The prior post on this sermon may be found here.
II. Secondly, The nature of redemption.
What is redemption by the blood of Christ?
[He gives the overview to follow]
In opening it to you, I shall prove six things:—
A. A captivity or bondage.
B. That from thence we are freed by a ransom, or price paid.
C. That none but Christ was fit to give this ransom.
D. That nothing performed by Christ was sufficient till he laid down his life.
E. That thence there is a liberty resulting to us.
F. That we do not actually partake of the benefit of this ransom till we be in Christ.
A. Our being redeemed supposeth a captivity and bondage.
1. All men in their unrenewed estate are slaves to sin and Satan, and subject to the wrath of God. Titus 3:3, John 8:23
a. [But isn’t doing what you want freedom?] Men imagine a life spent in vanity and pleasure to be a very good life; it were so, if liberty were to be determined by doing what we list [desire/wish] rather than what we ought.
b. [Even when they desire to leave these things, they care still held captive. The language of “addiction” is not used by Manton, but the inability to stop is described.]
c. [Satan has power in this] Now as they are under sin, so they are under Satan, ‘who worketh in the children of disobedience,’ Eph. 2:2; 2 Tim. 2:26
d. [Such people are both prey for Satan, the roaring lion; and will suffer the wrath of God. Eph. 2:3]
2. [We would suffer the same]if grace had not opened a way for us to escape, what should we have done?
B. To recover us, there was a price to be paid by way of ransom to God.
1. [We are not rescued by our begging, God’s mercy without justice, or any such thing] but by the payment of a sufficient price, and just satisfaction to provoked justice.
2. [The ransom was not paid to Satan.]
a. [We sinned against God.]
b. [Satan has no power when God justifies us.]
c. That redemption implieth the paying of a price is clear, because the word importeth it. [This is a logical implication from the language of redemption. The words translated “redemption” was used to describe the process of buying back a slave or captive of war”
“ἀπολύτρωσις, εως, ἡ orig. ‘buying back’ a slave or captive, i.e. ‘making free’ by payment of a ransom (λύτρον, q.v.; prisoners of war could ordinarily face slavery).”Arndt, William, et al. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., University of Chicago Press, 2000, p. 117.] Matt. 20:28; 1 Tim 2:6
d. God could have saved men by the grace of confirmation, but he chose rather by the grace of redemption. [I assume by “confirmation” God could have kept us from sinning.]
e. This recovery was not by a forcible rescue, but by a ransom.
f. [With us, Christ is a lamb. With his enemies, he is a lion.]
3. But why was a ransom necessary? Because God had made a former covenant, which was not to be quit and wholly made void but upon valuable consideration, lest his justice, wisdom, holiness, veracity, authority should fall to the ground. [God told Adam that by violating the law, he would die. If God were to merely forgive without fulfilling the demands of the law, God would fail in several respects]
a. [God’s justice would suffer]. The honour of his governing justice was to be secured and freed from any blemish, that the awe of God might be kept up in the world [Rom. 3, 5, 6, 25, 26; Gen. 18:25. This is an interesting argument: upholding God’s justice was necessary to secure God’s honor.
b. [God’s wisdom would suffer. If God gave a law to Adam, and Moses, and then simply ignored his own law, that would mean God did not understand what he was doing.]
The law was not given by God in jest, but in the greatest earnest that ever law was given. Now, if the law should be recalled without any more ado, the lawgiver would run the hazard of levity, mutability, and imprudence in constituting so solemn a transaction to no purpose.
c. [God by nature cannot ignore sin.] His holy nature would not permit it. There needed some way to be found out, to signify his purest holiness, his hatred and detestation of sin, and that it should not be pardoned without some marks of his displeasure. His soul hates the wicked, and the righteous God loveth righteousness, Ps. 11:6.
d. [God’s authority would suffer.] It would be a derogation from the authority of his law, if it might be broken, and there be no more ado about it.
e. [God’s truth would suffer. If he declared death and then changed his mind, he had not told the truth.]. We look upon the threatenings of the law as a vain scarecrow; therefore, for the terror and warning of sinners for the future, God would not release his wrath, nor release us from the power of sin and Satan, which was the consequent of it, without a price and valuable compensation.