2024-06-10 “thy congregation, which thou hast purchased”

Psalm 74:1  “O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?  2  Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed; this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.

The Children Of Israel were a prophetic type of the New Testament Church of Jesus Christ.  Paul even refers to the Church as the “Jerusalem which is above” (Galatians 4:26) and “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16).  And, Israel and the New Testament Church are those that God has especially blessed and called out to worshipfully serve Him, they are a portion of “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues” (Revelation 7:9).  This “great multitude” is said to have been “purchased” to signify that they are the Eternal possession of God.  Moses referred to them as “the people … which thou hast purchased” (Exodus 15:16) and Paul refers to them as “the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).  They are said to have been “purchased of old” because Jesus Christ is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8); that is, in the mind and purpose of God, Jesus’ shed-blood covered every Child of God from the first man Adam until the last Child of God is conceived in its mother’s womb.  Under God’s Supreme Judicial System, the penalty for “sin” is sacrificial “death” (Romans 6:23) and God sent His “only begotten” and “beloved Son” to pay the penal price for sin, for every one of His Children, to “save” them “from their sins” (Matthew 1:21; Romans 5:11-20).  Therefore, “being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him” (Romans 5:9)!