Reading the Classics with Challies - Redemption Accomplished and Applied

I needed an excuse to buy another book. Not that anyone other than myself required one. But I needed the excuse so I could justify the transaction to myself. Challies provided me with just such an excuse.

Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray was a book I wanted to read. I have read several articles by Murray and knew that this was a book that had to be a priority on 'my list'. And then Challies announced his decision to put forward Redemption Accomplished and Applied as his next classic to read for his online program "Reading the Classics with Challies". That was the kind of enablement I needed. So here we go!

Chapter 1: The Necessity of the Atonement

In chapter 1 there are two striking issues that, in particular, grabbed my attention and got me thinking. The first is clearly perceived in this quote:

No treatment of the atonement can be properly oriented that does not trace its source to the free and sovereign love of God. (9)

This is where it starts: God. Once again, in yet another issue, we are reminded that it is not about us; the world doesn't revolve around human beings. The epicenter of all things is the triune God of the Bible. He is central and we are peripheral; in all things and in all matters. And redemption is no different.

The love of God from which the atonement springs is not a distinctionless love; it is a love that elects and predestinates. God was pleased to set his invincible and everlasting love upon a countless multitude and it is the determinate purpose of this love that the atonement secures. (10)

God's sovereignty and His love, in fact all His attributes inseparable from His person, are the focal point of redemption. It is really about Him, not about us.

The atonement does not win or constrain the love of God. The love of God constrains to the atonement as the means of accomplishing love's determinate purpose. (10)

The second striking aspect of Chapter 1 was the argument Murray makes to support his belief the absolute necessity of the atonement to happen the way it did and involve those whom it involved. Consider these quotes:

In other words, there is stated a necessity thast can be met by nothing less than the blood of Jesus. But the blood of Jesus is blood that has the requisite efficacy and virtue only by reason of the fact that he who is the Son, the effulgence of the Father's glory and the express image of his substance, became himself partaker of flesh and blood and thus was able by one sacrifice to perfect all those who are sanctified. (14)

The only righteousness conceivable that will net the requirements of our situation as sinners and meet the requirements of a full and irrevocable justification is the righteousness of Christ. (16-7)

For these reasons we are constrained to conclude that the kind of necessity which the Scriptural considerations support is that which may be described as absolute or indispensable...If we keep in view the gravity of sin and the exigencies arising from the holiness of God which must be met in salvation from it, then the doctrine of indispensable necessity makes Calvary intelligible to us and enhances the incomprehensible marvel of both Calvary itself and the sovereign purpose of love which Clavary fulfilled. (18)

Our redemption, primarily, is not about us; it is about Him. It is a loving action of God based on His sovereign love, His unchanging holiness, and the absolute necessity of the person of Christ being our Redeemer.