The Way of Redemption

(This is chapter 11 of the book The Way of Sonship: Anointed to Overcome)

Within ancient Hebrew culture, redemption meant something brought back round full circle. Adam did not fall like lightning from heaven, redemption was not Adam dying and going back full circle to heaven. In the paradise of Eden, Adam and Eve became “as god” within their own lives by disobeying God and eating forbidden fruit. They exchanged the truth of God’s love for them with their own love for themselves. Their eyes were opened to the pride of self-determination, self-admiration and self-worship. They said within their hearts “I will decide for myself what is good or evil, I will decide for myself what is right or wrong”. They died to God by gasping out the breath of God’s life. They were no longer the Sons of God. Instead, they became self-worshipping fallen living dust, living natural puffed-up pride-poisoned lives and they eventually died. This was the foundation of the corporate son of Belial, the City of Babylon or world. The inhabitants of Babylon naturally follow the ways of this world and are subjects of the prince of the power of the air, the father of lies who is unknowingly at work in the breathings of their personality. That is why Paul says in Romans 1:21-25 “…having known God they did not glorify Him as God, nor gave thanks, but were made vain in their reasonings, and their unintelligent heart was darkened, professing to be wise, they were made fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of fowls, and of quadrupeds, and of reptiles. Wherefore also God did give them up, in the desires of their hearts, to uncleanness, to dishonour their bodies among themselves; who did change the truth of God into a falsehood, and did honour and serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed to the ages. Amen”. To bring things round full circle meant exchanging the lie of honouring and serving the creature back to honouring and serving the Creator, the Blessed One from whom all blessings flow, forever.

It says in Isaiah 44:6 “Thus said Yehovah, King of Israel, And his Redeemer, Yehovah of Hosts: ‘I Am the first, and I Am the last, And besides Me there is no God’” and in Jeremiah 23:5-6 (KJV) “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD [Yehovah], that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The LORD [Yehovah] Our Righteousness”. In Matthew 27:42-43 the Chief Priests, Scribes and Elders attributed the King of Israel to the person of the Son of God by saying “He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.” God loves individuals but deals with corporate totalities. Jesus is fully Yehovah God, and fully man. Jesus is the King of Israel, the Redeemer and Lord of Hosts. By being born as a man, God Himself was able to do things as a man for fallen mankind that even He as God could not do.

It says in Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV) “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”. In His great love Jesus took the deceitful and desperately wicked fallen human heart into his own body on the cross. He was then legally able to suffer and reap the consequences of having a wicked and deceitful heart within his own body and personality on behalf of the whole of the corporate totality of fallen humanity, even though He Himself had an incredibly kind and loving heart. For those who inspired by the election of God’s sovereign grace to die by faith to their own wicked hearts together with Him, He becomes their righteousness. This is because they reflect His character, nature, or personality in the way they are inspired behave. Behaviour in life will become inheritance in resurrection. With their redeemed hearts or personalities being put right and then filled with God just like “He Is”, they behave like the God who Is love. They are therefore called by the name the “Sons of God” just like He Is. That is why Isaiah said of Jesus in Isaiah 8:18 “Lo [see], I, and the children whom Yehovah has given to me”. That is why Jesus said “As the Father has loved me, in exactly the same way I have loved you. Now dwell abundantly in the heartfelt knowledge of my love” (See John 15). As the Son of Man, the Son of Abraham and the Son of David, Jesus has a perfect knowledge of the indwelling presence and love of God’s fatherhood within the breathings of His personality or heart. This is because in His great love, God chose to father everything that was lost by Adam at the Fall into Jesus, and more. The rights of both inheritance and redemption belong to Jesus, and as the ultimate Kinsman Redeemer, Jesus now brings or redeems or purchases the eternal inheritance of the paradise of God’s fatherhood that was lost by Adam at the Fall back full circle by eternally imparting this very same love and everything else that He has, was and ever will be into the elect – his corporate body, brothers or Bride. The Son of God is a beloved corporate body of those within whose hearts the eternal life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood has been supernaturally and sovereignly revealed, those who die to their old life and then share practically in Jesus’ corporate behaviour and identity and therefore name and eternal inheritance as the Sons of God.

