The Nature of God’S Divine Redemption

By John R. Matthew

The book was born out of a desire to lift your spirit. As we look around us today, we see a lot of pain and sorrow and misery. The concept of The Nature of Gods Divine Redemption is a deliberate intention to encourage you and to lift your hope, to put your mind on something better and a superior way. The book tells you, If the son of man set you free, you are free indeed (John 8: 36, King James Bible). That is what is The Nature of Gods Redemption is about. We are told that whatsoever a man thinks in his heart so is he. The idea behind the book is to help you to think good thoughts and to lift your minds from horizontal things to vertical things. Gods love is the most amazing thing.
The book tells that faith is also amazing. It takes far more faith to believe in the intellectually chic and fashionable evolutionary myth than it does to believe in the existence of God. Moreover, it says, Evolution is based entirely on faith because no facts or proof have ever been found to support it!
Faith does play a primary role in the life of a Christian. For the person who truly wants to seek God and learn to please Him, Hebrews 11:6 tells us that: But without faith it is impossible to please God: for him that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarded of them that diligently seek Him
Faith is vital to a Christian. In fact, without it, no one can please God. Notice this verse says that those seeking God must believe that He is. Also the book articulates that a deep belief in God, who rewards all who diligently seek Him, requires proof of His existence. It says it is After proof has been established, thenand only then can one have faithabsolute confidence that what man does is being recorded in Gods mind, to be remembered when he receives his reward. If you are uncertain that God exists because proof of that existence has not been firmly established, then, under fire, your faith will wane or disappear. But when you truly believe in what Jesus Christ did on the Cross of Calvary, Gods Divine love will redeem you and set you free from the heavy load of sin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Aug 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496988607

John R. Matthew

He would not be able to finalize this manuscript without the help and support or the Urban Divinity Unit in High Gate in Birmingham. Those people who have chosen to share their skills and expertise in many capacities, have empowered me to complete Dr.Min to present it in the acceptable format He is extremely grateful for their extraordinary patience and kindness. He was raised in a Christian home. And with that, the Author Got wonderfully saved at an early age. While his parents and three sisters and a brother were living in England He and his brother remain in ST.KITTS with his aunt Rhoda. He got saved or gave himself to the LORD in a church or denomination. He obtains his New Birth in the open air, in a sugar cane field one sunny-cloudy morning before he went to school. Now he burns with a passion to tell the world about this sweet saving grace of Jesus. This experience is not a fairy tale. This experience is as real as the rain that falls from heaven; like the sun shines from heaven from the skies. I am now Pentecostal Christian. However, I think every Born again Christian must embrace a solid secular and theological education, or else the people of the, who is not an “In Christ one” would not take seriously. I am inclined to sing, preach the word A little over two years ago, I met an elderly gentleman from my Pilgrim Holiness Church. He asked me “how are you doing these days?” I responded to him, “I am studying theology.” He endorsed my answer by saying: “You do not need an education to become a Christian: But if you are thinking of going into the ministry a little education helps. I truly thought, that was a witty remark.

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© 2014 John R. Matthew. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/04/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-8859-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-8858-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-8860-7 (e)

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Nature of God’s Redemption

Chapter 2 The Nature of Prophetic Redemption

Chapter 3 The Nature of Redemption in the Intertestamental Period

Chapter 4 The Nature of the First Coming of Jesus Christ

Chapter 5 The Nature of the Cross and Redemption

Chapter 6 The Nature of Pentecost in Redemption

Chapter 7 The Nature of Eschatological Redemption

Bibliography βιβλιογραφία,

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About the Author

About the Book

Dedication

I want to dedicate this document to same five people whom I dedicated my BTh and my MTh to. The names are as follows: my dear beloved late father, Charles Joseph Matthew, who lived an exemplary Christian life before me as a boy; he has never once pushed Christianity down my throat. The second person is my older sister, Georgiana Matthew, who never ceased in her efforts to encourage me back into the arms of Jesus Christ. She constantly prayed for me. The third person is professor Dr. Clinton Ryan, pastor of the New Testament Church of God Highgate Birmingham. Having spotted my multitasking disposition, he encouraged me to pursue a theological education—and praises be to God. The fourth person is my dear teacher, Enrica Douglas, who played several roles in my life as my weekday teacher, Sunday school teacher, and role model for singing. I can still hear her melodic voice echoing in my ears, which has surely rubbed off onto me and my sister. The fifth and last person is an English Christian lady and personal secretary to Professor Ryan.

Acknowledgments

I ESPECIALLY WANT to thank my esteemed Professor of Divinity, Reverend Dr. Clinton Ryan, the program coordinator for the United Kingdom and the Caribbean for the Canadian graduate school of theology and his administrator, Rita Whichelow, for their agape assistance and overhaul.

