GRACE FOR TODAY Radio Message #436
IS THE LORD JESUS
CHRIST
OUALIFIED TO BE OUR REDEEMER?
Pastor
Don Fortner
Grace Baptist Church of Danville
2734 Old Stanford Road
Danville,
Kentucky 40422-9438
Is the Lord Jesus Christ
qualified to be our Redeemer? Is the Son of God fit to be our Savior? To you
who believe, such questions are redundant. Yet, it will do our hearts good to
meditate once more upon our Savior’s glorious fitness to be our Redeemer. What
a fit Redeemer he is! There are none fit to redeem our souls but him. No animal
sacrifices could redeem us. No mere man could redeem us. No angel could redeem
us. Not even God in his strict character as God could redeem us. The incarnate
Son of God alone is a fit Redeemer for sinners. This is what God himself says
about his Son’s fitness to redeem and save his people…
“Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one,
and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen
out of the people.” (Psalm 89:19)
Christ's fitness for the work of redemption lies in the fact that he is
both God and man in one glorious person. It
was God the Son who was sent to redeem us. He is of the same nature, and
possesses the same perfections and attributes as his Father. He is the
brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person. This man
was and is in the form of God. Therefore, he thought it not robbery to be equal
with God. Jesus Christ is God the Son, the second Person of the holy Trinity.
He is the great and true God. Therefore, he is fit to be the Redeemer and
Savior of men. What a mighty redeemer he must be! He is Jehovah, the Lord of
hosts. Therefore he is equal to such a great work as this (Gal.4:4; 1 John
5:20; Tit. 2:13; Jer 50:34).
Our great Savior and Redeemer is both God and man (Isa. 9:6). He is the child
born, as man, and the Son given, as a divine person. He is Immanuel, God with
us, God in our nature, God manifest in the flesh. As such, as the God-man, the
man who is God, Christ is fit to be a Mediator between God and man; an Umpire,
a Daysman to lay hands on both; and to do the work required of the Redeemer of
men. Only because he is both God and man in one glorious person was he able to
make reconciliation for our sins and to take care of all things pertaining to
the glory of God, his justice and holiness.
As man, he could be made, as he was made, under the law, and so capable of
yielding obedience to it, and of bearing the penalty of it. It was necessary
that he do so, if he would be the Surety and Redeemer of God’s elect. As man,
he had blood to shed. It was with this most precious blood he redeemed us unto
God. As a man, he had a life to lay down, a sufficient ransom price for his
people. As a man, the Son of God was capable of suffering all the wrath of God
and dying in our room and stead, thereby making full satisfaction to the wrath
and justice of God for us!
As God, he was zealously concerned for the glory of God in all the perfections
of his nature. He secured the honor of all the divine attributes in that
redemption which he wrought out and accomplished as our Substitute.
As God, he put an infinite
virtue into his blood. Divinity united to humanity in one person made his
sacrifice of himself a full and adequate ransom price for the purchase of his
church and the redemption of our souls. Our great Savior’s divinity gave
support to his human nature under the load of sin as he suffered the wrath of
God for us. His divinity was able to carry his humanity through the work,
enabling him to endure the horrendous ordeal. Otherwise he could never have
endured the cup of God’s wrath and stood before his indignation until his
indignation and wrath were satisfied.
As both God and man he had a right to redeem. As Lord of all, he had a
right as well as power to redeem them that were his. The right of redemption
also belongs to him as a man as our near kinsman,. Therefore, he wears the name
Goel,
which signifies a redeemer, and a near kinsman (Lev. 25:47-49). No one could be
so fit a Redeemer of the Church as Christ, our near Kinsman, who is our head
and our husband. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Man, is our Boaz! He
is our fit Redeemer.
AMEN.