THE RIGHT OF REDEMPTION

^[p. 21] THE RIGHT OF REDEMPTION

There are no more precious words in Scripture, if we apprehend all that is involved in them, than the words, “the right of redemption”. They are words which derive value from peculiar and unhappy conditions, because they imply that things and persons have got away from being pleasurable to God. But they are glorious words, because they bring out that God has a right to act under such circumstances in a way that will secure all that is due to Him, and all that is completely for His pleasure. Creation has not, in itself, secured God’s pleasure, though it had that in view, for we know that both in heaven and earth things have come to pass that are far from pleasing God. But redemption provides a new ground, a new moral basis, on which God secures all that is in His own mind and heart. “All the counsel of God” as to the inheritance and the heirs can take effect because of this great and glorious right which is vested in God Himself — the right of redemption.

Now what comes out in the Old Testament is that the right of redemption could only be taken up by a near kinsman. So that God in taking up this right had in mind to do so in Man, because redemption involved purchase — it involved that a title should be acquired of indisputable validity to take out of any hands that might hold it that which in truth belongs to God. But both redemption and purchase imply that the full price is paid. Whatever obligation has been incurred, whatever liability has come on the property or persons involved, it has to be taken up by the Redeemer. So that if sin and death had come in, as they have, and the pronounced sentence had gone forth, as it has, the purchase price cannot be less than will secure a full discharge from all that divine righteousness has imposed. A Kinsman alone can meet this — One who as Man can pay all that is due from man, so as to be entitled to claim for God’s pleasure what has become subject to dreadful liabilities. But it is God’s right of redemption that has been taken up by Christ as Man — one divine Person acting in this wondrous way on behalf of the Godhead.

Now all this is of vast importance if we bear in mind that the right of redemption in the Old Testament had to do with the inheritance. And the inheritance in the New Testament covers all that is in the purpose of God’s love to bestow on His sons and children, who are said to be His heirs.