Doctrinal Definitions

 •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 8
 
1. PURCHASE means that Christ's blood or death has bought the world, and all that are in it to Himself and to God (Matt. 13:44; 1 Cor. 6:20;7:23; Heb. 2:9; 2 Peter 2:1; Rev. 5:9;14:3). But there is this difference: the believer recognizes the purchase, the unbeliever disowns it and denies Him who purchased all by His blood.
2. REDEMPTION is by power founded on the shed blood of the Lamb, as we see in Ex. 12-14. By the resurrection of Christ, the Christian now knows this for his sin. That is, he knows it for his soul and will know it for his body when Christ comes again. He will make it good for Israel in the day of manifestation.
3. RECONCILIATION is the bringing back to God of what had been severed by sin. This is applied to both persons and things, as we see typically in Lev. 16, and doctrinally in Col. 1.
4. ATONEMENT consists of the two parts: united for us in the bullock, analyzed for Israel in the two goats of Lev. 16. They set forth Jehovah's part in propitiation-the people's in substitution.
5. JUSTIFICATION means that the believer in Jesus, though in himself ungodly and confessedly so, is accounted righteous with God by virtue of the work of Christ, the full measure of which is Christ risen from the dead (1 Cor. 1 and 2 Cor. 5).
6. FORGIVENESS is the remission of the sins of those who believe in Jesus through faith in His blood. It is not merely by their passing over, as of old, but their remission (Rom. 3).
7. SANCTIFICATION of the Spirit is the setting apart to God of all that are born of God, to obey as Christ obeyed, and the sprinkling of His blood (1 Peter 1). This personal or absolute sanctification is followed up by practical sanctification in the measure of their faith and therefore relative. It should also be progressive. There is also a position of sanctification by blood (Heb. 10) which might not be vital in the soul, and so the position be lost.
8. ADOPTION in the Christian sense is the sonship which the believer receives as his new relation to God through faith in Christ Jesus.
9. PERFECTION means that full growth which is the characteristic of the Christian who goes on from the elements of truth in Christ after the flesh, to Him, dead and risen and ascended to heaven, and our place in Him.
10. GLORIFICATION means the application to our bodies of that power of Christ risen. This will conform us completely to His image in glory (Rom. 8; Phil. 3).
11. REGENERATION goes beyond "new birth" in John 3, which is a change purely subjective, and was always true of saints since the fall. That change of place only enables one to say, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
W. Kelly
“The ANGEL OF THE LORD encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them." Psa. 34:7.