Bible Commentaries

PLENTEOUS REDEMPTION

‘With Him is plenteous redemption.’

Psalms 130:7

The word redemption is used very frequently in two senses. In the common language of good books it sometimes means the same as atonement, as in the Catechism: ‘I believe in God the Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind.’ In the Old Testament, and sometimes in the New, it means deliverance, as in St. Luke 21:28 : ‘Your redemption draweth nigh.’ When applied to the sacred work of the Lord Jesus Christ, it generally means ‘deliverance through atonement.’ Thus understood, it means both atonement and deliverance.

I. With Him there is plenteous atonement.—Man has always been endeavouring to find some atonement for his sin, and has always failed, but we have received a perfect atonement in Him; it is plenteous. (1) Plenteous to cover the sins of the whole world. (2) Plenteous to cover all the sins of each one.

II. With Him is plenteous deliverance.—(1) A deliverance of the soul. As the Great Deliverer, He is completing His work in us. He has not promised to do it at once, by one single blow, but He has already set us free from the dominion of sin. (2) Deliverance of the body. St. Paul was looking for the redemption of the body, and taught those who have the firstfruits of the Spirit to do the same. For the Lord Jesus does not despise the body. He knows that a weak body cannot make a strong mental or spiritual effort. But He can deliver, and He will. He can heal all our sicknesses, and is sure to do so if it is best. But whatever He does now, He is sure in the end to deliver the body as well as the soul, so that the time is most certainly coming when our whole man, the body being redeemed from death and the soul from sin, shall stand perfect, spotless, and immortal before His throne.

—Canon Hoare.

Illustration

‘Need we scruple to find a large measure of truth in the instinct which has led more than half of Christendom to use the 130th Psalm at funerals?… Over all is that strange refrain, full of a longing like that of watchers looking for the break of dawn in some dark sky.’