The Redeemed
Beloved of God, those who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, fear not the inward struggles of sin in the flesh, for God’s favor is upon you. It is without question that you are in a holy battle between God’s righteousness and the sin that seeks supremacy in your life, “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” However, Jesus Christ, the son of righteousness, has vanquished both sin and death. This was accomplished when He took to Himself flesh and fulfilled the righteous demands of God’s law, which has condemned all mankind. The scriptures plainly teach us that God sent His, “own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
The word “walk” and the word “Spirit” in the above passage have the understanding of that which governs the heart, which is the seat of all affections. Again, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Paul, speaking to the church of Corinth about indulging sinful passions, tells them: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
Therefore, if Christ is in you, the hope of glory, fear not losing your salvation, for “you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.”
In Jesus Christ you have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of your sins, and this, according to the riches of His grace bestowed upon you by His sovereign pleasure. Just as Paul states, no “created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
So if the sins that once held you captive are coming upon you like a ship caught in a mighty tempest, and the struggles of your past failures are assailing with sharp arrows of affliction, rise up in holy warfare and fight. For just as God told the nation of Israel, “I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud And your sins like a heavy mist. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you,” the same is true for you as well.
In the midst of this fierce battle we must not forget, “As high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from u The word of God tells us to “lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
So “do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
My brothers and sisters in Christ, please examine all of these passages. You will observe that they all declare the complete and total forgiveness of sin, and that all the iniquities of God’s people have been completely forgiven, and no speck or trace of them is left behind for God Himself to see.
Oh, that we “may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”