Following Judah's Lion

The Spirit of Redemption

Heb.9:12 - Neither by the blood of goats and calves but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us.

Everything God does today is redemptive. Love redeems, and God is love. It is God’s nature to redeem and it seems He does not relish judgment. Many times the Lord informs us that He is patient and longsuffering, not willing that any should perish. He is slow to anger and plenty in mercy. The story of the blind men and the elephant illustrates something profound.

In the story, six blind men approached the elephant and each one of them only grasped part of the elephant. They argued with each other about what the elephant really looked like. They claim the elephant is like a wall (side), like spear (tusk), like a snake (trunk), like a tree (leg), like a fan (ear), or like a rope (tail). Obviously they could not reach an agreement.

And of course the Lord has many aspects of His character that all form His perfect being. Many present one of His attributes out of focus and at the expense of all the rest. Some will say God is a vengeful God, others say God is just love, and others choose another aspect of God’s character to magnify. But the one compelling thread that cannot be ignored is that God is redemptive, in motivation and in nature. If those six blind men where describing the Lord, even though they each had different perspectives, they would have all found commonality in this one observation. Every distinct part of their singular vantage point was permeated with redemption regardless how different it was from the other different vantage points.

That is God, that is the Spirit, and that of course is Jesus. Redemption is God’s nature and His eternal motivation. When God came to this world He did not come to condemn, He came to redeem. Jesus was redemption incarnate, and in that the Father was well pleased. And when the Spirit was given, He came to speak of Christ and draw sinners to redemption. The coming judgment that God has warned about is not God’s first choice for any sinner, He desires redemption. Not a robotic redemption that comes from His will and not from the heart of His children, no, God desires to see His human creation turn to Him and be redeemed, and everything He does is to that end.

If that is God’s heart, so should it be ours. We should cultivate a soft heart of redemption for our brethren in Christ and the lost sinners in this world. The offer of God’s complete redemption through Christ is good news and it must be told throughout the world, for in reality, it is only good news when it is heard. We cannot afford to waste valuable time judging others and spending our time as a disciple exposing and investigating others and their sins and shortcomings, we must be about the Father’s business which continues to be redemption. Everything we do should be redemptive. Even our correction should have a redemptive essence within it and not just an air of self righteous condemnation. It is a challenge to redemptively correct each other.

But let us face the agonizing reality that people by the millions and even billions are living a dour and hopeless existence without even the hope of earthly fulfillment much less the hope of eternal life. They meander through their lives, blind to hope and separated from redemption that was provided for them. And we, as the representatives of the Redeemer, are commissioned to be ambassadors of redemption rather than judgment. We should view sinners as the lost sheep that Christ is seeking to redeem, not as objects of wrath to which God is aggressively seeking to destroy.

A 16 year old single mother gives birth to a baby boy. She is a drug user and the child is born underweight and undernourished. He isn’t given a name until weeks after his birth, and as he grows he is neglected and often has to fill his empty stomach himself, sometimes in the streets. This little boy will never know who his father is, and in fact neither will his mother. His mother once traded her boy for one pitcher of beer. His mother uses drugs chronically and lives a life of crime. Bad checks, prostitution, theft, drugs, and other crimes catch up with her and she goes to prison for robbing a gas station. Since no one wants him, the child is placed in a boy’s home usually reserved for delinquents.

Throughout his life this boy is abused physically and emotionally tortured. His mother never shows him any love or even care, and neither does anyone else. His diminutive size makes him a constant target of bullies and in the end he turns to crime himself and becomes emotionally damaged to the point of psychosis. He winds up in prison for half of his adult life still never experiencing one moment of love and affection. He is a human shell who will spend the rest of his sad life in prison.

Do you feel any compassion for this child? Does it tug even slightly on your heart for what has happened to that boy? If you could would you have reached out to him with your love as well as the love of God? Well that never happened in this man’s case, and he is known by a name which some man who wasn’t his father allowed him to have. His name is Charles Manson.

How many of us have had nothing but revulsion and even hatred for that man? We have considered him a sinner above most sinners, especially ourselves. We assumed God has rejected him as well, and redemption has been the furthest thing from our minds. We did not know his story - we did not care to know. We are interested in condemning sinners, not in their redemption. Our personal stories are so much more sterile than is Manson’s, and with that we stand in judgment. The church has lost its heart and its calling, and so many times we say and think the same way the lost world thinks about people. Instead our hearts should melt with compassion toward those who are without redemption. Please remember, when compared with God's holiness, we were just as sinful as Charles Manson.

Somehow in the circles of evangelicalism the spirit of redemption has come to be seen as compromise. The cross, compromise? Grace, compromise? God’s redemption, purchased by God the Son, is the message and ministry of His church in these days. The pain and suffering that envelopes the world because of sin cries for an answer, a healing balm, which is the Lord Jesus and His redemption. Our lips must speak of Christ and Him crucified and allow the Spirit to penetrate sin hardened hearts and bring them into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.

Everything God does is redemptive, and we should follow in His steps.