Plenteous Redemption

Psalm 130: 7. -“and with him is plenteous redemption.”

Amono all the beautiful and expressive figures of speech used in the Scriptures to express the manner of our deliverance, there is none more common and none more touchinof than that of EedemptiojS-. In ancient times when slavery was continually presented to view as immediately consequent upon war, when the soldier and even the commander were repeatedly carried away in chains; when women and children followed the processions of triumph and then plunged into perpetual servitude; when families were rent asunder and dearest friends sometimes held apart in remote countries; there was a peculiar freshness in the word Redemption. It told of ransom to be paid for the freedom of a beloved kinsman; a father, husband or son ;, of buying back — so the woi d means — from slavery; of delivering from merciless oppression and bodily fear. All the different methods of deliverance are in a general way called redemption. There is the strict and proper ransom or price laid down, for the purchase of the prisouer. There is the free and sovereign manumission, in which the master is the redeemer by an act of gratuitous emancipation. There is rescue by the strong hand of power, as when Abram delivered his friends; a figure often employed concerning God’s mighty interposition. There is the method of exchange or simple permutation, which is usual in all wars, and which has some striking points of analogy with the matter now before us. Something of all these methods may be discerned in the redemption of the soul by Jesus Christ; He sets us free by his sovereignty — he delivers us by the strong hand — lie takes our place that we may go free. But the radical idea

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is undoubtedly that of proper ransom, as when complete satisfoction is made by the payment of a debt. And it is only by this consideration that we come to understand the true method of gos|)el deliverance.

The condition of fallen man, under his guilt and penalty, at once justifies the application of such a figure. We were conquered and sold under sin, carried away captive and awaiting further pains: we were in misery. We were under God’s wrath and bound over to punishment. It was by our fault; and our ofl:ence bore the double character of debt and of crime. We were insolvent and could not pay; we were sinners and could not satisfy. We lay in chains, both of justice, holding us for execution, and of moral weakness and perversion, keeping us from all that is good. Death, in its marvellous depth of meaning, temporal, spiritual and eternal, had begun to seize upon us. Corruption and misery — here and hereafter, was what we had to look for. — From all this bondage there is a Deliverer. His deliverance IS a ransom, or price paid. He is said to

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‘redeem them that were under the law;’ as well as to ‘redeem us from all iniquity.’ He ‘redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.’ He ‘redeemed us to God by his blood.’ He laid down his precious blood as the ransom-price, as of a lamb without spot. We are ‘justified through the redemption that is in Christ.’ He is ‘made unto us redemption.’ He has obtained for us ‘eternal redemption.’ Such is the use of the image, and such the strain of Scripture teaching, upon this tender and momentous point; all going to show that Redemption imports nothino less than our deliverance from all the evils of the fall, by the incarnation work and sufferings of our only Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. All the redemptions and all the sacrifices of the old Hebrews looked to this, and were part of a system of preparations, training the mind of Grod’s people to expect and welcome a Deliverer of this kind. Believers under the Old Testament did not indeed perceive these things as clearly as believers under the ‘New. They saw in the future a Redeemer and a redemption; but they saw them dimly. Some were no doubt more favoured than others as to the extent of these views. Some, like Abraham, beheld Christ’s day and rejoiced. Some like Isaiah saw Christ’s glory and spake of him. Is. 6. John 12. Prophets and Psalmists discovered the reddening dawn, where the great Luminary was one day to arise. Luke 2:25. They waited for the consolation of Israel.

In which reason we are justified

in giving a New Testament sense to Old Testament expressions, as in the passage now before us. So to interpret them is no more than what we learn, from the apostolic mode of citing and expounding the Law and the Prophets.

In the text, a sin-burdened soul is crying out to God from the uttermost depths of guilt and condemnation. In the hope of forgiveness he waits upon God, and chides himself for des|)ondency. “Let Israel hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy; and with him is plenteous redemption.” This is the single point, upon which we propose to fix our thoughts, the

PLENl’EOUSNESS OF REDEMPTIOX, WHICH IS

WITH God. But here it becomes necessarv to look into the exact signification of the terra.

