There are two aspects of redemption, the legal aspect and the vital aspect.
The legal side is who we are in Christ, the vital side is who Christ is in us.
The finished work of Christ on the Cross, was that he took our fallen nature upon himself, he became a sin offering in his soul, and all the consequences of that sin he took into his soul and body on the Cross, we were crucified together with him, so that he might impart his divine nature to us.
Our responsibility on earth is to appropriate all his divine attributes in our daily walk with him, by obeying all his commandments in the New Testament, which are called imperatives.
We do this through revelation. We see like in a mirror, “which is the Bible”, all his divine nature, and then we tune into it in our spirit and we become it in our walk with him.
This is the process of sanctification, or transformation which is living by a new life source. It is no longer us who live but Christ who lives in us.
YHWH orders our steps so that we find ourselves in situations, and we react to them in the fallen nature that we received from Adam and Eve, then our spirit through the Holy Spirit convicts us, and we look to Jesus and see how he would respond, and then we tune into that divine aspect of his nature and appropriate it so that it is written on our heart and it becomes our response in our daily life.
We begin to live by every word that proceeds out of his mouth, which becomes a revelation to us and then we walk in it. This is why it is called a walk with him.
We obey every word that becomes a revelation to our spirit, which are commandments “by grace through faith”, and then we become that word, because our obedience to him is a participation in the divine nature. (And learning the ways of YHWH through his dealings with people since the foundation of the world.)
It is impossible to live the Christian life in and of ourselves, this is our first lesson. Only Christ or his Spirit, can live the Christian life through us.
As we continually join our spirits to him, we become one spirit, so that it is on longer us who live but Christ who lives through us. Our spirit becomes the spirit of Christ through this process or walk with Him.
We are given the Holy Spirit who lives in our body to help us in this transformation process. We are led by the Holy Spirit into all the fullness of Jesus.
We go from grace to grace, faith to faith, strength to strength and glory to glory.
My Job as a teacher is to allow the Holy Spirit in me to teach you all the commandments of God in the New Testament, and all the types of Christ in the Old Testament and how to appropriate them.
The legal side of redemption is who we already are in Christ in heaven. We are perfect in Christ, we are justified, we are righteous, holy and without blame, we are glorified, we have been conformed to the image and likeness of Christ. We possess all His attributes in heaven, to see him as he is, is to be conformed to his likeness.
The vital side of redemption is who Christ becomes in us. The Holy Spirit’s job is to take the provision of Christ and minister it to us. Jesus become to us here on earth, everything we need. He becomes our righteousness, our wisdom, all the fruit of the Spirit to us.
Our responsibility is to appropriate his provision.
The earth is our school, it has just all the right conditions to develop the male and female sons of God, and our faithfulness to the light we receive determines our positions in the government of the Kingdom of God, when we graduate the school of the earth.
Redemption has been a theological word in the minds of most believers.
We know the Greek word. We may know its literal meaning, but we did not know the new meaning that the Father has put into it.
So many of the Greek words used in the classical Greek have now a new and richer meaning in the Pauline Revelation, and so we are going to study redemption from a new angle.
Romans 3: 21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference.
The key word for Romans is righteousness, or the ability to stand in the Father’s presence without a sense of guilt or inferiority—stand there without condemnation or the sense of sin consciousness.
THE REASON
This could not happen if we were under the Law of the Old Covenant. “If we were under the dominion of the enemy”. So, there must come a redemption from the fallen nature and a redemption from the fear of Satan and of his works.
So, the Spirit through the Apostle Paul, tells us a righteousness of God has come to light, and that righteousness comes to mankind by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and belongs to all those who acknowledge Jesus as Savior and confess Him as their Lord.
They are justified freely on the grounds of grace, through the redemption that God wrought in Christ.
That redemption is based upon the fact that God laid our sins and diseases upon Jesus—that “Him who knew no sin, God made to become sin that we might because the righteousness of God in Him”
2 Corinthians 5: 21 For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
HE PUT SIN AWAY
Not only did He become the sin-bearer, but God accepted His substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf. He was delivered up on account of our trespasses, for God made Him sin who knew no sin. He was raised from the dead because He had put sin away; He had satisfied the claims of justice.
