Redemption

by Edward Hoare

One word before we close respecting the sacred feast of the Lord’s supper, in which it is our sacred privilege as believers to gather round the table of our Lord. It is a connecting link between the two parts of redemption, the atonement and the deliverance, the cross and the advent. In it we look backwards and forwards, as we are taught 1 Cor. xi. 26: backwards, for we show the Lord’s death; and forwards, for we do so ‘till He come.’ When He does so, we shall sit down with Him at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and our symbolic service will cease in the realisation of the fulness of His blessing. Oh! how I pity those who are moved neither by memory or hope, by the recollection of what He has done, or the hope of what He is about to do; who never show the Lord’s death according to His own appointment, and never act as if they were waiting for His coming!

XIV. HEAVEN.

‘And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.’—Rev. v. 9.

In the preceding lectures it has been my privilege to direct attention to the important subject of redemption, and I think we cannot do better in closing the series than examine in this lecture what they think of it in heaven. They know there more than we do here, for they have passed within the veil, and they know by experience those great and most blessed results which we can only anticipate in faith. In their case sight has taken the place of hope, and through redeeming grace they are in actual enjoyment of the visible presence of God. Of course, therefore, they are better able than we can be to form a just estimate of what the Lord Jesus has done for their salvation. Let us then devote this morning to the study of what they think of redeeming love.

We all know very well what a natural craving there is to look in beyond the veil, and to see what is passing amongst those who have already entered. What would we give for one half-hour’s intercourse, or for even a telescopic view of that happy assembly now gathered before the throne? What would it be to us if for one short minute we could see the heavens opened? But something of this kind was permitted to St. John, as we read, chap. iv. 1, ‘A door was opened in heaven,’ and a voice said, ‘Come up hither.’ Immediately he was in the Spirit, and having entered he saw some of those very things which we long to see, but which no other living man has ever been able to see, and to report. St. Paul may have seen them when he was caught up to the third heaven, but if he did, he was not permitted to tell us what he saw. But St. John was expressly employed to do so. He was distinctly commanded to write the things which he had seen, and this book is the result.

What, then, did he see? He saw in the first place a throne, and on the throne one sitting. Round about the throne were twenty-four seats, and ‘upon the seats four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.’ But besides the elders there was a marvellous manifestation of spiritual life, inexplicable to us who have no experience of the life of a spirit without the body: for in chap. iv. 6, we read, that ‘in the midst of the throne,’ and round about the throne, were four living ones. These living ones were clearly in the most intimate relationship with the throne and with Him who sat on it. They were as near to it and to Him as was possible, for they were in the midst of it, and round about it, while in an outer circle stood a vast host of angels. From chap. v. 11, we see clearly that these angels were in an outer circle, not so near the throne as the living ones, for there we read: ‘I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the living ones, and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.’ In this description the only real difficulty is with reference to the elders and living ones, for we are not distinctly informed who they were. According to the reading of ver. 9 and ver. 10, as given us in our dear old English Bible, it appears perfectly plain that together they formed the company of those whose ransomed souls are now resting before the throne, for they said in their hymn, ‘Thou hast redeemed us by thy blood . . . And hast made us unto our God kings and priests.’ But there seems to be a doubt about that ‘us,’ and, therefore, we must not rely too much on it. But on the whole there is reason to believe that the vast multitude of happy spirits now before God awaiting the resurrection, are represented by this inner circle of elders and living ones already brought as near as possible to the throne, and surrounded by the vast company of angels, who, having been sent forth to minister unto them during their pilgrimage, can rejoice without jealousy in their blessedness, even though they are placed in a position of greater honour than themselves.

But our business in this lecture is not to discuss the persons seen in heaven, but rather to examine what they think of redemption, to learn how far their account of it agrees with our own, and to find in what estimation they hold the redeeming work.

I. Their account, or description of it. Does the account which they give in their hymn agree with the account which we have gathered from the rest of Scripture? I think it does exactly, and I would ask you to notice four points.

(1.) They speak of redemption as a deliverance. We have found throughout the Word of God that to redeem is not merely to make atonement, but to deliver by means of a ransom. In all the passages that we have examined it has included the idea of actual deliverance. It has never been applied to the act of propitiation alone. Now turn to this hymn of the elders and living ones before the throne, and there you see precisely the same idea: ‘Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.’ There was an act of outgathering and ingathering. They were gathered out as a separate people from all nations of the earth, and gathered in to be a peculiar people unto God. The passage reminds us of those words in John, xi. 52, which teach us that the great object of the death of the Lord Jesus was, ‘that he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.’ So this heavenly hymn describes them as being thus gathered in one before the throne.

(2.) It is a redemption through the most precious blood of the Lamb.