Returning to the cross, the source of all grace - Redemption Eph 1:7

EPH 1:7-8 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, 8 which He lavished upon us.

 

God the HS through the apostle Paul is now going to remind us of why we are blessed, elected, predestined, adopted, holy and blameless in the eyes of God, and pursued constantly by His grace so that we may enter into the abundant life of super-grace - and that is the Cross.

 

The cross is where we find God and the cross continues to be the source and conduit of all blessing in the spiritual life.

 

When believers get out of bounds in the spiritual life it is because they leave the cross, or in other words, they leave grace as the source of their relationship with God.

 

This makes for all kinds of pain.

 

/1 Tim 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil [grace means I rely on God for blessing and my top priority is Him], and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many a pang. \

 

/Verse 7 is the function of the Lord Jesus Christ in harmonizing God’s love with God’s holiness, which is His righteousness and justice, which cannot be compromised.\

 

The Father could not just overlook sin because that would compromise His essence. Sin had to be judged if God were to open up to fallen creatures. Through the substitutionary spiritual death of Christ, God the Father was satisfied with fallen man’s sin and so anyone who believes on Christ as Savior is forever pronounced righteous and given eternal life.

 

/“redemption” — the accusative singular from a)polutrwsij[apolutrosis] the strongest word for being purchased from slavery.\

 

It means a deliverance from slavery by payment. A)polutrwisij means the slave was purchased and released as a free person.

           

Therefore, we briefly look at the doctrine of redemption:

           

/The doctrine of redemption.

 

Definition:Redemption is the payment of a ransom price by Christ’s voluntary sacrifice. It has been accomplished so it is something to believe.\

 

[read for slide] Redemption implies the payment of a ransom price, and, in the redemption which Christ has wrought, the divine judgments against sin having been measured out, these stand paid by Christ’s voluntary sacrifice. This is not something yet to be done; but, being already accomplished, is something to believe.

 

 

ROM 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

 

ROM 3:24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;

 

ROM 3:25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.

 

/The necessity of redemption is found in John 8:31-36 in which the Pharisees ignorantly challenged the Lord Jesus Christ’s definition of freedom.\

 

John 8:31 Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, "If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;

 

John 8:32 and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. " 

 

John 8:33 They answered Him, "We are Abraham's offspring, and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, 'You shall become free'?"

 

John 8:34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin [singular = OSN].

[as long as we are in these physical bodies we will commit sin]

 

Therefore, it seems hopeless. And you have to understand the gravity of sin to realize how hopeless things are for us without the sacrifice of Christ. We weren’t in just any pickle; we were drowning in the pickle jar.

 

It’s called total depravity and we are all born with it. It is a pit of depravity that we cannot climb out of. That’s why you’re a hopeless slave to sin without the Lord.

 

The Trinity hates sin, the humanity of Christ hates sin, and God cannot compromise concerning sin.

 

Those who in arrogance want to teach sinless perfection will use verse 34 but ignore the next two verses.  

 

John 8:35 "And the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.

 

John 8:36 "If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

 

/Only the qualified Redeemer can make you free. The principle here is that you cannot, as a born sinner, free yourself in any way.\

 

They said, like all who reject Christ say, “Why do you say that we are slaves? We have never been in slavery to anyone.”

 

They ignore the calling from heaven that they are not free and in their sins they cannot in any way free themselves.

 

At this time when the Jews in the temple rejected this principle they were in slavery to the Roman empire, they were in slavery to the Pharisees, they were in slavery to religiosity and legalism, and in addition to that they were born slaves in the slave market of sin, i.e. born with old sin natures.

 

But the Lord Jesus Christ made an issue only out of the old sin nature.

 

/Christ paid the ransom for sin on the cross. In other words, Christ purchased redemption — Psalm 34:22; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 1:18,19.\

 

/Ps 34:22

The Lord redeems the soul of His servants;

And none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.\

 

/GAL 3:13

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us —  for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"\

 

 

 

 

/1 Peter 1:18

knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,\

 

/1 Peter 1:19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.\

 

Therefore Christ is the only qualified redeemer. Your guilt does not redeem you, penance cannot redeem, promises to never do it again do not redeem [and that makes you a liar], lifestyle does not redeem, nor can money, or service or morality redeem.

 

Christ wasn’t just a good man or some apparition of God who came to earth to teach us how to live right. This type of thinking was an early attack on the church right in the first century by satan using a group known as the Gnostics. They taught that Christ did not come in the flesh that He was just a manifestation of God who was here to teach us how to live. This is still a teaching today.

 

No! He is the qualified Redeemer. He came to purchase us. He didn’t come to earth to get something from us; He came to give something to us.

 

To refute the Gnostic influence over the church the apostle John wrote 1 John in 90 A.D. where Jesus Christ is presented as the Redeemer.

 

 

You and I cannot pay for even one sin.

 

/ROM 6:23

For the wages of sin is death [spiritual death], but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.\

 

Jonah found himself in the mood to pray when he was in the belly of a big fish [I think that might be true of all of us] and he ended his prayer with this:

 

/JoNAH 2:9 “Salvation is from the Lord.”\

 

In striking fashion as only God can do, He reminds us that salvation means deliverance, deliverance from sin and therefore deliverance from slavery.  

 

/JoNAH 2:10 Then the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land.\

 

God has an eye for the dramatic, does He not?

 

[Start Chafer] The gospel preacher as well as all ambassadors for Christ should ever be on his guard lest by so much as an inference or intimation he violate or contradict the transcendent revelation that salvation is of Jehovah.

