A Vision of Redemption

Someone who joined some of our groups asked me a rather important question,

“Do you have any summary writings that explain your approach.... or vision for redemption??”

According to Zondervan's Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible "Redemption is deliverance from the power of an alien dominion and the enjoyment of the resulting freedom. It involves the idea of restoration to one who possesses a more fundamental right or interest. The best example of redemption in the Old Testament was the deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage, from the dominion of the alien power in Egypt."

Who has a more fundamental interest and right in mankind than God the Father?

What are rights but gifts of God?

We talk about sin but what is sin but a rejection of God and His ways of righteousness. We see God says the people rejected¹ Him when they asked for a central ruler who could exercise authority. The word translated rejected in Samuel is most often translated despise and refuse. It is this rejection, this refusal to be ruled in our hearts and minds Him that is the sin that takes us, like Cain, out of the presence of the Lord.

“He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the hunter before the LORD.” Genesis 10:9

In Genesis 10:9 the word hunter is from the Hebrew word tsayid² which is more often translated provision, food, food-supply, or victuals. The word paniym is translated before in the sense of face or in the face of.³ So, it could be said that Nimrod was a mighty provider before the LORD or in front of the Lord.

Men create governments that promise the people liberty and security but take away a portion of their God given right to choose.⁴ It is through man's own covetousness that men are made merchandise, human resources . Men are bound by their own sloth and avarice in systems of exercising authority contrary to the desire of God.

We know people went under a central government when they were in bondage in Egypt and had to pay 20% income tax every year.⁵ We know God sent Moses to take them out of that bondage and said they should never go back to that government form again.⁶ But men have returned that way because they coveted their neighbors goods and the benefits that are supplied by such authoritarian Benefactors. Even though Christ forbid such forms of government for his people they still return that way⁷.

The Bible is about God's government on earth and about how men stray from its precepts. God's government was to always operate according to the perfect law of liberty with free will offerings⁸. It was a form of government where the people were bound together only by faith, hope and charity. The congregations and the network of congregations supplied all social security, assurance and protection but required the cultivation of sacrifice, forgiveness and patience.

Other governments operated with civic altars which forced the people as subjects to contribute to a corporate state which then doled out its gratuitous grace like gods.⁹ This power given to men corrupted all of them except Jesus the Christ.

The best example of redemption today is Jesus Christ. You are redeemed in His Kingdom when you repatriate to His Father in the kingdom of Heaven at hand. This requires that you give up prey at the altars of substitute Fathers on earth.¹⁰

Christ was king and everyone knew it when His kingdom was proclaimed by an official document of Rome signed by the Procurator of that corporate Empire.¹¹ When it was nailed on the cross and sealed in blood of an innocent man the people who proclaimed him as king were free from those binding contracts and could enter that kingdom of liberty. The door to that kingdom under God is hidden in modern Law.¹²

Israel was a Theocratic Republic with individual patriarchal families at its core and ministered by public servants under a vow of poverty [e.g. No inheritance in the land, they owned all things in common not as a personal estate]. The people were free souls under God until they went under a King. The Israelites expatriated under Rehoboam because he would not restore their freedom. The Kingdom of Judah became the remnant of the Kingdom of God on earth under the Parens Patria of the House of David.
Jesus was the Highest son of David and therefore king of Judea. He was proclaimed king by other kings, wise men and shepherds, by the voice of the people and by Rome.

The Church of the first century followed the form of the Church in the wilderness and became a viable republic in the heart of the Roman Empire.

Over the centuries false doctrines and half gospels have crept into our thinking, teaching a form of godliness but denying the power of God's kingdom at hand.

Jesus was a King and had separate ministers of that kingdom according to the World Order then and is still a separate government now according to the law. But the entrance to that kingdom is hidden and the people have forgotten the ways of the ancients.

Jesus would not appeal to Rome, treaty with it or submit to its authority and neither would his followers which included at first of tens of thousands of those citizens of Judea who followed the way of Jesus. When they proclaimed faith and allegiance to Jesus they were immediately barred from the benefits of the central government created by Herod and the Pharisees. At Pentecost thousands left one system and entered the kingdom of God at hand. It was another Exodus like that of Moses and Abraham's departure with many souls.

This took years of preparation and sacrifice but in one moment things changed. The Christians had an alternative to the Nicolaitian¹³ civic altars of Rome and Herod. The people had a different kind of government to invest in¹⁴ and were often accused of not sacrificing to the gods¹⁵ of their government It is no different today if men will seek the kingdom of God and its righteousness.

Modern Christians have rebuilt their society in the image of Rome¹⁶ and take pride in that corporate civil power. They pray or apply to it. They consume the benefits that are financed at the expense of their neighbor. They are under a strong delusion that the kingdom of God is not at hand in spirit and in truth.
Jesus said he would take the kingdom away from the government of Judea.¹⁷ He appointed ministers to His Kingdom.¹⁸ They were told not to be like the rulers and princes of the gentiles (nations). They were not to exercise authority one over the other but were to be true public servants, clerks of the Kingdom. This alternative government within the Roman Empire but not of it turned the world upside down.

These ordained ministers of Christ were the clerks of the kingdom spread a faith that created a dark age for tyrants and despots who hid in their castles while most people lived fruitful and productive rural lives.

All over Europe you find people gathering together in congregations of ten families who were linked by chosen ministers into what became national network¹⁹ of common societies, aiding the poor, protecting the people from enemies of peace both foreign and domestic.²⁰

This was actually the predominant form of government during much of the worlds history but you would not know it from the knowledge handed out by modern governments. The people lack knowledge of the kingdom.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. Ho 4:6

There are several words in the Bible that are translated into the single word redemption. g@ullah²¹ is translated redeem and redemption but also again and kindred. There is also the word pidyowm²² which has several forms and is translated redemption and ransom. It is from padah “to ransom, redeem, rescue, deliver.”

In the New Testament there are two words translated into the single English word redemption. There is lutrosis²³ which is translated redemption includes the idea of “a ransoming, redemption ... deliverance, esp. from the penalty of sin” It is from a word meaning “to release on receipt of ransom, to redeem, liberate by payment of ransom.” And the compound apolutrosis²⁴ meaning “a releasing effected by payment of ransom.”