After that, He was glorified. He was the firstborn out of death. Then He met the adversary in his own kingdom and stripped him of his authority and took from him the dominion that he had over the world.
When Jesus arose from the dead, He arose, not only because He had put sin away, but also because He had, as a substitute, conquered Satan.
It was as though we, individually, had been the conquerors, just as though we had been there in that dark region and had conquered Satan, stripped him of his authority, when we were together with him and rose from the dead. When Jesus rose from the dead redemption became a settled fact, a legal fact.
Ephesians 1: 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence.
“IN WHOM WE HAVE”
“In whom we have.” That means in Christ we have (present tense) our redemption out of the hand of the enemy, so that Satan no longer has dominion over us.
We have our redemption from sin and its judgment. “Sin shall not lord it over us because now we have entered the realm of grace through the new birth.” (Romans 6:14)
Colossians 1:13–14: “Who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love; in whom we have our redemption; the forgiveness of our sins.”
The word forgiveness “aphesis” is a bad translation, it actually means deliverance in the Greek.
Delivered and translated are in the past tense, it is a legal aspect of our redemption.
Have is in the present tense, it is a vital aspect of our redemption, but we must learn how to appropriate it so that it becomes our daily experience.
We have been delivered out of the authority of Satan. He has no dominion over us. Don’t let the opinions of theologians take away the reality of this fact. Do not let your current belief system deceive you.
I used to believe you could lose your salvation, and would be going through severe withdrawals from alcoholism, crying out to God please do not let me die and go to hell. Demons would torment me if I fell to sleep, so I would try to stay awake.
Then years later I would see them leave my body and float above my room, and would tell them to leave in Jesus’ name and they would leave and the compulsion to drink, would leave with them, but I would still be very sick. But I still did not even realize I had authority over them. They would then wait for an opportune time and come and tempt me and I would yield to them, because I could not get the thoughts out of my mind. I did not realize I had authority over them and could make them obey me. Tell them to go from me in Jesus name!
When I first got saved and started reading the bible in 1983, I thought there were only a few who would make it to heaven. I was a drug addict, alcoholic and fornicator, and would repent hundreds of times, but fell back into sin and then would repent again, a cycle I could never get free from.
I had a religious spirit and was very critical and judgmental and argued with people. I would try to find a church that told me that I was not saved, so that I could get saved.
You are redeemed. If you are truly born from above, you cannot lose your salvation, those who apostatized were never truly born again.
Satan has no more right to reign over you than the Pharaoh of Egypt had to reign over delivered Israel in Palestine.
We have been delivered out of Satan’s authority, and we have been translated over into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
We are now in Christ, the Son of His love, in whom we have our redemption.
It is ours just as the money you have in the bank, but you need to learn how to withdraw that money, or it will not benefit you and you will live in poverty. Now this redemption from Satan is a legal past tense fact, for you have redemption now legally, you just must learn how to draw on it, so that it becomes your daily experience.
AN ETERNAL REDEMPTION
Hebrews 9: 11 But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
In the tenth chapter, it says that He not only obtained an eternal redemption for us, but that He sat down at the right hand of the Father in heaven. He had carried His blood into the Holy of Holies, and our redemption was sealed.
In the courts of heaven, it was decreed that whosoever accepted Jesus as Savior and confessed Him as Lord could come into God’s family and be free from condemnation.
Satan is eternally defeated. That redemption is an eternal redemption.
God performed it in His Son. That Son satisfied the claims of justice. That Son is seated as the head of the new creation at the right hand of the Father, and the new creation is free from the dominion of Satan.
Christ is the head. You are his body. You will enjoy your rights in this redemption as you know its reality.
Hebrews 9: 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, h so that we may serve the living God!
15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
Hebrews 9: 24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.