 

Not the slightest insinuation should ever be advanced which implies that man might share in, or contribute to, that final consummation in eternal glory.

 

Reason as well as revelation may serve to guide the mind; for, it will be seen, every step of the way from the divine election from before the foundation of the world (EPH 1:4) to the presentation in faultless perfection in glory is superhuman and therefore must be wrought, if wrought at all, by Another who is mighty to save.

 

At no point has Arminianism [salvation through foreseen virtue]--and with it all other forms of rationalism--missed the way more completely than it has respecting the truth that salvation is of Jehovah, being misled--often in real sincerity--by the wholly irrelevant fact [when it comes to salvation] that God does instruct the one who is saved about his manner of life.

 

Confusion and contradiction arise when these later life-responsibilities are allowed to enter as a part of the human requirements in salvation.

 

By such teachers it is claimed that man is saved by the power of God through faith, provided he continues by good works to adorn the doctrine which he professes. [that is a lie]

 

No less subversive of the truth of divine grace is that disposition to require of the unsaved some form of meritorious works as a part of the human step in the initial stage of salvation.

 

That salvation from its beginning to its end is all a work of God in response to saving faith uncomplicated by any form of human merit, virtue, or works, is the cornerstone in the whole structure of Soteriology.

 

It is true, a saved person may do things for God; but the reality of his salvation is due alone to the truth that God has done things for him.

 

Too often this essential feature of salvation is acknowledged as a theory and then, for want of due consideration or consistency, such human requirements are imposed on the unsaved as the condition of their salvation as deny the fundamental truth that salvation is by faith alone. [L.S. Chafer; volume 3, chapter 11, The Finished Work of Christ.]

 

How about redemption in the OT? Is it taught there even though it is before the cross?

 

/Exodus is the book of redemption and Ruth is a type-picture of the Kinsman-Redeemer.\

 

Redemption, in its fullest meaning is assurance that Christ has not merely transferred the sinner’s bondage from one master to another; He has purchased with the object in view that the ransomed one may be free.

 

/Christ will not hold unwilling slaves in bondage. All this is typically anticipated in Exodus 21:1-6 (cf. Deut. 15:16-17).\

 

Ex 21:1 "Now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them.

 

Ex 21:2 If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment.

 

Ex 21:3 If he comes alone, he shall go out alone; if he is the husband of a wife, then his wife shall go out with him.

 

Ex 21:4 If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone.

 

Ex 21:5 But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,'

 

Ex 21:6 then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.

 

A slave set free by his master was wholly free; but he could voluntarily remain as the slave of the master whom he loved.

 

The new voluntary relationship was sealed by the master piercing the ear of the slave with an awl.

 

/Thus, according to type, the Christian is set free, but is privileged to yield himself wholly to the One who redeemed him.\

 

Of this, the Apostle said,

 

ROM 12:1 I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

 

ROM 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

 

/In like manner, Christ, on His human side, was the perfect example of voluntary yielding to the will of another, Psa 40 quoted in Hebrews 10:5-7, contemplating the sealing of the voluntary slave.\

 

Ps 40:6 Sacrifice and meal offering Thou hast not desired;

My ears Thou hast opened;

Burnt offering and sin offering Thou hast not required.

 

Ps 40:7 Then I said, "Behold, I come;

In the scroll of the book it is written of me;

 

 

Ps 40:8 I delight to do Thy will, O my God;

Thy Law is within my heart."

 

/The phrase “Mine ears thou hast opened” may as well be rendered, “Mine ears thou hast bored,” and reference is evidently made to the provision recorded in Exodus 21:1-6. He is in every respect--type and antitype--the yielded servant.\

 

/The word ga’al in the OT serves to express the thought of redemption--the act of setting free by payment of a ransom price.\

 

The thing redeemed might be a person or an estate (cf. LEV 25:25, 47-48). Certain requirements, which were highly typical, were imposed upon the one who would redeem:

 

/(a) The redeemer must be a kinsman. God the Son had to become a man [the Son of man].\

 

This aspect of truth leads to the meaning of the title Kinsman-Redeemer, and is the basic requirement which brought the Son of God from heaven to earth and necessitated the incarnation that He might be a perfect Kinsman-Redeemer.

 

/(b) The ga’al [Redeemer] individual must also be able to redeem. Jesus Christ was the spotless Lamb, born of a virgin and impeccable.\

 

The price, whatever it might be in any case, was paid by the one who redeemed. This requirement was imperative in the type as it is in the antitype. Christ alone could pay the price of redemption--the blood of a holy, undefiled, and spotless Lamb. The blood of a man, especially of a fallen race, would not suffice. It must be the blood of God (cf. Acts 20:28).

 

/(c) The ga’al individual had to be free from the calamity which had fallen on the one who was to be redeemed. In this particular, Christ the Antitype was free from both the sin nature and the practice of sin.\

 

/(d) The one who would redeem had to be willing to redeem. This feature Christ fulfilled perfectly. Boaz in the book of Ruth is thus a ga’al individual and the divinely provided type of Christ in redemption.\

 

/Redemption is a doctrine which the believer can apply in time of pressure or catastrophe and find both blessing and happiness — JOB 19:25,26. “I know that my Redeemer lives.”\

           

/Redemption results in the biblical doctrine of adoption, Galatians 4:4-6.\

 

GAL 4:4 But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,

 

GAL 4:5 in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

 

GAL 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"

 

GAL 4:7 Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.