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206. Redemption in Christ

 

To redeem means to purchase and put something back where it originally belonged. God has purchased us off of the slave block of sin and Satan.  Roman slaves were sold off of a slave block with a spear stuck in the beam over their head.  It was said that they were “sold under the spear.”  Paul likens this to our being sold under sin as slaves.  Romans 7:14 says, “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.”

Ephesians 1:7 (KJV) says, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”

 

We need to know what privileges, advantages and RESPONSIBILITIES this purchase implies.  This purchase is not a future tense issue; rather it is past tense. This has already happened.  We already have been translated out of the Kingdom of darkness and been translated into the Kingdom of God.

“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13).

Acts 26:18 says, “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”

E.W. Kenyon, in his book The Bible in Light of Redemption - Kenyon’s Gospel Publishing, chapter 20, covers this entire subject in a beautiful way.  This quote is copyrighted material used by permission only from Kenyon’s Gospel Publishing Society.

 

REDEMPTION

 

The Object of the Incarnation

THE OBJECT of the Incarnation was that man might BE given the right to become a child of God (John 1:12).  Man could only become a child of God by receiving the nature of God.  Therefore Christ came that man might receive Eternal Life (John 10:10).

Man could receive Eternal Life only after he had been legally redeemed from Satan's authority (Col. 1:13-14).

Therefore the step in our study after the Incarnation is Redemption, which was really the object of the Incarnation.  We have seen that the qualifications of man's Redeemer demanded an Incarnate One.  Now we shall study how the Incarnate One legally redeemed man from the authority of Satan, and made it possible for him to receive the nature of God.

Man's Redemption is legal.  It swings around the law of Identification.  Identification is twofold.  It includes man's Identification with Adam and his Identification with Christ.

The entire plan of Redemption revolves around this twofold identification of man with Adam and with Christ.

 

Paul's Revelation

God gave to Paul the revelation of the finished work of Redemption and the present ministry of Christ.  Paul speaks of the fact that this revelation was given to him, in the following scriptures:

Romans 16:25-26.  He calls it "my gospel." It is a rev­elation of Jesus Christ, not from man but from God.  Galatians 1:6-17.  This tells where Paul received his revelation.  It is a revelation that had been kept silent but now has been made known.

Ephesians 3:1-12.  He reveals that his understanding in the mystery of Christ that had not been known to other generations was due to the fact that he received it by revelation.

Within this revelation which Paul received, as the basic foundation was the revelation of man's identification with Adam and with Christ.  When a child of God grasps clearly this two-fold identification, the foundation has been laid for the renewing of his mind.

Before we study this revelation of identification we shall study why it was necessary for a revelation of Re­demption to have been given after Christ had arisen, and ascended to the Father.

 

Necessity of Paul's Revelation

We saw in the first lesson of this course that there exist two kinds of knowledge.  One kind of knowledge is the knowledge of natural man.  It is derived by means of the five senses of the physical body.  The other kind of knowledge is that which is given to man by the Holy Spirit.  It is called Revelation knowledge.  The Word of God is this Revelation.

In the Incarnation the Revelation of Christ that was given to man was given to him on the level of the senses of his physical body.

John said in I John 1:1-2, "That which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we be­held, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life."

Man saw with his physical eyes Christ and His deeds.

The life of the Son of God, man saw lived before him.  He heard with his ears the words that He spoke, and he could touch Him with his hands.  The knowledge that man possessed of Christ during His life on earth was gained purely by his physical senses.  This physical revelation of Christ was not alone sufficient for man's faith in Christ as the Son of God or his understanding of Redemption in Him.

Matthew 16:15-17.  Peter made his declaration that Christ was the Son of God.  Then Christ made a strange statement.  He said: "Flesh and blood has not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven." That which Peter had seen, that which he had heard, and that which he had handled concerning the life of Christ, by means of the five senses of his nervous system (which lay embedded within his flesh) had not given this knowledge.

