Redemption - Chambers, Oswald
God does not ask us to be good men and women he asks us to understand that we are not good; to believe that none is good, save one, even god (RV), and that the grace of god was manifested in the redemption that it might cover the incompleteness of man. When a man experiences salvation it is not his belief that saves him; teaching goes wrong when it puts a mans belief as the ground of his salvation. Salvation is gods bit entirely. The danger is to preach a subjective theology, something that wells up on the inside.
The gospel of the new testament is based on the absoluteness of the redemption. The great thing about the redemption is that it deals with sin, i. E. , my claim to my right to myself, not primarily with mans sins. It is one of the most flattering things to go and rescue the degraded, one of the social passions of mankind, but not necessarily the most christian: it is quite another thing to tell men who are among the best of men that what Jesus Christ asks of them is that they give up the right to themselves to him. The great thing about the gospel is that it should be preached. Never get distressed over not seeing immediate results. No prophet of the old testament, or apostle of the new (or saint of the pres- ent day), ever fully understood the import of what he said or did, hence to work for immediate results is to make myself a director of the holy ghost. God is no respecter of persons with regard to salvation, but he has a tremendous respect for christian character. There are degrees in glory which are determined by our obedience. Salvation is a free gift through the redemption; positions in the kingdom are not gifts, but attainments. There is a difference between salvation and saintliness, between being redeemed and proving myself a redeemed man. I may live a life of sordid self-seeking on the basis of the redemption, or i may live a life which manifests the life of the lord Jesus in my mortal flesh. Jesus Christ did not send out the disciples to save souls, but to make disciples (RV ), men and women who manifest a life in accordance with the life of their redeemer.
A charge made against some methods of evangelism is that self-interest is made the basis of the whole thing: salvation is looked upon as a kind of insurance scheme whereby i am delivered from punishment and put right for heaven. But let a man experience deliverance from sin, and his rejoicing is not in his own interests, but that he is thereby enabled to be of use to god and his fellow men.
The bedrock permanent thing about Christianity is the forgiveness of god, not sanctification and personal holiness the great abiding thing underneath is infinitely more rugged than that; it is all the new testament means by that terrific word forgiveness. In whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7). The virtue of our redemption comes to us through the obedience of the son of god though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered . . . (Hebrews 5:8). Our view of obedience has become so distorted through sin that we cannot understand how it could be said of jesus that he learned obedience; he was the only one of whom it could be said, because he was with- out sin. He did not learn obedience in order to be a son: he came as son to redeem mankind.
Our lord came to make atonement for the sin of the world, not by any impulse of a noble nature, but by the perfect conscious self-sacrifice whereby alone god could redeem man.
Beware of the craze for unity. It is gods will that all Christians should be one with him as Jesus Christ is one with him ( john 17:22), but that is a very different thing from the tendency abroad to-day towards a unity on a basis that ignores the atonement.
Until we have become spiritual by new birth the atonement of jesus has no meaning for us; it only begins to get meaning when we live in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Salvation is based on the revelation fact that god has redeemed the world from the possibility of condemnation on account of sin (Romans 5:12, 2021): the experience of salvation means that a man can be regenerated, can have the disposition of the son of god put into him, viz. , the holy spirit.
Belief in the redemption is difficult because it needs self-surrender first.
Do i believe that everything that has been touched by the consequences of mans sin is going to be put absolutely right by god through the redemption?
Redemption is the reality which alters inability into ability.
The mighty redemption of god is made actual in my experience by the living efficacy of the holy ghost.