Great Doctrines of Salvation, Redemption
Mike Doyle · Jul 23, 2006
Great Doctrines of Salvation, No. 04
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262357185705

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

I passed out that sheet last week that had a bunch of words on it about different words used in the Word of God in the New Testament to describe God's plan of redemption. The word that we're most interested in today is the word, the core word is agora.

And what does it mean? Wow, it's not that hard. What does it mean? Are you just afraid to answer? It's really easy. It means what? To buy back. The basic word means to go to the marketplace and purchase something, or to ransom something, or to buy it up, or in this case, to buy it back.

So maybe to kind of expand the thinking of what redemption is, at the creation, who did the whole human race belong to? belonged to God, and who did he put in charge of it? Adam, right? He gave Adam dominion over the first creation. So it was God's creation because he created it, and he gave dominion over it to Adam. So when Adam sins, did God lose ownership of the human race? What do you think? How many think, yeah, maybe he did? I got two yeses. How many think, no, I probably didn't? I got one no. What's the rest of you chickens? Come on. What do you think? You think he did?

Sure, if he has to buy it back, he probably lost ownership of it. Now, that doesn't take away from his sovereignty, but what the deal is, is that God set the principles in play. And if he gives dominion over his creation, to Adam, and Adam sins, what does he lose? He's separated from the dominion, and he loses, I use the word ownership. There's no question that God is sovereign, and that he is in control of everything, but with the principles that he put in play, Satan assumed ownership, right? Did he not? Maybe look at it this way.

Adam is a federal head. Anybody understand what a federal head is? Somebody tell me what a federal head is. How many federal heads are there? One? Courtney says two. How many are there? Who are they? Adam's one of them. Who's the other one? The Lord Jesus Christ.

So what does federal headship mean? means you're representative of the whole race, it means you have dominion or control of the whole race, ownership maybe, and if you lose it, what happens? Maybe lose isn't a good word. If you forfeit it to somebody else, it isn't yours anymore, right? even though he maintained the federal headship of the race because his offspring were just like him, but the problem with Adam was when he sinned, who did he come under the control of? And he became sin and he's under the power of the sin nature, right? He turned from God and what belongs to God was lost to another human being?

To an angel? Do you see a problem there? Do you see a problem with the dominion of the creation now being under the control of an angel? Well, do you see a problem in terms of what God's original purpose was? What kind of a creature was to have dominion? Was it an angel?

It was a man, right? So that part is kind of messed up too, isn't it? Could we move this down? That way we can hear what other people are saying too. So I've already given away this answer, but under what principle does the act of one man accrue to all of his descendants? A federal headship. Right. So do you think of yourself that way? Or maybe I shouldn't ask it that way.

Do you view things that all those who come into the world that are conceived and born into the world are born into this federal environment in which everything that's true of their father is true of them and they're born into a fallen world because it fell because he sinned, and that it's been, as Romans 8 says, it's been subjected to vanity, which means nothing in the world will ever come to the fruition of the design for which it was created. It always falls short.

And death has come in, so everything that you look at is in the process of dying. Can you name one thing that you've ever seen, observed, or held in your hand that isn't dying, or isn't already dead? Nothing that I know of. Even when little babies are born, like Penelope. Oh, what a marvelous thing that is. From the time that she arrives, where is she headed? To the grave, right? I remember Hal one time saying, we're all decaying, and I thought that was really I get it too. The older you get, the more graphic that becomes, right?

And it's all because of this federal headship thing that what's true of Adam is going to be true of us. And as we discussed in the identification class, the real blessing in the work of God was the fact that you and I were able to change federal heads, right? Who is our federal head now?

The Lord Jesus Christ. So what did God have to deal with in order to buy us back or bring us back to himself? What was the big issue there? Why did he have to do that? I want you to think about this. Think about the way God does things. Who puts the principles in play? Who's the one that said to Adam, you can't eat of this tree, and if you do, In dying, you're going to surely die. The Hebrew says, you're going to die-die. Big emphasis on dying. Who put that principle in place? God did. So it's his rules, right? So God has to play by his own rules, doesn't he? Yeah, he sure does. That's right.

