Our Kinsman Redeemer

Our Kinsman Redeemer

All of Hebrew's message sets forth One who was touched by our infirmities as our High Priest. Why?

The perpetuity of God's kingdom and it's eternal protection against evil's infiltration is dependent on two absolutes bound together. They are the unchangeable nature of God's law and the incorruptible nature of His love. Incorruptible pure love has a name...it is called righteousness! Incorruptible love is that love that will not dishonor the divine law. It follows therefore that the love displayed in redemption will not subvert the law of God but will exalt it. The love Adam expressed to Eve in his fall was not this love and that love brought untold woe. That love is the love of the world. It is illegal love. Of course it was not wrong for Adam to love Eve. It was wrong to love her in a way that exalted her companionship above trust in God. It would have been fitting for Adam to love her so much as to offer his life in exchange for hers. It was not fitting to love her more than God. Any affection that places its recipient or object in precedence over God's will and law is the love of the world. The love of the Father is not in that love. It is a counterfeit and it is evil.

Many place the stamp of this evil love over God's act of redemption. They misrepresent God's love as though it were setting aside His law in order to love the sinner. They say unwittingly that Jesus did the same thing as Adam in seeking to join us in death. But what Jesus did is opposite to what Adam did. Adam sinned and corrupted love, Christ perfected righteousness and perfected love. To see them as the same is the wish of Satan. This misrepresentation is inspired by the arch deceiver. It is the fallen church's model of grace and love.

God's model of grace is explained in the kinsman redeemer principle found in the Old Testament. It was a lesson book of Christ's redemption. It teaches that the law must be fulfilled upon the offending party. Therefore Christ had to become one with the offending nature of man itself in order for the law's sentence to be fulfilled. But in order for us to be redeemed He had to do so without becoming an offender of the law in Himself. He did not make the woeful error that Adam did. Christ love for us exceeded Adam’s love for Eve because only obedience to God can be fruited with true love. Christ became sin for us. To us this seems impossible but to God all things are possible. He became sin for us who knew no sin. It is not merely that Christ was sinless before He became sin for us.....but that He knew no sin while He became sin for us. This is the greatest paradox that shall ever be spoken but it is also the mighty power of God. It is our redemption.

If Christ has not united with our offending nature He could not have taken our place. God could not use an illegal substitution to redeem us. A seed of fallen Adam, as fallen Adam's flesh, had to die for fallen Adam in that flesh. That is the only legal way the law could be satisfied...so it behoved Him to be made in all points like unto His brethren. His brethren?......Were they the fallen or unfallen seed of Adam? Only the fallen seed!.....that was the only seed fallen Adam passed on, and it was all that remained to be redeemed. The Redeemer could only be a kinsman redeemer if He was a kin in that seed. So Jesus took upon His divine nature the fallen seed of Adam. Only in this way could the law take His death as our death, for it was our death in knowing that our old man (singular) was crucified with Him. Any other death of any other nature could not suffice as substitute, nor could it be our death if it were not our nature that died in Christ. Note now that it was not even divine nature that died here. Do not take this to mean that Christ did not really die. He certainly did. But divinity did not die nor can it. It was our nature that died in Christ and it died continually from the cradle to the cross, that we might live continually in His divine nature. Thus when then believer dies he but sleeps in the arms of divine nature waiting to be awoken by the call of Christ. "Lazarus is not dead but sleepeth"! It is in the truth of the Word made flesh that God will finish His work and triumph over Satan's accusation against His rule. The Word made flesh is in a special sense to be proclaimed......