I. Judicial forgiveness.
In order to understand judicial forgiveness we must consider the judicial condemnation of the unforgiven man, and we must carefully remember God’s offices as King, as Lawgiver, and as Judge. He is a Saviour, but He is a ruler likewise, and He rules the world in righteousness. But if we think of Him as the great executive of a perfectly righteous and holy law, acting on principles of strict and unvarying righteousness, we must see in a moment that we have all been brought under judicial condemnation, for the law condemns us all. It condemned our whole race in the person of our head and first father when Adam sinned, and the sentence of death was passed on him as the representative of man. It condemns our nature as alien and strange to God. And it condemns our lives that have abounded in action contrary to His will. I know that somepeople find a difficulty in the first two points, and cannot understand the condemnation of the race, or of the nature. I can appreciate their difficulty, though I am quite sure it is fully met in Scripture. But I have not time to discuss it now. But this one thing I am sure is plain; even if there were no condemnation on the race or on the nature, there is quite sufficient in the past life to bring condemnation on any soul amongst us. Even if we had not been condemned in Adam there has been quite sufficient to condemn us in ourselves. There is not one amongst us who is not guilty of that for which he knows himself to be responsible. There is not one who dare stand before God on the plea that he has never sinned, not one therefore that must not acknowledge in some form or other that he cannot be saved if the sentence of the law is to be carried out on his sin.
But if you think over it you will see that according to natural principle judicial forgiveness is impossible. Law can acquit, and law can condemn, but law cannot forgive. Law can pronounce a man innocent, and law can pass the sentence of death, but law cannot pardon the guilty. Our legal position by nature isperfectly hopeless. We have incurred a legal and just condemnation, but nature has made no provision for a legal and just forgiveness. It is the effort to overcome this insuperable difficulty that has kept thousands of conscientious heathen toiling on throughout their lives in deep religious anxiety without a ray of light to throw peace upon their path.
But the whole difficulty is met in God’s great plan of redemption, as revealed in those wonderful words, ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.’ The forgiveness resulting from the great act of redemption is exactly what we want, a legal and judicial remission of a legal and judicial sentence. The sentence of the law has been as fully carried out in the person of our most Blessed Redeemer as it would have been had the whole race been cast into hell for ever. The whole difficulty is removed by the principle of substitution, or satisfaction. If Christ was made a curse for us, then the curse is gone from us, and we are free. The holiness of the law is honoured, the righteousness of the lawgiver is preserved, the sentence of the judge is established, not one jot or one tittle of the law isallowed to pass; but, notwithstanding all, the man that has broken it, although he has broken it, is absolutely free. Thus, in Rom. iii. 26, we are taught that the result of propitiation is, ‘That God might be just, and yet the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.’
Here, therefore, we have what I have termed a judicial forgiveness, a forgiveness in perfect harmony with the strict righteousness of law; a forgiveness which is, in fact, the letting forth of God’s eternal love when all legal claims are satisfied. Till that redeeming act was complete, the love was as it were pent up, and could not, in consistency with His own law, flow forth to a condemned people. But all is different now. The law itself pronounces in favour of the condemned, and the result is that God is not only faithful, but just to forgive. And to this righteous forgiveness we may apply the text, ‘In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.’
II. Parental Forgiveness. But when we are in the enjoyment of this judicial forgiveness it may be said, ‘If this bethe case, why should we any more pray for forgiveness? Why should we say the Lord’s prayer? Are we not taught that we already have forgiveness as we have redemption through His blood? To answer this question we must mark the distinction between judicial and parental forgiveness.
Consider, then, the position into which every believer is brought through redemption and judicial forgiveness. According to verse 6, we are ‘accepted in the Beloved,’ accepted,i.e., in Christ Jesus the Beloved One. And according to Gal. iv. 5, we are made, by virtue of that redemption, children of God, for Christ was sent forth ‘to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.’ If, then, we be in Christ Jesus, what is our position? The curse which fell on the whole race through Adam is gone, and we shall soon rise from the dead into new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The condemnation of our sinful and ruined nature as well as of all the sin of all our past lives is forgiven for ever; and much more than that, for, the barriers being all broken down, we are accepted in the Beloved and ‘the Spirit itself beareth witnesswith our spirit that we are the children of God.’