Not only are we dealing with sins, which are the products of sinners, which have a penalty to be paid, every single one of them. If you sin, you die. But you have this other thing going on, which is the thing that causes these sins. Romans 5.12 says, By one man, sin entered the world. Does that mean by one man all these bad things showed up? What does that mean? Sin entered the world. What came in? The sin nature. And what came with it? Death. One man's sin entered the world and death because of sin. So death passed where? On only those guys who did bad things? On all men. Why?

Because all men sinned in Adam. So you can't say Adam, that dirty dog, if he hadn't have sinned, I'd have been okay. No. Because the verse clearly says that you and I sinned in Adam. Well, you say, gee, I wasn't around then. Why does God hold me responsible? Why? Federal headship. What's true of your father is true of you. If you'd have been Adam, you'd have done the same thing. So, God has to deal with two issues. He has to deal with the penalty of your sins, and then he has to deal with that sin nature.

So, Romans 5.18 says, Therefore, as to one man's offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation. Even so, through one man's righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life." Okay? Now, the acts of one man contribute to the demise of the entire creation and his race of men. Now there's another man, and that man is Jesus Christ.

Now, don't you find it interesting if God sets up the principle that the soul that sins it would surely die, that in order to effectuate a restoration or a redemption of a race back to himself, what's got to happen? A death has got to take place, because that's the consequence. Last Sunday I talked a little bit about consequences that God put into play.

Cause and effect. If you sin, you die. There's a consequence. And no matter what the world says, or however you want to dance around it, you never can get away from the consequence. Because God set the principle up. So if God sends another man, the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he makes Christ sin for us, guess what the consequence is? He's got to die. So the principle holds. God didn't just say, oh, you know what, I think I'll change my mind about that, and we'll make it easier. Once the principle is in play, it's carried out, because he doesn't vary. So what event redeemed mankind?

The verse that the Marchbanks uses is Romans 3.24. Somebody go to that and read it.

Romans 3.24. being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So a redemption was effectuated by being in Christ. There's a redemption that has been, or put it another way, the Lord Jesus was able to buy back the human race.

And Matthew 20.28 says, Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

OK, so that leads to the next question is if you're going to go down, maybe make it simple. If Ben's hurting a little bit for money and, you know, he takes his wife down and pawns her. I'm sorry, not his wife. TV set. And so she TV set. Takes his TV set and pawns it at the pawn shop and they give him $2.50 for it. Not a very good TV. How do you get it back?

You got to go pay the $2.50 plus interest or whatever the fees are, right? So if there's a certain what they call a redemption period, maybe you put it this way. If you bought a piece of real estate, bought a home, And you went to your friendly bank and you got a mortgage on it. And you were promised to pay them every month for the rest of your life. And about halfway through your life, you decided you couldn't pay them anymore.

The property goes into what is known as foreclosure. And the bank forecloses on the property. But in Colorado, there's this little window, 75-day window, and it's called the redemption period. How do you redeem if your property is in foreclosure? How do you redeem it? Well, you've got to come up with what's owed, and all the penalties, all the late charges, and pay the bank and get up to zero, and now your loan is back in full force again, and your property, quote-unquote, has been redeemed. So, in the principle of of life and federal headship, a redemption has to take place. What is the thing of value that's offered for the price?

And somebody other than Erlene, go to 1 Corinthians 6.20 and somebody else go to Hebrews 9.12 Somebody else, on the left side of the room, go to Ephesians 1.7. And Norm? Oh, that's right, you can't read it. Okay, then you.

1 Peter 1.18. Okay.

1 Corinthians 6.20. Somebody. Don't you read it, Irwin. Somebody else needs to talk. For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit. Thank you, God. Okay, so there's a price. You're bought with a price. Or put it another way, someone went and paid a price for you. And it was expensive. Okay?

Hebrews 9.12 Okay, what was the commodity that cost to save, to redeem you?

It's the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ is the most valuable commodity ever. Nothing is more valuable than the blood of Christ. That's the commodity where we could go and redeem Ben's TV for $2.50 plus fees, or redeem our home for whatever the dollar amount was. In order to redeem you, it costs the blood of the Son of God. The most expensive, the most valuable commodity there is, and it's not traded on the Board of Options Exchange, not. every ounce, not just half, not 70%, it took all of it.

