Redemption Through His Blood - Ephesians 1:6-10 - Part 1

Ephesians 1:6-10 (KJV)6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 8 Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; 9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heavena, and which are on earth; even in him: . (1:6b–10)

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Intro. Some years ago trading stumps were popular. For each dollar amount purchased a given number of trading stamps was given as a bonus. When sufficient stamps were saved up, they were token to a redemption center and exchanged for merchandise.

Redemption is one of the central themes of Scripture and of the book of Ephesians, but it carries much more than the idea simply of exchanging one thing for another of equal value.

The Meaning of Redemption

Redemption comes from one of six terms token from the field of law and used in the New Testament in relation to salvation.

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Dikaioō and related terms referred to legal acquittal of a charge and are used theologically to speak of a sinner’s being vindicated, justified, and declared righteous before God (see, for example, Rom. 3:4; 4:25; 5:18; 1 Tim. 3:16).
Aphiēmi basically means to send away and was used to indicate the legal repayment or cancellation of a debt or the granting of a pardon. It is used in Scripture to refer to God’s forgiveness of sin (see Matt. 9:2; Rom. 4:7; Eph. 1:7; 4:32; etc.).
Huiothesia referred to the legal process of adopting a child and is used by Paul to represent the believer’s adoption into God’s family (see Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:5; Eph. 1:
Katallassō meant to legally reconcile two disputing parties in court and in the New Testament is used of a believer’s reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:8–20).

Two additional Greek legal terms are related to redemption.

Agorazō and the related exagorazō rear to buying or purchasing. The source of the terms is agora, which means marketplace, and the root idea of the derived verbs and nouns referred to buying and trading in the marketplace. In the New Testament they are used to denote spiritual purchase or redemption (see Gal. 3:13; Rev. 5:9; 14:3–4; etc.).
The other term for redemption, lutroō (along with its related forms), meant to release from captivity. It carried an even stronger meaning than agorazō and is behind the noun rendered here as redemption. This word was used to refer to paying a ransom in order to release a person from bondage, especially that of slavery.

During New Testament times the Roman Empire had as many as six million slaves, and the buying and selling of them was a major business. If a person wanted to free a loved one or friend who was a slave, he would buy that slave for himself and then grant him freedom, testifying to the deliverance by a written certificate.
Lutroō was used to designate the freeing of a slave in that way.

That is precisely the idea carried in the New Testament use of the term to represent Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross.
He paid the redemption price to buy for Himself fallen mankind and to set them free from their sin.
Every human being born since the Fall has come into the world enslaved to sin, under total bondage to a nature that is corrupt, evil, and separated from its Creator.

3. No person is spiritually free. No human being is free of sin or free of its consequences, the ultimate consequence, or penalty, for which is death (Rom. 6:23). “The soul who sins will die” (Ezek. 18:4).

Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin” (John 8:34),
Paul points out that every person has committed sin: “There is none righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10; cf. Ps. 14:1).
In the same letter the apostle says that we are all “sold into bondage to sin” (7:14) and that, in fact, the whole of creation is enslaved to the corruption of sin (8:21).
Sin is our captor and slave owner, and it demands a price for his release.
Death is the price that had to be paid for man’s redemption from sin.
Biblical redemption therefore refers to the act of God by which He Himself paid as a ransom the price for sin.

4. In Romans Paul speaks of redemption as “our having been freed from sin” and become “slaves of righteousness” (6:18).

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5. In Galatians He describes redemption in saying that Jesus Christ

“gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (1:3–4);
that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us” (3:13);
and that “it was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1).

6. In Colossians the apostle says that “He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (1:13–14). #. The writer of Hebrews explains redemption in these words: “Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself [Christ] likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (2:14–15).

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The Elements of Redemption To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 8 Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; 9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heavena, and which are on earth; even in him (1:6b–10)

In this passage Paul mentions five elements of the redemption God offers fallen men through His Son, Jesus Christ: the Redeemer, the redeemed, and the redemption price, results, and reason.