What, then, is the consequence of this new position? And what does it involve? Nothing less than a parental and filial union. In Christ Jesus you have a Father who loves you, a Father whom you love; a Father who cares for you, and on whose care you may confidently trust; a Father who speaks to your soul by His Spirit, and who admits you into close and confidential intimacy with Himself. Now it is perfectly clear, that as you pass through life, it will be the joy of your heart to please that loving Father. The more you love Him, the more you will rejoice to please Him, and He gives you the assurance that your efforts, defective though they be, do please Him, for we are told not to forget to do good, and to communicate, ‘for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.’ (Heb. xiii. 16.) But, on the other hand, you may grieve Him. I can never forget the tender love of my dearest mother, or how fondly I loved her in return. I have the greatest satisfaction also in the recollection of her pleasure as she witnessed my boyish efforts to carry out her wishes and those of my father. But I can look back to morethan fifty years ago and remember one or two sad days in which I pained her. Oh, dear children! never pain your mother, for the thought may remain with you long after she is in the grave, long after the time when you can no more throw your arms round her neck, and ask her forgiveness for what you have said or done to grieve her. Now it is just the same with our Heavenly Father. We may love Him, truly love Him, love Him without a doubt. Moreover, we may please Him, please Him well in all things, and bring to His service that offering of the whole man with which he is well pleased. But we may also grieve Him, and I fear we often do. The free forgiveness through redeeming blood has not removed, eradicated, or laid to rest the old sinful human nature. Thus St. Paul tells us to ‘grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption,’ Eph. iv. 30; and he shows us how we may do so, viz., by corrupt communication, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking and malice. Do you think that a bad temper does not grieve Him, or unkind conversation, or pride of heart, or wandering thoughts in prayer, or any of the thousandthings that may rise before the conscience of those who are not satisfied with a superficial Christian life? But if this be the case what do we want,—want day by day as we pass through life? Surely the parental forgiveness, the loving forgiveness of a loving Father, watching in love over His loving child, and with a Father’s love, and a Father’s authority, accepting the acknowledgment of sin, and day by day freely forgiving it. This perfectly explains the use of the Lord’s prayer by the children of God. We come to Him in that prayer as our Father, and because He is our Father we ask Him as a Father to forgive us our sins. This does not supersede the judicial forgiveness, but is the consequence of it. Nor does it set aside redemption, for it is on redemption that the whole sonship depends. There is nothing independent of that most precious blood of Christ. It is through that blood of His that the curse is removed, and the judicial forgiveness granted; through that blood of His that we receive the adoption of sons, and are brought into the sacred relationship of children in a Father’s family. It is through that blood of His that we are preserved in that relationship, and stand before the Father in a covenant unionwith the Son of God Himself. But resting on this power of the atoning blood, there is a great deal besides judicial forgiveness. If you be asking now the way of life, and anxious that all the sins of all your life may be blotted out, that so you may be saved from the condemnation of the law; then your only hope must be in the plenteous redemption wrought out for you on the cross when the Son of God redeemed you from the curse, being made a curse for you. And, thanks be to God! that is sufficient, for it has broken down every barrier, and set the way of life wide open before the chief of sinners. But if you have been saved from that condemnation, so that now you ‘have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins:’ you have also a great deal more, for you have besides it and resting on it, the unspeakable blessedness of a Father’s love. You may daily fall back on the satisfaction of the law, and in consequence of that satisfaction, like loving children may cry, ‘Abba, Father,’ and claim a Father’s forbearance and a Father’s tenderness, a Father’s provision, and a Father’s forgiveness. It is this parental love that is the joy of our hearts when we kneel together round our Father’s table, this parentalforgiveness for which we pray when we say, ‘Our Father which art in heaven, forgive us our trespasses.’
