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

Recap EPH 1:6.

EPH 1:6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

 

EPH 1:6 “Resulting in the recognition of glory from the source of his grace, from which he has pursued us with grace in the One having been loved.”

 

We are pursued by God with the super-grace life. That life can be represented by the several categories of the escrow blessings which are given to every believer at the moment of salvation.

 

1. Spiritual blessings

2. Temporal blessings

3. Undeserved suffering for blessing

4. Personal, national, and international impact as an invisible hero

5. Dying blessing or dying grace

6. Eternal escrow blessings

 

We covered the spiritual blessings, which are by far the most important since all other categories proceed from them.

 

We will not cover the others in detail, but there are a few things I want to say about the temporal blessings before we move on to verse 7.

 

Categories of Temporal Blessings or Prosperity.

Although the emphasis is on spiritual blessings, God does provide the mature believer with temporal blessings.

     

Relax about temporal blessings and their timing. If God doesn’t promote you, you’re not promoted. God doesn’t promote any mature believer above his limitations, or into a sphere of activity where he would be distracted or his spiritual life neutralized.

     

The Church Age believer can only be promoted through the execution of the predesigned plan of God, which is the result of perception, metabolization, and momentum from metabolized doctrine.

 

Therefore, whatever blessings you do receive, they are related to your post-salvation growth through the renewing of your soul by means of doctrine and the filling of God the Holy Spirit.

 

This is because the key to the Christian way of life is your mental attitude at any moment, which determines your motivation, decisions, and actions.

     

The Church Age believer must think of promotion in the sense of becoming an invisible hero.

     

All mature believers have spiritual prosperity, which is maximum occupation with the person of Christ. Spiritual prosperity means equating living with dying and adversity with prosperity. Every spiritual blessing is for every super-grace believer.

 

However, temporal blessings vary with the individual mature believer and with his environment.

 

This must be emphasized. Not every invisible hero is going to enjoy every category of temporal blessings so do not ever compare yourself with another believer.

 

This is maximum function of the faith rest drill. Trust that God will promote you at the proper time and if you don’t have something that you desire, trust that it is God decree that you are better off without it at this time.

 

Sometimes that is a very difficult thing to do, but jealousy is a wicked sin that severely damages the soul. Trust God and live for others.

 

Now for verse 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.

 

1 Tim 6:11 But flee from these things, you man of God; and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness [all gifts through the cross of Christ].

 

1 Tim 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life [share Christ’s life] to which you were called [election in Christ], and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

 

If we wander from the cross as the source of all things then we lose our way and life becomes a shallow and empty pursuit for self.

 

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “If it is I who determine where God is to be found, then I shall always find a God who corresponds to me in some way, who is obliging, who is connected with my own nature. But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not immediately pleasing to my nature and which is not at all congenial to me. This place is the Cross of Christ. And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross. This is not according to our nature at all; it is entirely contrary to it.”

 

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.

 

Verse 7 is the function of the Lord Jesus Christ in harmonising 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.

 

“In Him” — the preposition e)n[en] plus the locative of the relative pronoun o(j[hos]. The antecedent to the pronoun identifies “Him,” “the one having been loved,” TLJC.

“we have” — present active indicative of e)xw[echo] which means to have and to hold. The present tense means we will always be redeemed.

 

You cannot lose your salvation. We will always have, hold, redemption through His blood.

 

Here is the basis by which God can pursue us with grace after salvation. His righteousness and justice are not compromised by His love.

 

Propitiation, redemption, reconciliation, imputation, justification all combines so that God is able to bless us to the maximum in time without compromising His divine character.

 

 We are pursued by grace at the point of entering the super-grace life. Long before we were pursued by grace we had the basis for it, we had it at the moment of our salvation.

           

“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.

           

The slave is free but he has no capacity for freedom. He has to learn a great many things before he can begin to appreciate, to enjoy, or to utilize his freedom.

 

You can be free and still think like a slave. Therefore God has provided many doctrines so that you can learn the things and know the things that give you capacity to enjoy your freedom.

 

You and I at the point of salvation are freed from the slave market of sin but just because we are born again, just because we are children of God, just because we have eternal life, it doesn’t mean that we have any capacity for the freedom which God has provided through redemption, through grace.

 

Therefore it takes the learning of Bible doctrine to have capacity for freedom and one of the first characteristics of the super-grace life is capacity for freedom.

 

You have to learn doctrine after you are saved, that is the whole objective.

 

Capacity for freedom is in the soul, not in the body. Capacity for freedom exists in your thinking and not in your overt circumstances.

 

Therefore, we briefly look at the doctrine of redemption:

           

The doctrine of redemption.

Definition:

a. Redemption means to purchase a slave so as to set him free.

 

b. Every member of the human race was born with an OSN and imputed with Adam’s original sin. Therefore we were born as slaves in the slave market of sin. [example: Joseph]

 

c. The purchase price for sin was the blood of Christ [the coin of the realm], which provided redemption, reconciliation, and propitiation.

 

d. Through the unlimited atonement every persons sin has been paid for, therefore the door to the slave market is wide open. To exit the market one must believe on TLJC as their Savior.

 

e. Jesus Christ was the only qualified Redeemer. He became a man through the virgin birth and therefore did not possess an OSN or AOS. He remained impeccable up to the cross.

 

Redemption is not just a NT concept but is sufficiently taught in the OT as well through the animal sacrifices.

 

HEB 9:22

And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

 

       

JOB 19:25

"And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,

And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.

 

Ps 34:22

The Lord redeems the soul of His servants;

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

 

But perhaps more striking and certainly unexpected are the names of the first ten generations mentioned in Genesis. This is the first family tree, and I emphasize the word tree.

 

Hebrew                                                English

Adam                                             Man

Seth                                                Appointed

Enosh                                             Mortal

Kenan                                             Sorrow

Mahalalel                                       The Blessed God

Jared                                               Shall come down

Enoch                                             Teaching

Methuselah                                    His death shall bring

Lamech                                          The Despairing

Noah                                              Rest or comfort.

 

Ten is the number of completion.

 

Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow; (but) the Blessed God shall come down teaching (that) His death shall bring (the) despairing rest.

 

That is remarkable.