The word here rendered plenteous, is used in the original with much latitude of meaning, to express every variety of largeness, whether of quantity or number. To say then that with God is ]3lenteous redemption, is to say that the redemption which is by Christ Jesus, possesses an unbounded fulness. And it is this riches of grace, which we are now about to contemplate.

I. It is plenteous redemption, because

OF the aREATNPSS OF THE RANSOM PAID.

When a captive was freed from bondage by payment, the greatness of the sum was a prime consideration, and when this was princely the promptitude and certainty of the deliverance were proportionally marked. “The redemption of their soul,” says the Psalmist, “is precious,” that is, of great price or value. We were redeemed, not with corruptible things such as silver or gold, but with the blood of Christ. There is plenteousness in the ransom which he has offered. There was nothing in the universe more valuable than what Jesus laid at the feet of infinite Justice. The obedience of the Eternal Son of God, in the place of sinners was a tribute to the Divine glory, and a satisfaction to the demands of Law, more vast than could have been rendered by all creatures. The death of Christ, as a victim laid on the altar, in substitution for the sinner, together with all the agonies of body and soul which our blessed Saviour endured, constitutes a sacrificial payment which is inestimable; and which God cannot refuse. The heart often needs this as the basis of its confidence. There are times when all fails within us, till we look heavenward, and discern the Son of God assuminsf our debt, and claiming our deliverance, on the ground that he has made full restitution. On this head our views may be allowed to expand. No terms can exaggerate the greatness of the Atonement. It is infinite .... as is God the Son, who made it. Thei’e is no limit to its value, as there is none to the Divine nature. The type fades away when we compare it with the antitype. “By his own blood” — says Paul, that is by the most costly oblati</n in the Universe, “Christ entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” The blood of bulls and goats could only foreshadow this. The sufficiency of this atonement is plenteous, yea infinite. If any perish it is not because the blood of Jesus had not sufficient value or because enough of that precious blood was not shed. And this is the great everlasting rock, which underlies the whole structure of the believer’s hopes. Christ is worthy.

II. It is plenteous, because of the

WEIGHT AND NUMBER OF THE SOREOWS AND PAINS FROM WHICH IT FREES US. The

prisonhouse of the captive or the abandoned slave rises before us as the figure. The Scripture instances are numerous, where captivity is associated with suffering and tears. But the bondage of sinners is manifold; not one chain, or one dungeon — but many. These are all so many penalties; they proceed from sin. The troubles of this world, to an unpardoned soul, are but the beginnings of sorrows. All the distresses maladies and fears of the present condition are only foretastes. Yet they are very heavy, and a redemption wliicli delivers fiom them all, is truly plenteous. It is no small thine to be rid of all the bitterness which belongs to an unregenerate state even in the present life; especially from the fear of death and of God’s displeasure, the torment of an evil conscience, the anguish resulting from unsubdued and conflicting passions, and all the temporal consequences of sin. But what are these consequences to those which are eternal! To discern the latitude and amazing comprehensiveness of our redemption, we must be able to draw the curtain and gaze into the eternal future. On this tremendous theme, we would avoid all profanely curious imaginings and would imitate the reserve of Scripture. But after all our reservations, there come to us sounds of woe and glimpses of horror. Were not these among our fears, when in the times of our alienation, we looked forward to Death and what is after death? to the waste illimitable periods (unless there be contradiction in the terms) through which Eternal retribution exjDands itself? From all these we are redeemed. Yes, my brethren, a life of godless anxiety ana sorrow — - a subjection to Satan — a death without hope — a judgment of annihilating exposure forever — and the torments of the unseen world — from all these we are delivered by the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. And that which frees us forever from all pain, in its ten thousand times ten thousand shapes, may well be named “plenteous redemption.”

