us; to wit, at his resurrection from the dead. For as by his death he
made amends for our breach of the law, so by his resurrection he
spoiled those other enemies, to wit, death, the devil, and the grave,
&c., unto which we were subjected, not for any offence we had committed
against them, but for our sin against the law; and men when they have
answered to the justice of the law, are by law and power delivered from
the prison. Christ therefore, by power, by his glorious power, did
overcome the devil, hell, sin, and death, then when he arose and
revived from his grave, and so got the victory over them, in and by
himself, for us. For he engaging as a common or public person for us,
did on our behalf what he did, both in his death and resurrection. So
then, as he died for us, he rose for us; and as by his death he
redeemed us from some, so by his resurrection from other, of our
enemies. Only it must be considered, that this redemption, as to the
fulness of it as yet, resides in his own person only, and is set out to
his church as she has need thereof, and that orderly too. First, that
part thereof which respecteth our redemption from the law; and then
that part of it which respecteth our redemption from those other
things. And although we are made partakers of redemption from the curse
of the law in this life, so far forth as to be justified therefrom; and
also as to the receiving of an earnest while here, of being wholly
possessed of the glory of the next world hereafter; yet we neither are,
nor shall be redeemed from all those things, which yet our head has, as
head, got a complete and eternal victory over, until just before he
shall deliver up the kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all;
for ‘the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death’ (1 Cor 15:26).
Death, as it has hold upon us, for death as it had hold on our head,
was destroyed, when he rose from the dead, but death, as we are subject
to it, shall not be destroyed until we all and every one of us shall
attain to the resurrection from the dead; a pledge of which we have by
our spiritual resurrection, from a state of nature to a state of grace
(Col 3:1-4). A promise of which we have in the word of the truth of the
gospel; and an assurance of it we have by the resurrection of Christ
from the dead (Eph 4:30; Luke 20:35; Acts 17:30,31). Wherefore let us
hope!
Now, as to redemption from the law, and from those other things from
which we are, and are to be redeemed with power; do but consider the
different language which the Holy Ghost useth, with reference to our
redemption from each.
When it speaketh of our redemption from the just curse of the law,
which we have sufficiently deserved, it is said to be done, not by
destroying, but by fulfilling the law. ‘Think not,’ says Christ, ‘that
I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy,
but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass,
one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled’ (Matt 5:17,18). For it became him, as our Redeemer, to
fulfil all, and all manner of righteousness, by doing and suffering
what justly should have been done or borne of us (Rom 8:3-5; Gal
3:13,14).
But now when our redemption from those other things is made mention of,
the dialect is changed; for then we read, to the end we might be
delivered from them, Christ was to destroy and abolish them (2 Tim
1:10); ‘that through death he might destroy him that had the power of
death, that is, the devil,’ and so deliver (Heb 2:14). And again, ‘O
death, I will be thy plagues! O grace, I will be thy destruction!’
(Hosea 13:14). And again, ‘that the body of sin might be destroyed’
(Rom 6:6); and I have the keys of hell and of death (Rev 1:18). Having
thereby sufficiently declared that the power of it is destroyed as to
Israel, who are the people concerned in this redemption.
2. They shall be overcome by his church through the power of his
Spirit. Now, as was hinted before, the redemption is already obtained,
and that completely, by the person of Christ for us (Heb 9:24), as it
is written, ‘Having obtained eternal redemption for us’; yet these
enemies, sin, death, the devil, hell, and the grave, are not so under
the feet of his [saints] as he will put them, and as they shall be in
conclusion under the feet of Christ (Heb 2:8,9). I say they are not;
wherefore, as the text also concludeth, this redemption is with the
Lord, and under our feet they shall be by the power of God towards us
(2 Cor 13:4). And for this let Israel hope. The sum then is, God’s
people have with the Lord redemption, and redemption in reversion;
redemption, and redemption to come; all which is in the hand of the
Lord for us, and of all we shall be possessed in his time. This is that
called plenteous redemption. ‘For with him is plenteous redemption.’ A
little therefore to touch upon the redemption that we have in
reversion, or of the redemption yet to come.
