Redeemed to purity
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine shared a post that said that we are saved by God so that we can fulfill our purposes. The post and my friend in a conversation I later had with him on this, went on to explain how we are saved so that we can have the best in life and achieve our goals. Everything we could ever dream of can be achieved because we have been saved by God. I was blown away by how shallow and self-centered this idea was. It put us, our desires and aspirations at the center of the greatest act of love and sacrifice the world has ever and will ever know.
This got me thinking about what I understood about salvation and the reason/s behind it and I paid special attention to Titus 2:14 and I got to understand more about the “why” of God’s redemptive work and this is what God has been teaching me:
Titus 2:14 says:
“…who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works”.
1. He gave himself for us
The idea of God being a giver can be very strange to most of us especially with Christianity being regarded as a “prison” in which people give up everything and are left with a boring and dull life of following rules.
However, this is contrary to what the Bible says about God. In many verses, we are told of how God has given to his people and the pinnacle of his giving is found in him sending his Son to the earth. John 3:16 is one of the most popular verses of the Bible and rightly so. It holds some of the greatest truths about God and about his love. In this verse, we see God giving. He does not give out of obligation or with questionable motives. Instead, it is out of his love, because he loves, that he gives what was most valuable to him - his Son. God is a giver.
Titus 2:14 tells us that he gave himself, not the second-best option or something close to it, he gave himself for those who were helpless. But Tthis is such a great act of love. Why do it?
2. Why he gave himself
The Bible gives us several answers to this question and I think that is amazing and worth us knowing and praising God for. Think about it for a minute - Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection achieved so much. Through Jesus’ birth, God is seen once again as being a faithful God who keeps his promises to an unfaithful people. In Jesus’ death, he is seen as both righteous and loving as his Son bore our sin on the cross and finally, at Jesus’ resurrection, he is seen as the only One who has the power to overthrow the grave, to crush sin and death. How wonderful is this? No one’s birth, life and death has ever and will ever be as powerful and meaningful. And you know what’s even more wonderful? All this happened so that we could be redeemed.
In the context of the Bible, redemption is the act of buying back someone who had become enslaved and this is accomplished for Christians through the precious blood of Jesus. The idea of slavery may be a familiar but distant idea and reality for us, but Romans 6 tells us that we were slaves to sin and needed to be redeemed by Jesus. This is why he gave himself for us - to redeem us, to make us his.
Okay, now that we have been redeemed. Is that it? Do we then go on and live our “best lives” and fulfill our heart’s desires?
3. Redemption’s end-goal
Unlike what my friend’s post said concerning the reason why we have been saved, Titus 2:14 tells us something different and more profound.
We are told that redemption took place so that God could purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Redemption’s end-goal is purification from sin. Other passages in the Bible echo a similar idea. 1 John tells us that God is faithful and just, that he forgives and purifies those who confess their sins (1 John 1:7-9). Hebrews 9 tells us that Jesus’ unblemished (pure) blood is what cleanses us from acts of death (sin) so that we may serve a living God.
Jesus’ death made it possible for us to be redeemed so that we could be forgiven and made pure so that we may serve a living God with the zeal to do good works.
So, is it not about us and accomplishing our purposes and fulfilling our hearts desires? No. This is not our redemptive work. It is God’s. We are involved because he chose to love us as much as he does. He has redeemed us to purify us and make us his - a people with the zeal for good works.
This may not look like the freedom we expect, but it is definitely the freedom we need and the only true freedom there is in the world. The idea of being God’s possession stems all the way back to the Old Testament and the Israelites being referred to as God’s very own people, his to care for, to provide for, to love and discipline and to make his, and through whom his salvation will reach the end of the earth. In a similar and permanent way, God has redeemed us to make us his, to purify us and for us to do good works, and for people to glorify God as a result.
The effects of purification are beautiful! Redemption is tied to living in a godly manner because we have been purified. From slaves to children of God living in his world and zealous to do good works. With his help and grace (Titus 2:11), we aim to love as he does, to forgive as he does, to be as patient as he is, and to be as zealous for others as he is for us.
