Redemption draws the heart away from sin - 1737
John GIll, pastor and theologian.
Introduction
John Gill was converted to the Christian faith at twelve years of age; at nineteen he made a public confession of faith. Those who knew him assumed he would be a preacher because his nose was always in a book. Gill did indeed become a pastor, accepting a call to Horsleydown, a Particular Baptist church in London, where he would remain fifty-one years. A strict Calvinist, he criticized John Wesley for teaching that people have a choice in their own salvation. Gill treated many other theological issues in depth, including the tendency of some church-goers to sin on the assumption that whatever the elect do is covered by Christ’s grace. Here is a paragraph from a sermon he preached on this day 28, December 1737, a Wednesday evening service under the Julian calendar that was still in use by England. Its Bible text was from 1 Timothy 6:3.
Quote
“The doctrine of particular redemption by Christ, is free from any imputation of libertinism. It is indeed a redemption from the bondage, curse, and condemnation of the law; but does not exempt from obedience to it, as it is in the hands of Christ; for saints are still under the law to Christ; (1 Corinthians 9:21) nor do any more delight in the law of God after the inward man, or more cheerfully serve it with their mind, than those who are most sensible, that they are become dead unto it, and delivered from it by the blood of Christ. Redemption is a deliverance from sin, from all sin, original and actual; and that not only from the guilt of sin, and the punishment due unto it: but in consequence of redeeming grace, the redeemed ones are delivered from the dominion and governing power of sin, and at last from the being of it. Christ saves his people from their sins; he does not indulge them in them; the deliverer that comes out of Zion, turns away ungodliness from Jacob. Strange! that a redemption from a vain conversation should ever be an encouragement to one; or that a person’s being ransomed out of the hands of Satan, and taken as a prey out of the hands of the mighty, should he an argument with him to give up himself to him and his service; or can he thought to have any tendency to engage him in a state of bondage to him, to be led as a captive by him at his will. Besides, the great end of Christ’s giving himself for any of the sons of men, is, that he might redeem them from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. (Titus 2:14) Nor does anything lay such an obligation upon men to glorify God with their body and spirit, as the consideration of this, that they are not their own, but are bought with a price, (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20) even with the precious blood of Christ; nor can any thing like the love of Christ, the redeeming love of Christ, constrain men to obedience, to live not unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:14, 15)”
Gill, John. “The Doctrine of Grace Cleared from the Charge of Licentiousness; A Sermon, Preached at a Wednesday’s Evening Lecture in Great-Eastcheap, December 28, 1737.”