Let us endeavour, then, to realise the legal condemnation gone; the judicial forgiveness granted; the adoption of sons bestowed; the Father’s table spread; the Father’s forgiveness ready; the Father’s love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given us. And realizing this, shall we not draw near in faith? Shall we not confess to Him that we are heartily sorry for all our misdoings? Shall we not ask Him for His parental forgiveness? Shall we not feed at His table? Shall we not rest on His loving arm? Shall we not regard it as our chief joy to please Him? And shall we not out of the fulness of loving hearts exalt His name for the unspeakable riches of redeeming love; and praise Him from the bottom of our hearts that by His marvellous grace we even now ‘have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins?’ and having it, can appeal to a Father’s love for daily forgiveness as for daily bread?
‘Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.’—Tit. ii. 14.
‘Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.’—Tit. ii. 14.
Ifwe wish to understand the various passages in the word of God on the subject of redemption, we must never forget the two parts of which redemption consists, so often brought before you in these lectures—the satisfaction of the law by the payment of redemption price, and the actual deliverance of the ransomed people as the result of the finished atonement. It is of especial importance that we bear this well in mind in the study of those texts in which redemption is spoken of as being either now in progress or still in the future, for there is no possibility of any present or future atonement, that having been for ever completed on Calvary, and such passages can only refer to the work of deliverance which will not be complete till the gloriousday of our Lord’s appearing. The atonement is complete, but the deliverance is in progress still, and those texts refer to it.
I believe that this remark is of great importance to the right understanding of this text. It occurs in the midst of one of the most practical chapters in the Bible. The words are addressed to the various different classes of society. Aged men are exhorted to be sober and sound in faith; aged women to be in behaviour as becometh godliness; young women to be sober and to love their husbands and their children; servants to be obedient, pleasant, not contradictory, and honest; and all of us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.
Now, according to the text, the great motive power to all this is the fact that our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ ‘gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.’ Let us study then the redemption work, and the redemption power; and may God the Holy Ghost so bless it to our souls that we may be led in practical life to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things!
I. The redemption work.
To redeem in these words clearly means to deliver, as the result of the finished atonement. The foundation of the deliverance is the fact that our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ gave Himself for us. The actual deliverance is described in the words, ‘that he might redeem us from all iniquity.’ A question has arisen as to the meaning of this expression. Does it mean that He might redeem us from the curse and judgment of all iniquity and so set us legally free, as when He said, ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us?’ or does it mean that by the power of the Holy Ghost He might deliver us from the bondage of all iniquity, and so make us actually a holy people unto Himself? There is much to be said for both interpretations. ‘Iniquity’ may stand here for the curse, or guilt, of iniquity, as ‘sin’ stands for the guilt of sin in 1 Pet. ii. 24: ‘Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.’ Or it may stand for sin itself, and its deadly power over the ruined soul. I am inclined on the whole to prefer this latter application, and to believe that the words describe the actual deliverance from the dominionof sin. The context clearly points in that direction, and so, as far as I can judge, do the words. The word here rendered iniquity strictly means ‘lawlessness.’ It is the same word as that in 1 John, iii. 4, where it is translated ‘transgression of the law,’ and appears generally to express the actual disobedience to the law, or will of God. If this be the case the idea evidently is that in our natural condition we are slaves and bondsmen to disobedience, or lawlessness. But that the great God and Saviour made an atonement for us in order that He might set us free from that dreadful yoke, and call us out to be a people set apart for His praise. This is in harmony with what we are taught in Rom. vi. 19, for there we are described as having in former times ‘yielded our members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity’ (the same word), and as now being set free by the grace of God. But there can be no such freedom without redemption from the curse of sin. You remember that when a man had sold himself to be a slave, the only way in which he could obtain his liberty was by his kinsman legally redeeming him from his master. So it seems to be here. Christ our kinsman has paid the ransomin order that we, being redeemed, may be freemen unto God, and may now as freemen have the joy of serving Him.
