The Secret Of Redemption

As it is that every tree is dependent on its roots, every Christian should be dependent on God.

See how believers should root themselves in Jesus, the root of redemption that causes us to be purposeful while on earth.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, “Philippians 2:5-9.

No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. Throughout all its existence, it can only live with the life that was in the seed that gave it being. The full apprehension of this truth in its application to the first and the Second Adam helps us to understand both the need and the nature of the redemption in Jesus. When the Old Serpent, he who had been cast out from heaven for his pride, whose whole nature as the devil was pride, spoke his words of temptation into the ear of Eve, these words carried with them the very poison of hell.

When she listened and yielded her desire and her will to the prospect of being as God, knowing good and evil, the poison entered into her soul, blood, and life destroying forever that blessed humility and dependence upon God which would have been our everlasting happiness. Because of this, her life and the life of the race that sprang from her became corrupted to its very root with Satan’s own pride, the most terrible of all sins and all curses.

All the wretchedness of which this world has been the scene, all its wars and bloodshed among the nations, its selfishness and suffering, its ambitions and jealousies, its broken hearts and embittered lives, with all its daily unhappiness, have their origin in what this cursed, hellish pride, either our own or that of others, has brought us. It is pride that makes redemption needful. It is from our pride that we need to be redeemed. Our insight into the need for redemption will largely depend upon our knowledge of the terrible nature of the power that has entered our being. The power that Satan brought from hell and cast into man's life is working daily, hourly, with mighty power throughout the world. Men suffer from it, they fear, fight, and flee it, yet they know not when it comes, and when it has its terrible supremacy.

No wonder they do not know where or how it is to be overcome. Pride has its root and strength in a terrible spiritual power, outside of us as well as within us; as needful as it is that we confess and deplore it as our very own, it is to know it in its satanic origin. If this leads us to utter despair of ever conquering or casting it out, it will lead us all the sooner to that supernatural power in which alone our deliverance is to be found - the redemption of the Lamb of God. The hopeless struggle against the workings of self and pride within us may indeed become still more hopeless as we think of the power of darkness behind it all; the utter despair will fit us the better for realizing and accepting a power and a life outside of ourselves too, even the humility of heaven as brought down and brought nigh by the Lamb of God, to cast out Satan and his pride.

No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang. Even as we need to look to the first Adam and his fall to know the power of the sin within us, we need to know well the Second Adam and His power to give within us a life of humility as real and abiding and overmastering as has been that of pride. We have our life from and in Christ, as truly, yes, more truly, than from and in Adam. We are to walk "rooted in Him," holding fast the Head from whom the whole body increases with the increase of God.

The life of God, which in the incarnation entered human nature, is the root in which we are to stand and grow; it is the same almighty power that worked there, and hence onward to the resurrection, which works daily in us. Our one need is to study, know, and trust the life that has been revealed in Christ as the life that is now ours, and waits for our consent to gain possession and mastery of our whole being.

In this view, it is of inconceivable importance that we should have right thoughts of what Christ is, of what really constitutes Him the Christ, and especially of what may be counted His chief characteristic, the root and essence of all His character as our Redeemer. There can be but one answer: it is His humility. What is the incarnation but His heavenly humility, His emptying Himself and becoming man? What is His life on earth but humility; His taking the form of a servant? And what is His atonement but humility? "He humbled himself by becoming obedient" (Philippians 2:8). And what is His ascension and His glory, but humility exalted to the throne and crowned with glory? "Therefore God has highly exalted him" (Philippians 2:9). In heaven, where He was with the Father, in His birth, in His life, in His death, in His sitting on the throne, it is all nothing but humility.

Christ is the humility of God embodied in human nature, the Eternal Love humbling itself, clothing itself in the garb of meekness and gentleness to win, serve, and save us. As the love and condescension of God make Him the benefactor, helper, and servant of all, so Jesus of necessity was the incarnate Humility. So, He is still in the midst of the throne, the meek and lowly Lamb of God. If this be the root of the tree, its nature must be seen in every branch, leaf, and fruit.

If humility be the first, the all-including grace of the life of Jesus, if humility be the secret of His atonement, then the health and strength of our spiritual life will entirely depend upon our putting this grace first too, and making humility the chief thing we admire in Him, the chief thing we ask of Him, the one thing for which we sacrifice all else. Is it any wonder that the Christian life is so often feeble and fruitless when the very root of the Christ life is neglected, is unknown? Is it any wonder that the joy of salvation is so little felt when that which Christ found and brings is so little sought? Until a humility which will rest in the end and death of self, which gives up all the honor of men as Jesus did to seek the honor that comes from God alone, which absolutely makes and counts itself nothing, that God may be all, that the Lord alone may be exalted, until such a humility be what we seek in Christ above our chief joy, and welcome at any price, there is very little hope of a religion that will conquer the world.

I cannot too earnestly plead with my reader, if possibly his attention has never yet been specially directed to the want there is of humility within him or around him, to pause and ask whether he sees much of the spirit of the meek and lowly Lamb of God in those who are called by His name.

Let him consider how all want of love, all indifference to the needs, the feelings, and the weakness of others, all sharp and hasty judgments and utterances, so often excused under the plea of being outright and honest.

All manifestations of temper and touchiness and irritation, all feelings of bitterness and estrangement have their root in pride that ever seeks itself. His eyes will be opened to see how a dark, devilish pride creeps in almost everywhere, the assemblies of the saints not excepted. Let him begin to ask what would be the effect if, in himself and around him, towards fellow saints and the world, believers were really permanently guided by the humility of Jesus. Let him say if the cry of our whole heart, night and day, ought not to be, O, for the humility of Jesus in myself and all around me!

Let him honestly fix his heart on his own lack of the humility which has been revealed in the likeness of Christ's life, and in the whole character of His redemption, and he will begin to feel as if he had never yet really known what Christ and His salvation are. Believer! Study the humility of Jesus. This is the secret, the hidden root of your redemption. Sink into it deeper day by day.

Believe with your whole heart that this Christ, whom God has given you, even as His divine humility wrought the work for you, will enter in to dwell and work within you too, and make you what the Father would have you be.

NOTE B We need to know two things: One is that our salvation consists wholly in being saved from ourselves, or that which we are by nature, and the other is that in the whole nature of things, nothing could be this salvation or saviour to us but such a humility of God as is beyond all expression.

Hence, the first unalterable term of the Saviour to fallen man. Except a man denies himself, he cannot be My disciple (Matthew 16:24). Self is the whole evil of fallen nature, while self-denial is our capacity of being saved. Humility is our saviour, whereas the self is the root, the branches, and the tree of all the evil of our fallen state. All the evils of fallen angels and men have their birth in the pride of self. On the other hand, all the virtues of heavenly life are the virtues of humility.

It is humility alone that makes the impassable gulf between heaven and hell.

What then, or what lies in the great struggle for eternal life? It all lies in the strife between pride and humility. Pride and humility are the two master powers, the two kingdoms in strife for the eternal possession of man. There never was, nor ever will be, but one humility, and that is the humility of Christ. Pride and self are all of man, till man has all from Christ. He therefore only fights the good fight whose strife is that the self-idolatrous nature which he has from Adam may be brought to death by the supernatural humility of Christ brought to life in him.