IV. There will be a redemption of the soul, _i.e._ a completion of that sacred work now being carried on in the soul through the power of the Holy Ghost. There is clearly a wide difference between the sacred work of deliverance as carried on in the body and the soul; for the deliverance of the body is not yet begun, but will be accomplished in one sudden act when the Lord shall appear. But it is not so with the soul; for in it the deliverance has been long since begun, and is day by day being carried out by the power of the Holy Ghost. Our blessed Lord has already delivered us, if we be in Him, both from the curse and dominion of sin: from the curse, for ‘we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins;’ and from the dominion, for ‘sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace.’ Rom. vi. 14. If, therefore, we are in Christ Jesus, and under grace, our soul is delivered from the dominion of sin, though our body is not yet delivered from the dominion of death. You may ask, then, how it is that the soul still wants deliverance? Look at the 12th verse of the sixth of Romans, only two verses before the one just quoted, and you read, ‘Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, that ye should fulfil it in the lusts thereof.’ It is, therefore, there, though it must not reign. It has life in it, and it is prepared to reign, but it must be put down. It has its lusts and desires, but they must be mortified, and not fulfilled. The power of sin is not extinct or quiescent, but in full vigour still. The old original corruption is not destroyed, but remains in full activity. The grace of God triumphs over it, but it is there; and there, not in a state of death, but of life and vigour. If you think you have done with sin you will find it will soon crop up, if in no other form, in pride of heart, and blindness to its power. We can therefore perfectly understand the complete harmony of the two verses in Rom. vii., that are sometimes thought contradictory: verse 6, in which he says, ‘Now we are delivered from the law,’ and verse 24, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ From the law, as involving the curse, we are already free; from the infection of a ruined nature we are still waiting to be delivered. And think for a moment what a deliverance that will be. Ye that have been deeply humbled at the discovery of your own utter unworthiness, ye that would describe yourselves as St. Paul did as ‘the chief of sinners,’ and ‘less than the least of all saints,’ think what it would be to be set at once absolutely free from indwelling sin. Picture to yourselves the day of His coming. Think of yourself on your knees in the morning, confessing sin, and praying for pardon and for help, for mercy and for grace. And then think of yourself at night, having in the course of the day beheld Christ as He is, and having been so transformed