GRACE FOR TODAY Radio Message #518

           

            A DIVINE PLEDGE

           

            Pastor Don Fortner

            Grace Baptist Church of Danville

            2734 Old Stanford Road

            Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438

 

            The seal of the Spirit is that which gives us the assurance of salvation. The Spirit of God is the earnest of our inheritance, assuring us of it until the resurrection, here called the redemption of the purchased possession.

 

            We usually think of redemption only in terms of our blessed Savior’s work of atonement; but that is a mistake. Redemption, in biblical terms, is the complete deliverance of God’s elect from sin and all it’s consequences upon the grounds of justice satisfied. It is a threefold work. It involves blood atonement, the gift of life, and the resurrection of the body.

 

Redemption By Ransom

 

            The redemption of our souls from the curse and penalty of God’s holy law was accomplished by the shedding of Christ’s precious blood as our Substitute (Gal. 3:13; 1 Pet. 1:18-20). Our sins could never have been remitted without the shedding of Christ’s blood (Heb. 9:22). The Lord Jesus delivered all God’s elect from the hands of God’s offended justice by paying the justly demanded ransom price for us. It was this ransom price which secured and justly demands our complete deliverance from all the consequences of sin and entrance into heaven’s everlasting glory (Job 33:24).

 

Redemption By Regeneration

 

            However, atonement alone could never save anyone. It is not enough that our sins be put away. We must also have a new, holy nature created in us, if we are to live before God in the happiness and bliss of heaven’s glory. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. In regeneration and effectual calling, every chosen, ransomed sinner is created anew in Christ by the Spirit of God and is thereby delivered from the reigning power of sin (Rom. 6:14-20; 2 Cor. 5:18; 1 John 3:5-10).Believers are men and women over whom sin no longer has dominion. Being made kings and priests unto God, their lives are no longer ruled by their passions and lusts. Believers reign over their passions and lust by the Spirit of God. Still, there is more.

 

Redemption By Resurrection

 

            There is a day coming when the Lord Jesus Christ will come again. When he comes again in power and great glory to tread under his feet all his enemies and to be admired in all his saints, when he comes to make all things new, he will finish his great work as our covenant Surety by raising the bodies of his elect from their graves and translating those who remain here until the end into the blessed liberty of resurrection glory (1 Thess. 4:13-18; Rev. 21:1-6). This is what Paul refers to when he speaks of the redemption (deliverance) of our bodies. Then, when our great God and Savior makes all things new, we shall be thoroughly, completely, eternally delivered from the very being of sin and from all the consequences of sin. Imagine that!

 

AMEN.