Ephesians 2

Chapter 2. Redemption Through His BloodHe has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding….In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:6-8, Ephesians 1:11-12)In the dear, logical order of thought in this great epistle the writer punctuates the different paragraphs, and marks the sequence of his lofty argument by closing each section by a kind of doxology. This is expressed by the phrase which appears so often in this chapter, “to the praise of his glorious grace,” or, “for the praise of his glory.” Following this suggestion, the second great section of his review of the blessing of the Spirit commences in the middle of the sixth verse, and leads to the discussion of the glorious blessing of our redemption through the blood of Christ, and our acceptance, forgiveness and final and full salvation in Him. The first step in pursuance of the divine purpose with which the epistle opens is redemption. This is described with great completeness and spiritual fervor. The Redeemer “He has freely given us in the One he loves” (Ephesians 1:6). Literally this reads, “in the Son of his love.” The whole story of redemption is personal. It brings us at every step into direct contact with the Redeemer Himself. At the very outset He is presented to us in the most attractive, majestic and tender aspect as the “Son of his love.” The Father did not commit this mighty undertaking to any ordinary agent. He chose heaven’s noblest, brightest, mightiest Being. The verse implies that He is the Son of God in the most exclusive and special sense. Elsewhere He is represented as His “only Begotten” (John 1:14, margin) and His “wellbeloved” Son (Mark 12:6). His high and divine character gives the first assurance of His ability to carry out the supreme task with which He was entrusted. All the infinite resources of Deity were at His command. He had right of access to the Father under all circumstances, and His divine dignity gave to His personal work the value which no created being could have claimed. One drop of His precious blood would have been sufficient to atone for the sins of a world. But the special aspect under which He is presented here is that of nearness and dearness to the Father. He is the Son of His love. This assures us of the Father’s intense and affectionate interest in the great work of redemption, and the subjects who are to be benefited by that work. He puts their case in the hands of the One who is dearest to Him. It becomes bound up with the very life of His Beloved, and it is impossible therefore that it could in any way be neglected or allowed to fail. It is said that once an Egyptian king was so concerned in the successful raising of a valuable obelisk that he fastened his only son, the heir to the throne, to the highest point of the obelisk, and then said to his engineers: “The life of my son is bound up with the success of your work—be careful what you do. The failure of your task means death to my child and profound responsibility for you.” So God bound up the redemption of this world with His well-beloved Son, and all that is dear to Him is responsible for the successful accomplishment of this plan of infinite grace and love. But, again, this beautiful description of the Redeemer implies also a nearness and dearness of the place into which we are brought through our connection with Him. Accepted in the Son of His love, we become like Him, the children of His love, as dear as He. Identified with His person and with His name, clothed with His righteousness, covered with His blood, we can sing: Dear, so very dear to God, Dearer I cannot be; For in the person of His Son, I am as dear as He. The Redemption “In him we have redemption through his blood” (Ephesians 1:7). Redemption means deliverance through a ransom, release from a claim and the judgment through a settlement of the claim. It is not mere good will and clemency overlooking a fault and blotting out a record, but it is strict justice recognizing the claim to its fullest extent, meeting every liability, and giving the receipt in full through the substitution of another’s worth and kindness. There is a milk-and-water type of sentimental theology widely prevalent and wandering from the truth, perhaps through a morbid straining after originality and philosophical speculation, which would make us believe that the cross of Jesus Christ was just an object lesson on the part of God to show to the world the beauty of patience, submission, self-sacrifice and the passive virtues so sublimely exhibited in the character of Jesus. Many are willing to admit also that it was a striking exhibition of God’s love fitted to attract and melt the hearts of men; but it was for stage effect, and back of it there was no essential necessity for any vicarious suffering. There was no question of law or expiation or the substitution of an innocent for a guilty person. In a word, there was no real atonement by blood, but it was all designed for moral impression and spiritual persuasion. This is not the Bible doctrine of redemption. This is another gospel, of which the Apostle Paul has said, whosoever preaches it, “let him be eternally condemned” (Galatians 1:8). Redemption by the blood recognizes, in the first place, the real fact of sin, and the inexorable necessity of satisfying the claims of justice, equity and law. There is something in the instincts of humanity which is part of the fitness of things, and a direct intuition from the Creator Himself, which tells us that to lightly overlook wrong is in itself the grossest wrong. The man who can think with cold blood and unmoved spirit of the shameful abuse of innocence, helplessness and virtue is himself destitute of a true moral sense and