How Far Reaching is the Work of Christ?

During a stay in Bournemouth, England, as a very young man, I was overwhelmed with depression.  Sometimes, in those days, I could be very bold and felt like storming the whole world, but soon I would find myself “down” and “lost” wishing only one thing for myself, i.e.  death.  -  A local preacher from the so called “Plymouth Brethren” counseled me one day and made this statement about my condition:  “I can tell, this is hereditary.”  I had to agree with him, since manic-depressive ailments seemed to have been inherited on my mother´s side from generation to generation.  However, his words didn´t help me.

One day I “happened” to read a  word of God that became like a revelation to me:  “….knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ!”  (1 Pet. 1:18-19, New American Standard V.).  I remembered my friend´s words, “This is hereditary” – but now I read about a redemption from a life inherited from my forefathers, handed mercilessly down from generation to generation.  I didn´t ask the question, Does this word really apply to me?  It was rather as if the Lord whispered to my bewildered soul, “This is  what I have done for you!  You are no longer a slave to your manic-depressive forefathers!”

I went to a very godly woman, in fact my grandfather´s widow (his second wife after my grandmother died).  She knew all about our family history and its frailties. I asked her, “What do you think?  Dare I really, on the virtue of that gospel word, claim full deliverance from the inherited weaknesses of our family?” It was almost as if I asked her, “Do you think I´m making too much of the blood of Christ?”  But she wholeheartedly encouraged me to stick to that precious word.

How I wished I could shout it out to other broken believers bowed down with the notion that they are doomed to be torn by inherited moods or depressions:
Christ Jesus has redeemed you with His precious blood, and you are now a fellow heir with Christ (Rom. 8:17) – and no longer a “fellow heir” with your feeble genealogical table.  Praise God!  So don´t be too keen on big family reunions, but rather love the fellowship with God´s family redeemed by the blood of Christ!

Does that mean that I´m always “up in the air”?  Oh no, the assaults of our enemy are real as they were real, too, in our Lord´s life on earth and in the lives of His followers today, - and they are tough sometimes – but the work of the cross can´t be challenged.  “The cross it standeth fast, hallelujah..” was the favorite hymn of C.H. Spurgeon.  We can´t make too much of the redemption of Christ.  However, we may easily make too little of it!

-jn-