LEGAL AND VITAL SIDE OF REDEMPTION (1)

UNTIL one becomes conscious of these two phases of revelation, there will be a haziness in his teaching and a lack of solidity in his thinking and living. 

The legal side of Redemption is what God did for us in Christ. 

It is in the past. 

Rom. 4:25 is a good illustration: 

"Who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification."

Here is another: 

I Cor. 15:3, 4 

"For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that 'Christ died for our sins ac¬cording to the scriptures and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures." 

These two scriptures perfectly illustrate what God did for us in His Redemptive work.

The vital can be illustrated. 

Rom. 8:1 : "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." 

Col. 1 :14 

"In whom we have our redemption, the remission of our sins." 

The vital is what we really have now ; what the Holy Spirit is doing in us today.

If one only had the legal side of the plan of Redemption, it would lead him into cold, dead formalism. It would make doctrines out of Reality and sense knowledge would rule.

The vital teachings alone will lead into fanaticism, magnifying experiences above the Word. When the vital aspect is understood, we know what belongs to us in Christ.

We know a Son's rights. We learn to take our place. We enjoy our privileges, and the vital side then becomes a Reality. 

All that is legally ours may become vitally ours by the ministry of the Spirit through the Word in us.

A little study of the legal side may help us. 

2 Cor. 5:21, 

"Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf ; that we might become the righteousness of God in him." 

That is what God wrought in Christ. He laid our sins upon Christ. He was stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. "He was wounded for our transgressions ; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way ; and Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." 

He not only laid our sins on Jesus, but He made Jesus sin. Rom. 3:21-26 is perhaps the great master sentence illustrating this legal side of the plan of Redemption.

He tells us in the 21st verse,

"But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, (or unveiled; or as one translator puts it, `brought to light') being witnessed by the law and the prophets ; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God."

Here is a little touch of the vital in the 24th verse: "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." 

In the 25th verse we swing back again to the legal: "Whom God set forth to be a propitiation," or a mercy seat where the blood was sprinkled by the High Priest, "on the ground of faith, in His blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season."

Here we catch a glimpse of the vital : 

"That he might himself be righteous, and the righteousness of him that bath faith in Jesus."

You see, the Spirit has based our present Righteousness upon the work that had been accomplished in His great Substitutionary Work. 

Titus 2:14 is another scripture showing the legal side. `Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a people for his own possession, zealous of good works."

Culled from New Creation Realities by E. W. Kenyon