“Redeemed and so happy in Jesus,

No language my rapture can tell;

I know that the light of His presence

with me doth continually dwell”

GOD has provided a way whereby sinful man, unclean man, can be redeemed from the bondage of sin and made clean and acceptable to God. Sin’s captives can be set free through the power of the Blood of the Lamb — the “Lamb that was slain and liveth again” to intercede for you and for me.

Unregenerate man can get a picture of himself in the Book of God and see his uncleanness in the sight of God.

The Clean Redeems Unclean

About the time the Children of Israel were coming out of Egypt, God spoke to them and said:

“Thou shalt set apart unto the LORD all that openeth the matrix, and every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast; the males shall be the LORD’S.

“And every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck: and all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem” (Exodus 13:12, 13).

That word “redeem” is a mighty word which embodies God’s great plan of salvation for men who are of no more value, so far as their worthiness is concerned, than this unclean beast that had to be redeemed with a lamb. The ass was an unclean beast. The lamb was a clean beast. God made possible the redemption, in a physical sense, of even an ass that was unworthy, unprofitable, totally unfit to be offered unto the Lord as a sacrifice. Through the sacrifice of a lamb this unclean beast could be reclaimed by its owner.

Through these verses of Scripture, can we not get a glimpse of ourselves, of what we looked like before God redeemed us? Without God’s redemption, man is unfit, unprofitable, unclean, unworthy. He has nothing which would recommend him to the favor of God; but God has devised a plan whereby one may be accepted of Him. How thankful we are for that!

“If thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck.”

In other words, this unclean beast is not fit for anything but destruction. That is the status of every man and woman without Christ. The Scriptures say we are sinners by birth, sinners by choice, sinners by practice. We are unclean, unfit for the Kingdom until we are redeemed — redeemed by the Lamb! A price had to be paid. No man can give to God a ransom for his soul. He does not have the price. He has no virtue, no goodness, nothing to offer God that would purchase his salvation, so he must be redeemed. Someone has met the need. Someone has paid the price. And the price was a Lamb, too – Jesus, the Lamb of God.

The Lamb of God

It was a memorable day when John the Baptist stood on the banks of Jordan and pointed to a figure coming down the way, and said: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” It was the day of the fulfillment of every type and every figure that had come from the very beginning when blood was shed to cover the first sins of the humanity family.

Unless one can look to Calvary and, by the eye of faith, see the glorious deliverance, the mighty redemption, the wonderful plan of salvation God has provided, he can see nothing but destruction. There is only one deliverance, only one redemption, and that is through Jesus Christ our Lord — God’s immaculate, pure Lamb, who shed His Blood on Calvary to redeem the sinner and make him fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Without redemption, no one can have clean hands and a pure heart; and no one can enter the “hill of the LORD” without clean hands and a pure heart. There is only one way to receive this: through God’s Lamb who taketh away the sin of the world. How thankful we are for what it means to know we are worthy; not because we have any merit of our own but because God’s beloved Lamb was all-sufficient and abundantly able to bring about our reconciliation with God.

Paul the Apostle cried out: “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by

us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” There is no reconciliation without the Lamb, the worthy Lamb, the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world — in the mind of God, in the plan of salvation — so that we would not need to “have our necks broken,” so to speak, and be utterly destroyed. There is a Lamb to meet the demands of the Law. The Law breaks down before mercy. Mercy cries out against justice, and a guilty sinner is redeemed and made worthy of the Kingdom.

A Divine Daysman

What does it mean to you to know that there is a Redeemer, that there is a Lamb, that there is a divine Daysman (Job 9:33), one who can stand between you and eternal punishment and obtain mercy in your behalf instead of letting you suffer the justice due you? Nothing could accomplish that but the wonderful love and mercy and goodness of God.

If you have a desire for reconciliation with God, take advantage of the invitation that God has given:

“And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). Waters of redemption, waters of reconciliation, can be had without money and without price. You could not buy redemption if you had the wealth of the world. God could not be moved to favor your soul or change your destiny one single particle, though you had all the money the world possesses. But there is a Lamb that can meet the need.

The Lamb’s righteousness avails for us if we make it our own. When we take His righteousness into our lives, He takes away our unrighteousness, and keeps us righteous if we walk in the light. His righteousness is a perfect righteousness.

Your Responsibility

There are conditions to meet in order to be redeemed. There are things to do before one can have this glorious freedom. It is necessary for one to get into an attitude of repentance with godly sorrow for sin. If you want to be redeemed, say to God: “I am not worthy of all this. I am unworthy of Thy notice, much less of thy bountiful love. But because Thou hast manifested Thy love in my behalf, I come as I am, sin-stained, lost, hopeless, helpless in myself; I surrender all to Thee that I may find Thy pardoning grace.”

Remember, the Prophet stated:

“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:7).

That is what you have to do. Forsake your wicked ways and return unto the Lord, if you want to be redeemed. If you are a sinner, you are going the wrong way. Repent and turn to the Lord. A prophet of old cried out:

“Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?”

You can turn to Christ, to Father’s house, to the bounties of Heaven, to the joys of His great salvation, and become a new creature in Christ Jesus. That is precisely what a Christian is. Paul’s definition of a Christian is this:

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Corinthians 5:17).

We can look through the audience and see the faces of those who have become new, countenances that radiate the love and mercy and power of God in His transforming grace.

If you do not know Christ, you can know Him right now. You can know the way out of sin, know the power of God’s salvation, if you will open your heart to God in simple, childlike faith and believe His promise. He said that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What a promise! It is not man’s promise. It is God’s promise — right out of the Book of God.

Immutable Truth

It is God’s Word which says: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).