God... Who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of His own purpose and grace. (2 Timothy 1:9 ESV)
The Lord Jesus did
not come in just as a rescuer of man and of man’s lot. We should almost be led
to believe by certain emphases that redemption is the greatest thing in the
universe, and that all God’s interest is in redemption, and that we should be
occupied solely with redemption. Redemption is a great thing. We can never,
never exaggerate, and I doubt whether we shall ever know what a great thing
redemption is; and yet, great as redemption is in its scope, in its depth, in
its cost, redemption is only incidental to the eternal purpose.
Christ came into time to rescue His own inheritance. In that, of course, man is rescued, but
it is something very much bigger than that. It relates to the Son primarily,
and until the Lord’s people get the right attitude, the right point of view,
that is, that all things in God’s full and final concern are centered in God’s
Son, they have not come into line with all God’s resource. While the direction
is toward ourselves – redemption, sanctification, glorification, and so on –
or toward anything less than the Son Himself, we have not got God’s dynamic
for accomplishing His work, and therefore it becomes necessary, as the
sufficient, the adequate basis of the Holy Spirit’s operation, that there
should be a revelation of Jesus Christ in the heart, for it is in relation to
Him and what God has purposed concerning Him that all the energies of God are
released and made active.