III. It is plenteous because it inteo-DUCES to all the ABUNDANCE OF INCON-CEIVABLE GOOD. It were something to be set free from yokes and bonds and the prisonhouse of the cruel taskmaster. It is more to be admitted to the palace, the home, the heart, of an infinite friend. How shall I dare to open such a prospect or expatiate upon a field so wide! All that is good in earth and heaven is before us — all purchased by the plenteous ransom-price. When God saves, it is in a way like himself. He is not content to pardon — he justifies — he endows with right to life. The Son is not only seen afar off, and met, and admitted; he is kissed, clothed, beautified and feasted. The Bride, the Lamb’s wife is not merely freed from the cords and humiliations and duress of her long caj)- tivity; she is decked with jewels, and installed in all the royalties of her Divine Husband. The slave is lifted to a throne. She who was wooed by the Son, and who loved and chose him in his low estate, is. openly acknowledged on the throne before all worlds, as she for whom he died. The blessings of the present Christian life are plentiful; but they are only the clusters of Eshcol, and not the vintage. Here, even on this side the river, are there the joys of pardon, the spirit of adoption, in many the assurance of God’s love, power over the world, perseverance in grace, the gradual but certain augmentation of inward holiness, the ripe fruits of knowledge, the heavenly wine of communion, the delio-hts of devotion, the lifting up of soul in psalmody and praise, the fellowship of mutual love, the ante])ast of glory, and the serene departure to full emancipation. And then, on the other side, angelic welcome, triumph in the eTudgment, the sight of the Son of man in his glory, acquittal by his voice, a place at his right hand, a seat on his throne, an eternal vision of his infinite and divine beauty. For this, and unto this, we are redeemed; and is it not then, plenteous redemption?

IV. It is plenteous, because of its ENDUEiNa NATURE. This fountain flows forever. Great benefits become small, if they abruptly terminate. Small blessings seem vast, if extended to eternal permanence. But here is a good, intrinsically great, yet runninof on forever and ever. We have already found in Scripture that the blessing is called “eternal redemption,” and this is plenteous indeed. When we shall have set sail upon that ocean which has no further shore, upon that blessed voyage which has no return, we shall look back upon the sum of all joys of all creatures during the moment of what we call time — as utterly insignificant in com23arison. Between finite and infinite there can be no pioportion. When ages, equalling the aggregate of all sidereal measures, shall have run out, Eternity will be in its early beginnings. lo waste shall ever diminish the riches of heaven. Every moment of its high enjoyment will refer itself to the srreat oriofinal price. Among the countless throng of them that are saved, each will look back A’ith wonder and thanks to the work of Calvary; and each new revolution of bliss will only serve to reveal new values in the redeeming price which was laid down by Immanuel. Of a sinless Eternity with Christ, we had better not attempt to speak; for not only words, but conceptions fail us. Yet our knowledge, faint and mostly negative as it is, is enough to show us that the stores of grace are boundless. Can such celestial glories be for creatures sullied with multitudinous sins, any one of which cries to heaven for veno-eance? We answer

