Redemption of the Fallen Human Spirit

Redemption is felt, and is designed to be felt, more than anywhere else, in man's fallen spirit. There is a mental, as well as a physical, redemption; and the mental or personal is as much more important than the physical, as mind holds a higher rank and is more important than matter.

The restoration of man is primarily a restoration of the affections. When man fell, his affections changed their center; and that love, which at first centered in God, afterwards centered in himself. Being disunited from the true center, he never afterwards could be truly united with anything, except those things which adhered to himself as their center. In this state of separation from God, and of sin against God, he is redeemed from the penalty of sin by accepting that forgiveness which is offered through Jesus Christ.

But it is important to remember that there are two offers involved in that great work, which Christ came to accomplish; — the one is, forgiveness for the past, and the other is, a new life in God for the future. A new life in God, which implies entire reconciliation with God as its basis, could not be offered to man, until the penalty of the old transgression was remitted. And, on the other hand, the remission of the penalty of the past would be wholly unavailing, without the permanent restoration of a divine and living principle in man's spiritual part.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 2.