THE KING’S BUSINESS
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was “His blood,” the outpoured life of Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Peter 1:18, 19). It was the highest price that could be paid. Our redemption cost us nothing, it is to be had for the taking, but it cost God the Father and Christ the Son an infinite price. As to the exact significance of “through His blood,” Bishop Moule puts it well: “On this great subject it is enough here to say that a careful review of New Testa ment passages under the word blood will show that the prevalent and leading ideas associated with it, in religious connections, are expiation of guilt, ransom of person and ratification of covenant. In all these can be found the uniting idea of forfeiture of life as the due of sin.” The death of Christ was the price He paid to redeem us (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13). It was a “propi tiation,” i. e., the means of appeasing God’s holy wrath at sin (see Rom. 3:25, SR. V .; 1 John 2:2). The stroke that was due to us God “made to light upon Him,” our voluntary representative (Isa. 53: 6 , 8 , R. V.)- God “m^de to strike” is a still more accurate rendering than the “made to light”, the marginal translation of the Hebrew given in the Revised Version (see also John 10:11, 18, 19). God took the penalty of sin 7 into His own heart and forgave us. The fundamental thing secured by our redemption is “the forgiveness of our tres passes” (R. V.). Two other blessings are wrapped up in that. “Trespasses” means a “falling out,” or “falling alongside,” i. e., a falling out, or departure from the straight path of God’s will, into forbidden, wicked, and dark by-paths that end in death. Through Christ’s atoning blood all these wicked departures are forgiven. The Greek word translated “forgiveness” means “dismissal,” “sending away.” The thought is that because of the atoning blood of Christ God has forever dismissed our sins from His mind (cf. P§. 103:12). Through Christ, our scapegoat, our sins have been taken away into a land uninhabited, where they shall never be heard from again (Lev. 16:8-10, 21, 22). Forgiveness of sins is not something the believer must do some-
verses they occur twice. God’s choice of us before the foundation of the world (v. 4) and His foreordination of us into adop tion as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, was all “to (rather, unto) the praise of the glory of His grace (i. e.,' His loving favor all unmerited by us).” How wonderful His grace, His loving favor, all unmerited by us, shines forth in all this. We see the glory of His grace in all this and unless we are blind we'must indeed praise Him for it with hearts that are full. And not only do we praise Him for it, but the whole heavenly world as well praise Him for it-(cf. Eph. 3:10, 11). The glory of His grace will be the theme of heaven’s song through the coming ages of ages.' This grace He bestowed upon us as a free gift (v. 6 , R. V.) “in the Be loved.” The Beloved is,, of course, Jesus Christ, God’s Beloved One (see Matt. 3:17; Mark 12:6), and our Beloved One as well (1 Peter 2 :7)_. All this gloriously gracious eternal purpose of God regarding us was IN HIM. It was He who made possible this gracious purpose on the part of a holy God toward vile sinners, and it is all worked out through Him as a channel, and it is in union with Him that we enjoy the fruits of it. We are altogether unlov able in ourselves, but as we are “in Him” God has already bestowed His grace upon us in Christ, and all that we have to do is to appropriate as individuals this grace to ourselves. Monday, June w. Eph. 1 : 7 . In this Beloved One “we have our redemption,” i. e., deliverance, first from the guilt of sin, and afterwards from its power and. its penal consequences. The primary thought of the word “redemption” is deliverance by the payment of a ran som. The thought of a ransom paid often disappears in the usage of the word and bnly the thought of deliverance alone remains, but in the words before us the thought of a ransom paid for our deliver ance lingers in the word. The price paid
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