And that blood allowed the Lord Jesus to enter in, according to Hebrews, the most holy place. What's the most holy place? Where is that? It's in Meadowood, right? No. Where's the most holy place? Where is it? It's in the presence of God. Jewish symbols enter into the holiest, the Jews would understand that the most holy place was the Holy of Holies, right? And why there? Because that's where the presence of the glory of God was. So the Lord Jesus goes into the presence of God with his blood, and by the way, never to leave, right? He stays there, and then says, once and for all, So the value of the commodity he brought in there was enough to satisfy God.

There's nothing left for you to do. You can't prick your finger and add to that. You can't do spiritual push-ups until you're sick and add to it. You cannot add to it because it has an intrinsic value all its own and that value totally satisfies God. Totally. Yes. Say that again, Steve. Oh, interesting.

What's the word sanctification mean, basically? It means the same thing as holy. It means to be set apart. So I think the reference there has to do with in the holy place or the holy of holies, you're totally set apart from and to God there. So sanctification would be an appropriate word because sanctification means exactly that, set apart. Is that okay? He's still pondering. Go on.

So, this verse, Hebrews 9.12 says, Having obtained, and that's Aristante's already done, eternal redemption. So the price is paid and God is satisfied.

Alright, Ephesians 1.7, who's got that one? in whom we have redemption through his blood and forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. Okay. Again, the statement is made, the redemption through his blood. That is the only way. It's the only thing that God will accept as a price to redeem you, to buy you back. And next week we'll talk about forgiveness and that kind of thing.

And all of this is done... What's God's motive? Why'd he do it? According to this verse. The riches of his grace. His totally unmerited and bottomless, topless, blindness grace. You cannot outspend God's grace. You can't do it. So it's interesting, the blood of Christ is considered by God to be the most valuable commodity there is, and he gives it by his grace, and there's nothing you can do to add to it. So like it or not, you're forced to live under grace. Too bad.

1 Peter 1.18 Before you know that it was not with perishable things, such as silver or gold, that you were redeemed from the empty way of life and the downsiness from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a land without land or people."

Okay, so again it reinforces the Apostle Paul, the writer of Hebrews. and Peter all recognize that the blood of Christ is the only thing of value that God will accept in order to redeem sinners. It's the only thing. Your sorrow, as we've talked about, repentance, conversion, regeneration, so far, there isn't anything that contributes to redemption except the blood of Christ. That's the only thing.

And it's the only thing that God values. He doesn't value the fact that you're sorry. He doesn't redeem you because you're sorry. He redeems you because whatever the price was that He demanded for sin has been fully paid. All of it. Nothing left for you to pay or to contribute.

So question eight was, was it enough? Now, are you convinced in your mind it's enough? So you'll stop doing your spiritual push-ups? Is it enough, really? You buy that it's enough? Norm's the only honest guy in the room. He said no. It's difficult, isn't it? To really settle down on the fact that the blood of Christ was enough. Especially when you commit a sin, right?

You instantly think, oh, I just jumped out of the redemption boat. I don't know if we were talking about last week or Tuesday or whatever. There's a sense in our makeup where when salvation comes to us as a free thing, a totally free thing, and there was a price to be paid for my salvation and your salvation and the presentation of the fact that God has done everything necessary for me to be saved. I came out of Catholicism.

That is a real shock when you hear that because But I shouldn't say Catholicism is any different than any other denomination. There's the subtlety of legalism and performance everywhere you go. All the religions of the world, I mean, look at what these Muslims do in order to obtain what they term salvation. And any other religion, and to be honest with you, Lots of the doctrine of Christianity is based on the performance of the Christian.

But from God's perspective, because he's the one that came up with the plan, he knew He set the cost of sinning and he set the price of redemption. And in every case, the only thing we added to redemption was the fact that it was necessary because we did the sinning. That's our only contribution. The redemption part of it is totally on God's side of the ledger.

Totally. I must say that that's a hard thing for a human being to say, okay, all right. I'm thinking of the jailer who says to Paul, what must I do to be saved? What is his answer? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you and your whole family. So you say, ah, now I've got something to contribute.

