Edward Hoare

“ You were bondsmen once; sold under sin: sold by the act of Adam, and sold by your own conduct afterwards. As St. Paul says, Rom. vi. 17, ‘Ye were the servants’ or the slaves ‘of sin.’ But what are you now? Are you still slaves? No. Those only who are strangers to salvation in Christ Jesus are slaves. But you are not, for you are free. Your kinsman has appeared and paid the redemption price; so you are free: as completely free as if you had never been in bondage. The moment that the kinsman paid the ransom, the slave was free. ”

“ In order to understand judicial forgiveness we must consider the judicial condemnation of the unforgiven man, and we must carefully remember God’s offices as King, as Lawgiver, and as Judge. He is a Saviour, but He is a ruler likewise, and He rules the world in righteousness. But if we think of Him as the great executive of a perfectly righteous and holy law, acting on principles of strict and unvarying righteousness, we must see in a moment that we have all been brought under judicial condemnation, for the law condemns us all. ”

“ He ‘has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us.’ But the final deliverance will not be complete till His return, when all God’s elect from all ages and all countries shall be all gathered together in one, without a sorrow, and without a fear, without death, without sin, without even a temptation to mar their joy; one vast company ransomed by one atoning sacrifice saved by one perfect Saviour, inheritors of one glorious kingdom, and bound together in one heavenly fellowship in a blessed eternity of never-ending joy. ”

“ We are free from both the imputation and dominion of sin. From the imputation, because the curse is gone; and from the dominion, for we are not under the law but under grace. This part of redemption is not a future thing which we should be always seeking, and never finding; always praying for, and never enjoying; always aiming at, but never reaching. It is the present, blessed, sacred gift of every one of you that is in Christ Jesus. You are not like Israel in bondage in Egypt, nor even like Israel shut in by the rocks at Pi-hahiroth ”

“ But if you have been saved from that condemnation, so that now you ‘have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins:’ you have also a great deal more, for you have besides it and resting on it, the unspeakable blessedness of a Father’s love. You may daily fall back on the satisfaction of the law, and in consequence of that satisfaction, like loving children may cry, ‘Abba, Father,’ and claim a Father’s forbearance and a Father’s tenderness, a Father’s provision, and a Father’s forgiveness. ”

“ We may see difficulties thickening around us; we may even see prophecies of sore trial in the latter days. But we know that our God shall trample down Satan under our feet shortly. We are to trust Him, therefore, and act on our trust. We see things decaying around us; we look at our own frail bodies, and believe that they will soon be laid lifeless in the grave. We see death cutting down our dearest friends, and we know that, if the Lord does not come first, it will soon cut us down too. But we look beyond to a resurrection, to the certain promise that we shall rise again ”

“ We may be profoundly conscious of the deep, inbred corruption of our own nature. We may know by bitter experience how often we have failed; we may be humbled to the dust at the thought of our shortcomings; we may be ready to say, as St. Paul did, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ but in the midst of it all we may look up in peaceful trust, and thank God for the delivering power that is in Christ Jesus, our risen and living Head. ”

“ Paul said, even when he was sealed by the Holy Ghost: ‘We that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened.’ There are burdens on the strength when a man has to toil beyond his powers: burdens on the heart when we feel a weight of sorrow as we witness the sufferings of those we love: burdens on the thoughts when some heavy care rests upon us, and produces depression of spirits: and, above all, burdens on the conscience when the sense of sin troubles us, when we know we have been wrong, and when the present conviction of our own utter unworthiness weighs heavily on the heart. ”

“ It is better to accept it at once as a miracle that cannot be explained, a miracle wrought out by the strong arm of the Redeemer. And, remember, that it is the same strong arm which can deliver the very weakest amongst us from the greatest difficulties which ever yet beset the path of the Christian. You say, ‘I cannot,’ but He says, ‘I can.’ You say, ‘I have tried; and it is impossible.’ He says, ‘With God nothing is impossible.’ Never, therefore, again must you say, ‘It cannot be.’ If the Lord has set you free from the dreadful yoke of imputed sin ”

“ I hope that if we were all to speak we should give the same answer to the question, and that there are none amongst us who would hesitate to reply, ‘Forgiveness.’ So long as sin remains unforgiven there can be no freedom, nor any deliverance of any kind whatever. Unforgiven sin blocks the way against all hope of escape, and therefore when God invites a sinner to return He first assures him of the blotting out of sin: ‘I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.’ (Isa. xliv. 22.) ”

