Do you realize that slavery is still a major evil in our modern world?  In 2022, some 167 counties still have some form of slavery and that atrocity affects 46 million people. That is human tragedy at its worst!

I can’t imagine standing on some proverbial platform while potential buyers survey my body and assess my potential as a worker. But for centuries that’s how slavery worked.

The apostle Paul was very aware of how slaves were bought and sold. In Gal. 3:13, he wrote “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for us.” He was explaining the concept of redemption, and it is easy to understand. Someone is recued, bought back from slavery. A price is paid and the slave is set free.

Just consider for a moment, what it would have been like if the Lord Jesus showed up at such a slave market. I think He would slowly look through the crowd of sullen, sad, hopeless people and then begin to point. “I’ll take that one, and that one, and that one and that one over there! They matter to me!”

For reasons known only to Himself, we matter enough to God that He would buy us back from a life of sin and set our feet on the road towards an eternal home with Him. He purchased us, our redemption came through His blood (Eph. 1:7). He rescued us, He gave Himself for our sins (Gal. 1:4).  Simply stated, He redeemed us (Gal. 2:20).

Our redemption is not attached to our performance, but to His. Jesus Paid it all.

In 1865, Elvina Hall was a 47-year-old widow sitting in the choir of her Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland. Her pastor’s prayer and his message went long, so she began to doodle words on the flyleaf of the songbook.

She wrote, “I can hear the Savior say, thy strength indeed is small. Child of weakness, watch and pray, find in me thine all in all. Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.”

She gave those words to her pastor who shared them with the choir leader. And soon a very popular hymn was published. It has appeared in most songbooks for the last 150 years.

That theme is a precious one and worthy of mulling over this week. We mattered enough to God that He sent His one and only Son to die for us. He picked us out of the lineup of the condemned and paid the price for our salvation.

Jesus paid it all. And we are redeemed.

Let the redeemed of the Lord, say so!