Jesus said in Matthew 11:25-27 (KJV) “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him”. Within ancient Hebrew culture, to know something had nothing to do with the head knowledge of education but with the heart knowledge of experience. In English, the word “educate” comes from the Latin “educere” which originally meant to bring up, rear or educate a child. The teaching of natural man with natural words spoken with natural breath is education. Education is obviously a good thing, but it depends upon exactly who is doing the educating, where such teaching actually leads and what kind of child or son is raised or brought up. It is not those who have been educated by the religion of tradition who are the Sons of God. Indeed, the Scribes, Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law who conspired to have Jesus crucified understood that by being the Sons of Abraham they were also meant to be the Sons of God. That is why they said to Jesus in John 8:41 (KJV) “We be not born of fornication; we have One Father, even God”. What they did not understand is that the Sons of God are those who are sovereignly inspired to bear God’s image or reflection by behaving like Jesus. The Sons of God have grace-humbled hearts that have died to themselves and been fathered by God; they are those that God has sovereignly chosen and whom God recognises and acknowledges as the person of His Son. By invitation only their redeemed personalities are filled with the breath or Holy Spirit of His Divine Life. That is why Jesus said in John 5:10-20 (KJV) “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do: for what things whatsoever he does, these also does the Son likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all things that himself does”. That is why Jesus said to the Scribes, Pharisees and the teachers of the Law in Matthew 23:15 “‘Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye go round the sea and the dry land to make [by teaching] one proselyte [religious convert], and whenever it may happen—ye make him a son of Gehenna [Valley of Hinnom, the local rubbish dump] twofold more than yourselves”. Anyone can be educated and converted from one particular religious belief system, tradition, doctrine, article, or creed to another but that does not redeem or reverse the diabolical effects of the Fall by changing or redeeming hearts.

In Luke 9, there was a village of the Samaritans that would not receive Jesus because he was on the way to Jerusalem. James and John offered to bring down fire from heaven and destroy the whole village just like Elijah in 2 Kings 1. It says in Luke 9:55-56 (KJV) “But he [Jesus] turned, and rebuked them, and said, ‘Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them’ and they went to another village”. Because of the hardness of their natural fallen hearts, James and John most likely spoke out of offended pride. That is why it says in John 2:24-25 (KJV) “But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man”. The old wineskin of the fallen human heart cannot be repaired. Adam did not have a fallen heart when he was originally created. The old wineskin can only be redeemed or brought back full circle by being replaced with a wineskin that is new. That is why after Jesus’ resurrection He said to his disciples in John 20:21-22 “’Peace to you; according as the Father has sent me, I also send you;’ and this having said, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’”. Through Jesus’ death, Jesus’ disciples had died to the old wineskin of their puffed-up over-inflated opinion of themselves that came from the Fall. Through Jesus’ resurrection the wineskin of their hearts was then redeemed. They were no longer simply born of flesh with darkened hard hearts that were subject to the prince of the power of the air. They became Sons of God by being born of God, the new wineskins of their redeemed hearts were now filled with the breath or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood.