But this is not all that is done for us, or nearly so, for the text does not merely refer to the bondage from which He died to deliver us, but leads us also to consider the new life to which He came to raise us. It takes the positive side as well as the negative. It looks forward as well as backward. It describes the new-master to whom being redeemed we belong, as well as the old master from whom by redemption we are delivered. Now you see this transfer very clearly in the text. The old master is lawlessness, the new master is Christ Himself. He came to redeem us from all iniquity, and ‘purify unto himself a peculiar people.’ ‘Peculiar’ does not mean odd, or eccentric; but special, and separated, as you may see by a comparison of Deut. vii. 6, and xiv. 2. In chap. vii. 6, we read, ‘The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be aspecialpeople unto himself,’ and in chap. xiv. 2, ‘The Lord hath chosen thee to be apeculiarpeople unto himself.’ You see that these words respecting Israel of old exactly correspond to those here spoken of the redeemed Church, andthey completely explain what is here meant by the word ‘peculiar.’ As Israel was a peculiar people, delivered from Egypt, and set apart unto God, so those who are in Christ Jesus are redeemed from the old bondage of their past lawlessness, and set apart as a special people unto Him who has redeemed them by His blood.
Observe then the three characteristics of this new service, the service of the redeemed.
(1.) It is the service of the Redeemer Himself. In redeeming us from iniquity He makes us His own, and sets us apart unto Himself. If redeemed we belong to the Redeemer. We love Him, we follow Him, we serve Him, we are His.
(2.) It is a pure service.
He does not merely separate, but purifies us unto Himself. He carries on such a sacred work in the soul, and effects such a marvellous change that the words of St. John are realised, ‘Every one that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure,’ and that we even know something of the blessing which He described in the words, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’
(3.) It is a zealous and active service.
If we are thus redeemed we are not to sitstill, and quietly rejoice in a holy abandonment of soul; but we are to be up and doing. There is a great work to be done for God, and who is to do it if they are idle whom the Lord has redeemed? We want no slothful, listless, inactive, self-indulgent believers. Our missions are crippled for the want of help; and our work at home sometimes seems paralyzed by the lukewarmness of professors. But those who are brought near to God, and purified as a peculiar people unto Himself, must be filled with zeal for His service; for the lukewarm professor is a scandal to the Church of God. The object of the Lord’s death was to call out a zealous people; and when there is no zeal, there is no effective result from the cross, for the purified people, redeemed by His grace, will, according to the text, be ‘zealous of good works.’
Now all this is a work at this present time in progress. It is not, like the atonement, complete, but is going on now. It is at this present time in progress in the Church. The people who form the purchased possession are being daily gathered in to God. He has not yet accomplished the number of His elect. The body of Christ is not yet perfected, and our earnest desireis that day by day, yes, this very day, immortal souls may be delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of His dear Son. So also is it progressive in the soul of each individual. We are not suddenly wafted into perfection, or made pure as Christ is pure. This chapter is a very clear proof of that, for while it speaks of the great purpose of the Lord’s death, viz., to redeem us from all iniquity it is full of exhortations to all classes amongst us against practical misconduct. It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the deliverance is not yet complete. There is temptation around and temptation within; sin in the world and sin in our own hearts; corruption in society and corruption in our own nature; so that even after we have actually experienced redeeming grace, we may say, as St. Paul did, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom. vii. 24.)
