Ransomed From A Stronger Hand

For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he.

Jeremiah 31:11

Any time I see the words “redeemed” and “ransomed” in the Bible, I sit up and take notice.  As the old song says, “we are redeemed, the price is paid; what a wonderful Saviour!”  I love writing about my Redeemer and I am daily thankful for the ransom that He gave for me.  I love the picture this verse paints of the Lord’s ransoming and redeeming us.  I know that, doctrinally, this passage is dealing with “Jacob,” or the nation of Israel.  But I think that a wonderful application can be made for us as Christians.

I started out yesterday to write about the second half of this verse, which turned out to be a short study on the word “redeemed.”  Today, we will look at the phrase “ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he.”  Think about that phrase for a minute as it pertains to our salvation.  Before we were saved, we were held captive by Satan.  He held us in bondage to sin.  We were the servants and slaves of sin.  Both the Devil and our own sin were both stronger than we were.  We had no power against either.  We were in his hand, and his hand was stronger than ours.  But Jesus Christ, through His blood, ransomed us and redeemed us from the hand of Satan and from the clutches of our sin.

We could not hope to save ourselves.  We were held by a stong hand.  But now, we are held by an even stronger hand!  Romans 5:6 tells us “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”  We had no strength on our own to ransom ourselves.  But thanks be to God, He has, to paraphrase, “ransomed us from the hand of him that was stronger than us.”