— Day 10 —

He Is Your Redemption

Of Him (God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us
wisdom from God—and righteousness and
sanctification and REDEMPTION.

1 Corinthians 1:30

Here we reach the top of the ladder as it ascends into heaven—the blessed end to which Christ and life in Him is to lead. The word redemption, though sometimes applied to our deliverance from the guilt of sin, here refers to our complete and final deliverance from all the consequences of sin, when the Redeemer’s work will be fully displayed, even to the redemption of the body itself (Romans 8:21–23; Ephesians 1:14; 4:30). The expression points us to the highest glory to be hoped for in the future, and therefore also to the highest blessing to be enjoyed in the present in Christ. We have seen how, as a Prophet, Christ is our wisdom, revealing to us God and His love, along with the nature and conditions of the salvation that love has prepared. As a Priest, He is our righteousness, restoring us to right relationship to God and securing for us His favor and friendship. As a King, He is our sanctification, forming and guiding us into obedience to the Father’s holy will. As these three offices work out God’s one purpose, the grand consummation will be reached: complete deliverance from sin and all its effects, and ransomed humanity regaining all that was lost in the Fall.

Christ is made redemption to us by God. The word invites us to look upon Jesus, not only as He lived on earth—teaching us by word and by example as He died to reconcile us with God, as He lives again, a victorious King, rising to receive His crown—but also as, sitting at the right hand of God, He takes again the glory which He had with the Father before the world began and holds it there for us. There His human nature, His human body, free from all the consequences of sin to which He once was exposed, is now in heaven sharing the divine glory. As Son of Man, He dwells on the throne and in the presence of the Father; the deliverance from what He had to suffer for sin is complete and eternal. Complete redemption is fulfilled and revealed in His own Person; what He as man is and has in heaven is the complete redemption. He is made of God to us redemption.

We are in Him as such. And to the extent that we can receive this truth as we abide in Him as our redemption, the more we will experience, even here, ‘‘the powers of the coming age’’ (Hebrews 6:5 NIV). As our communion with Him becomes more intimate and intense and we let the Holy Spirit reveal Him to us in His heavenly glory, the more we realize how the life in us is the life of One who sits upon the throne of heaven. We feel the power of an endless life working in us. We taste eternal life; we have a foretaste of the eternal glory.

The blessings flowing from abiding in Christ as our redemption are great. The soul is delivered from all fear of death. There was a time when even the Savior feared death. But no longer. He has triumphed over death; even His body has entered into God’s glory. The believer who abides in Christ as his full redemption realizes even now his spiritual victory over death. It becomes to him the servant that removes the last rags of the old carnal robe before he is clothed with the new body of glory. Death carries the body to the grave, to lie there as the seed from which the new body will arise as a worthy companion of the glorified spirit. The resurrection of the body is no longer an empty doctrine, but a living expectation, because the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in the body as the pledge that even our mortal bodies will be made alive (Romans 8:11–23). Faith in this expectation exercises its sanctifying influence by making us willing to surrender the sinful members of our bodies to Him—to be put to death and then subjected to the reign of the Spirit, as preparation for the time when our frail bodies will be changed to be fashioned like His glorious body (Philippians 3:21).

This full redemption of Christ as extending to the body has a depth of meaning not easily expressed. It was of man as a whole, soul and body, that it was said that he was made in the image and likeness of God. In the angels, God created spirits without material bodies; in the creation of the world, there was matter without spirit. Man was to be the highest specimen of divine art: the combination in one being of matter and spirit in perfect harmony, as a type of the most perfect union between God and His own creation. Sin entered in and appeared to block the divine plan. By sin the material obtained a dreaded supremacy over the spiritual. But God’s plan was still in place.

The Word was made flesh, the divine fullness received an embodiment in the humanity of Christ so that redemption might be complete and perfect; the whole creation, which now groans and labors in pain together, will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God (Romans 8:21–22). God’s purpose will not be accomplished, and Christ’s glory will not be fully exhibited, until the body, which includes the whole of nature, has been transformed by the power of the spiritual life. It will then become the transparent garment that will shine forth with radiance as it reflects the glory of the Infinite Spirit. Only then will we understand the depth of meaning in these words: ‘‘Christ Jesus was made to us (complete) redemption.’’

In the meantime we know that: ‘‘Of Him (God) you are in Christ Jesus,’’ as your redemption. This is not meant to be merely a future revelation; we must seek to enter into and apply it in our present abiding in Christ so that we may reach full development in the Christian life. We do this as we learn to triumph over our fear of death. We learn to look upon Christ as the Lord of our body, claiming its entire consecration on this side of heaven and victory over the terrible dominion sin has enjoyed in the body. Another way we do this is learning to look on all nature as part of the kingdom of Christ, destined, even though it might be through a baptism of fire, to take part in His redemption. We do it as we allow the powers of the coming age to possess us and to lift us up into a life in the heavenly places, to enlarge our hearts and our views, to anticipate, even here, the things which have never entered into the heart of man to imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Believer, abide in Christ as your redemption. Let this be the crown of your Christian life. It is faithfulness in the previous steps of your Christian life that will best fit you for this spiritual reality. Abide in Him as your wisdom, the perfect revelation of all that God is and has for you. Follow, in the daily ordering of your inner and outer life, His teaching with humility, and you will be counted worthy to have secrets revealed to you, secrets that to most disciples are a sealed book. Such wisdom will lead you into the mysteries of our complete redemption.

Abide in Him as your righteousness, and dwell clothed with Him in that inner sanctuary of the Father’s favor and presence to which His righteousness gives you access. As you rejoice in your reconciliation, you will understand how it includes all things, even full redemption; ‘‘For it pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven’’ (Colossians 1:19–20). And abide in Him as your sanctification; the experience of His power to make you holy in spirit, soul, and body will make your faith alive in a holiness that will not stop working until the bells of the horses and every pot in Jerusalem shall be holiness to the Lord (Zechariah 14:20–21).

Abide in Him as your redemption, and live, even here, as the heir of future glory. As you seek to experience on earth the full power of His saving grace, your heart will be enlarged to realize the position mankind has been destined to occupy in the universe, with all things made subject to Him. For your part, you can be assured that you will be readied by the Spirit of God to live worthy of that high and heavenly calling.