(text and audio)
Title: The Power of Connotation
Intro:
The power of a good analogy rests in knowing your audience well and relating to them in a way that resonates powerfully with them.
Example: Nate Logan, I was the press corner, we were in cover two, and, at the last second our DC calls for a double blitz of both safeties, I moved up to press, and lunged, the flanker swum me, and I fell down, and he was running a nine.
Nate, what happens on this play?
(Slide that says, “Touchdown”)
How many of you had no idea what was happening in that sentence? I might as well have been speaking Japanese? How many of you had some inkling? How many got it right like Nate?
In today’s passage I want to argue that Paul uses some very carefully chosen words that would resonate with his audience because of their connotation, not necessarily their denotation.
Read/Pray
(Connotation vs. denotation slide)
Steelers Helmet slide (definition/suggestion)
AR-15 Slide (definition/suggestion)
Cross Slide (definition/suggestion)
“In Him we have redemption”
“Redemption”
Greek: apolytrōsis
Definition: 1. a releasing effected by payment of ransom
2. redemption, deliverance
3. liberation procured by the payment of a ransom
This word means a literal rescuing from ransom. If Paul is using a word that he knows his audience will associate with ransom, what is Paul then suggesting about our souls prior to the ransom being paid?
While you’re thinking about that answer, let me use a radical example to drive this home. Let us suppose that I kidnap Rob. And I’m holding him in my basement and I send a letter to Jane that says, if you don’t pay me the ransom in 24 hours, I’m going to kill Rob. The Ransom is $10.
Jane, what would you do? Do you have hope that Rob can be saved? Why?
Now, let’s change the scenario, same situation, but the ransom is not $10. It’s now 10 Billion dollars.
Do you have hope that Rob can be saved? Why? What’s changed?
Jane, how much money is Rob worth? Is there any amount you would not pay, if you had it? So the issue isn’t ever that you’ve determined that Rob is not worth 10 Billion dollars, but that you don’t have the ability to raise 10 billion dollars, correct?
So let me return to my original question: If Paul is using a word that he knows his audience will associate with ransom, what is Paul then suggesting about our souls prior to the ransom being paid?
Answer: That our souls have been kidnapped and are being held for ransom. And the ONLY one who has the ability, the resources to pay what we are worth, is Jesus and his blood spilt.
And How Did He Pay Our Ransom?
“…through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace…”
Paul again continues the metaphor here with his audience that fully understands the use of his terminology.
Paul explains that the only currency capable of paying the ransom for our sins is a currency we, as humans, don’t even have.
Let’s dwell there for just a moment.
With the example we used with Jane and Rob just a moment ago, the problem was that when the amount of demanded ransom jumped from $10 to $10 Billion, Jane didn’t have that amount of money.
But imagine that the ransom wasn’t money, imagine if the ransom was a five pound rock from the planet Jupiter. We know that rocks from Jupiter exist, they aren’t fictional, this isn’t unicorn blood, it’s a real thing, not fictional. Jupiter rocks certainly exist, that’s not the problem…the problem is simply this: we don’t have it, we don’t have access to it, we can’t get it.
(For those of you nerds saying, “But Jupiter is a gaseous planet, it doesn’t have rocks!” I googled it, the core of Jupiter is rock and ice, so shut up!”)
So when Paul tells us that Jesus paid the debt “through His blood” he is reminding us of a very specific demand of the ransom, The ransom must be paid in a currency that we can’t even get.
And what is that currency? What is the unique characteristic of Christ’s blood that is not in our blood?
Answer: Christ’s blood is sinless. (A currency we can’t EVER get or earn on our own.)
And What does this blood accomplish?
Answer: the forgiveness of sin.
Again, I don’t want to gloss over this, because Paul is taking time to remind us of something very important here:
The condition of us being made right with a Holy, Perfect, sinless God is that OUR SINS MUST BE FORGIVEN.
There is no reconciliation with a holy God while we still have unpaid debt.
There is no reconciliation with a holy God while we still have sin.
ONLY CHRIST’S SINLESS BLOOD CAN PAY FOR OUR SINS.
(Our “blood” won’t work, it’s tainted.)
And “our blood” can be categorized as our work, our devotion, our effort, our discipline, our piety, none of that works, as Paul will tell us coming up in
Ephesians 2:9
Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
And, Finally, What is the Driving Force Behind Giving us Access to His Blood?
In other words, why does He do it? Why does he offer His blood? We know we’ve done nothing to earn His favor, nor could we. We know he owes us absolutely nothing, so why does he do it?
The answer is one word, and it’s the core of the entire Gospel message, who’s got it.
GRACE. (There is no way to capture the essence of all that the concept of Grace entails, but, if you’d permit me, I’d like to offer a lyric that does a pretty nice job of reminding us of this amazing concept that makes all we know of God possible.)
Close:
“Grace” by U2
Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name
Grace, it’s the name for a girl
It’s also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything
Grace, she’s got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She’s got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work
You can hear her strings
Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things
Grace makes beauty out of ugly things
Pray/QA