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The Types of Redemption
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Oh, but on the third day, He rose free from sin, and it was your sin He bore and put away, which
means you are free from sin. Your sin has already been judged and already been put away. All
you have to do is believe it and receive it. We need to get this built into our consciousness
instead of some religious thinking.
The word “atonement” is really not a New Testament word. I know that sounds strange to a lot
of people, but don’t take my word for it; study it. It’s used in one place in the New Testament, in
the Book of Romans, and modern translations don’t really use it. The word “atonement” is used
many places in the Old Testament. We read that he went and made an atonement. Atonement
means “to cover.” “Atone” means “to cover,” like with something really thick and dark, to cover
it so you can’t see it. That is the accurate word for what took place in the Old Testament.
The Book of Hebrews goes into detail about how the remembrance of sin was made year to year
because sins weren’t fixed—they were just covered. The blood of the animal sacrifice could
never take away sin, it could only cover it, so God would bless the people based on Someone
Who was coming to do what the animal blood couldn’t do. He went ahead and blessed them and
healed them on credit, based on what Jesus was going to do. It says that the blood of bulls and
goats could never take away sin, but He came, and His Blood has taken it away and washed it
away. (Hebrews 10:4) Your sins are not covered, they are gone. They’re gone!
Actually, in Romans 5:11 it says that in Jesus Christ “we have now received the atonement,” but
that’s not the word for
atonement
; it’s the word for
reconciliation
, and that’s what most of the
modern translations say. It means “exchange.” He didn’t cover your sins, He took your sins and
took them away. When He rose from the dead, there was no sin on Him. There was no part of
any sin or judgment on Him. It was done, it’s gone forever, and He gave you His righteousness.
There’s no covering here. It’s an exchange. He took your sin and took it away; now it’s gone. He
gave you His righteousness, His holiness. Most Christians have not dared to believe this; it just
sounds too big and too good to be true. That’s why it’s called “Good News.”
We need to examine our songs. New Testament believers do not need to stand up and sing about
their sins being covered over. It’s not accurate. Our sins are gone. He took them away. You can’t
find them. He gave us in exchange His own rightness and cleanness. That’s why we can come
boldly before the Throne of Grace. Under the Old Testament, nobody but the high priest could
come into the holy place, once a year, with all the sacrifices, with bells on. But now, all of us can
come right into the very presence of the Almighty by faith. What would make us clean enough to
do that? Only the righteousness of Jesus Himself, that He gave to us. We didn’t earn it, we just
receive it by faith. You can never earn it, but you can believe it, and you can say it out loud, out
of your mouth.
This is such a beautiful type of redemption. Put yourself in these people’s place. This is not a
fairy tale; this actually happened. Two or three million people are out in the desert. Snakes,
poisonous vipers, come out from all over the place and are biting the people, and people are
dying. A bunch of them are already dead. Many people are already bitten, and some are about to
be.