The primary purpose of the new covenant is to forgive sin. The new covenant cannot remove the compulsions to sin.

For two thousand years the Christian churches have interpreted the above verse to mean the Lamb of God takes away the guilt of the sin of the world. To this day the almost exclusive emphasis of Christian preaching is that if we will come to Christ, He will forgive our sins.

As far as actually taking away our sin, it is not often that the Christian redemption is presented as removing the power of sin from us.

Ordinarily, we Christians treat the atonement as a specific act of God, to which we are to respond in a specific manner, obtaining specific results. But deliverance from the power of sin over us is not treated as a specific act of God to which we are to respond in a specific manner obtaining specific results. Rather we mention, most of us, that Christians ought to do the best they can to cope with the world, Satan, and their own lusts and self-will. But we do not treat the problem of the bondage of sin in a specific, scriptural manner.

The truth is, redemption is not limited to forgiveness.

If the Divine redemption were limited to forgiveness, then there is no Kingdom of God, no rule of God. It would be true that God does not have enough power through Jesus Christ to break the hold sin has over us.

The act of redemption is that which restores to an individual what has been taken from him by force or forfeiture; what he must surrender because he is unable to possess it any longer.

Satan has taken from mankind the ability to serve God without breaking God's laws. Guilt is God's response to our breaking His laws. For the Lord Jesus Christ to come to earth and only forgive us without redeeming us from the power of the devil, would be a very limited salvation.

The issue is: Can the Lord Jesus Christ actually break the chains of sin that cause us to disobey God? Is the Kingdom of God a real kingdom in which God's will is done in the earth, or is it a figurative way of saying, we have left the earth and gone to Paradise where there is no temptation to sin (although sin began in Paradise, both in Heaven and on the earth)?

Perhaps most of us have experienced, either in our own personality or by observing someone else, a change in an individual who has accepted Christ. He has stopped drinking alcohol, or swearing, or lying, or stealing. We have seen this much of the Divine redemption.

But after twenty years the same individual may be filled with bitterness or unforgiveness, or may have left his wife and children to marry another woman.

So the redemption usually is quite incomplete. There has not been a complete breaking of the bondages of lust and self-will.

We excuse this failure by reciting unscriptural concepts, such as, as long as we are in this world we have to sin.

To be continued.