“ How often is this the case with persons struggling to get free from the burden and bondage of sin! They try, and try again, and the only result is, that they get deeper into difficulty. They have at last to make their bricks without the straw, and seem worse off than ever. But then it is that the Redeemer appears, and says, ‘I will rid them out of their bondage.’ He has borne the burden, and having done so He breaks the yoke. He removes the imputation of sin, and when that is gone we are free, free to arise and follow Him; free to go forth to the promised land; free to walk fearlessly with God ”

“ Oh, dear children! never pain your mother, for the thought may remain with you long after she is in the grave, long after the time when you can no more throw your arms round her neck, and ask her forgiveness for what you have said or done to grieve her. ”

“ If the bondsman of old deliberately went to the door-post that his ear should be bored, was it unjust that he should be bound a slave for ever? and if any one of us with the grand offer of the freedom of the Gospel fully before him, prefers his bondage and will not accept the purchased freedom, is it unjust that that man should remain a miserable slave? ”

“ And what can man do for you when your conscience is bowed down by the weight of sin? No vicarious work of other men, and no gifts, however great, can set you free from the yoke and condemnation of the law. ”

“ But she was a poor heathen girl on the mountains of Moab, an alien from the commonwealth of Israel and a stranger from the covenant of promise. Yet that poor heathen girl was raised by redemption to a higher position than all the Jewesses in the whole family of Elimelech. Does it not teach us the power of redemption to break down every barrier, to overturn every human calculation, to clear away every hindrance, and to raise to the most glorious salvation those very persons whose case to man’s eye seems hopeless? ”

“ If we are brought to the bottom of the pit, by sorrow, by sickness, by calamity, by the approach of death, or by the deep and painful sense of sin, all true source of strength must ever be in the great work of redemption wrought out for us by the Son of God. It is that which opens the way to the throne, and which enables us to rest in the assurance of the love of God. You may find many difficulties in the way of faith, and many drawbacks under the profound sense of your own unworthiness. But it is wonderful to find how they disappear before the cross of Christ ”

“ Can anything be more complete as a type of what He does for us? Those whom God hath not set free are ‘all their lifetime subject to bondage.’ They are bound by what St. Paul describes, Rom. viii. 2, as ‘the law of sin and death.’ So long as the guilt of unforgiven sin rests on the conscience, they cannot be free. It matters not where they are or what they are doing. They may be bowed down by hard work, or living in ease and idleness; but in either case they are bondsmen, and they are condemned under the law, and bound by it. ”

“ Paul teaches us that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, for the whole is affected by the fall; and that a time is coming when, through redeeming grace, the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. No wonder, then, that creation itself is here represented as taking part in the joy of redemption. ”

“ It is the service of the Redeemer Himself. In redeeming us from iniquity He makes us His own, and sets us apart unto Himself. If redeemed we belong to the Redeemer. We love Him, we follow Him, we serve Him, we are His. ”

“ All the Levitical service that conscientious men may offer to God, and all the accumulated wealth that the richest amongst us may tender as a redemption price, will all together utterly fail to take the weight from one sin-burdened soul. But the precious blood of Christ, of Christ Jesus the one divinely-appointed substitute, that is enough; enough, though quite alone, enough to redeem us from the whole curse, and to redeem us from it for ever, that so, by His boundless grace, we may be set apart as the first-born unto God, and live and die amongst those who are written in heaven. ”

“ Till that was done there was no hope of deliverance, and till that is applied or appropriated there is no hope of personal holiness. Before the special, or peculiar, people could be purified unto Himself, they must be set free from the curse, and redeemed through the power of His blood. Not one of that people has the curse of God still resting on his soul, for so long as the curse remains it is perfectly impossible that any one of us should be one of the people. While, therefore, you trust in a Saviour living to deliver, be sure you keep well in view that same Saviour having died to atone. ”

“ We all know very well what a natural craving there is to look in beyond the veil, and to see what is passing amongst those who have already entered. What would we give for one half-hour’s intercourse, or for even a telescopic view of that happy assembly now gathered before the throne? What would it be to us if for one short minute we could see the heavens opened? ”

“ We live in His presence, we are made partakers of His kingdom, we may rest in His love. His promise is, ‘As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice p. 58over thee.’ And even when we are most deeply and painfully humbled at our own shortcomings, and at the sad coldness of our own hearts, we may think of Him not only loving us, but rejoicing in His love, admitting us to the most sacred confidence, and permitting us with the holy intimacy of a reverent affection to pour out our whole heart before Him. ”

“ It is redemption that is to deliver, redemption that is to raise us from the dead, redemption that removes the difficulty, how then can we ever hope to rise until redemption is applied and realised? If redemption is not sufficient to reach down to one in a state of utter hopelessness, it is insufficient for the conscience-stricken sinner. Remember, therefore, the case of Jeremiah. ”