capable, perhaps, of doing these very things. The old heroic Roman but gave voice to this sentiment when his own son was brought before him charged with treasonable crime, and the law and the testimony both demanded his instant death. A thousand voices—from family, from state, from the father’s own heart—pleaded for his life; but he sternly said: “I am a father, and have my human feelings as truly as you; but I am a judge, and I must be just.” This is part of the constitution of the nature and very character of God, and therefore He could not overlook sin without ceasing to be God. His father-heart prompted the love that would save the guilty, but His perfect attributes demanded the settlement of the question of eternal righteousness. It was then that His wisdom devised the wondrous plan that the Son of His love should come and take upon Himself the nature and the responsibility of the sinful race, and should be punished in their stead, and settle in their behalf every question and every claim; and then, that they, on His account, should be dealt with on the ground of His settlement and released through the ransom that He paid. Blood, which is here described as the ransom, just means life. “The life… is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement” (Leviticus 17:11). Our life had been forfeited. He gave His life instead; and then, through His divine power, He received back a new life, and He gives us this resurrection life as ours. Thus His life was given for us first, and now it is given to us. This is the scriptural doctrine of the atonement. It runs like a crimson thread through every ancient sacrifice and type. We see it in the scapegoat upon the head of which the priest laid his hands and confessed the sins of the people, and then sent it out in the lone wilderness to die in agony as an accursed thing. We see it in the sin offering, the spotless lamb, on whose head the sinner lay his hand and confessed his sin. That innocent victim became in the eye of the law a mass of horrid wickedness, and was carried outside the camp, flayed, laid open in ghastly gore and held upon the consuming flame as a spectacle of judgment. So “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Now we do not come cringing and begging for mercy as a capricious favor, but our blessed Advocate stands with us at court. He presents the full atonement for every claim, offers a receipt in full written in His own blood, and demands from the Judge a verdict in our favor and full victory—nay, a public justification—and sends us forth without a spot or stain upon our record, able to look in the face of Satan and the universe, crying, “Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died… is also interceding for us” (Romans 8:34). “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?” (Romans 8:33). This, we believe, was the meaning of that sublime scene described in the Apocalypse. Jesus Christ returned after His triumphant resurrection, presented the settlement in full of all demands for His redeemed people, and the order went forth that Satan, the accuser of the brethren, should be expelled from the court of heaven and never allowed to lift his voice against us again. As the angels drove him forth with their fiery swords, the shout went up, “The accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down…. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them!” (Revelation 12:10, Revelation 12:12). Beloved, this is redemption. Can you say with humble and yet triumphant faith, “In him we have redemption through his blood” (Ephesians 1:7)? Forgiveness We have “the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (Ephesians 1:7). Forgiveness is not the same as redemption. It is the effect of redemption. Redemption is the settlement of the claim. Forgiveness is the receipt handed to us and a shaking of hands over the adjustment. Redemption is the paying off of the mortgage. Forgiveness is the “satisfaction peace,” which is handed over after the release. Forgiveness is not a mere feeling of peace or effort. It is the simple fact accepted by faith on the ground of completed redemption. It does not depend upon your good feelings or even the promise of your good behavior; it rests entirely upon the finished atonement of Jesus and is claimed according to His Word by simple trust. Therefore, we read, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9). His mercy and love are not even appealed to here; it is His faithfulness and justice that are represented as demanding our forgiveness. His faithfulness simply means that He keeps His Word, and His justice means that He does that which is right. Now, if God did not forgive us when we came claiming it on the ground of Christ’s redemption, He would be a liar, and “anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar” (1 John 5:10). If it were possible for you to go down to the depths of hell and proclaim throughout eternity, “I came to Christ as He invited me, and He cast me out,” your testimony would do God more harm than all that the devil ever said or did. God can never afford to have a soul say, “He refused to forgive me when I came and took Him at His word.” He is faithful to forgive and He is just to forgive. There is not a man or woman in the world who makes the faintest claim to honesty who would dare to take two prices for the same article. If your customer shows you a receipt proving that he has paid you for it once, you would be a scoundrel if you demanded he should pay for it again. Now, if Christ has paid for our salvation, and the price has been accepted by God, it would be simple dishonesty for God to make us pay the debt again. It is, therefore, a simple matter of justice for God to forgive us our sins. So He says to us, “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist” (Isaiah 44:22). “Review the past for me, let us argue the matter together; state the case for your innocence” (Isaiah 43:26). He wants you to bring your arguments, to plead His promises, to claim your redemption rights, to take your place by faith as a sinner, and then to claim the sinner’s Savior. Oh, how strong a consolation He has given us, “who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us” (Hebrews 6:18)! Beloved, have you received forgiveness through the blood of redemption, and are you rejoicing in the glad testimony, “I will praise you, O Lord. Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me” (Isaiah 12:1)? The Riches of His Grace Not only is it forgiveness, but abundant forgiveness “according to the riches of his grace; wherein he made to superabound toward us in all wisdom and prudence” (Ephesians 1:7-8, Rotherham). How abundant His forgiving love! Listen to the description of His mercy. He says He will cast our sins into the depths of the sea. He will cast them behind His back. He will remember them no more. As a thick cloud He has blotted them out. “As far as the east is from the west, [and they never meet] so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalms 103:12). He tells us in this passage that He has superabounded to us in all wisdom and prudence. This might be translated foresight. He has looked forward to our failures and our faults. He has foreseen every one of them. When He took us first, He knew all that we would do and fail to do. Nay, when He chose us in the eternal ages, He fortified Himself even against our unworthiness. He is ready for every emergency. This should not make us presume to sin; for if we continue to do this willfully, we do not belong to Him. But it should give us encouragement and comfort. At the same time the language here throws a fine light on God’s disciplinary dealings with us even when He forgives us. He does it with all wisdom and prudence. He sometimes keeps back from us for a time the comfort and joy for which we are seeking, and makes us feel the keen pain of sin, not because He is angry, but because He is lovingly making us understand how exceedingly bitter and evil a thing sin is; and He is putting the bitter herbs of a heavenly discipline along with the blood of the Passover and the assurance of His mercy and His grace. Let us take His mercy under all circumstances, and let us, at the same time, trust His wisdom and His heavenly love. The Riches of His Glory The lofty flight of the apostle’s argument does not end until it reaches a still higher region. In the last theme he began way back in the eternal past. He carries us in a series of bold and transcendent flights to a lofty vision of the ages to come, and reveals to us how much redemption cost and how much it brought us. First, He tells us that in the fullness of time Christ is to gather together into one all things in heaven and on earth. He is not merely undoing the calamity of the Fall, but He is working out a sublime consummation for which the worlds were made. He is preparing an empire of unutterable glory in which He and His redeemed Bride will share the throne, and will be the center of the whole economy of God. What that gathering into one will be, imagination’s highest thought in wonder dies away. It will be a consummation in which everything glorious in heaven and everything dear and beauti-fill on earth will have a part. It will be the combination of all history and all creation in a glorious new creation. It will be all that is best and brightest and sweetest and gladdest from every part of the universe of God brought together in one eternal paragon of beauty and of blessing. Everything will be in harmony. There will be no discords. He is to gather everything into one. We will have no uncongenial surroundings. We will be in harmony with our surroundings, and Christ will be the center and the crown, the joy and the All in all. He tells us that we have obtained an inheritance in this glorious consummation. It was for that He chose us ages ago. It was for that He redeemed us. It is for that He saves us. It is for that we have let go all other heritages of selfishness, earthliness and the forbidden world of sense and sin. O beloved, have you made your eternal inheritance secure? But there is a fine term in this verse. Rotherham translates it “In whom we also were taken as an inheritance.” Not only have we an inheritance, but we are His inheritance. For us He has let go all other honors, glories and joys, and taken us to be His portion. “For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance” (Deuteronomy 32:9). What is He going to get out of us? Will we let Him refine, educate and glorify us until we will meet His own ideal and reach His glorious likeness, and He will have the ineffable joy of presenting us to Himself a “radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish” (Ephesians 5:27)? In this consummation “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:11), and “when [we] awake, [we] will be satisfied with seeing your likeness” (Psalms 17:15). We are standing between two mighty eternities. We have just looked back to the ages past and seen in the dim distance the moment when we were chosen in Him, and we have attempted to look into the radiant glory in the remote future and catch a glimpse of what it will be when in the ages to come His mighty purpose will be fulfilled. Oh, let these two infinite outlooks inspire us, enlarge us and lift us up into the high and holy dignity of the sons of God and heirs of glory, and send us forth to walk henceforth worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called!