#63 The purpose of Redemption
From Meditations on the Epistles of John, by Samuel Froehlich
If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. (I John 2:29-3:1)
Just as we, by a new birth, have entered into a new relation with God (to the Father as children, to the Son as brothers and sisters and do righteousness, as He is righteous), thus we enter into a new relation with the world also. It is as if all the bonds of the former relationship had been dissolved, as soon as our new relationship to God is consummated by our conversion from darkness to light; it is as if the evil spirits which went out from us had entered others to avenge themselves. Our best friends and nearest relatives—our own folks at home—become the worst enemies. Before the coming of Christ, it cannot be otherwise in a home and heart. Division and the sword enter with Him.
Then it is said: "As long as these fools, fanatics, sectarians, new believers and Anabaptists were not here, things were peaceable and went well." Here one, all at once, loses one's self-respect, honor and good name in the world—as soon as one becomes minded like Christ and confesses Him before men without being ashamed of Him. For this reason, few distinguished persons of the world accept and follow Christ, preferring the honor of men to the honor of God.
One can therefore easily recognize the children of God by their new mind and life from and of God, which is strange to the world, for the children of God also were once in the wrong and darkened like all the rest, and after their conversion and redemption they are not ashamed to admit it and to testify of the great change which, by the power and grace of God, has taken place in them, to the glory of God, although they gain no honor on earth by this but rather become dishonorable without cause, but they receive another, new name in heaven for it and honor from God.
We cannot be citizens and feel at home in both places. Besides, as the unconverted are aliens in heaven and enemies of God, so have the converted indeed become strange and unknown on earth, but, on the other hand, are at home in heaven and the friends of God, and whenever they must depart from this world, they come to no strange place but to one with which they have long been acquainted, where their heart has long since been. And as we have lost the time of our former life in the death of sin, we must now purchase the remaining time to win our salvation. (I Peter 4)
The children of God therefore do not fear death like the children of the world, who have no God and no hope with their counterfeit worship and blind zeal for their ancestral religion, on account of which they hate the children of God, persecute and slander them as apostates, for they do not know that Christ did not come into the world to set up an outer, formal religion but to reveal His divine life in us. For how can anyone serve God with anger and a carnal zeal?
Still the unconverted imagine that they are zealous for God when they persecute and kill His children. (John 16) And if that does not happen to us, we are not true Christians or children of God, for the world knows neither the Father, nor the Son, nor His children who have His Holy Spirit, and we ought to remember the word of the Lord Jesus: "The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.” "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?"
The true Christian who has become a light by the indwelling of Christ cannot remain hidden, but just this light reproves the darkness and its works. Yet we shall not hate those in return who hate us for Christ’s sake but love them and pray for them, for they know not what they do, and who knows whether we, by our witnessing of Christ, may not be able to help some to life? Save them from the error of their way?