This is my one hundred and ninetieth monthly teaching letter and continues my sixteenth year of publication. Since WTL #137, I have been continuing a series entitled The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, and have been expanding on its seven stages ever since: (1) the courtship, (2) the marriage, (3) the honeymoon, (4) the estrangement, (5) the divorce, (6) the reconciliation, and (7) the remarriage.
THE GREATEST LOVE STORY EVER TOLD, Part 49,
THE RECONCILIATION (i.e., Redemption):
With the last lesson, WTL #189, we discontinued the larger portion of our research concerning the subject of “divorce”, and started the subject of “reconciliation”. The subject of “reconciliation” should not be confused with the topic of “salvation” as “reconciliation” and “salvation” are two entirely separate matters! “Redemption” carries with it the concept of purchasing back something one once owned. For a good definition of our subject, I will cite The Popular And Critical Bible Encyclopedia And Scriptural Dictionary, ©1904, vol. 3, p. 1433:
“REDEEM, REDEEMED ...
“1. To redeem is to buy back persons or things formerly sold, by paying a due price for them (Lev. xxv:25).
“2: To deliver from distress and bondage, by the exertion of great power and love (Deut. vii :5; xxxii:6).
“3. To deliver men from the broken law, sin, Satan, an evil world, death, and hell, by the price of Jesus’ obedience and suffering, and by means of the enlightening and sanctifying power of his Spirit (Luke i:68; Gal. iv:4, 5; Tit. ii :I4 ; 1 Pet. i:I9), they are ‘redeemed from the earth,’ from among carnal men, and ‘to God,’ into a state of fellowship with, and voluntary subjection to him (Rev. v:9; xiv:3).
“4. To ‘redeem time’ is, under the conviction of misspending much of it, to double our diligence in the improvement of what remains for us (Eph. v:16). The children of Israel are called ‘the redeemed of the Lord’ [sic Yahweh] (Isa. xxxv:9; lxii:12), as returning from Babylonian captivity. (See REDEEMER; REDEMPTION.)