secured is a purchase or redemption (comp. Acts 20:28; 1 Corinthians
6:19, 20; Galatians 3:13; 4:4, 5; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; 1 Timothy
2:5, 6; Titus 2:14; Hebrews 9:12; 1 Peter 1:18, 19; Revelation 5:9). The
idea running through all these texts, however various their reference, is that
of payment made for our redemption. The debt against us is not viewed as
simply cancelled, but is fully paid. Christ’s blood or life, which he
surrendered for them, is the “ransom” by which the deliverance of his
people from the servitude of sin and from its penal consequences is
secured. It is the plain doctrine of Scripture that “Christ saves us neither
by the mere exercise of power, nor by his doctrine, nor by his example, nor
by the moral influence which he exerted, nor by any subjective influence
on his people, whether natural or mystical, but as a satisfaction to divine
justice, as an expiation for sin, and as a ransom from the curse and
authority of the law, thus reconciling us to God by making it consistent
with his perfection to exercise mercy toward sinners” (Hodge’s Systematic
Theology).
- RED SEA The sea so called extends along the west coast of Arabia for
about 1,400 miles, and separates Asia from Africa. It is connected with the
Indian Ocean, of which it is an arm, by the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb. At a
point (Ras Mohammed) about 200 miles from its nothern extremity it is
divided into two arms, that on the east called the AElanitic Gulf, now the
Bahr el-‘Akabah, about 100 miles long by 15 broad, and that on the west
the Gulf of Suez, about 150 miles long by about 20 broad. This branch is
now connected with the Mediterranean by the Suez Canal. Between these
two arms lies the Sinaitic Peninsula.
The Hebrew name generally given to this sea is Yam Suph. This word suph
means a woolly kind of sea-weed, which the sea casts up in great
abundance on its shores. In these passages, Exodus 10:19; 13:18; 15:4, 22;
23:31; Numbers 14:25, etc., the Hebrew name is always translated “Red
Sea,” which was the name given to it by the Greeks. The origin of this
name (Red Sea) is uncertain. Some think it is derived from the red colour of
the mountains on the western shore; others from the red coral found in the
sea, or the red appearance sometimes given to the water by certain
zoophytes floating in it. In the New Testament (Acts 7:36; Hebrews
11:29) this name is given to the Gulf of Suez.