THE CENTRAL THING in the Christian faith is the last thing mentioned—redemption. All the good things—wisdom, righteousness, sanctification—have to exhaust themselves and become bankrupt before they are ready for redemption. The good things have to be put under life and be tried and show themselves not good enough. Then redemption steps in and redeems all the exhausted good things. That happened on a world scale—Jesus redeemed the philosophies and moralities of the ancients, not by destroying the good in them, but fulfilling it in Himself. He made wisdom into Wisdom, righteousness into Righteousness, sanctification into Sanctification. When these things are surrendered to Him they are made into something higher and hence redeemed.
The word “redeemed” means literally “bought back”—the slave was redeemed when bought back from slavehood to manhood. All these virtues which have become enslaved and corrupted by our egoisms, which creep in and become the basis of those virtues, are redeemed by putting the love of Christ at the basis. We do these things for His sake, not for our sakes.
All our virtues need to be redeemed. Service can become domination by the service; self-respect can become pride; sex love can become sexuality; the social urge can become subservience to the herd; judgment can become mote picking; learning can become pedantic; love can become possessive; orderliness can become perfectionism; self-love can become selfishness. All these good things need to be redeemed by surrender to Jesus. Surrendered to Him, they are cleansed, consecrated, and given back to us. They are ours because they are His.
The fact of Jesus at the basis of our lives redeeming us from twisted good as well as from downright evil is the most important and precious fact in our universe. There is nothing like it.
O Jesus, Redeemer and Lord, how grateful I am for Thy redemption. Take my good and make the good into the best, and my bad into good. Redeem me all over—body, mind, spirit, and contacts, for I need redemption. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Redemption puts humility at the basis of all I do and say and am.
