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Imagine someone stole you from your home in the middle of the night, carried you off to the shores of your homeland, traded you for goods to foreigners, and then you were sailed off to a strange place. Upon arrival to a foreign land, you’re taken to the nearest town market to be sold into slavery. As you stand at the end of a line, shackled alongside other citizens of your country, one by one you hear your fellow person being sold for what is basically pennies in today's economy.
When a purchaser finally approaches you and asks the seller, "How much for this one?” the response is..."This one is gonna cost you more than you probably want to pay. This one is worth $144 million!” Though you're in unfamiliar territory and your situation very dark, you can't help but be moved by the fact that such a high value has been placed on your worth. You begin to wonder what is so special about you. Your spirit is actually lifted a bit and you feel a smirk coming on your face. Then, to your absolute shock, the buyer pays the seller’s hefty asking price!
Upon obtaining a receipt for your purchase, the buyer makes arrangements for you to be put on the first flight back to his homeland. Paperwork has already been drafted which will establish you as a free citizen of his country. All you have to do is trust this sponsor and sign the paperwork he had prepared in advance. In a sense, you simply will have been traded from one slave master to another. Nonetheless, in the new land that awaits you, you will definitely be free. You find out later that this buyer is enormously wealthy and spends most of his time doing this very thing, at his and his father’s expense.
If you didn't know, the life and blood of the Son of God was worth far more than $144 million and that was the price paid to purchase you from the town market of the dark prince of this world. And the fact that such a price was paid should give you some insight into the unsurpassable worth ascribed to you by YHVH Himself. Pondering on this concept, the great King David wrote:
– Psalm 8:4-6 (NKJV)
This dominion was given to us by our Heavenly Father at creation in the Garden of Eden. However, in our human forefather Adam, we were stolen from our homeland and sold into slavery. We became slaves to sin and our cunning adversary, the devil (John 8:34; 2 Timothy 2:26).
Foreseeing our enemy’s craftiness, our “enormously wealthy” sponsor made travel arrangements for His Son to come to this foreign land while simultaneously drafting agreements (covenants) which will ensure our citizenship in His homeland. He then sends His Son to this world’s town market and purchases us from the slave traders (Satan & demons). What is asked of us is that we trust our new Master, sign His paperwork and then wholeheartedly follow His Son Yeshua (Jesus) to the airport to catch our flight to a new land of freedom and abundant life.
While there may be bumps along the road to get to the "airport" itself (e.g. 2 Timothy 2:1-13), this all sounds like an amazingly sweet slave trade to me!
- Acts 26:17b-18 (NKJV)
Additional References: Romans 6:16-18; 1 Corinthians 6:19&20
