c. Redemption of our souls
5. Redemption
a. Christ is our redemption
Let us now go on and take a view of the other link, or rather the end, of the believer’s golden chain of privileges: redemption. But we must look very high; for the top of it, like Jacob’s ladder, reaches heaven, where all believers will ascend and be placed at the right hand of God. “Who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”
This is a golden chain indeed! And what is best of all, not one link can ever be broken asunder from another. Were there no other text in the book of God, this single one sufficiently proves the final perseverance of all true believers: for never did God yet justify a man whom He did not sanctify; nor sanctify one whom He did not completely redeem and glorify. No, as for God, His way, His work, is perfect; He always carries on and finishes the work He begins.
Thus it was in the first, so it is in the new creation. When God says, “Let there be light” (Gen 1:3), there is light, light that shines more and more unto the perfect day—when believers enter into their eternal rest as God entered into His. Those whom God has justified, He has in effect glorified: for as a man’s worthiness was not the cause of God’s giving him Christ’s righteousness, so neither shall his unworthiness be a cause of his taking it away. God’s gifts and callings are without repentance (Rom 11:29).
I cannot think they are clear in the notion of Christ’s righteousness, who deny the final perseverance of the saints. I fear they understand justification in that low sense, in which I understood it a few years ago, as implying no more than remission of sins. But it not only signifies remission of sins past, but also a federal13 right to all good things to come. If God has given us His only Son, how will he not with him freely give us all things (Rom 8:32)? Therefore, the apostle, after he says, “Who of God is made unto us…righteousness,” does not say, perhaps He may be made to us sanctification and redemption; but He is made—for there is an eternal, indissoluble connection between these blessed privileges, as the obedience of Christ is imputed to them also. It argues great ignorance of the covenant of grace and redemption to object against it.
b. Redemption of our bodies
By the word redemption, we are to understand not only a complete deliverance from all evil, but also a full enjoyment of all good, both in body and soul. I say both in body and soul, for the Lord is also for the body; the bodies of the saints in this life are temples of the Holy Ghost. God makes a covenant with the dust of believers; after death, though worms destroy them, yet even in their flesh shall they see God. I fear, indeed, there are some Sadducees14 in our days, or at least heretics, who say either that there is no resurrection of the body, or that the resurrection is past already, namely in our regeneration. Hence it is that our Lord’s coming in the flesh at the Day of Judgment is denied. Consequently [if their view be true], we must throw aside the sacrament15 of the Lord’s Supper. For why should we remember the Lord’s death until He come to judgment, when He is already come to judge our hearts and will not come a second time?
But all this is only the reasoning of unlearned, unstable men, who certainly know not what they say or whereof they affirm. That we must follow our Lord in the regeneration, be partakers of a new birth, and that Christ must come into our hearts, we freely confess—and we hope when speaking of these things, we speak no more than what we know and feel. But then it is plain that Jesus Christ will come hereafter to judgment, and that He ascended into heaven with the body that He had here on earth; for, says He after His resurrection, “handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luk 24:39). And it is plain that Christ’s resurrection was an earnest16 of ours, for says the apostle, “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1Co 15:20). And as in Adam all die and are subject to mortality, so all that are in Christ—the second Adam, Who represented believers as their federal head17—shall certainly be made alive, or rise again with their bodies at the last day.
Here then, O believers, is one, though the lowest, degree of that redemption which you are to be partakers of hereafter; I mean the redemption of your bodies. “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1Co 15:53). Your bodies, as well as souls, were given to Jesus Christ by the Father; they have been companions in watching, fasting, and praying. Your bodies therefore, as well as souls, shall Jesus Christ raise up at the last day. Lean not, therefore, O believers, to look into the grave; for to you it is no other than a consecrated dormitory where your bodies shall sleep quietly until the morning of the resurrection—when the voice of the archangel shall sound and the trump of God give the general alarm, “Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment.” Earth, air, fire, water, shall give up your scattered atoms, and in both body and soul shall you be ever with the Lord.