Thank you, Professor Ryan. Ever since I was in my late teens, I visualized myself having letters behind my name. At one stage, I contemplated going to the Pilgrim Holiness Bible College in the United States. They had a timely curriculum: Bible studies (theology), math, biology, science, and other major subjects and offered bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. I did not have the financial assistance, so that came to a standstill. Nevertheless, in my later years I still claim Psalm 90:12–14.

Introduction

THE TERM THEOLOGY is not found explicitly in the Holy Bible. It is the queen of the sciences and embodies the bigger picture of the nature of God’s divine favor toward humanity. The ordinary idea of our redemption is probably that Christ, being the God-man, redeemed the rest of humankind as individuals. That, however, is not the idea put before us in Scripture. Throughout the Psalms, Christ spoke of being redeemed by God. This truth is rendered more forcible because it is contained in the very sentence with which Christ gave up His life upon the cross: Into Thy Hands, O Lord, I commend My Spirit, for Thou hast redeemed Me, O Lord, Thou God of Truth.

Theologians tell us that this Psalm voices the thoughts of Jesus. On the cross, He uttered a loud cry. Furthermore, the nature of God’s redemption (λύτρωση) is found in context in the social, legal, and religious customs of the ancient world—in particular, Israel. The metaphor of redemption includes the ideas of losing from a bond, being set free from captivity or slavery, buying back something lost or sold, exchanging something in one’s possession for something possessed by another, and ransoming. Furthermore, the apostle Paul said in Romans 8:22–23 (KJV), And not only they, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for: But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

Moreover, the nature of God’s divine redemption implies that the initiation of human redemption comes directly from God’s holy, insurmountable brain power and intellect. And this encapsulates or includes all the methods or ways God chooses to employ in bringing about redemption to humankind. I want to show God at work, bringing about redemption to fallen people in both in both the Old and New Testaments, emphasizing the difference between them.

The Object of Redemption

It is human nature that needed to be redeemed. Satan had enslaved human nature by his struggle with Adam. When a redeemer was promised, people could not be redeemed as separate personalities. Redemption was not an arrangement with Satan to set certain individuals free but a deliverance of human nature as a whole from the condition of imprisonment under Satan’s power that it had incurred by the loss of the authoritative divine presence as originally given to our first parents in Paradise.

Who Is the Redeemer?

In contemplating the nature of God’s divine redemption, we should ask ourselves a number of pertinent or timely questions. Why should this all-powerful, uncreated Creator who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, show mercy to sinful, rebellious humanity? Why should any of us be given an opportunity to repent and turn from ways that clearly deserve judgment, even by our own distorted standards? Why did this God, who dwells in unapproachable light and who cannot bear to look upon sin, withhold His wrath and provide a way of escape? There is a simple—but not simplistic—answer: because God chose to! Not only is God the God of judgment and righteousness, but He is also the God who has, as His Word declares, attired Himself in human flesh because of His agape love. John 3:16–17 (KJV) tells us, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should no perish, but have everlasting life, For God send not His son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.

In Genesis 3:15 (KJV) God said to Satan, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow, thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

The apostle Paul said in Romans 5:13 (KJV), Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

Death reigned from Adam, meaning humanity, the generic name for all humankind. Adam was the name God gave to the first man in history, and his descendants are detailed in the first five books of Moses. In Genesis 1:27 (KJV), God created (man, Adam) in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. He was formed from the dust of the earth (hence his name), and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and gave him dominion over all the lower creatures (Genesis 1:26, 2:7). The Creator then gave the man a test that he failed miserably. Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Thus humanity fell and brought upon itself and its posterity all the sad consequences of Adam’s transgression. The story of the fall contains the great promise of a deliverer (Genesis 3:15), the first gospel message to humanity. Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden, and at the east of the garden, God placed a flame that turned every way to prevent access to the tree of life (Genesis 3). How long they were in Paradise is a matter of mere conjecture.

Shortly after their expulsion, Eve brought forth her firstborn and called him Cain. Although we have the names of only three of Adam’s sons (Cain, Abel, and Seth), it is obvious that he had many sons and daughters (Genesis 5:4). He died at the age of 930.

Several hundred years passed, and Moses (whose name means drawn from the waters) became the adopted royal son of Ramesses. On the invitation of Pharaoh (Genesis 45:17–25), Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt. This immigration took place probably about 350 years before the birth of Moses. Some centuries before Joseph, Egypt had been conquered by a pastoral Semitic race from Asia, the Hyksos, who brought into cruel subjection the native Egyptians, who were an African race. Jacob and his retinue were accustomed to a shepherd’s life, and on their arrival in Egypt, they were received with favor by the king, who assigned them the best of the land, the land of Goshen, to dwell in. The shepherd king who thus showed favor to Joseph and his family was in all probability the Pharaoh Appoint (or Apopis).

