Christ is the Beloved not of the Father alone, but of the created universe. All that know the Lord Jesus must needs love and adore Him--unless their hearts are eaten out by sin. Not to love Him is to be anathema. "If any man love me," said Jesus, "my Father will love him." Nothing so much pleases God and brings us into fellowship with God so direct and joyous, as our love to Jesus Christ. About this at least heaven and earth may agree, that He is the altogether lovely and love-worthy. Agreement in this will bring about agreement in everything. The love of Christ will tune the jarring universe into harmony.
1. Of grace bestowed, the first manifestation, in the experience of Paul and his readers, was _the forgiveness of their trespasses_ (comp. ii. 13-18). This is "the redemption" that "we _have_." And it comes "through His _blood_." The epistles to the Galatians and Romans[35] expound at length the apostle's doctrine touching the remission of sin and the relation of Christ's death to human transgression. To _redemption_ we shall return in considering verse 14, where the word is used, as again in chapter iv. 30, in its further application.
In Romans iii. 22-26 "the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" is declared to be the means by which we are acquitted in the judgement of God from the guilt of past transgressions. And this redemption consists in the "propitiatory sacrifice" which Christ offered in shedding His blood--a sacrifice wherein we participate "through faith." The language of this verse contains by implication all that is affirmed there. In this connexion, and according to the full intent of the word, redemption is _release by ransom_. The life-blood of Jesus Christ was the _price_ that He paid in order to secure our lawful release from the penalties entailed by our trespasses.[36] This Jesus Christ implied beforehand, when He spoke of "giving His life a ransom for many"; and when He said, in handing to His disciples the cup of the Last Supper: "This is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Using another synonymous term, St Paul tells us that "Christ _bought us out of_ the curse of the law"; and he bases on this expression a strong practical appeal: "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price."[37] These sayings, and others like them, point unmistakably to the fact that our trespasses as men against God's inflexible law, apart from Christ's intervention, must have issued in our eternal ruin. By His death on the cross Christ has made such amends to the law, that the awful sentence is averted, and our complete release from the power of sin is rendered possible.