The Cross Did More Than Forgive Your Sins: It Changed Who You Are
Jesus was the perfect, spotless Lamb; the final sacrifice God had been pointing toward since the beginning of time.
He was also our High Priest who went into the heavenly Holy of Holies with His spotless, precious blood as the payment for our sins.
It’s an absolutely beautiful story that is hard for our minds to sometimes comprehend, but we must ask a vital question: What exactly did Jesus’ sacrifice do for us? Most Christians confidently say, “Jesus died for the forgiveness of my sins.” And while that is absolutely true, it is only a fraction of the story. The New Testament reveals something far more powerful: Jesus’ sacrifice produced what the Bible calls redemption. Today, the word redemption is often used in sermons and worship lyrics, but in the days of the apostles, it was not a religious word at all. It was a marketplace word, specifically a slave-market word.
During Paul’s lifetime, slavery was woven deeply into the culture of the Roman Empire. Slave markets existed in nearly every major city where Paul ministered: Corinth, Ephesus, Rome, and beyond. Ephesus alone hosted one of the largest slave markets in all of Asia Minor. Rome, the center of the empire, was the largest slave city in the world.
People were forced into slavery in various ways: through military conquest, through slave traders, through being born to enslaved parents, and some even sold themselves into slavery to pay off large debts.
At the slave market, buyers carefully examined slaves the same way one would inspect livestock or property. Their physical strength, skills, and abilities were all evaluated to deter-mine their price. Buyers purchased slaves to fill countless roles: tutors, craftsmen, musicians, cooks, laborers, guards, and house servants.
The typical transaction for purchasing a slave was described by the Greek word agorazo, meaning “to buy in the marketplace.” It referred simply to the exchange of money for ownership. Once purchased, the slave became the property of a new master.
Against this cultural backdrop, Paul wrote some of the most powerful words in all Scripture:
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) (Galatians 3:13 NKJV).
Christ purchased our freedom [redeeming us] from the curse (doom) of the Law [and its condemnation] by [Himself] becoming a curse for us, for it is written [in the Scriptures], Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (is crucified) (Galatians 3:13 AMPC).
To the people of Galatia—both Jew and Gentile—Paul’s use of the word redeemed was not religious jargon. It was a slave-market word that carried vivid imagery, emotion, and meaning. But Paul didn’t use the common word agorazo; he used the stronger, more powerful term exagorazo.
According to Greek lexicons, exagorazo means: “by payment of a price to recover from the power of another, to ransom, buy off,” often with the implication of buying something out of the marketplace altogether—never to be sold again.
Paul’s choice of this word was intentional. He was describing a transaction in which a slave was purchased not to serve another master, but to be set completely free.
Jesus didn’t buy you to use you. Jesus didn’t purchase you to enslave you under new rules. Jesus paid your price to release you from every form of bondage forever.
You were a slave. You were owned. You were trapped.
And Jesus paid the full ransom to set you free.
Physical slavery is a heartbreaking stain on human history. Empires, governments, and entire civilizations have been built on the backs of enslaved people. But as tragic and evil as physical slavery is, it does not compare to the deeper reality of spiritual slavery, which has existed since the Fall of humankind.
Most people do not realize it, but before receiving Jesus, every person on earth is a slave—not physically, but spiritually. Why? Because they are still connected to Adam.
When Adam sinned in the Garden, everything changed. The moment he disobeyed God, sin entered creation through him.
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—(For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come (Romans 5:12-14 NKJV).
Adam’s sin was more than a mistake; it was a transfer of dominion. Adam, who had been the god of this world, became spiritually dead and enslaved to Satan. Because all humanity descended from him, every person was born into the same slavery. The world is filled with spiritual slaves—people who think they are free but are in bondage to sin, fear, guilt, shame, sickness, and spiritual death.
But here is the tragedy: Billions of people who are slaves think they’re free.
And billions of Christians who are free think they’re still slaves.
In Christ, slavery is over.
You are not partially forgiven. You are not conditionally free. You are fully, eternally redeemed.
…Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin (Hebrews 10:17-18 NKJV).
The ransom for your freedom was not cheap. It wasn’t paid with gold, silver, or earthly treasures. It was paid with the most valuable substance in existence: the blood of Jesus Christ.
Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He [Jesus] entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12 NKJV).
The Old Covenant required the blood of a spotless lamb every year to cover sin temporarily. But Jesus, the Lamb of God, entered the heavenly Holy of Holies once and for all, and His blood secured your redemption for eternity.
Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Peter 1:18-19 NKJV).
There is nothing more valuable than the blood of Jesus. Heaven’s most priceless treasure was poured out for you because Jesus believed you were worth the highest possible price.
Just as an item’s value is determined not by its label but by what someone is willing to pay, your worth is defined by the Cross. Jesus alone had the currency required for your freedom—His own blood—and He willingly gave all of it.
Your redemption is the perfect offering, with the perfect sacrifice, producing a perfect result.
Many believers accept that Jesus set them free, but struggle to believe what the Bible boldly declares: His redemption made you perfect.
Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin (Romans 6:4-7 NKJV).
Your old, sinful, enslaved identity died with Christ. Your new identity was raised with Him.
You no longer belong to sin; you belong to righteousness. To fully grasp redemption, we must understand the powerful symbolism given in the Old Covenant on the Day of Atonement.
On the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, two goats were used:
The Lord’s Goat
The Scapegoat
Together, these two goats formed one complete picture of what Jesus would accomplish at the Cross.
