Bible Hygiene

10/14

REDEMPTION

TO redeem is to purchase back from sale or from slavery; to deliver from the bondage of sin or its penalties. God proposed to redeem the fallen race through the sacrifice of his Son. This great redemption is threefold: First, from the condemnation and practice of sin; secondly, from the grave; and thirdly, from the disgrace of the fall. BHY 207.1

1. Redemption from the condemnation and practice of sin. “Sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 The apostle doubtless refers particularly to the moral code; yet the transgression of any law established by our beneficent Creator to govern our actions, is sin. Said the angel, referring to the Redeemer, “Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins.” 2 BHY 207.2

Man fell under the power of appetite. The Redeemer set his people an example of self-denial, and he says to them, “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” 3 But what of those who profess to be followers of Jesus, but are really drunkards and gluttons? How does the Master esteem those who gratify appetite without regard either to expense or to the physical and moral influence of such a course upon themselves and their children? Ministers and people, clergy and laity, chew, smoke, and snuff the “filthy weed,” simply because it produces, for the time being, a pleasant sensation. They pollute their breath, their blood, their clothes, their dwellings, and the atmosphere of even their places of worship, to gratify morbid taste. Slaves to tobacco! The moral and intellectual in servitude to the animal! The Protestant, church-going people of America pay out more money annually for tobacco, tea, and coffee, to poison their blood, than for the gospel of Jesus Christ, to purify their lives. Professed Christians will yield to the clamors of appetite for luxuries and indulgences which stupefy their higher powers and strengthen the baser passions, and at the same time they will talk piously of the self-denial and cross of the Christian life! This certainly falls but little short of a burlesque upon the Christian religion. In the words of Charles Beecher, “O unhappy church of Christ! fast rushing round and round the fatal circle of absorbing ruin! Thou sayest, ‘I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked’!” BHY 207.3

“Know ye not,” says Paul, “that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” 1 Again the apostle appeals to the church at Corinth in these words: “Beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 2 BHY 208.1

To those, and to those only, who by self-control turn from a life of excess, and choose a life of self-denial and purity, will the atoning blood of Christ be applied. It is said of the numberless hosts of the saved, that they “washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” 3 The robes of character were not given to them for the occasion, to hide their sins. No; they washed their robes. BHY 208.2

Some of the rich blessings which it is the privilege of Christians to enjoy in this life are mentioned in these stirring, triumphant words of Paul: “That ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” 1 BHY 208.3

And the beloved John declares the message that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” 2 The Redeemer, in overcoming, set an example of self-control to his followers, and then closed his life of disinterested benevolence by death on the cross. Here is seen his matchless love for sinners. Those who deny themselves, who overcome as he overcame, and by faith wash their robes of character and make them white in his blood, may sing of redeeming power and love here, and they will find eternal ages none too long to swell the happy strain, “Worthy, worthy is the Lamb!” BHY 209.1

2. The redemption from the grave, by the resurrection to immortal life, of all who are in this life redeemed from the condemnation and practice of transgression, is the second stage in redemption. It is in this life that we obtain a moral fitness for the next. The change to immortality is not a moral change; it is simply an exchange of the corruptible body for one that is incorruptible. This second stage in the Redeemer’s stupendous achievement of man’s redemption, is expressed by the apostle thus: “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.” 3 BHY 209.2

3. The redemption of the righteous from the disgrace of transgression completes the work of the Redeemer. The redeemed are then on higher and safer ground than that on which Adam stood before his fall. In the estimation of God, of Jesus, angels, and all created intelligences in the universe, they stand the same as if our first parents had not disgraced themselves and their children by yielding to the power of appetite. The Redeemer has borne their sin and shame, and has accepted, in his own sinless person, the punishment due them. Man’s failure to form a righteous character was complete. Jesus took man’s place, and endured the test; his success in working out a righteous character in man’s behalf, is as complete as was Adam’s failure. To those who, in a life of self-denial and self-control, have by faith followed their triumphant Head, the righteousness of Christ is imputed. In their Saviour the redeemed lose all their shame and disgrace. Not only will they then stand complete in the purity of their own robes of character, which they have washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb, but they will shine with the brighter luster of the divine righteousness and eternal glory imputed to them from their adorable Redeemer. BHY 209.3