(2) The fact of 'purchase,. — Is that thing ours which we have bought by current coin in the market, and for which we have paid its highest possible value ? If so, how much more do these belong to God whom He hath purchased for Himself, not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of His own beloved Son ! Surely none will question God's right to those He purchased at so great a price. Law and justice will not do so, for they have long ago proclaimed — " Deliver from going down to the pit for we have found a ransom." They are fully satisfied with the return made to their claims. Hence, they have surrendered every claim to those once lying under the curse and doom, Christ having been made a curse for them. Satan dare not do it. For though at one time he could claim sovereignty and dominion over them — though at one time he ruled in them as the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience — yet his unjust usurpation has long been overturned, and he has now nothing in them. All his claim to them rested wholly upon their own sinful and willing submission to his yoke ; but they have now cast it off, with as thorough a hatred as they once had delight in it. Hence, his they are no longer. The reigning power of sin, the blinding influence of spiritual death, by means of which they had been so long kept in his degrading servitude, are now removed, and they have escaped for ever out of the fowler's snare. Hence, this adversary can no longer lay claim to them. And no other creature can, for they are God's, who loved them, and saved them, and washed them in the blood of the Lamb, and hence has secured an uncontroverted right to them.
TJ Turn to Matt. xiii. 45, and look at that sweet parable : " The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls ; who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it." In reading that parable, I used to think that the Lord Jesus Christ was the pearl of great price, I was the merchant man, and the price which I paid was one sin and another which I gave up to accept Christ. Now, in reading this Blessed Word, I can find no place in which the sinner is said to purchase Christ, or eternal life, or anything else.
MALACHI in. 17 509
Certainly in that beautiful chapter in Isaiah the sinner is invited to " come, buy wine and milk " ; but it is " without money and with- out price " — if we are not to pay anything, then it is a gift which we receive, not a purchase which we make. Again it is said, " Buy the truth and sell it not " ; but this is for the Christian, and not for the unsaved soul. The sinner cannot purchase salvation, Christ has purchased it. The Lord Jesus Christ has purchased His Church ; He was the purchaser, not the Church. Remember it makes all the difference in the world to make sure of this, because the buyer has the right to sell. If I had purchased Christ, then I could part with Him ; but if He has purchased me I cannot part with Him, I am His by right of purchase. Men do not buy with the intention of selling at a loss. So when the Lord Jesus Christ purchased the Church, He paid a very high price for it, and He can never part with it until He gets a higher price ; that He can never get. He laid down His own life for the Church, and the Church is safe until a higher price be offered. Eighteen hundred years ago, Satan offered a price — " All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." The price was too low. Christ was about to pay His life-blood for the Church, and He would not sell it for these earthly things. Turn to one or two passages to prove this point. In Acts xx. 28 we read : " The church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." There you get the merchant man, the pearl of great price, and the price paid. Again in Gal. ii. 20 : " Who loved me, and gave himself for me." Once more, in 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20 ; vii. 23 : " Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price ... be not ye the servants of men." l
(3) The pain of preparation. — The diamond has to undergo a rough and rude process before it can glow and sparkle, burning with many-coloured fires, and flashing with matchless lustre. The lapidary must grind it on his flying wheel, and polish it with its own dust before it can pass into the hand of the jeweller to be set in a golden crown, and become a fitting ornament for a monarch's brow. So with the Christian. He must be sanctified and purified, and made meet for the Master's use. By the hammer of His Word, God breaks the heart of stone, and changes it into a heart of flesh. Often He casts the people whom He intends for great honour into the furnace of affliction, where He purifies them in seven-times-heated fires. It is thus that He takes away the dross and refines them; and through a painful