To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; (Eph 1:6-8)
We have begun looking at the reasons for why Paul says “Blessed be God”. Paul is exulting and praising God. Paul is going to expect us to be so built up with joy and praise that by the time he gets to chapter 4, he will say – “therefore, in light of this great God, walk worthy of Him”. So before we get there, we must take the time to gaze upon each of the jewels he takes out of this treasure chest, gaze with wonder and admire.
Last week we saw the treasure of the Father selecting us. We saw the beauty, and the mystery of election and predestination. But this week, the focus shifts from the work of the Father, to the work of the Son.
God did not only purpose to save us before the foundation of the world. He also made provision to do so. God’s desire to save us was not limited to something in His heart which never actually worked itself out into our world. No, what God decides, He also does. So, we find this week, the treasure of the Son saving us. We look at the beautiful truth of redemption.
As Paul finished speaking about the treasure of God’s choosing us, he says in verse 6, it is to the praise of the glory of His grace, in other words – to the praise of His glorious grace. God’s election was an act of loving grace, as we saw last week. Grace is when you are given a good thing that you do not deserve, out of love.
Now, that thought leads Paul to speak about how that grace brought heaven’s intentions down to earth’s vision. He says, “wherein [or with which] he has made us accepted in the Beloved”. The word for accepted is actually the verb form of grace. It is like saying, praise God for His grace, with which He graced us in Jesus. Jesus is the Beloved, and in Jesus the grace that was in God’s heart in eternity past, came to full view 2000 years ago.
“For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” (Joh 1:17)
When Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem, God’s grace had appeared on earth in its most concentrated form. This was now the epitome of grace, the consummation of grace – the absolute climax of grace.
Why? Because the mission of Jesus Christ was a grace mission. In His own words:
Luke 19:10: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Jesus came to earth to seek and to save. He came to rescue, He came to help. In one word, Jesus came to redeem. That is Paul’s next phrase: “In whom we have redemption”
Redemption. This is the next truth we are supposed to marvel at. What is redemption? The term refers to buying. In the Old Testament, Jews had to redeem certain things – it could be an animal, it could be property, it could even be their firstborn child. They paid a price, a sum of money, ransom money as it were, to gain back what they wanted or needed. This act of paying the ransom money was called redemption. The practice continued even into Roman times, when people were sold as slaves in the slave market.
Three Greek words are used for redemption. One means to buy in the market. Another means to buy out of the market. Another means to set free by paying the price. God redeeming us was Him paying the necessary price to buy us for Himself, and to buy us out of the slave market of sin, so that we should never be sold there again. This is the idea that Paul is bringing to mind which he wants us to rejoice in. And we will only marvel when we think of redemption – we think of God’s relentless, powerful love. When we see it like that, we will say, “Blessed be God”. Now why was this act of God an act of pure grace? Why should I think of redemption, and think – “amazing love”? Well, redemption was an act of grace firstly because of…
Of Our State
It is my belief that you will never know the wonder of grace, until you know the vileness of sin. You will never be amazed at what God did, until you see that huge chasm and gap that God had to bridge. We need to understand that in redemption, God was not calling some morally neutral creatures to join Him. He was not recruiting soldiers, or hiring labourers. To understand why redemption is amazing, we need to realise that God was rescuing His enemies. We need to see our true state as the Bible describes it. To gain an idea of who we were, we must read Ephesians 2:1-3:
“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; [in which]Wherein in time past ye walked [,] according to [following] the course of this world, according to [following] the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling [carrying out] the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”
Now that is a very unsightly picture. The Bible says we were dead in trespasses and sins. That means that every part of us was turned away from the life of God. Our mind is darkened; it cannot see the reality of God as it should. The will is hardened. We obstinately refuse to do anything except that which will serve ourselves. We choose God over self every single time. The soul is dead – it lacks the capacity to know and fellowship with God. From God’s perspective, we were rebellious corpses. God looked upon man and saw an unthankful, blind, rebel. Man could see nothing but his own interests; he dismissed and disbelieved the glory of God. And moreover, he refused anything to do with God. The Bible does not say that man is an unwitting victim of sin. It says man has willingly, knowingly chosen sin over God.
The very next verse says the way we walked was a deliberate following of the world, and in so doing, a following of Satan, who is behind the world system. In case you may think that we are stating the case too strongly, read in Romans 1 to see how the Bible describes our knowing, purposeful rebellion against God: V 18 – man suppresses the truth. Man’s problem is not ignorance, it is indifference. He takes the truth, puts it in a box and sits on it. V 19 backs it up – man’s problem is not ignorance, what can be known about God is plain, God has showed it to man. V20, He used the obvious creation to show His power and Godhead. They are clearly seen and perceived, so that man is without excuse. Verse 21 further indicts us. Although man knows about the true God, they neither glorify Him in worship, nor thank Him for giving them life and breath and food. Instead, man turns to self-made gods (v21-23) Idolatry isn’t ignorance, its rejection. So God gave man over to his sinful heart, and man simply got worse. (v29-32) Man is guilty of sin, not as unwilling participant, but as one who delights in doing wrong.