V. It is plenteous kedemption, because ITS ABUNDANT FULNESS REACHES TO THE REMISSION OF ALL SINS, HOWEVER IN-TENSE OR MULTIPLIED. Here is the hope of the prodigal. See our context: “he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” But for this, redemption would not deserve the name. It is sin, wliicli caused captivity; and sin must be expiated, before there can be emancipation. This was the reason, why the great redemptive act stands before us in colors of blood. The call is loud and significant: “though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.” From all his iniquities! It is the word of God which tells us, that the “blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth from all sin.” The blotting out of guilt is absolute and has no exception: “their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” In their penal quality, they are as though they had never been. The debt is paid. Christ has assumed all our liabilities. They are no longer reckoned against us. “He hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, beino; made a curse for us.” It is this completeness of redemption, surginir over all the mountains of our sins, which magnifies the grace of the Gosj)el. This infinite fulness reaches all sins, the greater as well as the less, covering and removing all the guilt of each. I^ook back over one single lifetime — your own — and see what remission means! Meditate on (for you cannot survey) that lifetime of sinning which spreads its lengthened line back, back to the very origin of moral action. The current of act and word and feeling and thought has had its character for good or evil in each particular wave. Individual sins have been forgotten; thousands have been forgotten. Yet oblivion has not blotted out the record or washed away the guilt. Your memory of these transgressions and omissions is perhaps dim; but your accountability for each is as fresh and j)erfect as if it had this instant issued from your volition. Among the huge indiscriminate tumble of waves which dash in as breakers upon the shore of thoudit, you may recall here and there one of extraordinary violence. “But who can understand his errors” — his secret faults — his presumptuous sins! The more we gaze upon them, the more numerous do they seem; as the stars, when one begins to count them uj). It is a sense of this extraordinary number of sins, each possessing its separate turpitude, which, at the time of genuine awakening, leads to fearful conviction; while the soul stands aghast and cries, ‘’If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity, O Lord, who could stand?” This it is which makes pardon hard to be believed. And all through the Christian’s life, it is the recollection of innumerable iniquities, which humbles the soul in the dust, preventing its ever daring to look up into the face of Infinite Purity with any feeling of com]3lacency. Now all these long continued and multiplied sins are forever covered and removed as to their guilt by the fulness of redemption. No single sin remains unforgiven; for if there were such, it would cut off all hope. — Now as this is true in regard to any given sinner and his offences, so it is true of all manner of sins, even the most atrocious, if only they be brought to the fount of healing. The unpardonable sin itself, we hold to be such, only because (by its very nature) it is not so brought. Could so impossible a thing be conceived, as that it should be so brought, it would be forgiven. “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.” Final impenitence destroys, simply because it is a final rejection of

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redemption. The redemption itself is good, for all sins, even the greatest, “lliis is a faithful saying &c.” When, under the agonies of remorse, a sinner near despair thinks none have ever sinned as he has sinned, and declares that he is too vile to be forgiven (and little as hardened hearts conceive of such compunction or fear, the experience is not uncommon) in so saying he betrays total ignorance of the value of Christ’s blood, and the sovereign fulness of his grace. There are but two classes of souls, and two conditions; those that are saved and those that are lost: “he that believeth shall be saved — he that believeth not shall be damned.” — This abundance of redemption sjDreads its stores for all sinners. There is no one within the sound of the gospel who is excluded. As, according to what has been said, the ransom-price is infinite, so the offer is infinite. Our commission runs thus; ‘Go ye into all the world — with this good news to every creature.’ Every creature then is comprehended within the arms of the ofi’er and the possibility of salvation. There is no need for Christ to die a.oain — to maki; redemption accessible to more thousands, even of those who shall eventually perish; nor any need of a new gospel-offer, if all the world should be saved. We need nothing ampler, we can conceive of nothing wider, than the tender mercies of our God, “for with him is plenteous redemj)- tion.” If this could be brouoht home to thee, poor lingering sinner, it would be this hour the salvation of thy soul.

