| The believer in Christ has been redeemed. He has been bought out of the slave-market of sin and bought back into God’s possession. Whereas we were “sold under sin,” now “ye are not your own … ye are bought with a price.” The purchase price was the blood of Jesus Christ, for “we have redemption through His blood,” and we are now “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” And we are not only redeemed from sin’s penalty, but also from its power, for “our Saviour Jesus Christ … gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works,” and “ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Moreover, the time is coming when our bodies shall be redeemed, and the “Holy Spirit of promise … is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory.” “Ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” |
