Did You Know You Were Ransomed? Do You Know What For?

You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.

            Ransoms are connected to kidnapping, something paid for to get a loved one out of danger.  Sometimes, it happens without kidnapping.

            There is one latin phrase I remember from Seminary, among the many that I am sure I was taught from the history of theology.  It is “lex talionis”, and I am not even bothering to check to see if I have it right.  It means “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” in the popular saying.  It is the basis of the sacrificial system under the law of Moses, ‘blood for blood’.

            This has to do with the perfection of God.  What you mess up, you pay for at an equal rate.  Paul gives us a succinct summary of what that means for us.  “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” and “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in our Lord Jesus Christ.”  That is the ransom that Peter is referring to.

            Jesus sacrificed his own life on the cross as a ransom for us all.  It is ‘blood for blood’ according to the ‘lex talionis’.  And his is innocent blood, the blood of the human without sin, the fully human fully God that is Jesus.  It works out on a supernatural level of divine legalities that I can try to describe, but never fully explain.

            The process is not so important as the result.  “You know that you were ransomed…”  The reader knows what Jesus did for them.  We know what Jesus did for us.  It is nothing less than being made right with God.  It is a gift for the whole world.  It is what Peter is sharing with his readers and pressing them to share that gift with the rest of the world.  It is the gift shared with us, one we too are called to continue to share.