“ We must conclude, therefore, that the curse is certain, and that it cannot be set aside by anything that we can do. We have no power to deliver ourselves from the awful curse of the law of God. It is a judgment far more certain, and far more awful, than that of the wretched criminal in the condemned cell waiting for execution. It is more awful, for it cuts us off from God Himself. ”

“ I am speaking rather of the redeemed believer, whose ‘life is hid with Christ in God;’ and I want to persuade all parties, both those that do, and those that do not, possess the title-deeds, to consider well the unspeakable blessedness of having the title safely deposited with the Son of God, so that, whatever happens, whatever success or discouragement, whether joy or trial, whether life or death, we may be perfectly sure that all is safe, for the redemption has been completed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and the title-deeds are safe, being laid up in the treasury of God. ”

“ Is there one that has ever knelt down in the fulness of his heart and said, ‘Lord, I am thine,’ who would now rise up and say, ‘But I wish to be thine no more’? Is there any one p. 37who has ever borne the yoke of the Lord Jesus who would now wish to throw it off, and be free? No, never! We wish to be free from all that keeps us back from Him; free from every weight and from the sin which doth so easily beset us: free from every temptation that tends to hinder us in His service. ”

“ They must blot out their own curse in their own way, and how they are going to do it I cannot tell. I know of nothing but Christ the substitute that can remove the just judgment of a broken law; and if men live and die without Him, I see no prospect for them but that they live in their sin, and die in their sin, and go down into eternity with the whole of the awful weight of unforgiven sin resting on their poor unforgiven souls. ”

“ Even if there had been any mighty archangel of such majesty as to produce a sufficient ransom, he would have been disqualified for the office, for the simple reason that he would not have been a kinsman. We know but little of the nature of angels, and we cannot realize a mighty spirit perfectly independent of the flesh. But this we know, that there is a clear and marked distinction between the nature of angels and the nature of man, for we read of our blessed Saviour, ‘He took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.’ Heb. ”

“ Paul describes ‘the spirit of the mind,’ for which he required help. We all know how the spirit is harassed, and the rest of the soul disturbed, when we are placed in circumstances of perplexity. At such times we are often distracted in prayer, and are so much occupied by the things that trouble us that we are tempted to forget our resting-place. Hence the importance of especial prayer, not merely that difficulties may be overcome, but that our own spirit may be kept unruffled and undisturbed in perfect peace reposing on the Lord. This is just what David did in the psalm. ”

“ It is a redemption through the most precious blood of the Lamb.
The deliverance, or the gathering, is not simply an exercise of power, but is the result of atonement by blood. It is not merely the act of the Holy Ghost calling the sinner, but the act of God making atonement, or giving Christ to die for him. Before one soul could be drawn out from the ruin of the world, and gathered in to God, the barrier of the curse must be taken out of the way, and the law satisfied by its complete fulfilment in the Person of our Redeeming Head. ”

“ There was a transfer of the imputation of guilt, and thus by God’s marvellous grace, blessed be God, in Christ Jesus we are free.
Now all this is done, and done for ever. Nothing can add to it, and nothing can take from it. We have nothing to do with any fresh sacrifice for sin. We want no masses for either the living or the dead, and we know we cannot make up any fresh sacrifice by penance or self-denial. In all such matters the one question is, Is the one redemption by the one substitute sufficient, or is it not? If it is, we want no further sacrifice, for the work is done. ”

“ Love, joy, and peace, are the first fruits of the Spirit, and therefore if God the p. 2Holy Ghost dwells in our hearts it seems clear that we must love Him, that we must rejoice in Him, and that we must be at peace resting in His grace. But, just in proportion as we set a high value on the religion of the heart, must we see the importance of a solid foundation of divine truth on which all true heart-religion must ever rest. We cannot build a house on the surface of a river. ”

“ So, again, there may be many amongst us at home who seem as far off as that young woman was when she was growing up an idolater in Moab; but the lesson that we are to learn is that there is such a fulness in redemption, such a power, such a completeness, such an efficacy that that far-distant sinner, even though he has been an idolater; though he can never forgive himself, may be forgiven by God; and not forgiven only, but raised by infinite grace even to a oneness with the Son of God. ”

“ In Christ Jesus you have a Father who loves you, a Father whom you love; a Father who cares for you, and on whose care you may confidently trust; a Father who speaks to your soul by His Spirit, and who admits you into close and confidential intimacy with Himself. ”