As long as one holds their redemption as a theory or as a doctrine, it will bring them no sense of reality, but as soon as they look up and says, “Father, I thank you for my perfect redemption, that this body of mine is no longer under the dominance of Satan, that my mind and physical senses are no longer to be dominated by the adversary; I am free and by your grace I will not be entangled again in the yoke of bondage”—then, it is real in their daily life.
THE NEW CREATION
Colossians 1: 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.
You see, Jesus was made sin with our sin. He became our substitute. We died with Him. We were buried with Him. We were judged with Him.
Ephesians 2: 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
That new creation took place just as our redemption took place, just as righteousness took place. Our new creation became a fact in the mind of justice the moment He offered his blood as a propitiation.
When He arose from the dead, He conquered Satan as our substitute, and he disarmed him of authority.
John 20: 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.
In this we have the substitutionary work of God in Christ to make natural man or woman a new creation.
John 3: 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.
John 3: 5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Water is the washing of regeneration through the Word. So, if a man is born of the Word and Spirit, he enters the kingdom of God.
Titus 3: 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.
1 Peter 1: 23 having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.
The difference between the natural birth and the new birth is that one of them is physical, and the other, spiritual. It is your human spirit that is born again.
2 Corinthians 5: 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!
Romans 6:1What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may increase? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
THE VITAL SIDE
The person that is in Christ is a new creation, a new species. They have received into their spirit the nature and life of God.
When they did, the old nature that had dominated them passed away and a new nature took its place.
2 Corinthians 5: 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
This person is in Christ. They have accepted Christ as their Savior and confessed Him as their Lord.
Romans 10: 9 because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For one believes with the heart, leading to righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, leading to salvation.
2 Peter 1: 4 Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature.
1 John 5: 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
The new creation is brought into being by the life and nature of God, and this new creation is awaiting every unsaved person.
The work is accepted, finished by Jesus when He sat down at the right hand of the Father. It was not finished on the cross. It was begun on the cross, but it was consummated when the blood was accepted and Christ was seated.
Ephesians 2: 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.
The new creation does not come through our repentance or the surrendering of ourselves or the confession of our sins, but it comes by grace.
All we do is to accept it. It is ours, a gift based upon legal grounds.
What is grace? It is love unveiled in our redemption. It is the heart of God take upon himself man’s sins; yes, taking on the responsibility of man’s creation, acting as though He were guilty of every sin that mankind committed.
Galatians 6: 15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.
No works that man or woman could do would have any value. Why?
Because mankind had a fallen nature and the good things that they would do to redeem themselves would be the works of a spiritually dead person.
But God comes into the physical sense realm in the person of His Son, and that Son becomes sin on our behalf, assumes all that mankind has ever done and ever was and meets the claims of justice, satisfies the need of fallen creation. Then He sits down at the right hand of the Father, and sends the Holy Spirit, who convicts people through the Word, and imparts his seed in their spirit.
THE REVELATION OF GRACE
YHWH gave to Paul the revelation of His grace. This revelation is an unveiling of the finished work of Christ on the cross that is consummated in the new birth.
All the plans of God were unveiled to us in the first covenant. He is pointing to the great event when God on legal grounds can impart to mankind His own nature and make them a new creation. You can see how that forgiveness of sins would not solve the problem, that the confirming of a child by a priest would not change that child.
There must be a new creation. That child must receive eternal life, the nature of God, for the natural person is without God. They are without hope, and they are of the world. They are Satan-ruled.
It is very important that we understand the difference between forgiveness and the remission of sins.
A person receives remission of sins when they are born again. He may receive forgiveness (deliverance) of sins after he is born again as often as he sins.
You remember 1 John 1:9: “If we confess (say the same thing YHWH says) our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive (deliver) us from sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU REMEMBER?
- What is the difference between theological redemption and Christ’s actual redemptive work?
- How does Christ’s sitting at the right hand of the father affect us?
- What does Jesus’s victory over Satan mean to us?
- Explain Hebrews 9:15.
- Explain the expressions, “Jesus is the firstborn from among the dead.”
- Where does the Word tell us that sin had been put away?