(1.) There is yet much sin and many imperfections that cleave to our
persons and to our performances, from which, though we be not yet in
the most full sense delivered, yet this redemption is with our Lord,
and we shall have it in his time; and in the meantime it is said, It
shall not have dominion over us. ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you;
for ye are not under the law, but under grace’ (Rom 6:14). We are, by
what Christ has done, taken from under the law, the curse; and must, by
what Christ will do, be delivered from the very being of sin. ‘He gave
himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity’; that he
might present us to himself a glorious church, not having spot or
wrinkle, or any such thing, but that we should be without blemish
(Titus 2:13,14; Eph 5:25,27). That we are already without the being of
sin, none but fools and madmen will assert; and that we shall never be
delivered from it, none but such men will affirm neither. It remains
then, that there is a redemption for Israel in reversion, and that from
the being of sin. And of this it is that the text also discourseth, and
for which let the godly hope.
(2.) We are not yet quite free from Satan’s assaulting of us, though
our Head by himself, and that for us, has got a complete conquest over
him; but the time is coming, and himself knows that it is but a little
while to it, in which he shall forever be bruised under our feet. Be
wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil, and the God
of peace shall bruise, tread down Satan under your feet shortly (Rom
16:20). Some may think that this text will have a fulfilling in the
ruin and downfall of Antichrist; and so it may; but yet it will never
be wholly fulfilled, as long as Satan shall have any thing to do with
one of the children of God. There is therefore a redemption in
reversion for the children of God from Satan, which they are to hope
for, because this redemption is with the Lord their Head, and that to
manage and bring about for them. For he shall bruise him under their
feet in his time.
(3.) There is yet belonging to the church of God a redemption from what
remains of Antichrist, although as yet he is stronger than we, which I
also call a redemption in reversion, for that it is yet to come, nor
shall it be accomplished till the time appointed. In this redemption,
not only saints, but truths will have a share; yea, and many also of
the men that belong not to the kingdom of Christ and of God. This
redemption God’s people are also to hope for, for it is with their
Lord, and he has promised it to them, as the Scripture doth plentifully
declare.
(4.) There is yet a redemption to come, which is called the redemption
of our body (Rom 8:23). Of this redemption we have both the earnest and
the seal, to wit, the Spirit of God (Eph 1:14, 4:30). And because the
time to it is long, therefore we are to wait for it; and because it
will be that upon which all our blessedness will be let out to us, and
we also let in to it, therefore we should be comforted at all the signs
of the near approach thereof; ‘then,’ saith Christ, ‘look up and lift
up your heads’ (Luke 21:28). The bodies of saints are called the
purchased possession; possession, because the whole of all that shall
be saved shall be for a temple or house for God to dwell in, in the
heavens. A purchased possession, because the body, as well as the soul,
is bought with the price of blood (1 Cor 6:14-20). But what then doth
he mean by the redemption of this purchased possession? I answer, he
meaneth the raising it up from the dead; ‘I will ransom them from the
power of the grave, I will redeem them from death’ (Hosea 13:14). And
then shall be brought to pass that saying that is written, ‘Death is
swallowed up in victory’; that saying, that is this, and that in
Isaiah, for they speak both the selfsame thing (1 Cor 15; Isa 25:8).
And this was signified by Moses, where he speaks of the year of
jubilee, and of the redemption of the house that was sold in Israel,
how of that year it should return to the owner (Lev 25). Our bodies of
right are God’s, but sin still dwells in them; we have also sold and
forfeited them to death and the grave, and so they will abide; but at
the judgment day, that blessed jubilee, God will take our body, which
originally is his, and will deliver it from the bondage of corruption,
unto which, by our souls, through sin, it has been subjected; he will
take it, I say, because it is his, both by creation and redemption, and
will bring it to that perfect freedom that is only to be found in
immortality and eternal life. And for this should Israel hope! From
what hath been said to this first thing, it appears that the mercy that
is with God for his people, as it is in general what has been described
before, so it is redeeming mercy, or mercy that has with it the virtue
of redemption; of the advantageousness of this mercy, we will further
discourse by and by, but now we will look into the second thing, that
from this amplification of the reason was propounded to be spoken to,
to wit,
[SECOND. The sufficiency of this redemption.]
