,” he will feel something the next time the ball is snapped. This illustrates the meaning of Christ as a substitute. He took the place of his people as a substitute in a duel with sin, death, and the law. He endured, on the cross, the wrath of God in their place. When he defeated sin and death, they also defeated sin and death because he was doing that for them as their substitute. When he fulfilled the law and died under its curse, they also met every claim of the law and endured its full wrath. Christ literally died instead of them. He alone did battle with sin, death, the grave, Satan himself, and the holy law of God. He defeated their full power as his people’s substitute.
The third word is reconciliation. The Greek is χαταλλασσω (katallasso), and it means “to change, exchange (especially of money); hence, of persons, to change from enmity to friendship, to reconcile.”[2] Roman and Greek money was “profane” and could not be given as an offering in the temple. All secular money had to be “reconciled,” or exchanged, into an acceptable form. It had to be exchanged into temple money. This is why the moneychangers were in the temple. Jesus was not angry with the moneychangers because they were in the temple, but because they were charging unfair exchange rates.
The following text is important. It states exactly what it is that reconciles sinners to God. “…we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.…” (Rom. 5:10).
Question: what makes a child of God “different” (so as to be reconciled) in God’s sight? Is it free grace and the blood of Christ, or is it the free will of man and the man’s faith? What is the one essential difference between Judas and Peter? Were they both equally redeemed by the death of Christ, but Judas was not reconciled because he was not willing to claim, by faith, his redemption? Is Peter’s faith the essential factor that reconciled him to God? It cannot be both ways. The answer is either reconciliation by free will or reconciliation by free grace. The biblical words which speak of the atonement must either be bled of their true meaning, or particular redemption must be accepted. There cannot be a true redemption and then a hypothetical reconciliation. Either both redemption and reconciliation are effective for all of those for whom the redemption was made, or else both are only hypothetical possibilities totally dependent on man’s free will for success.
Those who are saved are indeed “justified by faith.” Faith is absolutely essential in salvation. Faith as the means by which salvation comes to a sinner and faith as the cause and foundation of salvation are two different things. The Bible never teaches faith as the ground by which anyone is reconciled to God. Faith cannot be the ground of reconciliation. The atoning death of Christ alone is what makes the difference. Faith is the means, but even faith is a gift of God. Faith is not the sinner’s contribution, actually the one essential component, by which he is redeemed and reconciled. No, faith is part of the salvation gift purchased by Christ and given to his elect through the preaching of the gospel and sanctification by the Holy Spirit. Believers were chosen to be given faith. “…God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thess. 2:13). See also 1 Peter 1:2.
An examination of the places where the word reconcile is used will verify that the above fact is an essential aspect of the biblical doctrine of Christ’s atonement (Rom. 5:10, 11; 2 Cor. 5:18, 19; Eph. 2:16; Col. 1:20-22).
The fourth word showing a specific aspect of the atonement is propitiation. The bitterest criticism I have ever seen against the biblical doctrine of the atonement has been that leveled by liberals against this word propitiation. Propitiation describes that priestly work of Christ by which he removed God’s just anger and wrath against his people by satisfying the holy character of God through the substitutionary sacrifice of himself to God. Christ’s propitiatory work secured, on righteous terms, his people’s acceptance and reconciliation with God. This was accomplished by Christ enduring all of God’s just wrath against his people’s sin. See Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10 for the places this word is used in the New Testament Scriptures.
The reason why there is agreement between both the liberal and those of today’s evangelicalism in opposition to the word propitiation is because the religion of free will does not fully take into account either the true nature of the sinner or the true character of God. Its adherents do not seem to believe that man is totally depraved and therefore justly under the wrath of God. Neither group can imagine that man is so desperately helpless that he is in reality “dead in trespasses and sin” (Eph. 2:1-3). Since both the liberal and the adherents of free-will theology teach that God is basically love instead of holy, they dismiss any idea of an offering of blood being necessary to turn away his just wrath. Love does not need to be appeased or placated. The very idea is an insult to God. Of course, they are right, if God is nothing but love. We agree that love does not need to be pacified since it cannot get angry. But God is more than love; he is also holy, just, and righteous. The psalmist says, “God is angry with the wicked every day” (cf. Ps. 7:11-13). The psalmist also tells us why God is angry with the wicked. “The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright” (Ps. 11:5-7). A true liberal cannot believe that man is totally depraved, and some evangelicals cannot see the awful, but very real, effects of total depravity.
Thus far it has been demonstrated from Scripture that the death of Christ is both voluntary and vicarious. We now look at the third and final aspect of the atonement and see that it was victorious.
THREE: The death of Christ was victorious. Every man for whom Christ died will be saved. His death will secure everything that God intended. It is at this point that the crucial theological difference between the religion of free will and free grace comes to the surface. There is nothing hypothetical about the following texts (emphasis mine).
…he shall save his people from their sins. (Matt. 1:21)
…the Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd, and know my sheep.… other sheep I have… them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice.… (John 10:11, 14–16)
These texts speak of Christ actually accomplishing something in his death. One cannot give the four words just covered (ransom, substitute, reconcile, and propitiate) their biblical meaning and still hold to universal atonement without also accepting universal salvation. One is forced to either give these words a hypothetical sense, and thus deny their biblical content, or else he must believe in universal salvation.
The universal atonement of free-will theology teaches the following:
(1) A redemption that leaves men still not free or actually redeemed. They are merely redeemable and will actually be redeemed only if they are willing to contribute faith as their part of the deal.
(2) A reconciliation that leaves men still estranged from God and lost. Reconciliation is potentially possible for all sinners, but it is not absolutely certain for any specific sinner unless the sinner does his part by being willing to believe.
(3) A propitiation that leaves men still under the wrath of God. The propitiatory sacrifice of Christ merely makes God willing to be propitiated but does not actually propitiate him until the sinner furnishes the necessary faith.
(4) A substitutionary death that still makes the sinner himself help pay the debt for sin. Christ did not actually bear the sins of his people on the cross as a substitute but he is willing to do so if…
In all four of these precepts, Christ’s death is not victorious until the sinner makes his contribution. In each case, the universal atonement view is forced to have two different meanings for the same word. When the four words for atonement are applied to a believer, then the words are given their true biblical meaning. However, when the universalist, in his preaching, applies the identical words to the “world,” then the words must be emptied of their biblical content. The same words now become only hypothetical possibilities. The nature of Christ’s sufferings provide half of what is necessary to atone for sin, and the sinner’s faith provides the other half.
I am glad that such a system is not the basis for my hope of heaven.