Now, this is the true state of man. Man is an open, willing rebel against God’s nature. We are children of disobedience before we are saved. That means we are the offspring of the idea of disobeying God. It’s in our spiritual genes to go against God’s authority. Man is a rebel by nature. He follows the world. He follows God’s enemy, Satan. He lives, according to Ephesians 2:3 to carry out the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Man completely rejects the Law of God.
Remember, the Bible is life from God’s perspective. No matter how you may think of yourself, Ephesians 2:1-3 is God simply telling us what He sees when He looks at unsaved man. All the flattering pictures, all the ‘I’m not so bad’ excuses fly out the window and God says – all of man, in their individual ways, turn away from My glory and love their sin.
When God came to redeem us, He did not see a splendid specimen of humanity. God’s shopping methods would surprise us. He did not save us or redeem us when we were looking attractive. It was when our backs were turned, our fists clenched, our ears blocked, in aggressive rebellion to God. Perhaps we could compare it to buying an aggressive dog that barks at you and tries to attack you from its cage to be your pet. Now, perhaps you are beginning to see why redemption should cause us to be amazed. God was not saving nice angels or moral people. He was saving his enemies.
But there is another reason why redemption is so wonderful. It is because…
Of God’s Holy Nature
Ephesians 2:3 says something else about us. It says we were children of wrath, children of God’s anger. That frightening phrase gives us some idea again why redemption is amazing. As man was raising his fist to God, God was not turning a blind eye, or dismissing such things. God’s righteous anger burned and burns against those who live this way.
To get a small picture of this – how do you feel if you tell a four year old to do something, and they say, “No! I won’t! You can’t make me!” Now, your anger begins to burn for a number of reasons. Firstly, they are about 3 feet tall, so you definitely can make them if you wanted to. The kind of arrogance when a weaker, smaller being challenges the ability of a stronger, more powerful being causes us to feel anger.
Secondly, we are angry because they are much younger, and are defying one who is much older. They should have been taught that children do not dismiss the will of adults like it’s nothing. And our anger burns that a four year old should tell us our words count for nothing.
Thirdly, that a four year old should think his own way better and wiser means he regards his judgment and wisdom and intelligence as being far superior to ours. That causes us anger as we consider our longer lives on this earth and our experiences certainly give us far more wisdom than his negligible years on this earth. Now take that and multiply it by an infinitude, and you have the anger of God at man. The arrogance of puny man to say to El-Shaddai, the Almighty, “You can’t make me!” is unthinkable. The arrogance of humans, the oldest of us being a little over 100, to say to the Ancient of Days, “I won’t” is far worse than a four year old defying us. And when we think our ways are better and wiser than the God of wisdom Himself, the offence is indeed great. For that reason, the Bible calls us children of anger. God is revolted by such arrogance. Our sin is a stench, an abnormality, a terrible aberration in His universe, which His righteous anger wants to destroy. It is as if God created us to be mirrors of Himself. Our sin, though, has warped and cracked the mirror. Have you ever looked into a broken or warped mirror? Did you like the image you saw? It causes you to look away, when you see your own image so distorted. Well, God looks at you and I, made in His image – image bearers of God, and sees these image bearers of God hating and lusting and coveting, and lying and stealing and killing and raping and cheating and envying and boasting and disobeying. And His anger burns.
William Gurnall wrote this in 1660: “But think not, sinners, that you shall escape thus; God’s mill goes slow, but grinds small; the more admirable His patience and bounty now is, the more dreadful and unsupportable will that fury be which ariseth out of His abused goodness. Nothing smoother than the sea, yet when stirred into a tempest, nothing ragest more. Nothing as sweet as the patience and goodness of God, and nothing as terrible as His wrath when it takes fire.”
Now, again, picture God’s anger burning as He looks upon you for despising His glory again and again and again. As He sees you with your tiny fist shouting at the Great I Am, “You can’t make me”
Now, given those circumstances, if you did not know the end of the story, what would you have expected God to do? Flaming judgement would be the logical answer. But now you are beginning to see the treasure of redemption because God did not do that. Perhaps the two most precious words in the Bible are in Ephesians 2:4: “But God”. Not, ‘and God destroyed’ But God. But God redeemed.
God sent His Son Jesus, the incarnation of God’s grace to buy these rebels enslaved to their rebellion. We see that redemption is to be treasured because…
Of The Price Required
God’s holy nature is not schizophrenic. God does not have a conflict within Himself. As His anger burned at our sin, it was not as if His love suddenly began to cool off that anger. God’s love for man regarded Him with love all along. God’s holiness continued to feel righteous indignation for man’s rebellion. But God’s love sought to redeem man. He was not going to simply pardon man. He could not. If He did that, God would be despising His own holiness. If God just said, “just forget about their sin’, he would be making light of mankind having broken His own law, of mankind trampling underfoot God’s glory. He was not going to do that. But God’s wisdom had a way of meeting His demand for justice as well as His desire for our eternal happiness.