An account of the sufficiency of this redemption. ‘Let Israel hope in
the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous
redemption.’ The sufficiency or plenteousness of it may be spoken to,
as it respecteth the many difficulties and dangers that by sin we have
brought ourselves into; or as it respecteth the superabundant worth
that is found therein, let the dangers attending us be what they will,
though we should not be acquainted with the half or the hundredth part
thereof.
To speak to it as it respecteth those particular difficulties and
dangers that by sin we have brought ourselves unto; and that, First. By
showing the suitableness of it. Second. By showing the sufficiency of
the suitableness thereof.
First. The suitableness of it lieth in the fit application thereof to
all the parts of thraldom and bondage. Have we sinned? Christ had our
sins laid upon his back; yea, of God was made, that is, reputed, sin
for us (Isa 53; 2 Cor 5:21). Were we under the curse of the law by
reason of sin? Christ was made under the law, and bare the curse
thereof to redeem (Gal 4:4, 3:13; Rom 3:24). Had sin set us at an
indefinite distance from God? Christ has become, by the price of his
redeeming blood, a reconciler of man to God again (Col 1:20). Were we
by sin subject to death? Christ died the death to set us free therefrom
(Rom 6:23). Had our sins betrayed us into and under Satan’s slavery?
Christ has spoiled and destroyed this work, and made us free citizens
of heaven (Acts 26:18; 2 Tim 2:26; Heb 2:14; Eph 2:19). Thus was our
Redeemer made, as to those things, a suitable recoverer, taking all and
missing nothing that stood in the way of our happiness; according to
that a little below the text, ‘And he shall redeem Israel from all his
iniquities,’ that is, from them, together with their evil fruits.
Second. Now as to the sufficiency that was in this suitableness, that
is declared by his resurrection, by his ascension, by his exaltation to
the right hand of God; that is also declared by God’s putting all
things under his feet, and by giving of him to be head over all things
for his redeemed’s sake. It is also further declared in that God now
threateneth none but those that refuse to take Jesus for their Saviour,
and for that he is resolved to make his foes his footstool. What are
more natural consequences flowing from anything, than that by these
things is the sufficiency of the suitableness of redemption by Christ
proved? For all these things followed Christ, for, or because he
humbled himself to the death of the cross, that he might become a
Redeemer; therefore God raised him up, took him to his throne, and gave
him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God by him (Phil 2).
But alas! what need we stand to prove the sun is light, the fire hot,
the water wet? What was done by him was done by God, for he was true
God; and what comparison can there be betwixt God and the creature,
betwixt the worth of God’s acts, and the merit of the sin of poor man!
And can death, or sin, or the grave hold us, when God saith, ‘Give up?’
Yea, where is that, or he, that shall call into question the
superabounding sufficiency that is in the merit of Christ, when God
continueth to discharge, day by day, yea, hourly, and every moment,
sinners from their sin, and death, and hell, for the sake of the
redemption that is obtained for us by Christ?
God be thanked here is plenty; but no want of anything! Enough and to
spare! It will be with the merit of Christ, even at the end of the
world, as it was with the five loaves and two fishes, after the five
thousand men, besides women and children, had sufficiently eaten
thereof. There was, to the view of all at last, more than showed itself
at fist. At first there was but five loaves and two fishes, which a lad
carried. At last there were twelve baskets full, the weight of which, I
suppose, not the strongest man could bear away. Nay, I am persuaded,
that at the end of the world, when the damned shall see what a
sufficiency there is left of merit in Christ, besides what was bestowed
upon them that were saved by him, they will run mad for anguish of
heart to think what fools they were not to come to him, and trust in
him that they might be saved, as their fellow-sinners did. But this is
revealed that Israel, that the godly may hope and expect. Let Israel
therefore hope in the Lord, for with him is plenteous redemption.
