Our Powerful Redeemer

Let us take hold of the truth which we find in Isaiah 47:4 . And let us confess it with our lips, but also by our whole walk of life.

There we read, "As for our redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel." Now, plainly, our God is here speaking through Isaiah of Jesus Christ our Savior. For He is our Redeemer. He bought us out of our guilty state, and caused us to be freed from the everlasting punishment which we deserve. He brought us back to covenant fellowship with God. And through Him God gives us a most wonderful present, the most wonderful possible.

Our salvation is a complete deliverance from the curse which we deserve, and it is a gift of everlasting value. Christmas presents given by man soon wear out, or no longer fit our needs and desires. The gift we received as little children does not compare with what we desire as adults. But salvation brings redemption; bestows upon us that which we need desperately; and never, never wears out. It is that which we never want discarded.

For our Redeemer is the Lord of Hosts, the Holy One of Israel. HE is God's gift to us. What a gift! To receive the Redeemer is wonderful. A Savior Who is the Lord of Hosts assures us that we will get a most precious gift, yea, that we already have a most precious gift, a Savior Who cannot be stopped in His work of salvation upon us.

We will most assuredly with our souls enter heavenly glory, the moment we die here on this earth. And our bodies will most assuredly be raised so that with body and soul we enter the new Jerusalem.

For the world, and for Satan who is the prince of this world, Christ's birth means a complete defeat. For us it means a most blessed gift. We have a most powerful Redeemer. He did redeem us one hundred per cent. And there is no one that can stop Him from bringing us that everlasting present of covenant fellowship with God in the glory of His kingdom of heaven.

Read: Revelation 22

Daily Meditations on the Heidelberg Catechism

Through the Bible in One Year
Read today:
Hosea 4 ; Hosea 5:1-15 
2 John 1:1-13 
Psalm 125:1-5 
Proverbs 29:9-11 
****
Quote for Reflection:

Praise is quite inevitable in view of what we have already seen in this Epistle. If we realize truly what “grace” and “peace” mean we cannot help praising…There is no more true test of our Christian profession than to discover how prominent this note of praise and thanksgiving is in our life. Is it to be found welling up out of our hearts and experience as it invariably did with the Apostle Paul? Is it constantly breaking forth in us and manifest in our lives? …All must surely agree that it is impossible to read through the New Testament without seeing that this is to be the supreme thing in the Christian life. It must of necessity be so, because if this gospel is true, that God has sent His own Son into the world to do for us the things we have been considering, then you would expect Christians to be entirely different from unbelievers; you would expect them to live in a relationship to God that would be evident to all, and that should above everything else produce this quality of joy…Hence we find this constant exhortation in the New Testament to praise God and offer up thanksgiving. This is what differentiates us from the world. The world is very miserable and unhappy; it is full of cursing and complaints. But praise, thanksgiving and contentment mark out the Christian and show that he is no longer “of the world”.

~ M. Lloyd-Jones on the “praise” of Ephesians 1:3 and our lives