REDEMPTION, n. Deliverance of sinners from the penalty of their sin, through their murder of the deity against whom they sinned. The doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy religion, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.
Unto Yourself did you make a great and holy name in Thy world, and unto Your people did You achieve a great deliverance and redemption. Whereupon your children entered the sanctuary of Your house, cleansed Your temple, purified Your sanctuary, kindled lights in Your holy courts, and appointed these eight days of Hanukkah in order to give thanks and praises unto Your holy name.
Now, the redemption which we as yet await (continued Imlac), will be that of Kalki, who will come as a Silver Stallion: all evils and every sort of folly will perish at the coming of this Kalki: true righteousness will be restored, and the minds of men will be made as clear as crystal.
Say, heavenly pow'rs, where shall we find such love?Man's mortal crime, and just th' unjust to save.
And now without redemption all mankindBy doom severe.
The first result of redemption is separation, that is, departure, a going out. God never redeems a person and leaves him in the old position to continue living in the world.
Feeling the unity of himself and the universe, the man who lives in spirit is no more a separate and self-centered individual but a vehicle of the universal spirit. … He throws himself on the world and lives for its redemption, possessed as he is with an unshakable sense of optimism and an unlimited faith in the powers of the soul.
Why, all the souls that are were forfeit once;Found out the remedy.
Condemned into everlasting redemption for this.
A man walks down the streetIn a cartoon graveyard.
O, if there be any kind of life most sad, and deepest in the scale of pity, it is the dry, cold impotence of one, who has honestly set to the work of his own self-redemption.
Underneath all the arches of Scripture history, throughout the whole grand temple of the Scriptures, these two voices ever echo, man is ruined, man is redeemed.
Christ is redemption only as He actually redeems and delivers our nature from sin. If He is not the law and spring of a new spirit of life, He is nothing. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God," — as many, no more.
By Christ's purchasing redemption, two things are intended, His satisfaction, and His merit. All is done by the price that Christ lays down, which does two things: it pays our debt, and so it satisfies; by its intrinsic value, and by the agreement between the Father and the Son it procures our title, and so it merits. The satisfaction of Christ is to free us from misery, and the merit of Christ is to purchase happiness for us.
Whatever in Christ had the nature of satisfaction, was by virtue of His suffering or humiliation; whatever had the nature of merit, was by virtue of His obedience or righteousness.
Look, therefore, which way we will, whether at the direct Scriptural statements of death as the penalty of sin, or at the agony of the cross as a means of rescue, or at the joy of the angels of God over a rescue; we see from either that it must be a work of infinite and eternal consequence — the work of redemption.
What a memorable epoch that will be when Jesus Christ shall -have vacated the throne of mercy! What an awful event in the history of our universe will that be when the dispensation that cost so much, that lasted so long, when that shall cease, when that shall disappear and be no more at all in the universe of God Almighty! It seems to me the very thought ought to start every sinner to his feet in a moment! Lord Jesus, help! that we may embrace the offered mercy!