[Amplifying reasons as a conclusion of the whole.]
Now as this last clause, as I termed it, is the amplification of the
reason going before; so itself yieldeth amplifying reasons as a
conclusion of the whole. For,
First. Add redemption unto mercy, and then things still are heightened
and made greater. And it must, because the text adds it, and because
both the nature of God, the holiness of his law, and the present state
of the sinner that is to be saved, requireth that it should be so. God
is justice as well as mercy; the law is holy and just; that man that is
to be saved is not only a sinner, but polluted. Now, then, that mercy
and justice may meet and kiss in the salvation of the sinner, there
must be a redemption; that the sinner may be saved, and the law retain
its sanction and authority, there must be a redemption; that the sinner
may be purged as well as pardoned, there must be a redemption. And, I
say, as there must, so there is: ‘For with the Lord there is mercy, and
with him is plenteous redemption.’ Mercy is the original, the cause,
and the manager of our redemption. Redemption is the manifestation, and
the completing of that mercy. If there had been no mercy, there had
been no redemption. Mercy had been defective as to us, or must have
offered violence to the law and justice of God, and have saved us
contrary to that word, ‘In the day thou eatest thou shalt die,’ and
‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the
book of the law to do them.’ But now, redemption coming in by mercy,
the sin is done away, and the sinner saved, in a way of righteousness.
Second. By law as well as grace; that is, in a way of justice as well
as in a way of mercy. Hence it saith we are ‘justified freely by his
grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus’ (Rom 3:24).
Through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth
to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, and so to show the
world the equity of his proceeding with sinners in the saving of their
souls. As if God should say to all those who stumble at the salvation
of sinners by grace, Behold, I act according to law and justice. For of
grace I save them through a redemption, and therefore am faithful and
just to my law, as well as free and liberal of my mercy. Wherefore thus
I declare I am righteous, faithful, and just in passing over or
remitting of sin. Nay, the matter so standeth now betwixt me and the
sinful world, that I could not be just if I did not justify him that
hath faith in the blood of Jesus, since by that blood my justice is
appeased for all that this or that sinner has done against my law!
This is a way that God, nor any child of his, need be ashamed of before
any that shall call in question the legality and justice of this
procedure. For why may not God be merciful, and why may not God be
just? And since he can be both merciful and just in the salvation of
sinners, why may he not also save them from death and hell? Christ is
God’s salvation, and to show that he is not ashamed of him, he hath
presented him, and the way of redemption by him, before the face of all
people (Luke 2:30-32). Nor is the Son, who is become, with respect to
the act of redemption, the author of eternal salvation, ashamed of this
his doings. ‘I gave my back to the smiters,’ saith he, ‘and my cheeks
to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and
smiting’ (Isa 50:6). This he speaks to show what were some of his
sufferings when he engaged in the work of our redemption, and how
heartily he did bear and go through them. ‘For,’ says he, ‘the Lord God
will help me,’ that is, justify me in it, ‘therefore shall I not be
confounded, therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that
I shall not be ashamed’ (v 7). And if God, and his Son Jesus Christ,
are neither of them ashamed to own this way of salvation, why should
the sinners concerned thereabout be afraid thereupon to venture their
soul? I know, saith he, ‘I shall not be ashamed’; I shall not, that is,
when all things come to light, and everything shall appear above board;
when the heart and soul of this undertaking of mine shall be proclaimed
upon the house-tops, I know I shall not be ashamed.
It was also upon this account that Paul said he was not ashamed of the
gospel (Rom 1). For he knew that it was a declaration of the highest
act of wisdom that ever God did spread before the face of the sons of
men. And of what wisdom is the gospel a declaration but of that of
forgiveness of sins by grace, through the redemption that is by the
blood of Jesus Christ? ‘In whom we have redemption through his blood,’
even ‘the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace,
wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence’ (Eph
1:7,8).