It had come as a special revelation from the Father.  However, it was only a temporary Revelation, for when Peter saw with his sense of sight the death of Christ and perhaps handled His lifeless body, all hope fled from his heart.

 

The Death and Resurrection of Christ as the Disciples Saw It

The disciples knew the meaning of the Crucifixion of Christ, His Burial, and His Resurrection, only through their physical senses.

They saw the beating of Christ; they saw the nails driven into His hands and feet.  They heard His words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." They saw and handled His body in the process of embalming it, as it was laid away for burial.

They saw the stone rolled away from the tomb and the empty grave clothes.  They saw and heard and handled the resurrected body of Christ.  They saw Him ascend into Heaven.

This physical knowledge, however, gave to them no insight into the meaning of the spiritual significance of Christ's death, burial, and Resurrection.  In the crucifixion of Christ, they saw only His physical suffering.  They knew nothing of the spiritual suffering of Christ as His spirit was made sin.  They knew not where Christ's spirit was or what He was doing during the time His physical body lay in the tomb.  They knew nothing of the conquering of Satan by Christ in His Resurrection.  They knew nothing of the Ascension of Christ with His own blood into the Holy of Holies.  They knew nothing of the ministry of Christ at the Father's right hand after He had left them.

 

A Revelation Needed

It was necessary that the Holy Spirit reveal the complete Redemption that was wrought in the Spirit of Christ in His Death, Burial and Resurrection.

I Corinthians 2:6-16 speaks of this Revelation-this wisdom, as it is called.  Verses 9-10, "Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not unto us God revealed them through the Spirit."

This Revelation that was needed could not be given until after Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came to guide them into all truth.

Now that we have seen the necessity of a Revelation of Redemption, we shall study Identification, the heart of the Revelation of Redemption.

 

Identification with Adam

Romans 5: 12-21 gives to us a clear picture of Identification.

Genesis 3 gives to us Adam's sin of High Treason, but for 4,000 years revelation had been silent upon this subject.  Now, Paul reveals that the human race was identified with Adam in his transgression.

Romans 5:12, "Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men." The death that entered Adam passed unto all men.

We notice here that it is not only physical death, but spiritual death, the nature of Satan.

Romans 5:14-19.  This death ever reigned over those who had not committed high treason, for by the one, or through identification with him, the many had died.

Romans 5:18.  Through identification with Adam the judgment came upon all men.

Adam's judgment became the judgment of every man.  Romans 5:19.  Through Adam, or because of Identification with him, all men were made sinners.

So Paul reveals that down through the ages and to the present day, sin has reigned in the realm of death where Satan is Lord, because of the fact that the human race was identified with the first man, Adam.

There are two sides to Redemption, the legal and the vital.  The legal is what God did for us in Christ; the vital is what God does in us in Christ.  So also there is a legal side and a vital side to the fall of man.  The legal is what Satan did to us in Adam and the vital is what Satan does in us when by nature we are children of wrath.

Vitally, we were not in the garden with Adam; but legally, his death, his bondage, his judgment and all that spiritual death made him, became ours.

Now God has redeemed man completely from every result of Adam's treason through the identification of the human race with His Son.  This is the message that this revelation is bringing to us in Romans 5:12-21.

If the Lordship of Satan over the human was due to the identification of humanity with Adam in his crime of high treason, it is legally possible for the works of Satan to be destroyed by the identification of the human race with the Son of God, the second Adam.

 

Christ's Identification with Man's Humanity

We shall now study the steps whereby the Son of God and humanity became identified in the legal side of man's redemption.

The first step was Christ's identification with our humanity.  This took place in His Incarnation.  John 1:14 and Hebrews 2:14, "Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same."

As we saw in our last lesson, He walked as the first man should have walked, doing the will of the Father-God.

This, however, was not a complete identification with man.  He had not identified Himself with the nature of man.  If Christ had partaken of the nature that reigned in the spirit of man at His Incarnation, He would have been spiritually dead during His earthly ministry.  He could not have revealed Him to man.  Therefore, His identification with the spirit nature was during His Crucifixion, when the time had come for Him to fulfill the purpose for which He had come into the world.

