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The Reality of Redemption
by E.W. Kenyon
Redemption has been a theological word in the minds of most believers.
We know the Greek word. We knew it's literal meaning, but we did not know the new meaning that the Father has put into it. So many of the Greek words used in classical Greek have now a new and richer meaning in the Pauline Revelation, and so we are going to study Redemption from perhaps a new angle. We will begin with Rom_3:21, "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets."
You remember that the key word for Romans is Righteousness, or the ability to stand in the Father's presence without a sense of guilt or inferiority -- stand there without condemnation or the sense of sin consciousness.
The Reason
That could not be as long as we were under the dominion of an enemy. It could not be as long as that enemy's nature was in our spirits; so there must come a Redemption from the nature of Satan and a redemption from the fear of Satan and of his works.
So the Spirit through the Apostle, tells us a Righteousness of God has been discovered, has come to light and that Righteousness comes to man through faith in Jesus Christ, and belongs to all those who acknowledge Christ as Savior and confess Him as their Lord. They are justified freely on the grounds of grace, through the Redemption that God wrought in Christ.
That Redemption is based upon the fact that God laid our sins and diseases upon Jesus -- that "Him who knew no sin, God made to become sin that we might become the Righteousness of God in Him."
He Put Sin Away
Not only did He become the sin-bearer, but God accepted His substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf. He was delivered up on account of our trespasses, for God made Him sin with our sins. He was raised from the dead because He had put sin away; He had satisfied the claims of Justice.
After that He was made alive in spirit, that is, recreated. He was the firstborn out of death. After that, He was declared Righteous and made a New Creation by the life of God imparted to Him. Then He met the Adversary in his own kingdom and stripped him of his authority, and took from him the dominion that he had over the world. When Jesus arose from the dead He arose, not only because He conquered Satan. It was as though we, individually, had been the conquerors, just as though we had been there in that dark region and had conquered Satan, stripped him of his authority and risen from the dead. Then Christ rose from the dead and Redemption became a settled fact, a closed issue.
Now you can understand Eph_1:7,"In Whom we have our Redemption through His blood, the remission of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence."
In Whom We Have
Note carefully, "In Whom we have." That means in Christ we have (present tense) our Redemption out of the hand of the enemy, so Satan has no dominion over us. We have our Redemption from sin and it's judgment. "Sin shall not lord it over us because we have entered the realm of grace through the New Birth" (Rom_6:14, Twentieth Century translation).
Col_1:13,Col_1:14, "Who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in Whom we have our Redemption; the remission of our sins."
Note carefully, that we have been delivered out of the authority of Satan. He has no dominion over us. Don't let the opinion of theologians take away the reality of this fact. You are Redeemed. Satan has no more right to reign over you than the Pharaoh of Egypt had to reign over delivered Israel in Palestine. We have been delivered out of Satan's authority, and we have been translated over into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Our all is now in Christ, the Son of His love, in Whom we have our Redemption. It is ours just as the money you have in your pocketbook that you earned honestly is yours. Now this Redemption from Satan is a present-tense fact, for you have this Redemption now.
An Eternal Redemption
Heb_9:11,Heb_9:12, "But Christ having come a High Priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy Place, having obtained Eternal Redemption."
In the tenth chapter it says that He not only obtained an Eternal Redemption for us but that He sat down at the Right Hand of the Majesty on High. He carried His blood into the Holy of Holies, and our Redemption was sealed. The Supreme Court of the Universe passed upon it and declared that whosoever accepted Jesus as Savior and confessed Him as Lord could come into God's Family, and be free from condemnation.
Satan is eternally defeated. That Redemption is an Eternal Redemption. God wrought it in His Son. That Son satisfied the claims of Justice. That Son is seated at the head of the New Creation at the Right Hand of the Father, and the New Creation is free from the dominion of Satan. Christ is the Head. You will enjoy your rights in this Redemption as you know its reality.
Heb_9:15, "And for this cause He is the Mediator of a New Covenant, that a death having taken place for the Redemption of the transgression that was under the First Covenant, they that have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance."
It is very important that we know that Christ's death on that Cross and His substitutionary sacrifice not only met our needs, but it reached back and cancelled all the promissory notes of that First Covenant, so that every man that believed in the blood of bulls and goats and was covered by that blood was perfectly redeemed by the blood of Jesus carried into the Holy of Holies. They were redeemed as servants; we are redeemed as sons.
Heb_9:26, "But now once at the end of the age (or where the ages meet) hath He been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."
As long as one holds his Redemption as a theory or as a doctrine it will bring him no sense of reality, but as soon as he looks up and says, "Father, I thank Thee for my perfect Redemption, that this body of mine is no longer under the dominance of Satan, that my mind and senses are no longer to be dominated by the Adversary; I am free, and by Thy grace I will not be entangled again in the yoke of bondage" -- then it is real.