The religion of tradition cannot change hearts and so it attempts to change heads. The religion of tradition claims to teach the way, the truth, and the life but the redemption of tradition is not the same as the redeeming truth of the glory of God’s sovereign grace that changes people’s hearts and sets them free. When people are still bound, often secretly, their hearts do not yet know the truth despite what they may have been taught by the religion of tradition to think. Tradition teaches that God is absolutely beside himself with rage. It teaches that things like right incantations, creeds, spells, rites, priests, articles, theologies, observances, sacrifices, ceremonies or beliefs somehow change God and magically transform the ocean of God’s rage into a peaceful sea of tranquility, offering a license to excuse bad behaviour and opening the door to life after death. The truth is that God is full of grace and mercy, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. It is bad behaviour that makes God angry because God can see the dreadful effects of sin upon the hearts and minds of the people that He loves. It says in James 4:17 “…to him that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin” but according to tradition, this teaching from James defeats the object of believing in a faith that makes such bad behaviour irrelevant. After the Fall in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sewed leaves together to make coverings for themselves that were acceptable in their own eyes. In the same way, the religion of tradition sews together conceptual arguments of religious reasoning that makes coverings of theoretical righteousness that seem right to religious man but that end in death. The religion of tradition teaches a “hands off” approach to God. It teaches that God is up there somewhere – the religious pray, breathing out sentences in the hope that God is listening. With their lips they honour God, with their heads they try to imagine or believe that He will answer, but so often nothing happens. This is because the self-confident theories of head to head religious tradition are not the same as trust or confidence of a heart to heart personal relationship with Jesus. The beliefs of religious tradition are complicated, faith or trust in a personal heartfelt relationship is simple. A conceptual intellectual belief in a particular nuance of traditional doctrine or creed is not the same as a present-tense practical confidence and trust in a person who is intimately known as a Father on a personal basis day by day. So-called traditional truth comes from the outside in; it comes by education and not revelation.

The religion of tradition is counterfeit relationship; many have been deceived by tradition and betrayed by the religion in which they trusted, because religious tradition cannot change people’s hearts. It says in Genesis 6:5-6 (KJV) “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart”. The fallen human heart has not changed and apart from the sovereign mercy and grace of God it cannot change. Jesus called God “Abba, Father”, this was an expression of relationship, not religion. It was this relationship that was lost at the Fall and that Jesus came to restore by dying everyone’s death so that He could bring people’s hearts full circle back into the paradise of God’s fatherhood, being inspired by unmerited grace to live in the power of His resurrection life.

The religion of tradition shackles the free will of Almighty God to be God with the chains of its own sense of morality, lording it over God with its own understanding of what is right or wrong, fair or unfair. Paul said in Romans 9:14-18 “What, then, shall we say? unrighteousness is with God? let it not be! For to Moses He said, ‘I will do kindness to whom I do kindness, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion;’ so, then—not of him who is willing, nor of him who is running, but of God who is doing kindness: for the Writing said to Pharaoh—’For this very thing I did raise thee up, that I might show in thee My power, and that My name might be declared in all the land;’ so, then, to whom He wills, He does kindness, and to whom He wills, He does harden”. The religion of tradition attempts to rob God of His sovereign free-will to be God, to show kindness and mercy to those whom He will show mercy, and to harden those whom He will harden. It attempts to force God into becoming a “faith” puppet who is only allowed to move and bless when the religion of tradition “believes” that it has pulled the correct “heart strings”.