II. This leads to our second subject, the redemption power.
The redemption power is the Redeemer Himself, and so, as pointed out in a previous lecture, the Lord Jesus is called in Isaiah, lix. 20, ‘the Redeemer,’ and in the quotation of that passageRom. xi. 26, ‘the Deliverer.’ And this applies whichever way you understand the words. If you apply them to the curse of sin it is He that delivers from that curse by the satisfaction of the law through His precious blood. He paid the ransom, and in the Father’s name He has set us free. Or, if you apply it to the bondage of lawlessness, it is equally He that delivers, for it is just as much His office to release from the dominion of sin by the power of the Holy Ghost as it was to remove the curse. In either sense the passage brings Him before us as a present living Deliverer, not merely one who has given Himself for us, but one who is now engaged in actually delivering us from all iniquity and purifying unto Himself a peculiar people. The first clause, ‘He gave himself for us,’ describes His work on the cross finished at once and for ever; the latter part, ‘That He might redeem us from all iniquity,’ His present work as a risen and living Saviour, continuously employed in delivering and purifying His Church. Whatever we may think of the clause, ‘that he might redeem us from all iniquity,’ this is clearly the meaning of the words that He might ‘purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.’ Sothat either way we are brought to the indisputable and most important lesson, that in our great struggle against sin, either without or within; either in the world or in our own hearts; and in our efforts to aim at the practical Christian life exhibited in this chapter, we may take the greatest possible encouragement from the fact that it is the present office of our living Lord to deliver and to purify. We may be profoundly conscious of the deep, inbred corruption of our own nature. We may know by bitter experience how often we have failed; we may be humbled to the dust at the thought of our shortcomings; we may be ready to say, as St. Paul did, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ but in the midst of it all we may look up in peaceful trust, and thank God for the delivering power that is in Christ Jesus, our risen and living Head. We may say as St. Paul did, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’
But there is one thing which we must be sure to remember. The purifying power depends entirely on the reconciling blood. According to this text, in order that He might redeem and purify, He first gave Himself for us; or, in other words, in order that He might deliver, He firstmade satisfaction for sin by bearing its burden Himself. We may, therefore, be perfectly sure of this, that we shall never know His power as a deliverer unless we first know the power of His atonement. Not one amongst us could ever have been delivered if the curse of God had not first been removed, and that curse of God could never have been removed except by the fact that the Son of God became a curse for us. Till that was done there was no hope of deliverance, and till that is applied or appropriated there is no hope of personal holiness. Before the special, or peculiar, people could be purified unto Himself, they must be set free from the curse, and redeemed through the power of His blood. Not one of that people has the curse of God still resting on his soul, for so long as the curse remains it is perfectly impossible that any one of us should be one of the people. While, therefore, you trust in a Saviour living to deliver, be sure you keep well in view that same Saviour having died to atone. His life will be nothing to you unless you first know His death. You will never experience the power of His work in you until you realise His most gracious work completed for you on the cross. That blotting out of sinthrough the precious blood of the Lamb must lie at the foundation of all true holiness. It is the rock on which we stand, and unless there be a sure standing ground there is not the slightest hope of progress. If, therefore, you wish to press onward, and earnestly desire to be heart and soul holy to the Lord, and I am sure I am speaking to many that do, be sure you keep close to the great old foundation truths. Trust your living Lord as your living Deliverer. Accept His promises of the Holy Spirit’s power in all their fulness and throw yourself on Him for their complete fulfilment; but while you do so remember that the one power which in the purpose of God could remove the curse was the atoning blood, and the one hope of your being partaker of the deliverance rests altogether on the one fact that the great God our Saviour in boundless mercy gave Himself for you.
‘And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.’—Luke, xxi. 28.
‘And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.’—Luke, xxi. 28.
Itis perfectly clear that the redemption alluded to in these words is something still future. It is the bright hope which is to cheer the little flock through the storms of the latter days. When the world is full of perplexity, and men’s hearts are failing them for fear, the Lord’s people are to look up in calm, happy, peaceful, trusting hope in the full assurance of their approaching redemption. ‘When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.’ It is perfectly clear, therefore, that our Lord was not speaking of the great redeeming act which took place eighteen hundred years ago on Calvary, but of the final deliverance, the completionof His redeeming work, when He will come in His kingdom and set His people free. This final deliverance must be our subject in this lecture. May the Lord bless it to our souls, and grant that, when the time comes, we may be amongst those who rejoice in the blessing!
I. The redemption here spoken of is the deliverance of Jerusalem. We must not isolate the passage from its context, or forget that the words were spoken to Jewish believers. Thus up to the end of the 24th verse our Lord foretold the destruction of Jerusalem with the terrible afflictions that were to precede it, concluding with the words, ‘Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.’ Then follows the description of the latter days, and all the perils preceding the advent, concluding with the words, ‘Look up, and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.’ Surely, then, there is a connexion between the 24th and 28th verses. The one describes the desolation, and the other the recovery: the one the bondage, the other the freedom; the one the captivity, the other the deliverance; the one the iron yokeon the neck of the captive, and the other the glorious restoration when the Deliverer shall appear in Zion.