The New Creation
As long as Christianity was simple forgiveness of sins to me with a theological justification, there was no sense of reality in it; but when I came to know that Jesus was recreated, and read "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee", I know that He raised Him from the dead, now no more to return to corruption (Act_13:33 - Act_13:35).
Col_1:18, "And He is the Head of the body, the church; Who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence."
You see, Jesus was made sin with our sin. He became our substitute. We died with Him. We were buried with Him. We were judged with Him. He went to the place where we should have gone, and He suffered there until the claims of justice against us were met, until all the claims were satisfied. Then the grave could hold Him no longer.
1Pe_3:18 declares that He was made alive in spirit, that is not of the Holy Spirit, but His Own Spirit; for He had died in Spirit and His body had become mortal, so He must be made alive.
1Ti_3:16 declares He was justified in Spirit. Now we understand the Miracle of His substitution, for when He was recreated, we in the mind of justice were recreated.
Eph_2:10, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them."
That New Creation took place just as Redemption took place. Our New Creation became a fact in the mind of Justice the moment He was made alive in spirit.
Then before He arose from the dead, He conquered Satan as our Substitute. After Satan was conquered, his authority broken, Jesus arose from the dead and shouted to His disciples, "All Hail". Then He said to Mary, "Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended unto the Father: But go to My brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto My Father and Your Father; and to My God and to Your God." In this we have the substitutionary work of God in Christ to make natural man a New Creation.
Now we understand Joh_3:3 - Joh_3:8. Jesus said to Nicodemus: "Except a man be born anew from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God." He answered Jesus, "But how can these things be?" Jesus replied, "Except a man be of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom."
Water no doubt, means the Word. So if a man is born of the Word and of the Spirit, he enters the Kingdom of God.
You see, the difference between the natural birth and the New Birth is that one of them is physical, and the other, spiritual. It is your human spirit that is recreated.
Now you turn to 2Co_5:17, "Wherefore if any man be in Christ, he is a New Creation, the old things are passed away; behold they are become new." Here is a description of the New Creation that is unveiled to us in Rom_6:1 - Rom_6:16, where we have the legal side of the New Birth.
The Vital Side
This man that is in Christ is a New Creation, a new species. He has received into his spirit the Nature and life of God. When He did, the old nature that had dominated him passed away and a New Nature took its place. "And all these things are of God who has reconciled us unto Himself through Christ and given unto us this ministry of reconcilation to a lost world" (2Co_5:18).
But note carefully that this man is in Christ. He has accepted Christ as his Savior and confessed Him as his Lord (Rom_10:9 - Rom_10:10). 2Pe_1:4 says that He made us "partakers of the Divine Nature". 1Jn_5:13, "These things have I written unto you that ye may know that ye have Eternal Life, even unto you that believe on the Name of the Son of God."
You can see that the New Creation is brought into being by the Life and Nature of God, and this New Creation is awaiting every unsaved man. The work is accepted, finished by Jesus when He sat down at the Right Hand of The Father. It was not finished on the Cross. It begun on the Cross, but it was consummated when the blood was accepted and Christ was seated.
It is necessary that we notice Eph_2:8,Eph_2:9, "For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should glory."
The New Creation does not come through our repentance or the surrendering of ourselves or the confessing of our sins, but it comes by grace pure and simple. All we do is accept it. It is ours, a gift based upon legal grounds.
What is grace? It is love unveiled in our Redemption. It is the hungry heart of God assuming mans sins; yes, assuming the responsibility of man's creation, acting as though He were guilty of every sin that man committed.
Now we understand Gal_6:15, "For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a New Creature."
No works that man could do would have any value. Why? Because every man was spiritually dead and the good things that he would do to redeem himself would be the works of a spiritually dead man.
But God came into the Sense Realm in the person of His Son, and that Son becomes sin on our behalf, assumes all that man had ever done and ever was and meets the claims of justice, satisfies the need of fallen man.
Then He sits down at the Right Hand of the Father, and sends the Holy Spirit Who convicts men through the Word, and recreates them.
The Revelation Of Grace
He gave to Paul the Revelation of His Grace. This revelation is an unveiling of the finished Work of Christ that is consummated in the New Birth.
You understand that all the plans of God were unveiled to us in the First Covenant. He is pointing to the great event when God on legal grounds can impart to man His Own Nature and make Him a New Creation. You can see how forgiveness of sins would not touch the issue, that the confirming of a child by a priest could not reach the issue. There must be a New Creation. That child must receive Eternal Life, the Nature of God, for the natural man is without God. He is without hope, and He is in the world. He is Satan-ruled.
It is very important that we understand the difference between forgiveness and the remission of sins. A man receives remission of sins when he is Born Again. He may receive forgiveness of sins after He is Born Again as often as He sins.
You remember 1Jn_1:9, " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
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