Hope and HolinessSmakprov

Do You Not Know?— Redemption: The Heart of the Gospel

Key Question: How does knowing you are Christ’s purchased possession enable and empower sexual purity?

“The cross is at the heart of the gospel. When Jesus died for us as the only substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, He “bought” us at a price. Paul writes in verses 19 and 20, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” The price was Christ’s death. The purpose of Christ’s death is multifaceted. The aspect Paul focuses on here is redemption. Paul moves from temple imagery in verse 19a to that of the slave market in verse 20a.

. . . while Christ’s redemption certainly results in the believer’s freedom from the curse of God’s law, as well as their former manner of life, the emphasis in this context is more on ownership. Christ’s redemption is not merely to set us free but to allow us to belong to God in a covenant relationship. Christ’s death has sealed a transfer of ownership. Christ “bought” and secured the rights of believers by paying the price with His blood—dying on the cross. So Jesus now has “full property rights over [His people.] . . . God has the title deed to their bodies. . . belonging to God implies responsibility, not license. . . Paul argues that since God now has full property rights to the believer’s body, they may not engage in sexual license. Instead, as a bondslave of Christ, the believer has a new Master.

Your body is God’s lawful possession by a double right: habitation and redemption. . . Knowing that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and the purchased possession of Christ will motivate you to use it in ways that glorify God instead of dishonoring Him. And so, we see that the gospel (“bought with a price”) and its fruit (“a temple of the Holy Spirit”) lead us to fulfill the very purpose for which we were created—to glorify God.

Prayer: O God, pour into our hearts the knowledge that we are your lawful possession in body and soul that we might be led to glorify you in thought, word, and deed, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.