Isaiah 53:4-6.  The direct translation from the Hebrew into the English reads as follows: "Surely our diseases he did bear and our pains he carried;

"Whereas we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed because of our iniquities.  The chastisement of our welfare was upon him and with his stripes we were healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

This translation is taken from the Jewish translation of the Old Testament.

 

Christ's Identification with Man's Sin Nature

The Revelation that Paul received in II Corinthians 5:21 is that God actually made Him to become sin for us.

He not only bore our sins, but the sin-nature itself was laid upon Him, until He became all that spiritual death had made man.

In the mind of God, it is not Christ who hung on the Cross, but it is the human race.  So each one of us may say with Paul, "I was crucified with Christ" (Gal­atians 2:20).

In the garden we were not with Adam vitally, but we were legally.  In the same manner we were not on the Cross vitally with Christ, but we were there legally.  The identification of the human race with Christ was just as complete as was its identification with Adam.

Now that the Identification of Christ with humanity was complete, the steps in Redemption began.

The first step was to pay man's penalty.  The judgment that was man's fell upon Him and He was forsaken of God.

Isaiah 53:8, "By oppression and judgment He was taken away: And as for His, generation, who did reason. For He was cut off out of the land of the living.  For the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due."

The judgment, the stroke, was due man; but it fell upon Him, because they had become one,

He died under our judgment and we died with Him.  And as He paid our penalty in Hell we were identified with Him.  Psalm 88 gives to us the picture of a righteous man in Hell upon whom all the wrath of God lay bard.  The wrath of God lay hard upon Him, because He was one with us in identification.

Acts 2:24-28 shows to us the suffering of Christ in Hell.  It tells us that His soul was not left in Hell (verse 27) but that God raised Him up, having loosed the pangs of death.  The Greek word "pangs" means "intense suf­fering," showing that when Christ was raised His spirit was loosed from the intense suffering that He bore as our sin-substitute.

Christ suffered until God could justify the human race.

I Timothy 3:16 reveals that Christ was justified in Spirit.  He, in identification, had become so utterly one with us that He Himself needed justification when man's pen­alty was paid. (Rotherham says that Christ was declared righteous in spirit.)

The next step in Redemption was that He who had been made sin be begotten of God.

Hebrews 1:5, in speaking of the resurrection of Christ, says that the Father-God said to Him, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee."

Acts 13:33, "That God hath fulfilled the same unto our children, in that He raised up Jesus; as also it is written in the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee."

Jesus Christ, when man's penalty had been paid, had to be born of God and pass from death into life just as man, because He had become identified with our Spiritual Death.  After Christ had been justified in spirit and born of God, He conquered Satan as a man.  It is evident that Satan tried to hold Christ within his authority.  Satan did hold Christ until God could declare man righteous.

Romans 6:9 (Rotherham), "Who was delivered up for our offenses and raised on account of the declaring us righ­teous." When we were declared righteous, I Timothy 3:16 reveals, He was made righteous.  Then He was begotten of God, and in the power of His Deity, He met Satan and triumphed over him as a man.

Colossians 2:15, "Having put off himself the principalities and the powers, He made a show of them openly triumphing over them in it." He displayed them as His conquests.  Christ was the first man to free Himself from Satan's grasp and triumph over him.  When He arose as a man, Satan's forces were put under His feet. (Ephesians 1:20-23).”

 

Now that we understand the great gift and privilege, we need to understand our responsibility.

1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?”

 

We are no longer slaves to Satan, and God will not demand our slavery to Him. 

We do have a free will, which should be exercised now to become a love slave to Jesus. “And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:18).

We should no longer seek our own ways, our own will, our own comfort, our own prosperity, our own anything!  We should seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all things that we need, will be added to us (Matthew 6:33).

 

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