II. But though the passage refers to the restoration of Jerusalem, it clearly does not stop there, but includes the redemption or deliverance of the Church. When I speak of the Church I am not speaking of those who have nothing more than outward Christianity: but of the Church of the first-born, that Church described in the words, Eph. v. 25, ‘Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.’ This Church is described in Eph. i. 14, as His ‘purchased possession,’ and all the members of it are now His own. They are His own by virtue of the ransom of the eternal covenant, and it is therefore called, Acts, xx. 28, ‘The Church of God which he purchased with his own blood.’ And they are His own by the call of the Holy Ghost, gathering them out from a wicked world, and by His divine power incorporating them into Christ. Thus in one sense they have been redeemed already, for the ransom has been given for theirlife, and they have found forgiveness through His precious blood. They may say, every one of them, as St. Paul did in the 7th verse of that same chapter in the Ephesians, ‘In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.’ But yet, according to the 13th verse, they are still waiting for redemption, and during the waiting time are solemnly sealed unto God, and assured of what is to come by the present earnest of the Spirit. ‘In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise;’ and so, in chap. iv. 30, they are told not to grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom they are ‘sealed unto the day of redemption.’ There is, therefore, hereafter to be a redemption of the purchased possession, a redemption of that which has already been redeemed, or, in other words, a final deliverance of the ransomed Church. The ransom is paid, but the time is not yet come for the ransomed Bride to be finally free, and presented to her Lord in glory.
It is delightful to look forward to this coming restoration when we think of the present position of the Church of God surrounded as it is by a wicked world outside, and, what is far more painful, harassed by division, false doctrine,inconsistency, and formalism within. I am not surprised that St. Paul compares this present waiting time to the night, for there is a great deal all around us exceedingly dark, but we must never forget the approaching morning. We may be greatly distressed by witnessing such defects and difficulties as we do witness in the Church of Christ, but according to this passage we need not be disheartened, for our redemption draweth nigh. The Deliverer will soon come to Zion, and there will be no difficulties then. The Redeemer Himself will soon set all things straight. There will be complete light when the Sun of Righteousness arises with healing in His wings. We are not, therefore, going to be downcast by difficulties, or to doubt His truth because we see His prophecies fulfilled; but, whatever happens, whether persecution from without, or false teaching within, we will remember His own most assuring words, and act on them, ‘When these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.’
III. It will be a redemption of the body. I need not stop to prove that the body is notyet free from the bondage of the curse. Though the soul is free in Christ Jesus the poor body is still subject as much as ever to the strong hand of death. So we read, Rom. viii. 10, ‘If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.’ So that, even when Christ is in us, and the Spirit is life, the body still remains dead, subject to death, and actually dying as we all well know. The brightest and holiest living believers are not exempt from the trials of a death-stricken body.
But if this is the case with the living Church, how much more is it with the vast multitude of those who are now asleep in Jesus! Think of the noble line of the saints of God who were once, as we are, serving God on earth in the flesh, but who are now in the condition, to us quite inexplicable, of disembodied spirits, with the soul resting before God while the poor body in utter weakness lies prostrate in the grave. I cannot imagine a more marvellous contrast than that which now exists between the present condition of the two parts of man while awaiting the resurrection of the dead. It is impossible to imagine any thing more utter, more complete,more hopeless, than the bondage and subjection of the body; or more blessed, more peaceful, more joyous, than the present rest of the soul in the presence of the Lord Himself. But when the redemption takes place, as predicted in this verse, the body itself will be set free. You will see this in a moment if you connect two verses in Rom. viii. From ver. 10 we have already found that, even when the Spirit is life because of righteousness, the body is still dead because of sin; and the result is, as you read ver. 23, that even those who have the first-fruits of the Spirit groan within themselves. They share in respect of death the groaning of a death-stricken world. But in the midst of it all they can rise above it in triumphant hope, for they are waiting, and looking out for deliverance, as you read in the latter part of that verse, ‘Waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.’ The body therefore shall be redeemed and rise again. They that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; and the very sea shall give up the dead that are in it. I know that men say it is impossible, and I know that there are difficulties connected with the subject which to the eye of man appear to prove its impossibility;but there is no such thing as impossibility with God. He who created can restore. He who said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light, He can say ‘Let there be life,’ and there will be life. So that, although to us death is quite irresistible; though no wealth can ward it off, and no physician’s skill can baffle it; and although, when once it has taken place, all human hope is gone for ever; yet, when the Redeemer comes to Zion, death itself will be powerless: those dear ones who now sleep in the grave will come forth in risen bodies at the bidding of their blessed Saviour; and He, the gentle, and loving, and tender Lord Jesus, will fulfil His grand prophecy as given by the prophet Hosea (xiii. 14), ‘I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O death, I will be thy plagues! O grave, I will be thy destruction; repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.’