Redemption is about paying a ransom price. So, what price had man’s sin brought about? Well, man had despised God’s glory. The price had to be equal to the glory of God. If you break a window – you pay for the price of the window. Man had despised God’s glory. He now had to pay a price equal to the value of God’s nature. It’s plainly impossible that we could not do that.
So God the Father sent God the Son, who willingly came to earth. Born of a virgin, He lived a sinless life, and perfectly kept God’s law. He was now a qualified redeemer. A sinner cannot pay for the sins of another. “None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: (For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever:) That he should still live for ever, and not see corruption.” (Psa 49:7-9)
But a perfectly holy man, one holy in both nature and in deed – He could pay the price for our sins. This was the price that had to be paid to release us. Only something that reflected the full value of who God is, and the full travesty of turning away from God could pay the price. So, the price became that God the Son would die for us. The most precious Human ever – the God-man. His death would be the death of the most valuable human ever.
“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:” (1Pe 1:18-19)
So the sinless, undefiled Son of God gave His own life to rescue us. Every moment of that agony was the grace of God paying the price to rescue rebels and make them sons; to buy enemies and make them saints. The pain of the cross was not merely the physical pain; it was being a guilt bearer, and a wrath bearer. Have you ever felt the crushing pain of guilt? Have you ever felt the way it seems to empty you of strength with self-loathing? Now picture not only all of your sins, but the sins of the world – every murder, rape, child-molestation, every hateful thought, every outburst of sinful anger, every sinful word ever spoken, every evil thought – picture the weight of the guilt for all those things being loaded onto you in the space of three hours. And then picture being the lightning rod for all of God’s anger as He pours out His indignation on you. You feel the fury of God for all these sins. Suddenly God the Son feels God the Father’s anger for the first time in an eternity of love. God the Father is not angry at Jesus, but He is furious at sin, and Jesus is bearing all of them.
This was the price. When you stop and ask – why did God pay such a high price? Why did the Trinity disturb their perfect fellowship to rescue their enemies? All we can do is say – “Grace, glorious grace. Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God shouldst die for me?”
Of the Results Secured
We ought to treasure our redemption because of the results it secured.
Our verse sums it up in a sweeping statement – the forgiveness of sins. Don’t rush over that. That means that the debt we had to God, which was equal to the crime of our sin, has been written off. Try to grasp that.
Romans 3:23 says – “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”
Did you ever think what those two ideas have to do with each other? Our sin insults, or falls short of His glory. When we sin, we make a statement about what God is worth. And the direness of that crime is the debt we owe God. It is as if we have broken a window worth as much as God. How can we repay it? Even our own death would not pay the price for such a crime. But in Christ, this redemption has freed us, we are forgiven. The blessing of forgiveness.
“The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children; (Psa 103:8-17)
And to think that God did not just forgive, like a merchant who writes off a bad debt, He forgave in the way a husband would forgive an unfaithful wife.
“Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine. So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley: And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.” (Hos 3:1-3)
Hosea had been told to marry Gomer, a woman who would be adulterous in chapter 1. Now she had done just that, broken her marriage vows and lived in sin. More than likely, her life had descended to a point where she was now a slave prostitute, being hired out by her master. God tells Hosea to go and redeem her. He pays the full price to set her free from her bondage, and then says you will be for me forever. You are not for anyone else, nor am I for anyone else.
If God used this as an illustration of His relationship with Israel, how much more for New Testament believers? God found us given over to all kinds of sin. Jesus Christ came into the world, and paid the price of His own death, to buy us to be His bride. Though we had been adulterous all our lives and had loved other things more than Him, He loved us while we were still stuck on that slave block of sin, being used by sin again and again. And in great love and grace, He died for us, and now says – you shall be for Me and for no other. If we feel the pain of Hosea – having to go and buy his own wife back for himself, how much more the love and grace of God, buying his own sinful creatures back to Himself?
Hosea went to buy Gomer to bring her back into his family. God came and bought us, at his own cost, back into His family. This is the wonder of redemption. It’s a treasure because of who He redeemed, us, His enemies. It’s a treasure because of His nature which hated sin, and ought to have destroyed us, not rescued us. It’s a treasure because of the price He paid – the precious blood of the Son of God. It’s a treasure because of what it secured – total forgiveness of all our sins, past, present and future, and a marriage relationship with Jesus Christ.
Perhaps now we can see why redemption is an act of grace. It was done according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished on us. Redemption was and is pure grace – grace in concentrated form. As we think of the treasure of the Son saving us, we must agree with Paul – ‘Blessed be God’.