I can believe. How much did your believing contribute to the price of that blood? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. So you see how faith and grace have to go together? It couldn't be any other way. If there was anything other than faith that effectuated salvation for you and me, it wouldn't be grace. that's right and it's readily apparent by the program that you're in, Perfectly Fair to Life, Prayer of Dignity, whatever it's going to be, Courage in God, there's all these programs and it's all something for you to do.

That's right. And that's how it's edited. It's an amazingly honest one. It is. It's very difficult to accept that. I mean, we all want to do something. Yeah, baptism. There's a good one. How about this one? Receive Jesus into your heart. Something for you to do. Is there a problem with that? How about this one? This one's even more so. Make a commitment to Christ. How about that one?

What have I just done? I've given you something to do. That you can get credit for. Because six months later you can go to Jesus and say, Hey, I made a commitment. How come you're not performing on your side? Yeah, you haven't committed enough. Or receive Jesus into your heart. Hey, I received you. Let's get going here.

What's the gospel message? What's the simple gospel? What is it? What are the three things you need to believe? That Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins, according to the scriptures, he was buried and he was resurrected according to the scriptures. That's it. How about making Jesus the Lord of your life? How about that one? You like that one? What's interesting about a discussion like this is the subtlety of the intrusion of just a few little things that maybe I can do.

But the reality is that if the gospel message is presented properly, and the idea of redemption is presented properly, and then the invitation is for you to exercise faith in the facts, and the person who is the facts, then you start on grace's plane, and that's the best way to start, because then as you move forward, learning about all of what God has done by grace, you're much more willing to accept the grace and not try to sneak in there and do a few things to help God along. I was just wondering, I mean, what should you say? I mean, it is belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and all that's said, but I mean, I think you just went over this, but what's the difference between your commitment and belief? If you're a room of non-believers, and I'm the evangelist, and I give you the up two, three, four message, and I say, I want you to come forward and commit your life to Christ. What have I invited you to do? Let me ask you this. Who have I invited to come forward and make the commitment? The old man, right? So the old man says, OK, I'll do that.

If I say to you, Jesus died on the cross for your sins, he paid the penalty for you, he was buried, which proves that he died, and he was resurrected, according to the scriptures, and what I want you to do is just to believe that fact, and in the person who did it. That's all I want you to do.

Don't commit, don't receive, just believe that fact. What's the difference? Takes you out of the equation. What's that? That's right. Here's the other thing that's interesting. Does salvation come... Is the appeal of salvation to the old man? What do you think? It would have to be, because that's what you are. That's right. So here comes the appeal. Here comes the work of the... Now don't get Calvinistic on me.

You're not regenerated in order to believe. The Spirit comes to you as a non-believer and solicits you to believe. Well, He reveals to you your position before God, which is nothing. You're condemned in trespass and sins. You're really convinced, right? And He presents the Lord Jesus as your Savior, based on the Gospel, and He says to you, believe this. And if you believe it, I will save you for all eternity. Who's invited to do the believing?

You as a person, but where are you? You're an atom. So you say, okay, I believe it. That's the last act of atom. Do you understand what I just said? Because what happens the second you believe? What happens to you positionally? You die. Because the minute you believe you're included in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, you're identified with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.

Now that doesn't mean that Adam can't perform sins, but from God's perspective, where are you now? You're now in Christ. And in his perspective, Adam has fulfilled his entire responsibility. Has he not? And so when he does that, what does God do? He puts him on the cross with Christ, He's crucified, buried and resurrected in Christ. He now has a new federal head. And so before God, his life is over. And that's done by faith. Adam contributed to the cross only by putting people up there. He didn't contribute anything to it in terms of redemption or salvation. Is that okay? He didn't have a chance to commit to anything. He didn't do anything. Other than just believe. He said okay. Yeah. He said okay. Yeah. He died twice right then and at the end.

If you commit your life to Christ, it means that you think you have control of your life and that you have that power to give your life. Which you do. You have the power to say, I'm committing my life to Christ. But monks do it all the time. Right, but I mean, your life doesn't belong to you. Let's go to Romans chapter 6, I think it's verse 12. This tells you all you need to know about committing. Committing. Somebody read it. No, I'm sorry. Six... I think 612. Not 5-6. I think that's the right one.