The Redeemer

Grace (v. 6a) is the antecedent of which. It is God’s grace (undeserved love and goodness) that He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved, and because we are in Him we have redemption.
Jesus Christ is our Redeemer from sin, the Beloved (the word indicates the One who is in the state of being loved by God) who Himself paid the price for our release from sin and death. Because we now belong to Christ, by faith made one with Him and placed in His Body, we are now acceptable to God.
From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry the Father declared Him to be “My beloved Son” (Matt. 3:17).
And because we have believed in Him, “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of hisa dear Son: (Col. 1:13).
Because we are now in the Beloved, we, too, are “beloved of God” (Rom. 1:7).
Only Jesus Christ has the inherent right to all the goodness of God.
But because we are identified with Him by faith, that goodness is now also our goodness.
Because our Savior and Lord is the Beloved of the Father and possesses all the goodness of the Father, we are also the beloved of the Father and possess all His goodness.
Jesus said, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father” (John 14:21).
The Father now loves us as He loves Christ and wants us to have everything that Christ has.
That is why Paul could say He “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). Every Christian is God’s beloved child because the Lord Jesus Christ has become our Redeemer.
The Old Testament concept of a kinsman–redeemer set forth three qualifications: he had to be related to the one needing redemption, able to pay the price, and willing to do so. The Lord Jesus perfectly met these requirements.
A poet has expressed the magnificent reality of redemption in the words,

Near, so very near to God, Nearer I could not be; For in the person of His Son, I’m just as near as He.Dear, so very dear to God, Dearer I could not be; For in the person of His Son,I’m just as dear as He.

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Charitoō (freely bestowed) is from charis (grace, v. 6a), and therefore Paul is saying that God has graced us with His grace. Christians are those who have been graced by God.

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The Redeemed

On us, “the saints … who are faithful in Christ Jesus” (v. 1), the Redeemer has freely bestowed His grace. We have the ones who have redemption through His blood

1. In chapter 2 Paul reminds us of what we were like when God so graciously redeemed us.

a. We “were dead in [our] trespasses and sins”;

b. we “walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air”;

c. we “lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath”;

d. and we were without “hope and without God in the world” (vv. 1–3, 12).

2. In chapter 4 he reminds us that we formerly walked in futility of mind, “darkened in [our] understanding, excluded from the life of God,” because of ignorance and hardness of heart (vv. 17–18). Those are the kinds of people (the only kind who exist) that God chose to redeem.

3. It is of course because men are like that that they need redemption. Good men would not need a Redeemer.

4. That is why Christ “gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:14).

5. Until a person realizes his need for redemption, however, he sees no need for a Redeemer.

6. Until he recognizes that he is hopelessly enslaved to sin, he will not seek release from it. But when he does, he will be freed from the curse of sin, placed in Christ’s Body, and blessed with His every spiritual blessing.

The Redemption Price

In Him we have redemption through His blood, (7a)

1. The price of redemption is His blood. It cost the blood of the Son of God to buy men back from the slave market of sin (cf. Lev. 17:11; Heb. 9:22).

2. Shedding of blood is a metonym for death, which is the penalty and the price of sin. Christ’s own death, by the shedding of His blood, was the substitute for our death.

3. That which we deserved and could not save ourselves from, the beloved Savior, though He did not deserve it, took upon Himself. He made payment for what otherwise would have condemned us to death and hell.

4. The blood of sacrificial animals was continually offered on the altars of the Tabernacle and then the Temple. But that blood was never able, and was never intended, to cleanse the offerers from sin.

a. Those animals were only symbolic, typical substitutes.

b. As the writer of Hebrews explains, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:4).

c. But in the shedding of His blood, “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (10:10).

d. He “gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma” (Eph. 5:2).

e. The Savior Himself said that His blood was “poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28).

f. As the writer of Hebrews explains, Christ’s sacrifice was “not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:12–14).

5. We “were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold … but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:18–19).

a. No wonder John saw the four living creatures and the twenty–four elders singing, “Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation And Thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth” (Rev. 5:8–10).

b. The “redemption which is in Christ Jesus … in His blood through faith” (Rom. 3:24–25) has paid the price for those enslaved by sin, bought them out of the slave market where they were in bondage, and set them free as liberated sons of God.

c. In their freedom they are in union with Jesus Christ and receive every good thing that He is and has. His death frees believers from sin’s guilt, condemnation, bondage, power, penalty, and—some glorious day—even from its presence.

The Redemptive Results

the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, (7b–9a)

1.Redemption involves every conceivable good thing, “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (v. 3).

2. But here Paul focuses on two especially important aspects. One is negative, the forgiveness of our trespasses, and the other is positive, wisdom and insight.

3. Forgiveness. The primary result of redemption for the believer is forgiveness, one of the central salvation truths of both the Old and New Testaments. It is also the dearest truth to those who have experienced its blessing. At the Last Supper, Jesus explained to the disciples that the cup He then shared with them was His “blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Redemption brings forgiveness.

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