VI. Finally, this is plenteous eedemp-TIO^, BECAUSE OF THE FKEENESS OF THE

OFFEE. We call that a plentiful feast, where the provisions are not only abundant, but offered to all comers, and for nothing. Such is the gospel — such is grace, by its very name, gratuity. “Grace,” says Rutherford, “is mercy given for nothing.” He that annexes any price, however small, vacates the covenant of its grace. Price has indeed been paid, perfect amends have been made to Divine Justice, but by the Lamb of God, and not by the sinner. “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” It was the Liw, which nmde meritorious conditions, the Gospel is a free offer, which becomes available on simple believing. The righteousness by which we are justified, is not something which we work out, but something bestowed on us as a gift. It addresses all transgressors, however vile, in a mass, with words of cheerino:. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” the plenteous redemption. Christ’s perfect righteousness, as a resplendent robe, is hung out from heaven, for the free acceptance of all sinners under the gospel. And it is given — not to him who works most faithfully, according to legal rule, “but to him that worketh not, but belie veth on Him that justifieth the ungodly.” Rom. 4:5. It. does indeed seem a great thing to the believing sinner, for such maornitude and multitude of sins to be forgiven without his personal reparation, but when his eyes fix on the person and work of Christ, he sees how it can be accomplished, and undei’stands how the greatest honour lie can confer on God k to be saved by God’s method, “to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.” Having reached this point, he staggers not at the promise of God through unbelief; but is “strong in faith, giving glory to God.” There is no presumption in so believing; for it is only taking God at his word, accrediting his promise, honouring his attributes, and glorifying his Son. It was this doctrine of free justification by the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, and received by faith, which, when revealed to Luther, rose on his soul like a sun in the heavens. It was the germinating principle of all the Reformation doctrine. It is this day, what Luther called it, articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesicB. Where it is held firmly, preached and believed, there strong and cheerful. piety, justly named evangelical, is found to prevail. Where it is denied, or corrupted, or curtailed, error after error creeps in, and the cordial essence of the gospel is forever lost. On no one point do faithful ministers of the gospel more feel their own weakness, than

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when they argue and plead with a convinced sinner, in behalf of the freeness of salvation. Clear as it is in the Word, it is all dark to the condemned soul. No reasoning, no citation, no rehearsal of cases, no asseverations, no entreiities, can move him an inch from the self-righteous shoal on which he is stranded, or dispossess him of the prejudice that he must fulfil some condition before he comes to Christ. Here the preacher or teacher sits down discomfited if not dismayed. But then, on the other hand, at no one point does the same guide of souls more recognise and adore the illuminating Spirit of God, than when he sees all this made clear, sometimes in the twinkling of an eye, to the hitherto unbelieving mind. The blind man looks up into the fiice of his Saviour! He beholds him able — and as willing as able. He falls at his feet, without waitinir for terms or conditions. Free, full, sovereiirn grace, abounding to the chief of sinners, has overcome every scruple. He knows and feels that he can be saved; not in consequence of changes of which he Is conscious within himself — but simply on the ground of GoiTs littered jpromise wliicli lie accepts. I will not say, lie ventures on it; there is no peradventure in the case. His language is, “Let God be true and every man a liar;” or with our Psalmist, “Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.”

Nothing, my brethren, but infinite love could be the fountain-head of so immeasurable a blessing. It sprang in the eternal heart of Grod, and flowed out in the Incarnation. The multitude, the copiousness of Divine grace and mercy must be sought in the person of the Lord Jesus. God is love; yea rather, s]3eaking now of God manifest, Christ is Love. And although all his history is one display of saving benevolence, we behold its concentration in his Cross and passion. The Atonement by sacrifice it is, which reveals to us the greatness of divine compassions. As he hangs on the accursed tree, in his last moments, between two malefactors already dead, he exhibits to us the token of cleansins:. — - “One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and fortliwitli came there out blood and water. And lie that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.” That, concerning which the Beloved Disciple testifies, is the double fount of plenteous redemption. Brethren and sisters, we are gathering around the same open side and flowing heart, which left indelible impression on John. Here is expiation, to remove the debt, liability or guilt of sin: here is cleansing, to take away its power, stain and indwelling pollution. Many years after, the same John, remembering the same pierced side, thus writes, (5:6:) “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Cheist; not by water only, but by water and blood.” And he adds, “There are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one.” The same abundance of grace is witnessed by our commemorative ordinance. Here the sacred side of Jesus is pierced in emblem; the body is sacramentally broken, the blood is sacramentally spilt. ‘’ This cup,” saith He, “is the New Testament in my blood, sited for many for the remission of sins.” The Covenant of Grace, sealed by this ordinance, tenders and exhibits the plenteous redemption. We are vile — but divine love is infinite, and divine pardons are sure, to every one that believeth. Though like David you cry out of the depths, unable to answer for your iniquities, yet you can say, beholding these pledges, “I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and on his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning, I say, more than they that T’atch for the morning.” (5, 6.)