Isaiah 52:3 For thus said the LORD, You have sold yourselves for nothing; and you shall be redeemed without money. I. WHAT IS THE CONDITION OF MANKIND WHEN UNREGENERATE? In a state of sin, the text hath represented us as selling ourselves for nought; where each word is emphatical, and carries a peculiar sting in it. 1. We take upon us to drive a bargain where we have no propriety in what we expose to sale. What the prophet here charges us with exposing to sale is ourselves; and this, in other words, implies our souls, with all the interest which they have elsewhere depending upon our behaviour. Now in these our propriety is strictly and truly derivative and borrowed; it was God who made us, and not we ourselves; and every faculty and every power wherewith He hath entrusted us are employed injuriously whenever they run counter to His will and pleasure. 2. Let us consider what we are doing when we are selling ourselves. Our souls which were made to be immortal are the things we are bartering in this foolish bargain. And when once we have parted with them, what would we not give in exchange for them, to have them again, and save them? 3. The folly is yet farther aggravated by the consideration whhereupon we are induced to this wretched bargain. For the text hath charged us with "selling ourselves for nought." II. WHAT WHEN REGENERATE? What Christ hath done for us in the affair of our redemption, by cancelling the handwriting which lay against us, was on His part free grace and bounty. Our redemption being conditional, proceed we to consider the terms whereunto it is limited. 1. Repentance from dead works. 2. Faith. 3. A sincere obedience will naturally follow. (N. Marshall, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.WEB: For thus says Yahweh, "You were sold for nothing; and you shall be redeemed without money." |
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