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YEARS AGO there was a movie called, I
think, The Go'el. It was about a woman who seduced men
and murdered them. She had taken on herself the role
of protector of women abused by men.
THE GO’EL TRADITION
The movie was not right
up there with The Battleship Potemkin or Citizen Kane.
In fact it was probably only a bit above Swedish Fly
Girls in terms of quality. But it had an interesting
twist. It was tied in to an ancient Jewish tradition
of the Go'el — the responsible relative who cares for
weaker members of the family.
Here’s how it worked.
Imagine that you have
gone bankrupt.
In our society, if you
are bankrupt, essentially the legal authorities decide
that you are unable to pay your debts and, for a specified
time, you are unable to own certain types of property,
you can’t take out loans, you can’t be the director
of a public company or enter a beauty contest — well,
I lied about the beauty contest — but there are certainly
many things you are prohibited from doing. It’s almost
like a prison sentence where you don’t have to go to
gaol, when you think of all the restrictions.
At the same time, your creditors can’t pursue you for
any more money.
Things were different
in ancient times. Until the later part of the 19th century,
you could actually be thrown into a debtors’ prison
and face a very long term inside if you became bankrupt,
and many poor people spent a lot of their years in one
of HM Prisons.
I imagine that some
of us know what it is like to sail close to the wind
financially, and how easy it can be to find yourself
in over your head.
Chris and I had a hard
time when I first began editing The Australian Baptist.
The church was struggling to pay my stipend, and I was
taking less than the full amount at the time. With Joshua
and the girls still at school and Luke just starting
University, we had lots of expenses, but I also qualified
for Government income supplement and a health care card.
When I began at The Baptist, I was earning enough extra
that I lost the income supplement and the health care
card, and I also had to find extra money for transport
and medicines and all the other things, so we were actually
worse off than we had been until the Board reviewed
my salary. And I admit we were worried about how we
would cope.
Many of you have been there, I’m sure; so you would
know how It feels.
Even in Biblical days,
people faced financial hardship, and there were fewer
safety nets then than we have today. So it sometimes
appeared there was no way to get out of the financial
hole.
In Jewish society, there
was an option to sell yourself as a slave, and there
were many rules which prevented owners from overly exploiting
any slave they owned. Anyone who sold himself as a slave
could use that money to repay a debt. But, of course,
the most common thing was for people to sell of their
property and use the profits to settle their debts.
But here’s a special provision in the law:
LEV 25:25 " `If one of
your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property,
his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his
countryman has sold."
So, whether you had
sold your favourite cow, or your farm, or yourself,
that nearest relative was obliged to come to the rescue
and set you free. That “nearest relative” is the go’el,
the redeemer.
But the go’el was not
only someone who looked after your debts. The go’el
was responsible for you if ever you lacked someone to
look after you. The whole society was built on people
taking care for each other. In the book of Ruth, we
read,
RU 2:19 Her mother-in-law
asked her, "Where did you glean today? Where did
you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!"
Then Ruth
told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place
she had been working. "The name of the man I worked
with today is Boaz," she said.
2:20 "The
LORD bless him!" Naomi said to her daughter-in-law.
"He has not stopped showing his kindness to the
living and the dead." She added, "That man
is our close relative; he is one of our kinsman-redeemers."
Kinsman–redeemer means
go’el.
Ruth and Naomi had no
one to care for them. They were both widows, and they
lived by themselves in poverty. The law allowed the
poor to go and pick up dropped grain and fallen fruit
in a farmer’s paddock, and that was how Ruth and Naomi
were providing for themselves. And Boaz saw Ruth and
showed her care, even though Ruth didn’t fully understand
what a go’el was.
The go’el was very important
in Jewish society.
If you were in debt,
the go’el was there; if you were poor, the go’el
cared for you; if you were a widow, the go’el had a
duty to marry you and look after you.
And, of course, if there was a war and you were captured,
your go’el could pay a ransom and have you released.
In I Timothy we read
that Jesus gave himself as a ransom. And in Galatians,
it says,
But when
the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a
woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that
we might receive the full rights of sons.
There’s a similar theme
in Titus:
...we
wait for the blessed hope — the glorious appearing of
our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave himself
for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify
for himself a people that are his very own, eager to
do what is good
All of these passages
talk about the work of the go’el, the work of the kinsman–redeemer.
NATURAL DISADVANTAGE
But why do we use the
language of the go’el to think about Jesus and his work
on the cross?
It is common to think
about a person’s natural advantages. But, apart from
Jesus, we are at a natural disadvantage. Natural, because
it is part of our own nature as human beings, and disadvantage,
because it leads to destruction, to perishing, to being
eternally lost.
Many theologians have
pondered the idea of Jesus as our ransom. One ancient
theory, which I think goes back to Peter Abelard in
the early Middle Ages, is that, through sin, we had
become the property of the devil, and that Jesus paid
his life over to the devil as a ransom price so that
we could be set free.
The problem with this
theory is that it makes God out as a thief. After all,
it says that Jesus paid his life over to the devil;
but it suggests that, by rising again, Jesus stole the
price money back from Satan.
If you look at the Bible,
you will never find God lowering himself to Satan’s
level. If a deal is made, it is honoured, no matter
how evil the devil might be. If God even once ripped
Satan off, then Satan would be the victor through all
eternity. God can’t do that!
