the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Discovering Christ Day by Day
Today’s Reading: Psalms 120-135
“Plenteous Redemption”
Psalms 130:7
The only hope for fallen, sinful men is redemption, a redemption which includes atonement for sin, satisfaction for justice, and effectual deliverance from the guilt, power, dominion, and consequences of sin. Such redemption could be accomplished by only one Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Savior. Not only could he alone do it, he has done it; and he has done it alone. He declares, “I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me” (Isaiah 63:5).
Most Important
Redemption by the precious blood of Christ is the most important of all gospel truths. In our day men more quickly attack the doctrine of the cross than any other. They more vehemently deny the glorious efficacy of Christ’s sin-atoning blood than any other doctrine. Multitudes who sing the words of Cowper’s hymn…
“Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
‘Til all the ransomed Church of God
Be saved to sin no more…”
assert, with absolute dogmatism, that there is no real saving power and efficacy in Christ’s blood; for they declare that multitudes are in hell today for whom Christ died; thus demonstrating that they know nothing of that Savior revealed in Holy Scripture, of whom the hymn was written.
Because the doctrine of redemption by the precious blood of Christ is so very important, let us study the Scriptures for ourselves, comparing scripture with scripture, asking God the Holy Spirit to give us a clear understanding in the teachings of Holy Scripture about redemption.
Old Testament Pictures
The Holy Spirit declares in Hebrews 10:1, “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.” In the Old Testament, under the types and shadows of the law, the Lord God gave many pictures and prophecies of what he would do for and give to his people through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Obvious Facts
The sacrifices offered to God in the Old Testament could never take away one sin. However, the law did have many instructive pictures, types, and shadows of our redemption by the precious blood of Christ. In each of those types, pictures, and prophecies setting forth the redemptive work of Christ several things are obvious. Here are three very obvious facts revealed in the Word of God about our redemption by Christ. These three revealed facts teach us much about the subject of redemption.
The redemption portrayed and promised in the Old Testament was revealed only to a chosen people. Only the nation of Israel had the passover sacrifice and the promise of a redeemer, because only the Israel of God, God’s elect, are the people for whom Christ the true Passover was sacrificed.
The redemption sacrifice was made by the command of God, offered to God, and accepted by God for a specifically chosen people, named by God himself. Even so, our Lord Jesus Christ died for those people given to him by the Father in the covenant of grace before the world began. He said, “I lay down my life for the sheep.” The good Shepherd died for his sheep, not for the goats of the world.
The redemption portrayed the effectual deliverance of all those for whom it was accomplished. Every soul for whom the passover lamb was slain walked out of Egypt by the power of God. Even so, every sinner for whom the Son of God made atonement by his substitutionary death at Calvary shall be delivered from the curse of God’s holy law and saved from sin, death, and hell by the merit and power of his precious blood. Not one of those for whom Christ died under the wrath of God shall perish in hell. They all must and shall be saved, because Christ, the Son of God, died to save them; and “he shall not fail!”