And as Paul speaketh here as a minister, so he speaketh after the same
manner also as he is a believer, saying, ‘I am not ashamed’ of this
gospel, ‘for I know whom I have believed,’ or trusted with my soul,
‘and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed
unto him against that day’ (2 Tim 1:11,12). Wherefore seeing that mercy
is not presented to us alone, or singly, but as accompanying and
concurring with redemption; it is manifest enough that mercy standeth
not above, and consequently that it saveth none but in, by, and through
a Redeemer. He that believeth not in Christ shall be damned. But what
needs that, if mercy could save the soul without the redemption that is
by him? If any say, Christ is the mercy of God to us. True, if you
count him a Redeemer, a worker out of a redemption for us by his death
and blood upon the cross. But otherwise he is none; I mean, if you make
him a lawgiver, and a Saviour, only as he has set an example to us to
get to heaven by doing commandments, or by treading in his steps. Yea,
though you say his commandment is that we believe in him: for, take the
work of redemption by his blood from the curse, out of his hand, and
then what concerning him is left from me to believe, but, as was said
before, that he is a lawgiver, and as such, at best, but a pattern to
us to get to heaven, as here? And whoso counteth him as such, is so far
off from counting of Christ the mercy of God to us, that they make him
a contradictor of mercy, both in the fountain and all the streams of
it. For to propound life eternal to us, through the observation of
laws, is to set before us that which contradicteth grace and mercy, let
the work be what it will; nor will it help at all to say, that they
that do the law of Christ, or that take him for their law and example,
shall be sure of mercy to pass by their shortness of attaining to the
perfection of what is set before them. For all this might have been
done, and not one drop of blood spilt for the redemption of man.
Besides, this makes Christ’s death, as a Redeemer, as an act
unadvisedly undertaken; for what need he have died, if his doctrine and
example had been sufficient, through that which they call mercy, to
have brought the soul to glory? ‘If righteousness come by the law, then
Christ is dead in vain’ (Gal 2:21). I will add, put man’s
righteousness, God’s mercy, and Christ’s redemption, all together, and
they will not save a man; though the last two alone will sufficiently
do it: but this third is a piece when put to that, does, instead of
mending, make the rent worse. Besides, since man’s righteousness cannot
be joined in justification with God’s mercy and Christ’s redemption,
but through a disbelief of the sufficiency of them, should it be
admitted as a cause, though but the least cause thereof, what would
follow, but to make that cursed sin of unbelief a good inventor, and a
necessary worker in the manner of the justification of a sinner? For, I
say, unbelief is the cause of this hodge-podge in any; and the effects
of it are showed in the 9th chapter of the epistle of Paul to the
Romans, at the latter end thereof (vv 31-35).
And there are three things that follow upon that opinion that denieth
the absolute necessity of the shedding of the blood of Christ for the
redemption of man, that mercy might be let out to him.
1. It followeth from thence, that there is no such attribute as
absolute justice in God; justice to stand to his word, and to vindicate
every tittle of his law. For let but this be granted, and the death of
Christ must be brought in, or by justice the floodgate of mercy still
be shut against sinful man; or that God must have mercy upon man, with
the breach of his Word.
2. It also followeth from the premises, that Christ’s death was of
pleasure only, and not of necessity also; contrary to the Scripture,
that makes his death the effect of both; of pleasure, to show how
willing God the Father was that Christ should die for man: of
necessity, to show that man could not be saved without it; of pleasure,
to show how justice did deal with him for our sin; of necessity, to
show that mercy could not be communicated to us without it (Isa 53:10;
Matt 26:39; Acts 17:3).
3. There also followeth therefrom, that by the blood of Christ we have
not redemption from law, and justice, as to the condemning part of
both, but that rather this title is given to it for honour and glory,
to dignify it; as the name of God is also given to him: for they that
affirm the one, are bold to affirm the other. For as by them is
concluded, that there is no necessity why the blood of Christ should be
counted the absolutely necessary price of our redemption from the curse
of the law and severity of justice; so by them it is concluded, that it
is not necessary to hold that Christ the Redeemer is naturally and
co-eternally God, as the Father. But ‘let Israel hope in the Lord, for
with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.’