Keep going. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourself unto God as those that are alive from the dead. Okay, that's good, right there. What's the key phrase there? Here's the exhortation and the command. You yield your instruments of righteousness, why?

Or which guy does it? Those guys that are alive from the dead. So commitment is an exhortation to those who are already in Christ, not to those who aren't. Do you see that? Which is your reasonable service. So the problem is that here comes the exhortation or the command to commit your life or to yield your life, and the word yield really means to present. But we jump over that little phrase that says, as those that are alive from the dead.

Does God want anything from the old nature? Nothing. Nada. Only new. I think that makes my point. Well, any performance of the old nature before God by a Christian is denying the work of the cross and denying redemption. See that? That's why it's such a slap in the face. Did the Old Testament blood sacrifice accomplish redemption? And the verses were Hebrews 9, 11, 12 and 15. Hebrews 9, 11, 12 and 15. I'm gonna start calling on you. Courtney. Nice going. Courtney.

When Christ appeared as a high priest, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle. not made with hands, that is to say, not of his creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood. He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For this reason he is the mediator of the new covenant, so that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. Okay, so what did the blood of bulls and goats do?

If it didn't redeem you, what did it do? It's a covering. It sort of brought you back to Ben's TV. If you go down there every week and pay 50 cents, they extend the redemption period. The blood of bulls and goats really did extend the redemption period until Christ came. That's really what it did. You still were in Hach. Could obedience to law redeem a Jew or anyone else? No? Yes?

Galatians 3.13.14 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us as it is written, cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. So, what's the big problem with the law?

Was it designed for redemption? What was it designed for? Why did it show up? Why did God send it? Very simple phrase. Why was it here? Why did He give the law to the Jews? Because they needed it. To do what? They needed it alright, but what was it designed to do?

Well, it was to make sin abound and to condemn them. That's the problem with the law. If you look at the law and the purpose that God sent it alongside, It inflames the sin nature and it causes the sin nature to be exceedingly sinful and it categorizes the activity of the sin nature into offenses and it makes sin exceedingly sinful. It gave no power to not sin. All it did was make it about you and make it about performance. It's like going camping and having a campfire and throwing gasoline on it to put it out. The law just inflames the sin nature. That's all it does. So it can't redeem you if it's the very tool that causes you to sin more. How could it possibly redeem you? So I know that most good covenant people think that, you know, we're saved and we've been given the spirit so we can keep the law.

Well, they missed that. They somehow missed those parts about what the purpose of the law really is and the fact there was nothing given in the law that would enable man to obey it. Nothing. There was cursing if you didn't do it and blessing if you did do it, but there was nothing. So the covenant people say, well now we have the Spirit, so now we've got the tool we need to obey the law. The problem is you can't ever get away from Romans 5 that says the law came in so that sin might abound. That's why it's there.

So it can't redeem you is the obvious answer. What are the four requirements if you're going to be a redeemer? Let's say that Norm said, OK, Mike, I'm going to be a Redeemer for you. What does he have to be in order to be a Redeemer? What do you think? Was that even in there? What's the first one? One of the keys is a kinsman Redeemer. That's a key word. In order to be a Redeemer, you have to be qualified. In order to be a member of the U.S. military, you have to be qualified. You have to enlist, go to camp, you know, that kind of thing. You have to be qualified. So what are the qualifications of being a kinsman redeemer?

Well, it doesn't depend on what you're redeeming from. I don't know, I mean, are we talking about specifically redeeming from sins? Well, the redemption of man. If you're going to redeem somebody, what do you got to do? The first thing you have to be, to be a kinsman, is you have to be of the same race of the thing that you're going to redeem. In other words, the Lord Jesus had to become a man in order to be a redeemer. An angel couldn't redeem us.

You see that? You have to be of the same kind. That's one of the requirements. It was true in the Old Testament. Somebody from your family had to redeem you. A stranger couldn't do it. The second thing is, you've got to be able to do it. I can't go down to Ben's hock shop and say, give me the TV. I only got a buck and a quarter. I can't redeem the TV. I don't have enough. I must be able to give the price required by the person who holds the chattel, who holds the mortgage, who holds the redemption. Was Christ able to pay the price?

