It is one of the happy characteristics of the present day that persons
are much more occupied than they used to be with the subject of emotional
religion. The religion of feeling is much more studied than it was forty
or fifty years ago. Modern books and modern addresses abound in the
records of what is termed ‘Experience.’ To a certain extent this is
well; for we all require real, deep, heart-religion, and it would indeed
be a shocking thing that we should know the truth of God, and still be
strangers to the love of Christ. Love, joy, and peace, are the first
fruits of the Spirit, and therefore if God the Holy Ghost dwells in our
hearts it seems clear that we must love Him, that we must rejoice in Him,
and that we must be at peace resting in His grace. But, just in
proportion as we set a high value on the religion of the heart, must we
see the importance of a solid foundation of divine truth on which all
true heart-religion must ever rest. We cannot build a house on the
surface of a river. If we attempt to do so we shall very soon find
ourselves at the bottom. So feelings are very apt to fail us just when
we want them, if they are not the result of a fixed and solid
acquaintance with the truth of God. If they do not spring from
established principles they will rise and fall even with the digestion or
the weather. It is, therefore, most important that in these happy days
of Christian emotion we should have a good foundation of Christian truth,
and should be well established in those great foundation facts on which,
when all feelings fail us, our souls may rest, and be at peace.
It is well, therefore, that our attention should be directed to the great
foundation subject of Redemption. It is one on which everything else
hangs, for if we do not understand redemption, we cannot possibly know
the value of the Redeemer; and if we do not know the Redeemer, where will
our feelings be when the time of pressure comes, and they are all pressed
out of us by trial?
There are three questions to be considered carefully at the outset of our
study. What is meant by Redemption? How far is our redemption complete?
And what is our present position? May God the Holy Ghost both direct and
bless the words which shall be spoken!
* * * * *
I. What is meant by redemption?
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