Chapter 61.—The
Church on Earth Has Been Redeemed from Sin by the Blood of a
Mediator.
This part of the Church, then,
which is made up of the holy angels and the hosts of God, shall
become known to us in its true nature, when, at the end of the
world, we shall be united with it in the common possession of
everlasting happiness. But the other part, which, separated from
it, wanders as a stranger on the earth, is better known to us, both
because we belong to it, and because it is composed of men, and we
too are men. This section of the Church has been redeemed from all
sin by the blood of a Mediator who had no sin, and its song is:
“If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His
own Son, but delivered Him up for us all.”
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Now it was not for the angels that
Christ died. Yet what was done for the redemption of man through
His death was in a sense done for the angels, because the enmity
which sin had put between men and the holy angels is removed, and
friendship is restored between them, and by the redemption of man
the gaps which the great apostasy left in the angelic host are
filled up.
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Rom. viii. 31