“We may well chide ourselves that we can speak of redemption with dry eyes. That the blood of Christ was shed to buy our souls from death and hell is a wonder of compassion which fills angels with amazement, and it ought to overwhelm us with adoring love whenever we think of it, glance our eye over the recording pages, or even utter the word ‘redemption.’
What is meant by the fact that we are purchased with blood? It signified pain. Have any of you lately been racked with pain? Have you suffered acutely? Ah, then at such times you know to some degree what the price was which the Saviour paid.
His bodily pains were great, hands and feet nailed to the wood, and the iron breaking through the tenderest nerves. His soul-pains were greater still. His heart was melted like wax. He was very heavy. His heart was broken with reproach.
He was deserted of God, and left beneath the black thunder-clouds of divine wrath. His soul was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death. It was pain that bought you. We speak of the drops of blood, but we must not confine our thoughts to the crimson life-floods which distilled from the Saviour’s veins.
We must think of the pangs which He endured, which were the equivalent for what we ought to have suffered, what we must have suffered had we endured the punishment of our guilt forever in the flames of hell. But pain alone could not have redeemed us. It was by death that the Saviour paid the ransom.
Death is a word of horror to the ungodly. But Christ’s death was the substitute for the death of the ungodly. He was made a curse for us and the presence of God was denied Him. His death was attended with unusual darkness. He cried, ‘My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?’
O think earnestly on this! The Ever-living died to redeem us. The Only Begotten bowed His head in agony, and was laid in the grave that we might be saved. You are bought then ‘with a price’– a price incalculable, stupendous, infinite.”
–Charles H. Spurgeon, “Bought With A Price,” from Twelve Sermons on the Passion and Death of Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1971), 70-71.