Did he have the commodity needed? Yes. What was it? His blood. He must be willing to do it. He's got to be willing to do it. And Hebrews 10, 4-10 tells you that he's willing. And he must be free from the reasons why redemption was necessary. Isn't that a cool one? I could go redeem Ben's TV with my $2.50 plus cost because I'm not a party to the hawk in the beginning. You understand? The Lord Jesus was not a party to the reason that redemption was necessary. He wasn't a sinner. He didn't come from Adam. So he's got to be outside the equation in order to be a redeemer. Christ didn't come to redeem himself. That wasn't necessary. He came to redeem kinsmen because he had the price and he was like them and he wanted to do it.

Those are the four things you've got to have in order to be a redeemer. Now you might say to yourself, well gee, that's pretty simple. Think about it. You think about if you wanted to be a redeemer. If somebody in your family, and we don't have debtor's prison, but was really in debtor's prison, and you wanted to redeem them, there's requirements.

Our society, as an example, if my house goes into foreclosure, Courtney can go down and pay it, but I'm the redeemer. I'm the only one, because I'm the one that has the loan. I'm the one who signed the note. Somebody else might give me the money, but I've got to do the redemption, as long as it's within the period.

Do you see what I'm saying? Redemption is said to be past, present, and future. Explain. What is it in past? I have been redeemed. What does that mean? What have you been redeemed from? Past tense. The penalty. I thought he was going to say from being a Presbyterian. We have been redeemed from the obligation to pay the penalty for your sins. That's already done, right? Anybody agree with that?

And the verses were Romans 3.24-6, 6.23, 1 Corinthians 6.19-20. How about present redemption? What's going on when we talk about present redemption? What are you being redeemed from presently? The power of sin. Now, for those of you who were in identification class, how is that done? How does God carry out redeeming you from the power of sin today, right now? How does He do it? He gives you the strength to overcome, right? How does He do it?

That's right. By the identification with the crucifixion of my old man has been crucified or Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ.

So I've been, nevertheless I live. In the life I now live in this body, I live by the faith of the Son of God. I have been, you have been, positionally separated from the source of sin in your life. And as the work of the Spirit based on that truth is applied to your life, you increasingly are free from the power of the sin nature. But it's based on something God already did. It's an ongoing process in your life right now.

So, you can say, presently, I am being redeemed from the power of sin, the power of my sin nature. Okay with that? Okay, future. How about future redemption? The very presence of sin. So, I mean, if you think about how God did things, it's really kind of simple in my mind. A man is born, conceived and born on this planet, and he shows up, the man shows up with a soul that's got a sin nature attached to it, right?

And Romans 8.3 says that what the law could not do, that God did by sending his own son, he condemned sin in the flesh. So the sin nature, this thing that's attached to the man, and by the way, it leads him around, choosing between one sin and another and telling him he's free. A little bit of a delusion there. And he is totally identified and attached to this sin nature, right? And so whatever is going to happen to this sin nature in eternity is going to happen to the man who's attached to it.

Now, he becomes a Christian. He believes in the person and work of Christ. And because of that, he's identified with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Christ has made sin for us. He dies, and he's resurrected. Now, inside the man's body is this sin nature, but it isn't this anymore. Now, Christ is the source of this man's life. So when the man leaves this planet, where does the sin nature go with him? No, it doesn't. So the sin nature isn't with him, so there isn't any condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. When you leave here, you leave the very presence of sin behind you.

Isn't that cool? I kid the guys on Tuesday, Richard Locke's been gone a couple of years now, right? Richard would never want to be reunited with his sin nature so that he could come to our Tuesday Bible study. Not going there. He's free. So God will, when you leave this planet to go home to be with the Lord, your sin nature stays behind.

It doesn't go with you. That's really cool. That is terrific news in my mind. Was that the second Bill? Alright, last question. Quickly, we're going to get them all done. According to the author, what are the two things that accomplish redemption? The first one's blood. What's the other one? What is it? Power. It took the power of God to do all of this.

Dear Father, how we thank you for the redemption that we have in your son, and how we thank you for the fact that you are causing us to grow in the knowledge and grace of him, which allows us to appreciate what it cost you to redeem us, and that now we willingly and joyfully are your possession. Father, we thank you for the redemption, we thank you for Christ, and we pray in his name. Amen.