Salvation and Redemption'

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The term "salvation" is quite well known to Christian people. The term "redemption" also is familiar, but perhaps not used as often. We can think of salvation as preservation in the Day of Wrath. Redemption has to do with the restoring of man’s inheritance as a son of God in God’s image.

(11/27/2005) If someone were to fall overboard and we rescued him or her we could say we saved that person, that is, saved him or her from drowning. This tells us nothing about what kind of a life the individual would live from that time. The concept of rescuing someone is similar to the manner in which the term "salvation" often is used in the New Testament.

Redemption has to do with gaining back a possession we had lost because of hardship, or because we had been deceived, or had been overcome by a powerful adversary. For example, if we had been forced to pawn a personal item in order to obtain much needed money, we might at a later time be able to redeem our possession from the pawnbroker by paying the amount we borrowed plus interest.

Satan is the pawnbroker. We sold our inheritance to him in the Garden of Eden. We ourselves do not have the price of redemption. The Lord Jesus Christ is our Redeemer. His atoning blood pays the full price for our redemption. However Satan, although the debt has been paid in full, is unwilling to give us back our inheritance. Therefore the Lord Jesus has to go to war to help us regain what we forfeited in the beginning.

When we receive Christ as our Lord and Saviour we are sealed unto the Day of Redemption. It is as though a buyer went through a warehouse containing obsolete machine tools, such as drill presses and turret lathes, and marked some of them, the ones he wanted to save, with a piece of chalk. The remainder of the machinery was to be discarded as scrap iron. This is what it means to be sealed to the Day of Redemption, so to speak.

Redemption then would be compared to the buyer placing the "sealed" machinery in his factory, cleaning it up, and putting it to work.

We have been "sealed" to the time of redemption It is our point of view that the time of redemption has begun, and is symbolized in the Bible by the three Jewish convocations that came after the Jewish feast of Pentecost: the Blowing of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the feast of Tabernacles. We have been at the spiritual fulfillment of Pentecost. Now we are entering the spiritual fulfilments of the remaining three feasts.

Being forgiven through the blood atonement and filled with the Spirit provides the tools we need for the operation of redemption. We are ready to move forward to the restoration of that which was forfeited in the Garden of Eden. There are four aspects of the inheritance that we were given in the beginning, and now must be redeemed from Satan by Christ and we working together. Christ, our Redeemer, will not hand us back these four aspects by Himself, and we are unable to wrest them back by ourselves. It is Christ and we working together.

It is like power steering in an automobile. The steering wheel will not turn by itself. We have to turn the wheel in the direction we desire to go. Then the motor will take over and turn the car in the right direction. We have to ask to go in the right path. Then our Redeemer will provide the power.

We have been forgiven our sins through the blood of the cross. Now there are four aspects of our inheritance that are to be restored in the Day of Redemption, which we believe has commenced: fellowship with God; eternal life; self-control; and Paradise.

When Adam and Eve sinned they hid from God. They lost fellowship with Him. Today people are afraid of God and do not want Him too close to them. This is true of many people in the world and also of some Christians. The Bible tells us that if we would walk with God we must come out from that which is unclean and live a holy life. If we desire to do this, Christ will help us.

Eternal life was lost when Adam and Eve were barred from the Tree of Life. Today we can eat from the Tree of Life as we overcome sin. Jesus Christ is the Tree of Life. When we turn away from sin, with His assistance, we are given in the spirit realm His flesh to eat and His blood to drink. We should be eating and drinking of Him at all times, always turning away from sin. This is how we grow in eternal life. If we choose to live by His body and blood, instead of just by natural food, He will raise us to Himself in the Day of Resurrection.

The third aspect of our inheritance is self-control. Adam and Eve were made in the image of God. They had no sin nature. They were innocent of evil. God pronounced them as being "very good."

But sin was crouching at the door. Sin is spiritual, not physical. God told Cain it was up to him to master sin, because sin desired to have Cain, to posses him, to control him. Sin controls us until through Jesus Christ we are able to master it. Until such time we have sin-control in place of self-control.

The Book of Matthew tells us that at the end of the age the messengers of God will remove sin from the Kingdom. We see this happening today as little by little we are able, through Christ, to gain victory over our sinful impulses. The regaining of our self-control is a very important aspect of redemption. Up to this point in time most of us believers have been guided by sin-control rather than self-control.

A point was raised during the night service that bears emphasizing. In the Book of Genesis, God told Cain that sin was crouching at the door and wanted to have him. God told Cain it was up to him to master sin. Cain did not do this, and sin entered him and drove him to murder his brother.

Someone asked me how Cain could master sin apart from the power of Christ. My response was that Cain had to make a decision to master sin, and then God would have helped him.

Here is a concept that needs to be stressed in our day. We have been taught that we cannot overcome sin, and that it is not necessary that we overcome sin. Absolutely unscriptural on both counts.

When we read the New Testament exhortations concerning the sins of the flesh we find the writers telling us to just stop sinning. This exhortation is found in many passages. The warning to stop sinning is not qualified by the idea that there is nothing we can do and Christ must do it all.

Any believer can stop sinning, as he becomes aware of his unclean behavior, by asking the Lord to forgive him and help him. It never is the will of Christ that a believer knowingly continue in sin. Any person can be delivered from the most severe bondages by relentlessly coming to Christ for deliverance. The power of Christ to deliver us from sin is limitless.

The inheritance that must be restored to us (redeemed) comprises fellowship with God, increasing measures of eternal life, and self-control, that is, the ability to stop sinning.

The final aspect of our inheritance is Paradise. Paradise is the environment that was enjoyed by Adam and Eve in the beginning.

We cannot be admitted to Paradise until we have regained our self-control. If we were to be allowed into Paradise while sin was still controlling us, Paradise would become like the world is today.

We know Christ took the thief on the cross to be with Him in Paradise. We can assume that the thief still had a sin-nature. We know also that no sin ever will be permitted to remain in the Kingdom of God. We conclude, therefore, that at some point and in some manner Christ, with the cooperation of the thief, will deal with the sinful urges in the thief. If the thief does not cooperate, he will be expelled from Paradise.

It is true also of us. We have a sinful nature. God accepts us on the basis of the blood of the cross. After that, Christ deals with us concerning our sinful nature. If we cooperate willingly with Christ in the work of redemption, we will continue in the Kingdom. But if we refuse to cooperate with Christ in the work of redemption, we will not inherit the Kingdom of God. It is as simple as this.

You can hear the sermon at listen. http://www.wor.org/audio/audio.htm

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