Observe then the three characteristics of this new service, the service of the redeemed.
(1.) It is the service of the Redeemer Himself. In redeeming us from iniquity He makes us His own, and sets us apart unto Himself. If redeemed we belong to the Redeemer. We love Him, we follow Him, we serve Him, we are His.
(2.) It is a pure service.
He does not merely separate, but purifies us unto Himself. He carries on such a sacred work in the soul, and effects such a marvellous change that the words of St. John are realised, ‘Every one that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure,’ and that we even know something of the blessing which He described in the words, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’
(3.) It is a zealous and active service.
If we are thus redeemed we are not to sit still, and quietly rejoice in a holy abandonment of soul; but we are to be up and doing. There is a great work to be done for God, and who is to do it if they are idle whom the Lord has redeemed? We want no slothful, listless, inactive, self-indulgent believers. Our missions are crippled for the want of help; and our work at home sometimes seems paralyzed by the lukewarmness of professors. But those who are brought near to God, and purified as a peculiar people unto Himself, must be filled with zeal for His service; for the lukewarm professor is a scandal to the Church of God. The object of the Lord’s death was to call out a zealous people; and when there is no zeal, there is no effective result from the cross, for the purified people, redeemed by His grace, will, according to the text, be ‘zealous of good works.’
Now all this is a work at this present time in progress. It is not, like the atonement, complete, but is going on now. It is at this present time in progress in the Church. The people who form the purchased possession are being daily gathered in to God. He has not yet accomplished the number of His elect. The body of Christ is not yet perfected, and our earnest desire is that day by day, yes, this very day, immortal souls may be delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of His dear Son. So also is it progressive in the soul of each individual. We are not suddenly wafted into perfection, or made pure as Christ is pure. This chapter is a very clear proof of that, for while it speaks of the great purpose of the Lord’s death, viz., to redeem us from all iniquity it is full of exhortations to all classes amongst us against practical misconduct. It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the deliverance is not yet complete. There is temptation around and temptation within; sin in the world and sin in our own hearts; corruption in society and corruption in our own nature; so that even after we have actually experienced redeeming grace, we may say, as St. Paul did, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom. vii. 24.)
II. This leads to our second subject, the redemption power.
The redemption power is the Redeemer Himself, and so, as pointed out in a previous lecture, the Lord Jesus is called in Isaiah, lix. 20, ‘the Redeemer,’ and in the quotation of that passage Rom. xi. 26, ‘the Deliverer.’ And this applies whichever way you understand the words. If you apply them to the curse of sin it is He that delivers from that curse by the satisfaction of the law through His precious blood. He paid the ransom, and in the Father’s name He has set us free. Or, if you apply it to the bondage of lawlessness, it is equally He that delivers, for it is just as much His office to release from the dominion of sin by the power of the Holy Ghost as it was to remove the curse. In either sense the passage brings Him before us as a present living Deliverer, not merely one who has given Himself for us, but one who is now engaged in actually delivering us from all iniquity and purifying unto Himself a peculiar people. The first clause, ‘He gave himself for us,’ describes His work on the cross finished at once and for ever; the latter part, ‘That He might redeem us from all iniquity,’ His present work as a risen and living Saviour, continuously employed in delivering and purifying His Church. Whatever we may think of the clause, ‘that he might redeem us from all iniquity,’ this is clearly the meaning of the words that He might ‘purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.’ So that either way we are brought to the indisputable and most important lesson, that in our great struggle against sin, either without or within; either in the world or in our own hearts; and in our efforts to aim at the practical Christian life exhibited in this chapter, we may take the greatest possible encouragement from the fact that it is the present office of our living Lord to deliver and to purify. We may be profoundly conscious of the deep, inbred corruption of our own nature. We may know by bitter experience how often we have failed; we may be humbled to the dust at the thought of our shortcomings; we may be ready to say, as St. Paul did, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ but in the midst of it all we may look up in peaceful trust, and thank God for the delivering power that is in Christ Jesus, our risen and living Head. We may say as St. Paul did, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’
But there is one thing which we must be sure to remember. The purifying power depends entirely on the reconciling blood. According to this text, in order that He might redeem and purify, He first gave Himself for us; or, in other words, in order that He might deliver, He first made satisfaction for sin by bearing its burden Himself. We may, therefore, be perfectly sure of this, that we shall never know His power as a deliverer unless we first know the power of His atonement. Not one amongst us could ever have been delivered if the curse of God had not first been removed, and that curse of God could never have been removed except by the fact that the Son of God became a curse for us. Till that was done there was no hope of deliverance, and till that is applied or appropriated there is no hope of personal holiness. Before the special, or peculiar, people could be purified unto Himself, they must be set free from the curse, and redeemed through the power of His blood. Not one of that people has the curse of God still resting on his soul, for so long as the curse remains it is perfectly impossible that any one of us should be one of the people. While, therefore, you trust in a Saviour living to deliver, be sure you keep well in view that same Saviour having died to atone. His life will be nothing to you unless you first know His death. You will never experience the power of His work in you until you realise His most gracious work completed for you on the cross. That blotting out of sin through the precious blood of the Lamb must lie at the foundation of all true holiness. It is the rock on which we stand, and unless there be a sure standing ground there is not the slightest hope of progress. If, therefore, you wish to press onward, and earnestly desire to be heart and soul holy to the Lord, and I am sure I am speaking to many that do, be sure you keep close to the great old foundation truths. Trust your living Lord as your living Deliverer. Accept His promises of the Holy Spirit’s power in all their fulness and throw yourself on Him for their complete fulfilment; but while you do so remember that the one power which in the purpose of God could remove the curse was the atoning blood, and the one hope of your being partaker of the deliverance rests altogether on the one fact that the great God our Saviour in boundless mercy gave Himself for you.