The religion of tradition claims that people are unrivalled masters of their own destiny and that anywhere, anytime, anyone can come to Jesus. Religion teaches that God is only allowed to choose those who first choose to be chosen. However, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 (KJV) “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base [orphaned] things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen, yes, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence”. It is God who does the choosing. He chooses the weak, miserable, foolish and those who are despised so that the flesh cannot glory in its strength, or wisdom, or anything else about “self” in His glorious presence. It says regarding Jesus in Acts 13:47-49 “’I have set thee for a light of nations—for thy being for salvation unto the end of the earth.’  And the nations hearing were glad, and were glorifying the word of the Lord, and did believe—as many as were appointed to life age-during [eternal life]; and the word of the Lord was spread abroad through all the region”. The word “appointed” is from the Greek “tasso” which means to arrange, assign, or put in order. Eternal life is the gift of God’s grace. Faith for salvation is not a “work” that earns salvation because if it did it would no longer be a gift of God’s grace. It is God who chooses or “appoints” not the fallen human heart. Jesus prayed to God in John 17:1-2, 6 “Father, the hour has come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee, according as Thou did give to him authority over all flesh, that—all that Thou has given to him—he may give to them life age-during [eternal life]… I did manifest Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given to me out of the world; Thine they were, and to me Thou hast given them, and Thy word they have kept”. As far as Jesus was concerned, His disciples belonged to God and not to themselves. God gave them to Jesus, and He gave to them the “eternal life” of His relationship to God as a Father. They were sovereignly given by God to Jesus out of the world. This is a mystery, but that is what Jesus said. Jesus himself said in John 6:37,44 “All that the Father gives me shall come to me; and him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out…No man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day”. Anyone can come to Jesus but those who truly enter into a relationship with Jesus are sovereignly chosen by the amazing grace of the life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood to do so. Jesus said in Matthew 22:14 (KJV) “For many are called, but few are chosen”. Those that are truly chosen to follow Jesus do not congratulate themselves every day for being so spiritually superior that God chose them to become adopted as His Sons, nor are they eternally grateful to themselves for being so “clever” as to choose to follow Jesus. Nor do they believe that, because God could foresee them choosing Him, God played second fiddle by choosing them only after they first chose Him. Rather, they are “amazed by grace” and echo the words that Paul spoke in Romans 11:33-36 “O depth of riches, and wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable His judgments, and untraceable His ways! for who did know the mind of the Lord? or who did become His counsellor? or who did first give to Him, and it shall be given back to him again? because of Him, and through Him, and to Him are the all things; to Him is the glory—to the ages. Amen”.

The religion of tradition exchanges the relationship truth of sharing in Jesus’ heartfelt identity as the Son of God with the religious so called “truths” of correct tradition, beliefs, creeds, doctrine, theory, and life after death. For instance, when Jesus spoke of “my Father”, within ancient Hebrew culture, this was not Jesus addressing the first person of the Trinity. Within ancient Hebrew culture there was no such thing. The Trinity belongs to a different people-group, age, culture and tradition. The redemption or revival of a Father-Son relationship comes by the sovereign grace of revelation. The grace-inspired supernatural revelation of sharing in Jesus’ identity as the Son of God brings people into the “eternal life” of the freedom of a continual heart to heart encounter with Jesus. Jesus gave the definition of eternal life in John 17:3 “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent”. That is why Paul said in Galatians 4:6 “… because ye are sons, God did send forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!’ so that thou art no more a servant, but a son, and if a son, also an heir of God through Christ”. Within ancient Hebrew culture, eternal life had nothing to do with escaping from hell, because there was no such place.

Paul says in Romans 8:12-17 “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together”. The Apostle Paul clearly taught about the sovereign grace of election, but his eyes were not blinkered by the religion of tradition. He did not teach that morally wrong behaviour that rejected the sovereign “grace” of living a changed life was now acceptable for those who believed that they had been chosen. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 “… have ye not known that those running in a race—all indeed run, but one doth receive the prize? so run ye, that ye may obtain; and everyone who is striving, is in all things temperate; these, indeed, then, that a corruptible crown they may receive, but we an incorruptible; I, therefore, thus run, not as uncertainly, thus I fight, as not beating air; but I chastise my body, and bring it into servitude, lest by any means, having preached to others—I myself may become disapproved.” Behaviour in life will become inheritance in resurrection (see Colossians 3:24-25). Paul was aware that despite being chosen for Sonship by the election of grace, “unrestrained flesh” that rejected this sovereign grace would rob him of his eternal inheritance in God. This is because the blessing of the life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood that enabled him to live a changed life by behaving like Jesus from the heart “is” the inheritance. In Galatians 3:1-3 (KJV) Paul says “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” Within ancient Hebrew culture, the word of God was spoken by the breath or Holy Spirit of God. Like the sails of a ship, Hebraically, faith is establishing the breath of the living word of God within the breathings of one’s personality or heart. This redeems the heart. It changes people so that they call God “Abba, Father” and become the living personality of God’s ideal Son together with Jesus. That is why Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 1:10 “…ye did turn unto God from the idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from the heavens, whom He did raise out of the dead—Jesus, who is rescuing us from the anger that is coming”. Behaviour in life will become inheritance in resurrection. Those that have the sails of their hearts filled with the breath of God’s fatherhood are inspired by the election of grace into behaving like Jesus by living and walking in the light of God’s love. This qualifies them to be counted worthy to experience the First Resurrection when Jesus is revealed from the heavens at His second coming.