IV. There will be a redemption of the soul,i.e.a completion of that sacred work now being carried on in the soul through the power of the Holy Ghost. There is clearly a wide difference between the sacred work of deliverance ascarried on in the body and the soul; for the deliverance of the body is not yet begun, but will be accomplished in one sudden act when the Lord shall appear. But it is not so with the soul; for in it the deliverance has been long since begun, and is day by day being carried out by the power of the Holy Ghost. Our blessed Lord has already delivered us, if we be in Him, both from the curse and dominion of sin: from the curse, for ‘we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins;’ and from the dominion, for ‘sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace.’ Rom. vi. 14. If, therefore, we are in Christ Jesus, and under grace, our soul is delivered from the dominion of sin, though our body is not yet delivered from the dominion of death. You may ask, then, how it is that the soul still wants deliverance? Look at the 12th verse of the sixth of Romans, only two verses before the one just quoted, and you read, ‘Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, that ye should fulfil it in the lusts thereof.’ It is, therefore, there, though it must not reign. It has life in it, and it is prepared to reign, but it must be put down. It has its lusts and desires, but theymust be mortified, and not fulfilled. The power of sin is not extinct or quiescent, but in full vigour still. The old original corruption is not destroyed, but remains in full activity. The grace of God triumphs over it, but it is there; and there, not in a state of death, but of life and vigour. If you think you have done with sin you will find it will soon crop up, if in no other form, in pride of heart, and blindness to its power. We can therefore perfectly understand the complete harmony of the two verses in Rom. vii., that are sometimes thought contradictory: verse 6, in which he says, ‘Now we are delivered from the law,’ and verse 24, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ From the law, as involving the curse, we are already free; from the infection of a ruined nature we are still waiting to be delivered. And think for a moment what a deliverance that will be. Ye that have been deeply humbled at the discovery of your own utter unworthiness, ye that would describe yourselves as St. Paul did as ‘the chief of sinners,’ and ‘less than the least of all saints,’ think what it would be to be set at once absolutely free from indwelling sin. Picture to yourselves the day of His coming. Think ofyourself on your knees in the morning, confessing sin, and praying for pardon and for help, for mercy and for grace. And then think of yourself at night, having in the course of the day beheld Christ as He is, and having been so transformed by the sight that you have become altogether like Him, without a single temptation or difficulty left, and with every stain and tendency to sin rooted out, and gone for ever. But this is what we are led to expect in these words of St. John: ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’ No wonder, then, that with such a hope in view our Lord directs us, even in the midst of the fears and perplexities of the latter days, to look up, and lift up our head, for our redemption draweth nigh.
But one thing we must remember. We shall never rejoice in the redemption or deliverance that is to come, till we can rest in the redemption or atonement that is complete. There are many amongst us, I sadly fear, who find no pleasure in the thought of the Lord’s return, and in many cases there can be no doubt aboutthe reason. They have found no peace through His cross. I believe that no one ever cares for the Lord Jesus Christ as a Deliverer from either death or sin till He knows Him as the Redeemer from the curse. No man can look up and lift up his head if he expects to rise again to the resurrection of damnation, and to be cast forth for ever with all the guilt of all His sin on his miserable head. Therefore it is that, till you know the atonement by blood, you will never care for the deliverance by power. Till you know the sufficiency of the ransom you are sure to dread the coming of the Deliverer, as, I fear, too many do. Look backwards, then, as well as forwards, I most earnestly entreat you. Accept the assurance of the coming deliverance in all its fulness. Accept it in all its joy. Rejoice in the blessed hope. But take care; and while you look forward in the hope that your redemption draweth nigh, remember also to look back on that finished atonement, and never rest till you can appropriate these words to the Ephesians, ‘In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.’