Thus favored by God, the Israelites began to multiply exceedingly (Genesis 47:27) and extended to the west and south. At length, the supremacy of the Hyksos came to an end. The descendants of Jacob were allowed to retain their possession of Goshen undisturbed, but after the death of Joseph, their position was not so favorable. The Egyptians began to despise them, and the period of their affliction (Genesis 15:13) commenced. They were sorely oppressed. They continued, however, to increase in numbers, and the land was filled with them (Exodus 1:7). The native Egyptians regarded them with suspicion, so they felt all the hardship of a struggle for existence.

In the process of time, a king [probably Seti I.] arose who knew not Joseph (Exodus 1:8). (See PHARAOH.) The circumstances of the country were such that this king thought it necessary to weaken his Israelite subjects by oppressing them and reducing their number by degrees. They were accordingly made public slaves and were employed in connection with his numerous buildings, especially in the erection of store cities, temples, and palaces. The children of Israel were made to serve with rigor. Their lives were made bitter with hard bondage, and all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigor (Exodus 1:13–14 KJV). But this cruel oppression did not have the expected result of reducing their number. On the contrary, the more the Egyptians afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew (Exodus 1:12 KJV).

The king next tried, through a compact secretly made with the guild of midwives, to bring about the destruction of all the Hebrew male children who might be born. But the king’s wish was not rigorously enforced; the male children were spared by the midwives so that the people multiplied more than ever. Thus baffled, the king issued a public proclamation calling on the people to put to death all the Hebrew male children by casting them into the river (Exodus 1:22). But neither by this edict was the king’s purpose affected.

One of the Hebrew households into which this cruel edict of the king brought great alarm was that of Amram, of the family of the Kohathites (Exodus 6:16–20), who with his wife Jochebed and two children, Miriam, a girl of perhaps fifteen years of age, and Aaron, a boy of three years, resided in or near Memphis, the capital city of that time. In this quiet home, a male child was born (1571 BC). His mother concealed him in the house from the knowledge of the civic authorities for three months. But when the task of concealment became difficult, Jochebed contrived to bring her child under the notice of the daughter of the king by constructing for him an ark of bulrushes that she laid among the flags that grew on the edge of the river at the spot where the princess was wont to come down and bathe.

Her plan was successful. The king’s daughter saw the child; and behold the child wept. The princess (Pharaoh’s daughter) sent Miriam, who was standing by, to fetch a nurse. Miriam had the intelligence to bring the mother of the child, to whom the princess said, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. Thus Jochebed’s child, whom the princess called Moses (saved from the water, Exodus 2:10 KJV), was ultimately restored to her.

As soon as the natural time for weaning the child came, he was transferred from the humble abode of his father to the royal palace, where he was brought up as the adopted son of the princess, his mother probably accompanying him and caring for him still. He grew up amid all the grandeur and excitement of the Egyptian court, maintaining, however, probably a constant fellowship with his mother, which was of the highest importance to his religious belief and interest in his brethren.

His education was doubtless carefully attended to, and he enjoyed all the advantages of training both of his body and his mind. He at length became learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22 KJV). Egypt then had two chief seats of learning, or universities, at one of which, probably that of Heliopolis, his education was completed. Moses, at about twenty years of age, lived twenty more before he came into prominence in Bible history. These twenty years were probably spent in military service. There is a tradition recorded by Josephus stating that he took a lead in the war that was then waged between Egypt and Ethiopia, in which he gained renown as a skilful general and became mighty in deeds (Acts 7:22 KJV).

After the termination of the war in Ethiopia, Moses returned to the Egyptian court, where he might reasonably have expected to be loaded with honors and enriched with wealth. But beneath the smooth current of his life hitherto, a life of alternate luxury at the court and comparative hardness in the camp and in the discharge of his military duties, there had lurked from childhood to youth and from youth to manhood, a secret discontent, perhaps a secret ambition. Moses, amid all his Egyptian surroundings, had never forgotten, had never wished to forget, that he was a Hebrew. He resolved to make himself acquainted with the condition of his countrymen and went out unto his brethren, and looked upon their burdens (Exodus 2:11 KJV).

This tour of inspection revealed to him the cruel oppression and bondage under which they groaned and could not fail to impress on him the serious consideration of his duty regarding them. The time had arrived for his making common cause with them that he might thereby help to break their yoke of bondage. He made his choice accordingly (Hebrews 11:25–27 KJV), assured that God would bless his resolution for the welfare of his people. He left the palace of the king and took up his abode, probably in his