Paul said in Romans 8:28-30 “And we have known that to those loving God all things do work together for good, to those who are called according to purpose; because whom He did foreknow, He also did fore-appoint, conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be first-born among many brethren; and whom He did fore-appoint, these also He did call; and whom He did call, these also He declared righteous; and whom He declared righteous, these also He did glorify.” The Galatians had become the Sons of God. By receiving the life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood, they had been confirmed to the image of God’s Son. Yehovah God had spoken the breath or Holy Spirit of the sovereign word, “Son of God” into their hearts that had changed their nature. This had justified or declared them righteous in the way they were inspired to behave. However, they were in danger of losing their inheritance in God because God was no longer expressed in the way they were behaving. Their “old man” was beginning to assert himself, and they were no longer bearing the image of their “new man” (see Colossians 3:9-10). Having put their hand to the plough, they were now looking back. They were in the process of being deceived by the religion of tradition into once again following the ways of this world and the prince of the power of the air whose breath or spirit is at work within the sons of disobedience. They were observing days, months and times, provoking and envying one another, again being inspired, or indwelt by the lying breaths of darkness. In Galatians 5:18 Paul said to them “But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revelling, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God”. Hebraically, those that live like that are the disobedient or rebellious sons of the devil. They are called the sons of disobedience or the seed of the serpent because they naturally bear the image or reflection of the devil’s lying breaths that live within the breathings of their personality or soul. Paul’s concern for the Galatians is that they were turning away from the relationship of grace and back to the religion of tradition. Behaviour in life will become inheritance in resurrection. They were once again running the wrong race and in danger of disqualifying themselves from the prize of inheriting the Holy Spirit or life’s breath of God’s fatherhood eternally filling their hearts. That is why in Galatians 4:19 Paul states that he was travailing in birth once again until the Anointed One (or Christ) was formed within them. Hebraically, this was the original gospel or good news of God. This was the sovereign blessing of Abraham and the anointing of King David poured out on the Day of Pentecost (see Genesis 12:1-3, Acts 3:25). That is why Paul says in Galatians 3:6-9 “Abraham did believe God, and it was reckoned to him—to righteousness; know ye, then, that those of faith—these are sons of Abraham, and the Writing having foreseen that by faith God does declare righteous the nations did proclaim before the good news to Abraham— ‘Blessed in thee shall be all the nations;’ so that those of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham”. The blessing of Abraham was the unmerited grace of a Father’s blessing which changed Abraham’s heart and continually redeemed him from his naturally wicked ways. This caused him to bear the image of God by reflecting the goodness and glory of God’s fatherhood in the way he was inspired to behave. This is what the Galatians had received but were in danger of losing. There is no repentance in resurrection.

By this blessing of God’s life-changing and heart-changing fatherhood, the Sons of God are redeemed by being inspired to repent from their natural born propensity towards deciding for themselves what is good or evil, right or wrong, true or false. They find that the supernatural nature of Jesus is birthed within them which redeems their hearts, breaking every curse and dis-establishing the lies of heartfelt brokenness and the subtle seeds of unbelief that Satan had sown into their hearts. Paul said in 2 Timothy 2:11-13 (KJV) “For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: If we suffer [endure], we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: If we believe not, yet he abides faithful: he cannot deny himself”. By sharing in the heart knowledge of Jesus’ identity as the Son of God, the unmerited grace of the mighty power of God’s fatherhood demolishes the lying strongholds of darkness or absence of the light of God’s love, just as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (KJV) “(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the [heartfelt] knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”. This enables the redeemed to bear the image of His transfiguration by their personalities being engulfed in an overflowing inflow of a tidal wave of superabundant divine life that will last forever. This is the way of redemption.

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