One word before we close respecting the sacred feast of the Lord’s supper, in which it isour sacred privilege as believers to gather round the table of our Lord. It is a connecting link between the two parts of redemption, the atonement and the deliverance, the cross and the advent. In it we look backwards and forwards, as we are taught 1 Cor. xi. 26: backwards, for we show the Lord’s death; and forwards, for we do so ‘till He come.’ When He does so, we shall sit down with Him at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and our symbolic service will cease in the realisation of the fulness of His blessing. Oh! how I pity those who are moved neither by memory or hope, by the recollection of what He has done, or the hope of what He is about to do; who never show the Lord’s death according to His own appointment, and never act as if they were waiting for His coming!
‘And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.’—Rev. v. 9.
‘And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.’—Rev. v. 9.
Inthe preceding lectures it has been my privilege to direct attention to the important subject of redemption, and I think we cannot do better in closing the series than examine in this lecture what they think of it in heaven. They know there more than we do here, for they have passed within the veil, and they know by experience those great and most blessed results which we can only anticipate in faith. In their case sight has taken the place of hope, and through redeeming grace they are in actual enjoyment of the visible presence of God. Of course, therefore, they are better able than we can be to form a just estimate of what the Lord Jesus has done for their salvation. Let usthen devote this morning to the study of what they think of redeeming love.
We all know very well what a natural craving there is to look in beyond the veil, and to see what is passing amongst those who have already entered. What would we give for one half-hour’s intercourse, or for even a telescopic view of that happy assembly now gathered before the throne? What would it be to us if for one short minute we could see the heavens opened? But something of this kind was permitted to St. John, as we read, chap. iv. 1, ‘A door was opened in heaven,’ and a voice said, ‘Come up hither.’ Immediately he was in the Spirit, and having entered he saw some of those very things which we long to see, but which no other living man has ever been able to see, and to report. St. Paul may have seen them when he was caught up to the third heaven, but if he did, he was not permitted to tell us what he saw. But St. John was expressly employed to do so. He was distinctly commanded to write the things which he had seen, and this book is the result.
What, then, did he see? He saw in the first place a throne, and on the throne one sitting. Round about the throne were twenty-four seats,and ‘upon the seats four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.’ But besides the elders there was a marvellous manifestation of spiritual life, inexplicable to us who have no experience of the life of a spirit without the body: for in chap. iv. 6, we read, that ‘in the midst of the throne,’ and round about the throne, were four living ones. These living ones were clearly in the most intimate relationship with the throne and with Him who sat on it. They were as near to it and to Him as was possible, for they were in the midst of it, and round about it, while in an outer circle stood a vast host of angels. From chap. v. 11, we see clearly that these angels were in an outer circle, not so near the throne as the living ones, for there we read: ‘I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the living ones, and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.’ In this description the only real difficulty is with reference to the elders and living ones, for we are not distinctly informed who they were. According to the reading of ver. 9 and ver. 10, as given us in our dear old English Bible, it appearsperfectly plain that together they formed the company of those whose ransomed souls are now resting before the throne, for they said in their hymn, ‘Thou hast redeemedusby thy blood . . . And hast madeusunto our God kings and priests.’ But there seems to be a doubt about that ‘us,’ and, therefore, we must not rely too much on it. But on the whole there is reason to believe that the vast multitude of happy spirits now before God awaiting the resurrection, are represented by this inner circle of elders and living ones already brought as near as possible to the throne, and surrounded by the vast company of angels, who, having been sent forth to minister unto them during their pilgrimage, can rejoice without jealousy in their blessedness, even though they are placed in a position of greater honour than themselves.
But our business in this lecture is not to discuss the persons seen in heaven, but rather to examine what they think of redemption, to learn how far their account of it agrees with our own, and to find in what estimation they hold the redeeming work.