I doubt not but many of you are groaning under crazy bodies, and complain often that the mortal body weighs down the immortal soul—at least this is my case. But let us have a little patience and we shall be delivered from our earthly prisons. Ere long these tabernacles of clay shall be dissolved, and we shall be clothed with our house that is from heaven. Hereafter our bodies shall be spiritualized, and shall be so far from hindering our souls through weakness that they shall become strong; so strong, as to bear up under an exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2Co 4:17). Others again may have deformed bodies, emaciated also with sickness, and worn out with labor and age—but wait a little until your blessed change by death comes. Then your bodies shall be renewed and made glorious, like unto Christ’s glorious body, of which we may form some faint idea from the account given us of our Lord’s transfiguration on the Mount. It then is said, “His face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light” (Mat 17:2). Well then may a believer break out into the apostle’s triumphant language, “O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory” (1Co 15:55)!
c. Redemption of our souls
But what is redemption of the body, in comparison to the redemption of the better part: our souls? I must, therefore, say to you believers, as the angel said to John (Rev 4:1), “Come up hither” and let us take as clear a view as we can at such a distance, of the redemption Christ has purchased for you and will shortly put you in actual possession of. Already you are justified, already you are sanctified, and thereby freed from the guilt and dominion of sin. But as I have observed, the being and indwelling of sin yet remains in you; God sees it proper to leave some Amalekites18 in the land, to keep His Israel in action.
1). Corruption
The most perfect Christian, I am persuaded, must agree, according to one of our articles,19 that the corruption of nature remains even in the regenerate; that “the flesh lusteth [always] against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” (Gal 5:17). Thus the believers cannot do things for God with that perfection they desire. This grieves their righteous souls day by day, and with the holy apostle makes them to cry out, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death” (Rom 7:24)! I thank God that our Lord Jesus Christ will, but not completely before the day of our dissolution. Then will the very being of sin be destroyed, and an eternal stop put to inbred, indwelling corruption. And is not this a great redemption? I am sure believers esteem it so, for there is nothing grieves the heart of a child of God so much as the remains of indwelling sin.
2). Temptations
Again, believers are often in heaviness through manifold temptations; God sees that it is needful and good for them so to be. Though they may be highly favored and wrapped up in communion with God even to the third heavens,20 yet a messenger of Satan is often sent to buffet them lest they should be puffed up with the abundance of revelations. But be not weary, be not faint in your minds: the time of your complete redemption draweth nigh (Luk 21:28). In heaven the wicked one shall cease from troubling you, and your weary souls shall enjoy an everlasting rest; his fiery darts cannot reach those blissful regions. Satan will never come any more to appear with, disturb, or accuse the sons of God, when once the Lord Jesus Christ shuts the door.
Your righteous souls are now grieved, day by day, at the ungodly conversation of the wicked: tares21 now grow up among the wheat; wolves come in sheep’s clothing. But the redemption spoken of in the text will free our souls from all anxiety on these accounts. Hereafter you shall enjoy a perfect communion22 of saints. Nothing that is unholy or unsanctified shall enter into the holy of holies that is prepared for you above. This, and all manner of evil whatsoever, you shall be delivered from when your redemption is hereafter made complete in heaven.
Not only so, but you shall enter into the full enjoyment of all good. It is true, all saints will not have the same degree of happiness, but all will be as happy as their hearts can desire. Believers, you shall judge evil and familiarly converse with good angels: you shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the spirits of just men made perfect. And to sum up all your happiness in one word, you shall see God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and, by seeing God, be more and more like unto Him, and pass from glory to glory even to all eternity (2Co 3:18).
But I must stop; the glories of the upper world crowd in so fast upon my soul that I am lost in the contemplation of them. Brethren, the redemption spoken of is unutterable; we cannot here find it out. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the hearts of the most holy men living, to conceive how great it is (1Co 2:9). Was I to entertain you whole ages with an account of it, when you come to heaven you must say with the queen of Sheba, “Behold, the half was not told me” (1Ki 10:7)—no, not the one thousandth part! All we can do here is to go upon Mount Pisgah and by the eye of faith take a distant view of the promised land. We may see it, as Abraham did Christ, afar off, and rejoice in it; but here we only know in part. Blessed be God, there is a time coming, when we shall know God even as we are known, and God be all in all. Lord Jesus, accomplish the number of thine elect! Lord Jesus, hasten thy kingdom!