God as Redeemer

By Stephen Terry

 

Sabbath School Lesson Commentary for January 14 – 20, 2012

 

“They remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.” Psalm 78:35, NIV

In the 1960s, it was common to see the irreverent graffiti “Jesus saves Green Stamps” scrawled on walls in public areas. During that era, S & H Green Stamps were given out by merchants based on the amount purchased in their store by the customer. The merchants had purchased the stamps from the Sperry & Hutchinson Company. Once the customers received the stamps they would paste them into redemption booklets. When the booklets were full, they were taken to various redemption centers where they could be exchanged for premium items. The program was designed to ensure customer loyalty to those merchants who participated. When the program became wide spread, customer loyalty came to depend not on which merchant gave out the stamps but which one gave out the most per dollar spent. With an economic downturn in the 1970s, many redemption centers closed and Green Stamps fell out of favor. Without the ability to be redeemed, the stamps lost their value.

While the graffiti artists meant to be irreverent and shocking, the essence of what they were writing was symbolically true. Jesus is responsible for our salvation. He is the One who makes it possible for us to be redeemed. Like the Green Stamps, our redemption is what gives us value. The value of the stamps was in the price the merchant paid to the stamp company. Our value is in the price Christ paid for our redemption.

The Green Stamps were created by Sperry & Hutchinson, who assigned the value of each stamp. We were created by God, and He determined our value. That value was equivalent to the life of Jesus Christ for without the gift of that Life, we could not be redeemed. Some would have us believe that there is no special value to humanity beyond the organic and inorganic chemicals that we are formed of. However, they cannot explain the esoteric nature of thought beyond it being an electro-chemical reaction. They also cannot explain why the sum total of what we are is greater than that of our components. This is one of the mysteries of life. Why, when 2 + 2 = 4, does it instead = 5? For example, there is nothing in our biology that explains why a human being would lay down his or her life for an idea.

However, that is what men and women have been willing to do for millennia. Whether it is Patrick Henry fomenting revolt against the British Crown, Martin Luther King, Jr marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, or a protester facing down a tank in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, our evolved biology cannot explain these actions. Charles Darwin believed that natural selection selected for traits that were more conducive to survival of a species. These actions seem to fly in the face of that assertion. After what we are told is millions of years of evolution for survival traits, it makes no sense to find humanity promoting actions that work against survival. Again, 2 + 2 should equal 4, but instead it equals 5. Science cannot explain it.

It only makes sense in a different paradigm than science can offer. The Bible offers an alternate paradigm that accounts for that discrepancy. It is found in the verse that says “…God said, `Let us make mankind in our image…’” Genesis 1:26, NIV  The Bible tells us that there is something God like in man’s being. Some have said that this is man’s creative ability. They may be right. But I suggest that it may also encompass man’s willingness to give his life for an abstraction. An animal may instinctively give its life for its young, but only man will use reason to abstractly deliberate those things he is willing to die for. In this, perhaps, are the echoes of our own redemption tracing themselves on our thought processes. If man is truly made in God’s image then it is only reasonable to look for traces of God, the Redeemer, in man.

Some might maintain that man is constantly evolving and does not need a redeemer, and that he will evolve into his own redemption. As noble as that might seem it has three problems that argue against it. First, such a process does nothing for the present generation or even for many generations to come. Second, it assumes that redemption is the goal of evolution. It is not. Evolution is about survival not salvation. It is also a continuous process not a road to a defined goal. Third, it assumes an evolving nobility of being not historically in evidence. History has shown that rather than approaching step by step some utopian existence, men have become ever more proficient at killing one another, and ever more willing to do so.

This of course begs the question. If man is made in the image of God, why does he have such a propensity to visit death and destruction on his fellow man? Perhaps the Green Stamps can help us out here as well. One of the problems that developed with Green Stamps was that since they had value, some individuals decided to counterfeit the stamps so they could receive the premiums without the need to participate in the program. They knew there were stiff penalties if they were caught, but some ran the risk anyway.

The Bible tells us that the same thing happened to mankind. It tells us that even though Adam and Eve knew the penalty for replacing their trust in God with trust in someone else, they chose to do just that. In a sense, they replaced the genuine with a counterfeit. (See Genesis 3) Some think that they replaced their relationship with God with one with the serpent. A closer examination though will reveal that is not the case, however. There was a greater counterfeit that came into being in that story.

The real choice made on that day was “Am I going to trust God, or am I going to trust my own understanding.” This has been the fundamental principle of conflict through the ages since. It is a thread of decision that runs throughout the Bible. It is perhaps put most succinctly in Proverbs, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5, NIV  There is a certain marvelous arrogance in man that we can sometimes admit that we do not have all the answers yet feel comfortable trusting in our own ability to make our way through life. Yet, at the same time, we can deny the possibility of an alternative paradigm that extends beyond our understanding.

That alternative paradigm was lost according to the late 2nd millennium BC, Genesis account that describes an antediluvian fall. But two millennia ago on a hill outside Jerusalem the restoration of that paradigm became possible again. That possibility had been predicted for thousands of years before and was eagerly anticipated by some. In its original form God had given the paradigm and all it contained to mankind as a gift. In its restoration, it is also offered as a gift, though it cost the Redeemer much. In this we begin to get a glimmer of what it was in us that gave us God’s image. God has one supreme attribute to His being that He passed on to mankind.

The Bible says, “…God is love…” 1 John 4:16, NIV  We are told this is the reason that He made it possible to restore the original paradigm. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16, NIV  This attribute not only made it possible for Jesus to die on Calvary to provide a path to restoration. It is also the reason that mankind can give his life for an abstraction like freedom, equality, or liberty. This is the Geist of that original relationship still speaking to our hearts and minds of the loss and yearning for its return. It is an echo of the still greater yearning felt by the heart of God who lost most of mankind. (See Matthew 23:37)

Many have come to know some small part of that pain through relationships severed by divorce or death of a loved one. No matter how much time expires there is still a torn place in our hearts that reminds us of the pain associated with the loss. In the same way, there is a part of us that is missing something when our relationship with God is broken. Fortunately, God has made a way to repair that loss. We can return to leaning on God in all our ways. There is nothing we need to do to accomplish this except to acknowledge to Him that we want to come back and ask Him to make it happen. He is our Redeemer.

 

This Commentary is a Service of Still Waters Ministry

www.visitstillwaters.com

 

 

Scripture marked (NIV) taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

 

 

 

 

If you want a paperback copy of the current Bible Study Quarterly, you may purchase one by clicking here and typing the word "quarterly" into the search box.