Summary
The Plan of Redemption
Christmas has its own rhythm: planning, preparing, purchasing, and personalizing the gifts we give. God's gift of redemption follows that same rhythm, and it begins with a plan—a plan older than the world itself. To redeem means to buy back. It is slavery language, the very language we confess on Sunday mornings when we admit that we are "in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves." Because we cannot free ourselves, a price had to be paid; a ransom had to be made; we had to be bought back.
The first glimpse of that plan comes in the garden. After Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, sin, judgment, and death entered God's pristine creation. Yet in pronouncing the curse on the serpent, God also gave the first promise of the Messiah: Genesis 3:15. The offspring of the woman would strike the serpent's head while the serpent struck only His heel. The bruised heel is the suffering Christ endured; the crushed head is the fatal blow Jesus dealt to Satan from the cross. From the moment sin entered, the rescue was already announced.
But the plan reaches further back than Eden. In Ephesians 1:3–4, Paul writes that God "chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him." Before God ever said, "Let there be," when there was only God and nothing, the plan of redemption was already in place. God is not reactive, scrambling to repair the fall; in His omniscience He had you in mind before creation existed, and He determined that His grace would meet you personally in the waters of Holy Baptism. The motivation is given in two small words at the end of the verse: "in love."
From this eternal plan flow two great spiritual blessings. First, we are chosen. God destined us for adoption as His children through Jesus Christ Ephesians 1:5. This matters because we are not children of God by nature. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, but after the fall Scripture says Seth was born in the image of his parents—a fallen image. We become children of God only through faith in Christ, by adoption. Second, we are redeemed. "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace" Ephesians 1:7. As 1 Peter 1:18–19 confirms, the ransom was paid not with silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ, the Lamb without blemish. On the cross, our sin was placed on Jesus and His perfect righteousness was imputed to us.
Human plans falter. "Plan on it" often turns into disappointment; "I have great plans for you" sometimes never pans out. Life happens while we are making other plans. But God's plans are not like ours. With all wisdom and insight He has made known the mystery of His will, "to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" Ephesians 1:8–10. What was unified in creation and shattered in the fall is being restored in Christ. When God plans something and promises it, you can take it to the bank.
So the question "Are you ready for Christmas?" finds its deepest answer not in shopping lists or decorations but at the cross. Through the gift of redemption, God has made you ready for eternity—and that gift is the unfolding of a very, very old plan, one written before the foundation of the world.
Video citations
- "Planned" — Are you ready for Christmas? Are you ready for Christmas? We receive that question and we give that question, don't we? And when we do so, we certainly understand the meaning of it, right? At the…