God planned our redemption. His Son and the Holy Spirit executed it. This redemption demonstrated the eternal defeat of Satan. Jesus stripped him of his authority and dominion after He had paid the penalty of man’s transgression.
In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. (Ephesians 1:7–8)
Our redemption was not a beggarly thing, for it was with the riches of His grace and the abundance of His power.
He unveiled Himself in our redemption.
It was a legal redemption. It required the Deity to suffer for humanity and pay the penalty of man’s transgression.
It was a demonstration of God’s wisdom. Man could not have planned it.
It was unveiling of God’s prudence and sagacity, His perfect planning, and the Trinity’s cooperation.
It was a demonstration of love, that new kind of love that Jesus unveiled to the world. He revealed His ability to meet man’s need and satisfy the claims of justice on the basis of love.
He was enabled, on legal grounds, to impart to man His own nature.
Redemption was a demonstration of the ability of God to take care of His own creation.
The first thing that He must do after He had redeemed man out of the dominion of the adversary was to recreate man on legal grounds, making him an absolutely new creation.
Forgiving man’s sins and leaving him in his natural condition would be of no value. Man is not only a sinner by practice, but by nature. He is more than just a transgressor; he is an outlaw by nature.
The Father must give him a new nature. He made it a possibility for us to become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
Jesus said, “Except one be born anew [margin: from above], he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3 ASV).
James 1:18 says, “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth” (ASV).
We are not only born of God, but we are the will of God.
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12–13)
Notice He gives to the unregenerate man a legal right to become a child of God. It is not because of God’s sufferance or pity; every man has a legal right to eternal life.
Jesus was delivered up on the account of our trespasses, and was raised again from the dead when we were justified. (See Romans 4:25.)
He was not raised until man was legally justified. Here justification is set to man’s account. It is similar to the justification that Abraham had when he was circumcised. This justification gives the sinner a legal right to eternal life.
He does not have to plead with God to save him. He can come and meet God and tell Him, “I want to take Your Son as my Savior, and I confess Him as my Lord. I know that He died for my sins and that He was actually made sin on my behalf that I might become the righteousness of God in Him. I am going to act on my legal right and take Him as my Savior, and I know that You now give me eternal life, and I will become Your legal child.”
Now notice that we “were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).
Turn back to Ephesians 2:10; here, it is stated just a little more clearly: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
You see, it was of His own will that He brought you forth.
If you will tum to 1 Peter 1:23, you will see that we are begotten again, “not of corruptible seed,” as natural man is begotten, but “by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”
Just as Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit, so we are conceived of the living Word. That Word gives us life and the Spirit gives us birth. That is based upon 1 Peter 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
You see, the new birth is based upon legal grounds, and the title deed is the open sepulcher and the seated Christ.
I want you to note this fact: we have been recreated, born of God, and have become partakers of the divine nature.
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:12–13)
We are partakers of His own nature. We are actually born of God. If this is true, then we have become the righteousness of God in Christ.
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Read that over and over again until it soaks into your spirit consciousness.
Say out loud, “There is therefore now no condemnation to me, for I am born of God. God is my actual Father. I am His actual child.”
Then you whisper the words of Romans 8:31 to your own heart: “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”
Your Father is for you. That is His challenge to you. He looks upon us as the perfect work of His hands.
Note the next verse: “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”
Notice the two words “with him.” Along with the gift of eternal life, all of the things that Jesus wrought and did belong to us.
Then hear the next message that comes ringing from the heart of the Father:
Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth [makes righteous]. Who is he that condemneth? (Romans 8:33–34)
There is only one person in the universe who could condemn, and that is Jesus. He is our heavenly attorney. He is the attorney general, and only He can press charges against you.
The devil’s charges against you do not amount to anything, for they are the charges of a liar and a murderer. He has no standing in heaven.
It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (Romans 8:34)
Notice the next verse: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”
Who shall separate us from the love of our Advocate, Jesus, our own risen Lord, the One who died for us, the One in whom we were recreated, the One in whom we have become the righteousness of God? Who shall separate us from His love?
Then after enumerating all the things that Satan could do to us, Paul climaxed it with this: “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Romans 8:37).
No living creature, including the devil, shall be able to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I want you to know that when God undertakes a job, He is able to consummate it. He undertook to set man right with Himself, and He did not trust that work to the angels or any other being save the Godhead.
The Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, through the living Word, have made man a new creation, the very righteousness of God in Christ.
I want you to notice the next step, John 15:5: “I am the vine, ye are the branches.”
Here is the utter oneness of the new creation with its Head. Colossians 1:18 tells us that Jesus “is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.” He is the Head of the new creation. Out of the vine, or His body, has come every one of the new creation folks.
When He prayed that we might be one as He and the Father are one, notice the language He used.
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.…I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. (John 17:21, 23)
The denominations are not one, but the new creation folk are one.
There is no such thing as man’s work uniting the body of Christ. God alone can do that.
Man has separated the visible church, but he has not been able to separate the invisible church, the body of Christ.
Some Facts that We Should Know
We know that we have eternal life, the nature of the Father. It is not set to our credit; it is imparted to us.
We know that the nature of the Father that has been given to us is righteousness.
We know that the branch is part of the vine and has the vine life and nature. The branch is like the vine. If the vine is righteous, the branch is righteous. The branch is in the vine, and the vine is Christ.
We know that our bodies are the temples of God. (See 1 Corinthians 6:19.) We have asked the Holy Spirit, who raised Jesus from the dead, to make His home in our bodies, and He has accepted the invitation.
The natural man does not ask for the Holy Spirit; he asks for eternal life and to be recreated. “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” (Luke 11:13). Only sons will ask Him and only to sons does He give the Holy Spirit. Because you are a son or daughter, you have a legal right to the Holy Spirit.
Peter said to the Jews as they stood and listened to him, “Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38 ASV).
The condition of receiving the Holy Spirit was that they be born again.
In the eighth chapter of Acts, the same thing is brought out. Philip had been down in Samaria preaching the Word. Many had accepted it and he had baptized them. Peter and John came down and laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
In the nineteenth chapter of Acts, we have the story of the first converts in Ephesus. Paul found a little group who had been baptized by John the Baptist. They were not born again; they had not heard that Christ had died and risen again. All they knew was John’s baptism.
Paul preached Jesus to them and they were bom again and baptized. He then laid his hands upon them and they received the Holy Spirit.
Notice, he did not lay his hands upon them until after they were born again.
The Lord has a way of clearing up all of these things if we are attentive to the Word.
Not only have we received eternal life and the Holy Spirit, but we have been invited to fellowship with His Son.
First Corinthians 1:9 tells us that we have been “called unto fellowship” with Jesus Christ. That ties up with 2 Corinthians 6:1: “We then, as workers together with him.”
You see, we are laborers together with Him. Fellowship means that I have assumed the burdens of the Master, and I am His fellow helper. I am laboring together with Him.
The branch is the fruit-bearing part of Christ. The fruit I bear is not only my spiritual development and growth in grace, but it is the souls I gain and the believers whom I lead into their inheritance, rights, and privileges in Christ.
I have become an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ that I may bring forth fruit.
The man who does not bring forth fruit will eventually lose his fellowship.
Sonship, righteousness, and the indwelling One will bring no joy to his heart because he has failed to be a fruit-bearing branch.
E. W. Kenyon, The Hidden Man: The Secret to Living in the Spirit Realm (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2025).