Our Bible passage, introduction to Sunday 25th October service and hymns are below.
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Our principal verses are:
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Rom 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
Rom 3:26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Redemption In Christ Jesus
Paul tells the Corinthians, ‘Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures’ and it is necessary that believers believe what they believe ‘according to the scriptures’. As Paul indicates, this is especially so with regard to the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. The principal work of the Saviour was the redemption of His people from their sins. That work was undertaken and completed on the cross at Calvary. This is where Christ saved us. We call that work redemption and Christ is the Redeemer.
Buy-back
Redemption means to purchase back by payment of a ransom something that has been lost. This is what the Lord Jesus did by His death. The Lord tells us in Mark 10:45 ‘the Son of man came … to give his life a ransom for many’. The Man Christ Jesus by His death accomplished and secured the redemption and recovery of God’s chosen, covenant people who had been ‘lost’ in Adam’s fall. ‘Redeemer’ is one of the names given to Christ in scripture. The prophet Isaiah tells the church, ‘For thy Maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is his name: and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called’ (Isaiah 54:5).
A great price
The infinite value of our redemption becomes clear when we realise that only the Lord Jesus Christ was able pay the price required. No mere creature, angel or man, could ransom the souls of God’s elect. God Himself must perform this work. But even here is a problem. God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable. Christ alone in human flesh could represent, reconcile and deliver God’s people. Furthermore, He must pay the ransom price with His own life’s blood. Only the sinless Lamb of God, and only His precious blood, could atone for the lives of God’s people and totally remove their sin.
Precious blood
The essence of redemption is satisfaction. Holiness and justice require full and equivalent payment to recover what was lost and forfeited in Adam’s fall. The ransom price must provide satisfaction to the offended party. It must be paid in full. It must be equivalent, like for like. Christ must die so that His people might live and, having paid their debt, His people must live because full, equivalent satisfaction has been made for their sins.
Satisfaction
Our debt of sin was not simply cancelled on the cross but fully paid. By His suffering and death Christ completely satisfied the debt incurred and the ransom demanded. He obtained life for all for whom He died. His death and the ransom paid corresponded perfectly with the ‘purchased possession’ (Ephesians 1:14). It was a personal redemption of particular individuals. Christ obtained complete deliverance for His people from the dominion of sin, the slavery of Satan and the just demands of retribution from the transgressed law.
Reconciliation
But there is more. Our Saviour also secured for us peace with God. ‘When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son’ (Romans 5:10). God’s beloved, elect people were cleansed from their sins, made righteous and obtained peace with God by the blood of God’s Son. By free and sovereign grace we have been justified by Christ’s blood, and joyfully united to God, ‘through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement’.
A glorious inheritance
Yet there is more. The infinite value of Christ’s blood not only redeemed His people from death and brought us nigh to God but it also purchased for us an eternal inheritance and secured for us everlasting glory. By His death Christ delivered us from judgment and fitted us for God’s presence. He carried away God’s wrath and made us a new man, a new creation. He formed in us ‘a meek and quiet spirit’ and gave us a new, incorruptible heart. He purged our sins and made us ‘holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight’ (Colossians 1:22).
Our great Redeemer
This, and more, is encompassed in our great Redeemer’s great work of redemption. All the benefits and blessings gained for Christ’s people on the cross flow freely to them in Christ. He is their Surety and Substitute, to whom they were joined in the covenant of grace in the everlasting council of peace. All God’s elect people have redemption in Christ Jesus and all who have these blessings are given faith to believe and receive them ‘according to the scripture’.
Amen
Hymn 217
A Song of Redemption. Rom. 3. 24; Titus 3. 5-7
J. Kent 8.8.6.
1
Let Zion, in her songs, record
The honours of her dying Lord
Triumphant over sin;
How sweet the song, there’s none can say
But he whose sins are washed away,
Who feels the same within.
2
We claim no merit of our own,
But, self-condemned before thy throne,
Our hopes on Jesus place;
In heart, in lip, in life depraved,
Our theme shall be, a sinner saved,
And praise redeeming grace.
3
We’ll sing the same while life shall last,
And when, at the archangel’s blast
Our sleeping dust shall rise,
Then in a song for ever new
The glorious theme we’ll still pursue,
Throughout the azure skies.
4
Prepared of old, at God’s right hand,
Bright, everlasting mansions stand,
For all the blood-bought race;
And till we reach those seats of bliss,
We’ll sing no other song but this:
A sinner saved by grace.
Hymn 233
Saving Faith. Mark 16. 16; Acts 10. 43; 16. 31
J. Hart 8s
1
The sinner that truly believes,
And trusts in his crucified God,
His justification receives,
Redemption in full through his blood;
Though thousands and thousands of foes
Against him in malice unite,
Their rage he through Christ can oppose,
Led forth by the Spirit to fight.
2
Not all the delusions of sin
Shall ever seduce him to death;
He now has the witness within,
Rejoicing in Jesus by faith.
This faith shall eternally fail
When Jesus shall fall from his throne;
For hell against both must prevail,
Since Jesus and he are but one.
3
The faith that lays hold on the Lamb,
And brings such salvation as this,
Is more than mere notion or name;
The work of God’s Spirit it is;
A principle active and young,
That lives under pressure and load;
That makes out of weakness more strong,
And draws the soul upwards to God.
4
It treads on the world and on hell;
It vanquishes death and despair;
And, what is still stranger to tell,
It overcomes heaven by prayer;
Permits a vile worm of the dust
With God to commune as a friend;
To hope his forgiveness is just,
And look for his love to the end.
5
It says to the mountains, “Depart,”
That stand betwixt God and the soul;
It binds up the broken in heart,
And makes their sore consciences whole;
Bids sins of a crimson-like dye
Be spotless as snow, and as white;
And makes such a sinner as I
As pure as an angel of light.
Our Redemption by Jesus Christ is the source of many blessed gifts and privileges. God purposed before the beginning of the world to save a people and deliver them from their sin. He accomplished this by sending His Son to die on the cross and ransom His elect people with His precious blood.