Anyone who thinks that an evil opponent has forfeited
his right to justice is on the side of the evil one.
Never think otherwise!
I hear people say that
David Hicks doesn’t deserve the presumption of innocence,
that he doesn’t deserve the protections which the courts
give every other citizen, that he has lost his rights
because he fought for the Taliban. Anyone who tells
you that is playing by Taliban rules and should be in
Guantanamo Bay. I’d start with Bush and Howard.
So Jesus did not pay the devil and then snatch the payment
back.
But there is a certain
truth in what Abelard said.
Let’s here where we
stand in our natural state.
Paul tells us,
EPH 2:1
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and
sins, in which you used to live when you followed the
ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of
the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who
are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at
one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature
and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest,
we were by nature objects of wrath.
When we live in the
way of the world, we are dead to spiritual matters and
controlled by human desires and thoughts.
When we live in the way of the world, our natural condition
is that God’s holy anger is directed against us. It
is a truly just anger, based in God’s own righteousness.
Going back to our Galatians passage, Paul argues,
GAL 4:1
What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child,
he is no different from a slave, although he owns the
whole estate. He is subject to guardians and trustees
until the time set by his father. So also, when we were
children, we were in slavery under the basic principles
of the world. But when the time had fully come, God
sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem
those under law, that we might receive the full rights
of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of
his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba,
Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son;
and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
Here’s what Paul is
saying. Outside of Christ, in theory we might be the
heirs to everything, but, in practice, we are minors,
we are outside the terms of the will, we are controlled
and have no true freedom as God’s very own sons.
[ Before you jump in
and accuse Paul of putting women down, remember that
this is a passage about legal rights, and, in those
days, in many societies, women had few legal rights.
So Paul is holding up the idea of becoming not mere
children, but true inheritors of everything God has
provided for his sons.]
It doesn’t matter whether
we consider the harsh slavery that a prisoner of war
might experience, or the gentle and benevolent slavery
that a child experiences at the hands of guardians and
tutors. Until you are given adult responsible freedom,
you remain a slave, even in your own home territory.
To sum it up, the Bible clearly shows that, apart from
Christ, we are enslaved by our own disobedience and
our subservience to the cravings of our sinful nature.
Even if we have access to the full teachings of the
Bible and are rightful heirs of the Kingdom, we remain
slaves and incapable of living in the freedom and dignity
of a true child of God.
Apart from Christ, we
are without hope and perishing. That is the uniform
thrust of the New Testament.
JESUS OUR GO’EL
So we come to what Jesus
really did for us on the cross.
Last week, we saw that,
by his death, Jesus ushered in a new covenant between
God and humans — especially those who believe.
Today, we think of the price he paid.
My grandfather Green used to love one of the old gospel
hymns although, at the time, he was not a believer.
I can still hear his voice as he would sing,
I will
sing of my Redeemer
And his wond’rous love
to me,
On the cruel cross he
suffered
From the curse to rescue
me
Sing, Oh, sing,
of my Redeemer
With his blood
he purchased me;
On the cross he
sealed my pardon
Paid the debt and
made me free.
Some of us saw depicted
the price he paid for our salvation, the penalty he
suffered to set us free. It was in that film, The Passion,
that we saw last night.
If you think about the
passages we read, they are not about Satan. There is
no mention of the devil. They talk about God and about
us and about Jesus our Redeemer, our Kinsman, the Big
Brother, the Kuya, sent by God.
On the cross, Jesus
paid the most incredible price. He didn’t pay it to
Satan, but, in a sense, he paid it to us, to you and
to me, so that we would have the ticket money to ride
to our freedom.
The resurrection takes
nothing away from it for us, because we are human, we
know what he went through on the cross. We understand
that a whipping nearly killed its victim. We understand
about the nails through the wrists and the heels. We
know about the suffocating agony of crucifixion, the
dull pain of gradually dislocating shoulders. If there
is resurrection on the other side of that, it steals
nothing from the suffering Jesus went through for our
sake.
People come to us with
authority. They say that a politician has issued
an instruction that we are to change our circumstances.
People come to us with power, and beat us if we do not
satisfy their requirements. People come with logic and
tell us how much better things would be if we lived
differently.
But, in paying the price on the cross, Jesus
came with suffering love and redeeming grace and showed
us that liberty is there for us to claim. Love frees;
law enslaves.
In dying on the cross,
Jesus declares that he is our redeemer, and there is
no river too deep that he will not brave its floods;
no fire too hot, that he will not face its flames; no
desert too wide, that he will not cross it; no mountain
too high that he will not climb until it is conquered
— if only you: yes, you! will turn and find life. Yes,
and there is no hell too deep that he will not pass
right through it so that you and I need not go there
at all.
And on the third day he stands before us. He
stands beaming with joy, because he has defeated death
and replaced it with life, lifted sorrow and displaced
it with glad songs, conquered death and the grave and
now reigns forever more. And he shouts with exultation,
because he has set his people free, no matter what it
cost him.
RESPONSE
What can we do in the
light of all he did for us? Rivers of oil will not tempt
him, the cattle on a thousand hills are already his.
Still stands thine ancient
sacrifice,
An
humble and a contrite heart;
Lord
God of Hosts, be with us yet —
Lest
we forget, lest we forget.
There is nothing we
can do, except receive our redemption with thanks and
awe, because the Galilean has conquered, our go’el has
set us free.
Praise be to God, AMEN! |
