"The wages of sin is death." For the moment we will not press any particular meaning

into the word "death", but are sure that whatever a person may believe as to "eternal

death",  "spiritual death",  and the like, that actual, literal, physical death cannot

eliminated from the wages of sin. Adam lived 930 years and he died. He returned to the

dust from which he was taken (Gen. 3: 19). Death passed upon all men. Sin reigned

unto death. In Adam all die. As we have said, conceding for argument's sake that

physical death is the smallest part of the results of sin--it is a part. Now if redemption

was accomplished by Christ bearing the penalty attached to sin, and if physical death be

but a part of that penalty, then if as the Calvinist sings:--

no believer should ever die. We need no testimony or theory other than our own painful

experience, that "There is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked . . . . . As is the

good, so is the sinner" (Eccles. 9: 12). Death, physical death, which came by Adam's

sin, is the common end of saint and sinner. What then is the blessing of redemption?

Life from the dead. It is an exodus. It leads down into the symbolic grave of the Red Sea

on its path to glory.

The Lord did not die to save us from dying, He died to save us from death. There is

much teaching connected with this fact that must occupy our attention, but which lies

outside the immediate scope of our enquiry. The great work of the kinsman Redeemer is

expressed in I Cor. 15: 22, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ, shall all be made

alive". The "all in Adam" are those for whom the great "division" and "stepping over"

(padah and pesach) by the kinsman (gaal) has been made. It is impossible to predicate

both universality and division of redemption, one or the other must be false. The doctrine

of the two seeds, whether seen in Cain and Abel, or in Israel and the Egyptians, fits the

whole case and cannot be ignored. Reconciliation and atonement cannot be deduced

from redemption; they belong to an entirely different sphere. As related themes, we must

deal with the teaching of the various sacrifices offered under the law, but such a study

demands a section to itself.

A word may be necessary in conclusion on the occurrence of the word "redemption"

in Heb. 9: 12, 15, because at first sight it would appear that the setting of these words

contradicts our findings. The redemption of Heb. 9: 12 is an "aionian redemption", and

is connected with "the blood of the aionian covenant" (13: 20). Now this covenant is

vitally connected with an "aionian inheritance" (9: 15).  An inheritance that was

forfeited could only be regained by redemption, and inasmuch as transgressing the terms

of the covenant was the occasion of the forfeiture, we have the strange expression, "the

redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant" (9: 15), and in the